In 1989, what would later be known as the Velvet Rebellion began with the suppression if a peaceful demonstration in Prague, Czechoslovakia (pictured). Velvet Revolution Fails by Eric Lipps

That event would lead to an escalating cycle of protest and repression which would end in December with the direct intervention of Soviet military forces.

The Czech rebellion would prove to be the last straw for opponents of Mikhail Gorbachev within the Soviet military and government.

On January 2, 1990, Gorbachev would be forcibly deposed and a hard-line Stalinist government backed by the Red Army would take control in Moscow. Thereafter, the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe would be tightened once more, forestalling what might have been a peaceful end to the Cold War which could have averted the global holocaust of June 1999.