Forget Solidarity and the Pope, the Hungarians claim that it all started in Hungary when thousands of East Germans packed themselves into their smelly Trabants, came for their "holidays" and refused to go home.
Moscow averted its gaze, Hungary opened its borders to Austria and thereby dislodged the first brick from the Berlin wall.
Among the first entrepreneurs of the new era were Hungarian army folk who sawed up their bit of the Iron Curtain, boxed the pieces of barbed wire and sold them as souvenirs.
For the Hungarians themselves, the way some of them tell it, it was no big deal. Sure, the goons still crashed in on a quiet meal demanding to see your identity papers, could refuse you a passport without saying why, or destroy the livelihoods of political dissidents. But well before 1989, Hungary had been experimenting with reform. It was no gulag. The food lacked variety - bananas often get a mention - but there was enough. Hungary had earned its reputation as "the happiest cell in the Socialist prison".
Nonetheless, 100,000 Soviet soldiers were still stationed there - "temporarily" of course - when the daring notion of free elections was floated. Local communist bosses were already muttering about ordering in the tanks when, in March, the prime minister, Miklos Nemeth, headed for Moscow and a frank exchange with President Gorbachev. Soon, word filtered down that Moscow was not of a mind to send in the tanks.
Mr Nemeth himself confirmed this a few weeks ago. Mr Gorbachev's actual words were: "Be assured that '56 will not be repeated". The game was up. "History called upon us and we responded", Mr Nemeth told the BBC.
And was it worth it? The answer is yes - a cautious, sombre yes.
Democracy works. A dissident lawyer forbidden to practice, and who 10 years ago made ends meet by driving a taxi, is now the hugely popular mayor of Budapest, managing a city of two million people, all busily relearning how self-government works after 50 years of centralisation.
Three general elections have produced three changes of government, which suggests that the citizens have taken to the power of the ballot box.
Capitalism works, in its way. Hungary is a star performer in the EU accession stakes. Ten years ago, 65 per cent of its foreign trade was within the communist bloc. Now, 70 per cent is with the EU. Ten years ago, the private sector produced just 20 per cent of GDP; that figure is now 80 per cent. Ten years ago, Hungary had 1,858 state-owned companies; privatisation has whittled them back to two.
The "minimal-work ethic" - a hangover from the old days - is changing. The days of phoney "full employment", when it took three women to operate an automatic photo booth - one to hand out the ticket, one to put it in the machine, and one to wait for the pictures and cut them into four - are nearly gone.
And the early humiliations endured by Hungarians at the hands of patronising Westerners are fading as local managers finally take their share of the spoils.
One educated Hungarian still rages at the memory of a loud American telling him how to design a business card: "`You put your name in the middle and it's a good idea to put your telephone number in too'. . . These people arrived here in such ignorance, they thought we ate without knives and forks."
And this in a country that has produced more Nobel scientists than any other.
Hungarian economists are sanguine about the country's progress. "We started to reintroduce the market economy back in 1968", shrugs Adam Danko, managing director of Econews, the Hungarian business news and information service. "So when the changeover came, the words `market economy' meant something here - unlike the Russians, who think of it as somewhere you sell vegetables."
You don't see many vegetable markets in fashionable Budapest. What you see is a rash of enormous Western-style malls, with 50 more in the pipeline. The next to open is the West End City Centre, expecting to draw in 80,000 shoppers a day with its 450 shops, 240-room hotel, 14-screen cinema, open-air theatre and 30-metre high replica of Niagara Falls.
Europe's biggest Tesco is here, with plans for 15 more by the end of next year.
The question is how many ordinary Hungarians can afford to patronise the West End City Centre?
Not a lot. Not if you're not among the thrusting young, with fluent English, computer skills and financial know-how, moving into the rich bloodstream of a multinational company. Or an entrepreneur with a rare talent for parting notoriously risk-adverse banks from their money. Adam Danko fulfills these criteria and is among the winners.
Change was already in the air when he started the Econews service in 1988. "I'm not rich but I can afford things which not everyone can afford - regular trips abroad with my son, a car, a flat . . ."
For the rest, behind the magic figures lies a national average wage stuck below £3,500 per annum, a 42 per cent tax rate, mortgages (if you can get one) at 20 per cent and a black market worth about 30 per cent of GDP. Ten years ago, 63 Hungarian forints bought you a dollar. Now it costs four times that.
Behind those figures in turn, lies a miserably familiar story of massive job cuts (textiles, leather, heavy industry), austerity drives, a damaging brain drain and shattered lives.
Crime and drug abuse have soared. In 10 years, according to figures quoted by sociologist Peter Somlai in the Hungarian Quarterly, there has been a 250 per cent rise in the number of children at risk and a doubling of the proportion of offenders under 18. In fact, say some, the only surprise about last year's elections was that the old socialists were not re-elected. Nostalgia thrives where the gap between rich and poor yawns wider. Disillusionment is rampant among a people who 10 years ago were assured that two years was all it would take to settle things. "It was in the air that everything about the West and about capitalism was a nice thing. People believed that", says one economist. "But capitalism is not nice. It functions. That's all."
The big losers are the State-employed and those older than 50.
Gabor Makoviczky is a 50-something taxi driver. He values democracy but cherishes two features of the old days: "One was the basic security. The other was an education system that was absolutely free, where we knew our children would be educated and educated well. Ten years ago, for 10 forints you got two pints of beer or a litre of milk or a kilo of bread and butter. Now a kilo of bread costs 120 forints. Back then, you worked a six-hour day. Now to keep the same standards, it has to be 12 to 14".
Like many others, he thinks he remembers more joy and laughter back then. "Maybe that's because we had a single target to rail against and ridicule. Now we have so many . . ."
"I don't think I know anyone who has only one job," says Agnes, a university teacher. The young man driving the minibus is also an air traffic controller. Many of the women selling life insurance, time shares and vacuum cleaners door to door are teachers or nurses. Hospital patients expect to pay half a month's salary as "gratitude money" to underpaid doctors. A cleaner or a secretary working for a multinational can earn three times as much as a teacher.
Perhaps all this explains why Hungary has 276 churches, denominations and religious organisations and no fewer than 182 officially-registered political parties.
And the future? Gabor the taxi-driver foresees nothing for himself or his grown children but he believes the sacrifices are worth it for the coming generations. "I am optimistic for my grandchildren."
And the commercially farsighted? They're brushing up on their once-detested Russian. The way they see it, the old bear has to make a comeback sometime.
When that great day dawns, armed with their languages, computer skills and financial know-how, they will be calling the shots.
More tomorrow.