Then in 1968, Czechoslovakia tried to throw off communist rule and again was brutally brought to heel by Soviet tanks.
But by 1989 things were different. The Soviet Union was almost bankrupt and its new leader Mikhail Gorbachev believed in glasnost, or openness with the West. The softer line taken by their masters meant communist governments in eastern Europe were more in control of their own destinies and that meant they listened more to their people.
In Poland the Solidarity movement pushed for political change and after years of bans and arrests eventually stormed into government on the back of a landslide win in the semi-free June elections giving the country its first non-communist prime minister since 1948.
The world waited with breath held to see what Moscow's response would be, but nothing happened.
Then Hungary followed suit in a very smooth transition to democracy in October, 1989. It also took the step of dismantling its portion of the Iron Curtain opening up a way for East Germans to flee through Hungary to its neighbour Austria.
I watched the TV news footage while working in England as thousands of Trabants, possibly the worst car ever made, poured out of East Germany filled to the gunnels with people and personal belongings.
That exodus sent the communist East German Government into chaos and mass demonstrations forced it to open up the Berlin Wall, a giant security wall that since 1961 kept its people from heading for the West.
To give you an idea of its size the wall was more than 160km long, dividing east and west Berlin. Its concrete walls were 3.6m high and it had barbed wire, search towers, mine fields and troops protecting it. An estimated 200 East Germans died trying to cross it.
So when the breach was made I grabbed my cameras and caught a plane to Berlin where I landed amid deep snows and a massive party atmosphere.
It seemed all of Europe had crowded into the city to join in an ebullient expression of freedom and hope.
Everyone seemed to be smiling, with the exception of East German guards and troops who couldn't quite understand what was going on.
Eventually some of it rubbed off on them and they changed from hard-faced robots to actual human beings.
In search of a hat to keep the snow off I wandered up to a couple of guards and asked them in my non-German where I could buy one.
They told me and then one said: "Are you English?" "No, I'm Australian," I replied.
He looked around at the now ankle-deep snow and waved his hand expansively and said: "Merry Christmas." We all laughed.
Even the few Soviets left in Berlin seemed to have hung up their hammers and sickles for a brief moment as I discovered while near the Brandenburg Gate.
I wanted a photo to place me there at that momentous time and so walked up to three Russians - who were clearly out of uniform - and asked one to take my photo. He obliged and received my thanks and my compliments for keeping the horizon straight.
The aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall was an amazing time and is one of the great moments in history.
I still have pieces of the Wall I dug out of the structure - complete with graffiti.
If you want to check out some of my Berlin pictures head to www.richardmoore.com/Berlin/index-berlin.htm.
And don't laugh at the photo of me as a 28-year-old - heck, it was 25 years ago after all. Half a lifetime for me and the beginning of the new brighter world for millions of people.
• Richard Moore is an award-winning Western Bay journalist and photographer.
richard@richardmoore.com
