1989 was a year that alternated Europe. Communism disintegrated in Eastern European countries and the iron curtain was annihilated. For example in Poland (1989) and Hungary (1988) communism was weakened and deprived. Perestroika and Glasnost was a major aspect of the fall of communism. As a result of this both areas altered.
In Poland:
In Poland:
- they got more support from population
- June 1989 national elections Solidarity won the majority of the seats in senate
- became the first Soviet satellite state to have a non-communist Prime Minister
- A year later Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was elected Poland's first democratic President
- they started making it easier for their own citizens to travel west
- May 1989 it started to tear down its barbed wire and metal fences along the border to Austria
- summer of 1989 thousands of East Germans traveled to Hungary for their holidays (most escaped to West Germany through Austria)