If one wants to single out a decisive reason for the spectacular collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in 1985-1991, the variety of choices is staggering. The war in Afghanistan, the exhausting arms race, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the food shortages, Voice of America broadcasts, oil and gas prices -- and so on and so forth. Another possible answer is Pope John Paul II.
When the Vatican octogenarians elected the Polish cardinal to the papacy in 1977, the world winked. That was the first time that a person from the Eastern block was put in charge of a major Western institution. To invite a priest from a communist country to lead the Roman Catholic Church was almost like inviting a Soviet general to command NATO. Of course, some people may argue that the results have proved to be just as devastating, but even if John Paul II failed to cope with the moral dilemmas of the modern Western world, his performance in the communist East was a smashing success.
Catholic Poland, strongly encouraged by the elevation of its son to St. Peter's seat, decided it could tolerate communist rule no longer. In August 1980, the workers of Gdansk shipyard created the first independent trade union in the Soviet block. In a matter of days, all of Poland became explicitly anticommunist and anti-Russian and the gloomy stability of the previous 30 years was swept away by the grassroots tide of democracy.