The police held back traffic as an elated throng of 75,000 marchers snaked through the streets of central Budapest waving red-white-and-green Hungarian flags and shouting "Democracy!" Under banners as disparate as those of the liberal reformist Hungarian Democratic Forum and the neo-Stalinist Ferenc Munnich Society, independent political clubs and parties reveled peacefully last week in the first officially sanctioned street demonstrations since last fall, when legislation for sweeping political reforms was introduced, including a multiparty system for the socialist state. Thousands more Hungarians marked National Day by heading -- literally -- for the exits. Easy access to passports and a loosening...
Special Report: Eastern Europe: Chips Off the Old Bloc
Moscow's satellites are in ferment. Where's the West?
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