From the Adriatic to the Baltic, from the Elbe to the Urals and beyond, totalitarianism collapsed. Yet the 1989 bloodless revolution in Eastern Europe caught most observers by surprise, eclipsed only by the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Empire. This chapter explores the signal sociocultural forces that contributed to the sea-change. There are three major reasons for recalling the contributions of major dissident individuals and movements for transcending Communism toward a free society: (1) the memory of the central role of intellectuals/dissidents in the peaceful revolution which toppled Communist rule in Eastern Europe and Russia is rapidly fading, while the job of transcending Communist dictatorships remains unfinished;² (2) in a sense, it was easier to critique totalitarian rule than to forge new institutions, and revive or develop civic culture and civil society;³ and (3) to rekindle the ideals, hopes and aspirations expressed by the language of universal human rights, which served as a common platform for opposing totalitarian rule, and which became often obscured in the post-Communist era by national/ethnic conflict invoking racial/ethnic identities and group rights.⁴ In fact, throughout the region, national/ethnic strife threatens to derail the project of an open society.