Thousands marched through the Czech capital Tuesday in commemoration of a student protest 20 years ago that grew into the human tidal wave sweeping away the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Today, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are European Union and
NATO members. While the world recession has left its mark, their
economies are among the strongest of the continent's former
communist nations, and their democracies among the most resilient.
Pragmatic Czechs in particular have moved into the European
mainstream, with most citizens spending little time on any normal
day looking back on their Velvet Revolution.

But Tuesday was no normal day for the several thousand Czechs
gathered to relive the hours that led to their nation's democratic
triumph.

Nov. 17, 1989, began with fiery speeches at a university campus
in Prague, inspiring thousands of students to march downtown toward
Wenceslas Square. As darkness fell, police cracked down hard,
beating demonstrators with truncheons and injuring hundreds in the
melee.

Unbowed, the crowds mushroomed in the ensuing days, with
demonstrators chanting: "You have lost already!"

They were right. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and
communism in the region, by Dec. 10, Czechoslovakia had a new
government. On Dec. 29, Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright who
had spent several years in prison, was elected the country's first
democratic president in a half century by a parliament still
dominated by communist hard-liners.

For many retracing the march, it was a joyful return to a time
when repression proved no match for people power, which in a string
of protests brought down the Iron Curtain across East Europe.

"I came here with hope," said Renata Krbcova, 45, who studied
at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in 1989 and joined the
ranks of those that rolled through the capital.

"It was a wonderful feeling, after all we hoped that something
had to happen," she said.

On Tuesday, Havel, President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Jan
Fischer joined hundreds of people laying flowers and lighting
candles at a monument marking the site of the brutal clash.

"The demonstration, the march set the history into motion,"
said Havel, who was applauded by the surrounding crowd.

Prominent outsiders joined in the praise.

"I congratulate the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 20 years of
democracy and reaffirm the commitment of the United States to our
strong alliance," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said
in a statement.

Czechs remain relatively optimistic, 20 years on.

A Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, conducted among
respondents of nine post-communist countries, has only Czechs and
Poles feeling they are better off now than back then. The Aug. 27
survey had a percentage of error between plus or minus 3.5 and 5
percentage points, depending on the country.

But on most days, the euphoria of those revolutionary days is
hard to find.

Besides an economic downturn, the country has been in political
limbo since the government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek was
ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in March in the middle
of the Czech EU presidency, just days before President Barack
Obama's visit to Prague.

Havel said his nation of 10 million is still on the right track,
enjoying a democratic society with the rule of law, respect for
human rights and a free-market economy. But he expressed concern
about "a loss of trust in politics, the gap between the public and
the politicians."

In a disquieting sign of the freedom of expression that has
grown from the Velvet Revolution, hundreds of supporters of the far
right extremists Workers' Party staged a protest rally near the
National Theater, briefly disrupting the festivities.

CT24 news television reported the extremists attacked two
people. Police said 48 extremists were detained, both from that
protest and from a clash between 100 neo-Nazis and police.