CZECHOSLOVAKIA-VELVET REVOLUTION-COMMUNISM

A protester is being grabbed by a policeman as he gathered along with two thousands demonstrators 21 August 1989 on Prague's Wenceslas Square to commemorate the 21th anniversary of the 1968 "Prague Spring" crushed by Warsaw Pact's forces intervention. A strong dissident protest movement led to the fall of communism 10 December and the formation of a non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia, 10 days after the beginning of a summit in Malta where Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US counterpart George Bush set a new era, ending the Cold War. The Communist Party capitulated (in the bloodless "Velvet Revolution") and formed a coalition government with the Civic Forum, and Havel was elected president 29 December 1989. AFP PHOTO PATRICK HERTZOG (Photo by PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP via Getty Images)