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Security
Trump and Putin Call the Shots. Will Europe Wag Its Tail? – OPINION
24 October 2025
In 1984, Central Europe was in turmoil. After Solidarity started in August 1980 and continued for over a year with the festival of freedom, it became marginalised, divided and pushed underground.
In Czechoslovakia, Gustav Husak ruled with an iron hand; culture was strictly controlled by a violent faction of the Communist Party, and on the radio the kitsch songs by Karel Gotta dominated the airwaves.
In Hungary, there was “goulash stabilisation”. Thanks to a slight opening of the economy, Western products appeared in the Hungarian stores, and the society that continued in the state of collective depression dealt with the improvement of material existence.
Western Europe no longer distinguished Central Europe from the Soviet Union. In the Western consciousness, we have become part of a space in which there was no tradition of democracy, no civic spirit, society was backward, and the only remedy for omnipresent social depression was vodka, beer and palinka.
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