Time to examine the hidden history of 1989
Revolutions create their own myths. But I’ve been receiving evidence from readers that seems to show that the “Revolution of 1989” wasn’t such a triumph of freedom, democracy and decency as has been generally maintained. It appears that while the post-communist regime has almost completely failed to punish crimes committed under communism, it’s highly likely that a large number of innocent people, many of whom were persecuted under communism, became victims of the post-1989 political purges, which were often motivated by greed. I have been receiving testimonies maintaining that large numbers of capable individuals were illegally dismissed from their posts by the revolutionary Civic Forum committees in the wake of the 1989 revolution. These committees were often made up of unscrupulous careerists who jumped on the bandwagon of the “democratic revolution,” hoping to gain lucrative posts and covering up their incompetence with a newly found “democratic” political zeal.

New look at the 1989 transition from 'communism' to 'democracy' by Jan Čulík of Britské listy, a prominent Czech journalist living in Scotland.

It appears that the Czechs have a deeply felt need to paralyze their professional classes by political purges every 20 years or so. They did it in the ’50s, in the ’70s and, it would appear, again in the early ’90s.

This, of course, is an overstatement, particularly as it seems to single out Czechs from a 'natural' course of events following a time of upheaval. However, it does provide an interesting perspective and one that could be particularly relevant as the 'West' tries to take the democratization show further on the road. If even countries with reasonable democratic traditions struggle, how easy can a similar transition be for those where no such tradition exists.