Putting Humpty-Dumpty Back Together Again: Communism’s Collapse and the Reconstruction of the East German Ex-Communist Party

Abstract

The collapse of communism did not follow any single path in eastcentral Europe. In Hungary and Poland, the transition was markedby early negotiations between opposition elites and the ruling Communistparty. In East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the regimes fellvictim to a sudden and quick implosion. In Romania and Bulgaria,internal coups replaced the ruling communist elite with other membersof the nomenklatura. The transitions away from communist rulediverged from each other in timing, manner, and degree.