Can There Be a Central Europe?

Ten years from now, will there still be a Central Europe? Or will Europe’s center, suddenly reemerging as the Soviet tide recedes, find itself submerged once more by a Western tide? The end came so abruptly: what now?

Amid the euphoria sweeping the streets of Prague, that question seems rather beside the point. There is literally everything to be done, and all of it at once. The Communist rule lasted too long: we can no longer fall back on the status quo ante. It ended too abrupt...