Things began to change in the 1980’s with the fall of military dictatorships in Latin America and in such East Asian countries as the Philippines and South Korea, and with the growing number of people engaged in the struggle for human rights in the Soviet empire. By the end of the decade, many Soviet bloc regimes had collapsed.
二十世纪八十年代，拉丁美洲和菲律宾和南韩等东亚国家的军事独裁者纷纷倒台，苏联帝国中越来越多的人参与争取人权的斗争，这时候形势开始变化。到了八十年代末，许多苏联集团政权已经倒台了。