This unique ebook focuses on the development of ‘free trade unions’ in the former Soviet block countries. The contributors are writing from their own experiences, they lived in the ‘old regime’ and took part in the changes of the late 1980s’ which ended the ‘socialist experiment’ and opened the way for those countries to travel the highway from command to market economies. They also served in senior positions in the trade union movement in the ‘post-communist’ period. Through them we are able to share first hand the aspirations and hopes of working people in the early days of the ‘velvet revolution’ – how those dreams faded in disillusionment and finally how they acquiesced to the norms of the West European Model which is more or a less a modern ‘mixed economy’ characterised by a not always easy symbiosis between the propensity to intervene by the ‘state’ and the anarchy and heartlessness of ‘the free market’.