By 1950, two years after the Communists seized control in the “Victorious February” coup, Czechoslovakia was in the grip of a Stalinist terror. The show trials staged there – aimed at intimidating and silencing opponents of the new regime – were the largest in Eastern Europe.
The fall of the Iron Curtain is often described as a sudden, unexpected event. The following years during the 1990s saw both a major expansion of NATO eastwards and the geographical retreat of Russia from areas previously seen as within its sphere of influence.
