Revolutions of 1989
Lecture notes from Monday May 4,
2009
On-line sources and video
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Negotiating Radical Change :: Polish Round Table Talks
Making the History of 1989
Cold War International History Project's Cold War Files
Secrets from behind the (Crumbling) Iron Curtain
YouTube - Romanian Revolution of 1989
YouTube - Berlin wall fall @ Potsdamer Platz 1989 in
Berlin
• BBC NEWS | Special Reports | 24 Nov: Velvet
Revolution
Event timeline and commentary on the
construction of memory in a post-1989 united
EUrope
• BBC NEWS | Europe | 1989: Key events in Europe's
revolution (note how this title ‘appropriates’ the
revolutions for all of Europe even though they were
carried out by east Europeans)
• Eurozine - The revolutions of 1989 revisited - Stefan
Auer
• Eurozine - Balancing the books - Timothy Snyder
• Eurozine - Battlefield Europe - Claus Leggewie
Transnational memory and European identity
• Eurozine - European histories
• Eurozine - Places and strata of memory - Karl Schlögel
Approaches to eastern Europe
Poland: Roundtable and June Elections
Hungary and the Reburial of Imre Nagy
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Velvet Revolution: Havel and
Dubcek; Havel addressing the crowds
Lecture Overview
• What happened in 1989?
• Why did it happen? Specifically, why did it
happen the way it did?
• What are the effects of 1989 for eastern Europe?
Specifically, in terms of post-1989 political
institutions and political culture.
• What are the effects of 1989 for Europe as a
whole? Can the revolutions serve as a basis for a
common European identity; a shared European
history?
What happened in 1989: shared
features
• East European communist regimes placed under pressure from
above (with Gorbachev’s reforms and his removal of the Soviet
security guarantee for these regimes) and from below as popular
pressure, either demonstrated or incipient, mounted in the face of
growing economic troubles across the region.
• Generational shift both in the Party and among the population
brought into place a younger generation raised since Stalinism,
consequently less fearful and more open to change. Almost all
Parties (with the possible exception of the Czech CP) internally
divided between young reformers and older ‘hard-liners.’
• Nonetheless, uncertainty prevailed as to how the hardliners would
respond to the dual pressures they faced. Would they use violence
to remain in power? Violence was used against the first wave of
demonstrations in Prague and in the GDR; Gorbachev as well sent
tanks to crush (literally) the peaceful demonstrators in Vilnius.
Shared features, cont.
• Remarkably, with the exception of Romania, all
demonstrations remained committed to non-violence. In
part due perhaps to the example set by Solidarity and in
part due to the growing influence of the churches (Catholic
in Czechoslovakia; Protestant in the GDR) in inspiring the
mass demonstrations.
• Remarkably, as well all transitions (again with the exception
of Romania) were managed via Roundtable negotiations
between regime and opposition – Poland with the longest
negotiations, the CSSR with the shortest. These
negotiations established the foundations of the new
political systems, putting into place the institutional
architecture (e.g. the powers of the presidency), the
electoral laws and the establishment of multi-party systems
Shared features, cont.
• In terms of political trajectories, the opposition
movements in Poland, Hungary, the GDR and the CSSR
all experienced a rapid rise in power and influence, but
then an almost equally rapid collapse of dissident led
political coalitions that then fragmented into multiple
political parties.
• Simultaneously, the Communist Parties experienced a
dramatic fall from power and collapse of membership
but then went on to reconstitute themselves rapidly
into reformed social democratic parties along west
European lines (with the exception of the CP of the
Czech Republic which has remained unreformed but
still manages to get between 10-13% of the vote).
Poland: what happened?
Key features of the Polish transition:
1. As the first country to test the limits of Soviet tolerance for change in Eastern
Europe, events in Poland take place in the context of considerable uncertainty
and anxiety over far reform could go.
2. At the same time, social + economic conditions have gotten so bad, as
demonstrated in the strike waves of 1988, that substantial reform is vital in order
to avoid a descent into anomic social violence and/or violent resistance along
the lines of the insurgencies in Ireland against British rule.
3. The absolute centrality of Jaruzelski and Walesa in moving both sides to the
Roundtable and then guaranteeing the negotiated outcomes against hardliners
in both camps.
4. While Polish communism is rapidly marginalized after the June elections, Party
members shamelessly plunder the economy (Rothschild, p. 184) which has led to
conspiracy theories prevalent in Poland to this day, that Walesa and his
intellectual advisors secretly agreed to this at the Roundtable negotiations.
5. A particularly dramatic break-up of Solidarity dictated initially by Walesa but
then deepened when Solidarity intellectuals refused to support his candidacy for
the presidency in 1990, supporting instead their own candidate, PM Mazowiecki.
Poland Key Elections
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June 1989 Bicameral Parliamentary Elections
-- 65% of seats in the lower house, the Sejm, reserved for the CP and its allied
parties (that promptly defected from the CP after the elections)
-- 100% of seats in the Senate open to contestation
-- 2 Houses jointly to elect the President (clearly understood that this was to be
Jaruzelski)
After Solidarity’s dramatic victory, they end up forming the government under PM
Mazowiecki but with 3 key ministries retained by the Communists (e.g., Defense
and Interior) and with Jaruzelski elected President.
November 1990 Presidential Elections
Nov. 25 – 40% Walesa; 18% Mazowiecki; 23% Tyminski (a shady entrepreneur who
flew in from Peru to run for the office) – 40% abstaining
Dec. 9 run-off election – 74.25% Walesa; 25.75% Tyminski
* These elections send cautionary signals regarding Poland’s post communist
democracy – high levels of voter apathy and political party volatility (since almost
anyone, like Tyminski, can become a viable candidate which thereby encourages
the tendency to form new parties around specific individuals rather than
consolidate parties around political programs or party platfroms.
Hungary: what happened?
Key features of the Hungarian transition:
1.
Power struggles within the Hungarian Communist Party pave the way for reform, especially
the “intra-party coup” in May 1988 which removes Kadar from power. Hungarian
Communist Party among the first in the region to split when liberal reformist members
form a social democratic party (that is currently in power having won the last two
parliamentary elections)
2.
Centrality of the legacies of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution – pushing both the Party and
the opposition to moderate their positions and negotiate in good faith in order to prevent
another such explosion of popular resistance; the reburial of Imre Nagy in July 1989
providing a catharsis but also a reminder of the population’s capacity to demonstrate on
behalf of national freedom.
3.
While the Hungarian Roundtable was long and complicated (June –September 1989), its
results were immediately challenged by members of the opposition and hence key
provisions (e.g. direct v. parliamentary election of the president) had to go to a public
referendum. The Roundtable therefore does not serve as the basis for conspiracy theories.
Instead, the extent to which the reformed CP, now Social Democrats, have been successful
electorally has led to a strengthening of the nationalist opposition which consistently links
the ‘new’ SD’s to the Communists who perpetrated such violence against the Hungarian
people.
East Germany (GDR): what happened
Key features of the East German transition:
1.
Here Gorbachev’s role in inspiring the opposition and in pulling the rug out from under the
hardline regime is most evident. Elsewhere, he establishes the context in which events
take place but does not determine the modalities or rhythms of protest. In East Germany
however his state visit in Oct. 1989 led to mass demonstrations in Dresden and Berlin
(“Gorby save us” read the homemade placards)
2.
The mass exodus of East Germans to the west (West Germany guaranteed them citizenship
status and financial aid) through Hungary in the late summer and fall placed pressure on
the regime to liberalize its travel laws which led to the late night announcement on Nov. 9
of the new provisions which in turn led, unintentionally, to the fall of the wall as thousands
turned out to test the new law.
3.
Given the country’s status as an artificial entity (a product of WWII and the division of
Germany into zones of occupation), once the East German population demanded reunification (changing their protest slogans from “We are the people” to “We are one
people”), the dissolution of East Germany became all but inevitable. With re-unification,
scholarship on eastern Europe no longer includes developments in east Germany as a
comparative case which is unfortunate because the region arguably shares more with its
neighbours to the east than with west Germany.
East Germany, cont.
Key questions in the East German case:
1. How did so many protest peacefully after so many years of
repression and with so little organized resistance to communist
rule? The numbers: Oct. 7 – 30,000 in Dresden; Oct. 9 – 70,000 to
100,000 in Leipzig; Nov. 4 – 1 million in Berlin. Why so many?
According to a survey taken in Leipzig in the fall of 1990, protesters
explained their participation in terms of greater perceived
opportunity to exercise political influence and in terms of friendship
networks that encouraged protest attendance. Here the social
context appears crucially to have shifted from the extensive social
monitoring that supported the repressive regime to peer pressure
facilitating resistance. Why so peaceful? Possibly because most
demonstrations began with a Church sponsored event, a mass or
candle light vigil, and because speakers consistently addressed the
need for non-violent civil disobedience.
East Germany, cont.
2. Why did the regime give in so quickly and not use force in
self-preservation after initially using violence against
protesters in early October 1989? Here, reform minded CP
leaders like Egon Krenz (who took over from hardliner
Honecker on Oct. 17), apparently in conjunction with
moderate local CP officials and public figures like the
conductor Kurt Mazur, successfully promoted peaceful
solutions both on humanitarian grounds and in the fear of
what massive reprisals against peaceful demonstrators
would do to the regime’s international standing. Given the
regime’s extensive indebtedness to the West, any
disruption in the flow of credits would be devastating to an
already fragile economy.
Czechoslovakia: what happened?
Key features of the Czech transition:
1. After years of stagnation and post 1968 ‘normalization’, the most dramatic
regime collapse: Nov. 17 students hold a demonstration on the 50th anniversary
of the death of Jan Opletal killed by the Nazis (ca. 50,000 with extensive regime
force used against demonstrators); Nov. 25 750,000 demonstrate in Prague; Nov.
27 general strike; Dec. 3 hardliners removed from the regime; Dec. 28 Dubcek is
returned to power as Chairman of the Federal Assembly; Dec. 29 Havel is made
President.
2. Why so rapid a collapse? Significant preconditions: economic stagnation (Aug
1989, economist Milos Zeman announces on TV that the economy is in deep
trouble) and ecological devastation becoming more evident to the general
population; the growth of opposition beyond the limited circles of intellectuals in
Charter 77 and VONS to include increasing numbers of students, workers and
Catholics; Gorbachev effectively destabilizing the CP by withdrawing the Soviet
security guarantee and not interfering in Czechoslovak internal matters.
3. After the “Velvet Revolution,” the “Velvet Divorce” rapidly follows as the Czech
and Slovak leadership fail to reach agreement on the appropriate institutional
architecture for the federal state. The well managed divorce nonetheless is a
testimony to their diplomatic abilities.
Romania: what happened?
Key features of the Romanian “coup d’etat”:
1. Under the leadership of Ceausescu, Romania experienced a brutal
Stalinist style dictatorship which nonetheless enjoyed Western support
for Ceausescu’s anti-Soviet foreign policy, having withdrawn Romania
from the Warsaw Pact in 1966. Romania’s long period of Stalinist rule
included a cult of the family as Ceausescu glorified himself, his wife and
children, periodic purges of the party, the absolute ‘subjugation of
society’ under the region’s most repressive secret police, the infamous
Securitate, and economic conditions so dire that society has to endure a
“neo-surfdom” as workers are forcibly tied to their positions.
2. Under such repressive conditions and given the regime’s long-standing
autonomy from the SU (meaning that Gorbachev’s reform initiatives
would not have been so destabilizing), the rapidly unfolding and violent
overthrow of the dictator could not have been possible without internal
manipulations as a younger generation of party leaders strategically
used the opportunity provided by popular protests around the region to
oust Ceausescu and his wife.
Romania, cont.
Key events and conspiracy theories:
Uprising in Timisoara, Dec. 15 in support of a pastor, brutally
suppressed but revolt spreads elsewhere (how is that possible in
such a tightly controlled country?); Ceausescu gives an ill-advised
public address to 1000’s in Bucharest on Dec. 21 which ends with
calls for his downfall (who started the chant “down with the
dictator?”) and attempts to flee on a pre-arranged exit plan; Dec. 22
the National Salvation Front is formed from within the party (who
are they? Where have they been during the years/decades of
brutal suppression?); “confused street fighting” follows – over 1000
dead, 3000 wounded (but who is fighting whom? Is the Army
helping popular resistance fighters against the Securitate snipers?
Is the fighting being ‘staged’ by the NSF so it looks like a genuine
revolution and not a coup d’etat?) ; Ceausescu and his wife are
executed on Dec. 25 (how were they even caught given their secret
escape route?)
Romania after 1989
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While conspiracy theories continue (to this day) to swirl around the events of
1989, what is clear is that the coup leaders remain in power until the elections of
1996 when the opposition is finally strong enough to mount a serious challenge to
entrenched elites.
• From 1990-96, Romania therefore experiences a ‘façade’ democracy with elections
held (but with extensive fraud and intimidation as in 1990), continued regime
repression (most dramatically bringing miners into Bucharest to beat up
opposition leaders and student protesters and to destroy their property, first in
1990 but in subsequent years as well, see
Mineriad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and limited political and economic reforms.
* Nonetheless, Verdery + Kligman maintain that this was not neo-communism as
some claim because, in their opinion, there was a genuine popular revolution
(albeit ‘stolen’ for a time by the NSF); freedom of the press was restored and
power was no longer concentrated in the hands of a single dictator; nor was
political authority legitimated any longer with reference to communist ideology.