“But none of these answers explain why tens of thousands of ordinary people suddenly took to their streets in the fall of 1989 to face down armed troops under orders to shoot them. The economic argument falls short because people do not typically risk their lives for a bigger refrigerator or a vacation visa. Nor do any of these theories explain why this revolution, unlike almost all others in history, remained peaceful. Nearly 400 million people were freed, and scarcely a shot was fired. That is definitely not normal. People rose up in rebellion in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary and Poland in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Each time, the uprising was met with Soviet tanks and bullets, as the people seeking freedom were beaten, imprisoned, or killed. These quashed rebellions that ended in bloodshed make the success of the peaceful revolution of 1989 even more astonishing.” https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/11/berlin-wall-fall.html
