Europe faced after WWII and the fall of communism in 1991: How has Europe managed the transition away from communism?

After World War II, Europe was devastated physically and economically from the conflict in a manner far different from the United States. The U.S. had not seen war on its soil. Britain, in contrast, had been razed by the blitz, and its far-flung empire was crumbling. France had likewise been torn apart, and Germany had been bombed into submission. There was also the looming specter of communism on the Eastern horizon. Stalin was determined to use Eastern Europe as a 'buffer zone' against Western European encroachment. Soon, the West and East were polarized into two different alliance systems, that of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. All efforts of Eastern Europe to extricate itself from the Warsaw Pact were met with swift suppression by Moscow, as manifested during the brief Czechoslovak...
[ View Full Essay]