The Demise of Communism

"Dear fellow citizens. For the past 40 years on this day you have heard my predecessors utter different variations on the same theme, about how our country is prospering...I do not think you appointed me to this office for me [to] lie to you...Our country is not prospering," (309). So stated Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel in his New Year's Day speech of 1990. What he was referring to was the political fallacies that had been fed to the people for so many years to conceal them from the truth of the demise of the country as a result of communism. It was this recognition of the ne…