Final answer:
Revolts against Communist rule led to a wave of democratic transformations in Eastern Europe from the 1950s to the 1980s, culminating in the peaceful Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Step-by-step explanation:
From the 1950s to the 1980s, revolts against Communist rule swept Eastern Europe, leading to free elections in the 1990s. The decline of Communist power in Eastern Europe was marked by events such as the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. Notably, in 1989, the Hungarian government took significant steps towards democratic change by providing a state funeral for the Hungarian revolutionary leader executed in the failed revolution of 1956, signaling a shift from autocratic to democratic governance.
Influenced by Poland's example, Hungarian students and workers demonstrated for democratic reforms, eventually leading to the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This uprising saw days of protests, the establishment of a provisional government that withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, and ultimately, a violent crackdown by Soviet forces.
The mass uprisings against autocratic regimes in Eastern Europe were ironically directed at governments that were supposed to create the classless society envisioned by Marx. Instead, these movements ushered in democratic governments that had previously been suppressed under Communist rule.