Word: egon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...East Germany. It started with freedom marches in Leipzig. For a long moment, it looked as though there might be another Tiananmen after all. On Oct. 9 the 77-year-old party boss Erich Honecker ordered the police to use "all available force" to clear the streets, but Egon Krenz, then in charge of security, persuaded him to rescind the order. Each week the Monday demonstrations grew, to 200,000 on Oct. 23, to 480,000 on Nov. 6. The marches, always peaceful and sober, increasingly impressive, spread throughout East Germany...
Historians and political scientists debate whether great forces or great men move the world. By unleashing the forces of democracy, Gorbachev gave new luster to the great-man theory. He may not be able to control those forces himself. They could even sweep him away, just as they did Egon Krenz and Karoly Grosz and Milos Jakes. But no matter what happens next in the great Eurasian land mass where 1.8 billion people live under communism -- and no matter what happens to Gorbachev himself -- he has established his place in history as the catalyst of a new European reality...