Talk:Hero with Bad Publicity

The 1989 revolution in the German Democratic Republic was mostly nonviolent over its course, and according to several historians this is to a large extent attributable to the then-head of the politbureau, Egon Krenz. While he was very unpopular among most of the population, he did his best to prevent derailment into violence. At the same time he was a convinced communist and tried anything to keep the socialist system alive (which probably was one of the reasons why many people didn't like him). His attempts at adapting the inflexible political apparatus to the people's wishes while at the same time keeping its structure finally crashed it. In that way, he was basically the GDR's equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev, but unlike him he wasn't even temporary successful at providing a reformed communism, and consequently far less popular. Most people either don't remember him as an important political figure at all, or merely see him as one out of many Dirty Communists they are happy they got rid off. But the 1989 revolution could have ended much worse, had the successor of Erich Honecker been a less benevolent head of state, at least according to several of today's history analysts.

His communist hardliner viewpoint may also result in an overlap with Jerk With a Heart of Gold... at least from our perspective today.