Eight years after the Berlin Wall's collapse, how meaningful are the political and economic differences that once divided Eastern and Western Europe? Herewith, a primer on the transition to democracy and capitalism in the old Soviet bloc and former Soviet Republics.

Statistics gauging economic change since communism's collapse are deceptive. All countries initially foundered. Only since 1993, with the onset of widespread privatization of economic activity, have most of them grown. However, even post-1993 averages (compiled by the U.S. Agency for International Development from international lending-agency data) may be misleading in evaluating economic success. Take Albania, which averaged 8.4 percent growth during this period--and attribute much (perhaps all) of its measured growth to a massive Ponzi scheme, which collapsed this winter, bringing down the entire Albanian economy.

Central Europe

Czech Republic (2.7 percent growth--measured for all countries as average annual GDP change since 1993--75 percent private-sector share of GDP in 1996. Democracy strong: free elections; successful transfer of power; free media.) Despite economic growth and the lowest unemployment in Eastern Europe, the Czech economy has suffered a recent setback. In the last six months, several of the nation's biggest banks collapsed because of loose lending and fraud. To reassure foreign investors, last week conservative Prime Minister Václav Klaus announced a 5 percent cut in government spending. Opposition Social Democrats may use Klaus' austerity program to mobilize growing discontent. Chain-smoking President Václav Havel's failing health is another concern. Though Havel's position is largely ceremonial, he helps give credibility to the widely mistrusted bureaucracy and police.

Hungary(1.25 percent growth; 73 percent private. Democracy strong: free elections; successful transfer of power; constitutional protection for the media and minorities.) Because it privatized early and aggressively, Hungary has attracted $15 billion in foreign investment since 1989--more than any other Eastern European nation. To curry favor with NATO and the European Union, for the last two years its centrist government (led by Gyula Horn, also an ex-Communist) has battled popular nationalist parties. It installed Western-style legal protections for minorities and gave up long-standing claims to Transylvania, the Hungarian-populated section of Romania.

P oland (5.25 percent growth; 60 percent private. Democracy strong: free elections; successful transfer of power; no state-run media.) It is considered Eastern Europe's greatest economic success. Poland's government privatized more cautiously than Hungary's or the Czech Republic's. Western fears about the 1995 election of ex-party apparatchik Aleksander Kwasniewski as president (displacing Lech Walesa, who calls him the "red spider") have been allayed by Kwasniewski's support for further privatization and his enthusiasm for NATO expansion. (This summer Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic will probably be invited to join the alliance.) Amid much protest from the right wing, Kwasniewski's government restored the legal rights to abortion and divorce removed by the Walesa government.

Romania(4.7 percent growth; 50 percent private. Democracy relatively weak: free and fair elections; state-controlled media.) Communist Party boss (ostensibly a social democrat) Ion Iliescu ruled between a mob's execution of longtime strongman Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 and his own loss of an election last year. His successor, a geology professor named Emil Constantinescu, promised rapid privatization and protection for an independent media. Romania is jockeying to be included in NATO expansion, but nobody takes its candidacy seriously.

Slovakia(3.65 percent growth; 70 percent private. Democracy relatively weak: free elections; strong state security force; state-pressured media.) Inheriting the most depressed regions of former Czechoslovakia and a massive, outmoded arms-manufacturing industry, it fared badly after its 1992-1993 split with the Czech Republic. Slovakia has had less success than other Central European countries at ousting corrupt Communist bosses from its bureaucracy. Prime Minister Vladimír Meciar is accused of having orchestrated the kidnapping of the Slovakian president's son, among other charges.

The Balkans

Albania(8.4 percent growth; 75 percent private. Democracy weak: widespread police killings and beatings; no free elections; state-controlled media.) Between 50 percent and 90 percent of the country invested nearly $3 billion in a Ponzi scheme that collapsed this winter. When the government failed to fulfill promises to compensate investors, rioters pillaged the capital, Tirana, and battled government-organized militias. So far the staunchly anti-Communist government has relied on repression to survive the crisis.