(Redirected from Fall of communism)
The 'Revolutions of 1989' were a
revolutionary wave that swept across
Central and
Eastern Europe in the
autumn of
1989, ending in the overthrow of
Soviet-style
communist states within the space of a few months.
[1] The names for this series of events hark back to the
Revolutions of 1848, also known as the "Spring of Nations."
The political upheaval began in
Poland[2], and led to a surge of mostly peaceful revolutions in
East Germany,
Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, and
Bulgaria.
Romania was the only
Eastern-bloc country to violently overthrow its communist regime and execute its head of state.
[3]
The Revolutions of 1989 greatly altered the
balance of power in the world and marked (together with the subsequent
collapse of the Soviet Union) the end of the
Cold War and the beginning of the
Post-Cold War era.
The advent of "new thinking"
Although several Eastern bloc countries had experimented with some limited economic and
political reform since the 1960s (
Hungarian Revolution of 1956,
Prague Spring of 1968), the advent of reform-minded Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev in
1985 signalled the irreversible trend towards greater liberalization. During the mid 1980s, a younger generation of Soviet apparatchiks, led by Gorbachev, began advocating fundamental reform in order to reverse years of
Brezhnev stagnation. The Soviet Union was facing a period of severe economic decline and needed Western technology and credits to make up for its increasing backwardness. The costs of maintaining its so-called "empire" – the military,
KGB, subsidies to foreign client states – further strained the moribund Soviet economy.
The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of ''
glasnost'' (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for economic reform, ''
perestroika'' (economic restructuring). By the spring of 1989, the USSR had not only experienced lively media debate, but had also held its first multi-candidate elections. Glasnost means also "laud speaking" but in these days it was allowed to present political views only to communists. Regular people in Eastern block were still threatened by
secret police also because Gorbacev's
Sinatra Doctrine was intentionally misinterpreted. "New thinking" was a parole for communists to show their willingness for change, while people just demanded "normal thinking" again.
From East to West
Moscow's largest obstacle to improved political and economic relations with the Western powers remained the
Iron Curtain that existed between East and West. As long as the specter of Soviet military intervention loomed over Eastern Europe, it seemed unlikely that Moscow could attract the Western economic support needed to finance the country's restructuring. Gorbachev urged his Eastern European counterparts to imitate ''perestroika'' and ''glasnost'' in their own countries. However, while reformists in
Hungary and
Poland were emboldened by the force of liberalization spreading from East to West, other Eastern bloc countries remained openly skeptical and demonstrated aversion to reform. Past experiences had demonstrated that although reform in the Soviet Union was manageable, the pressure for change in Eastern Europe had the potential to become uncontrollable. These regimes owed their creation and continued survival to Soviet-style authoritarianism, backed by Soviet military power and subsidies. Believing Gorbachev's reform initiatives would be short-lived, orthodox Communist rulers like
East Germany's
Erich Honecker,
Bulgaria's
Todor Zhivkov, and
Czechoslovakia's
Gustáv Husák obstinately ignored the calls for change. "When your neighbor puts up new wallpaper, it doesn't mean you have to too," declared one East German politburo member.
[4]
Gorbachev's visit to
the People's Republic of China on
May 15 during the first (and only failed) revolution of 1989, the
Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, brought many foreign news agencies to
Beijing, and their sympathetic portrayals of the protesters helped galvanize a spirit of liberation among the Eastern Europeans who were watching. The Chinese leadership, particularly Communist Party General Secretary
Zhao Ziyang, having begun earlier than the Soviets to radically reform the economy, was open to political reform, but not at the cost of a potential return to the disorder of the
Cultural Revolution.
Reform in Poland and Hungary
By 1989, the Soviet Union had repealed the
Brezhnev Doctrine in favor of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its
Warsaw Pact allies, termed the
Sinatra Doctrine in a joking reference to the song "
My Way". Poland, followed by Hungary, became the first Warsaw Pact state country to break free of Soviet domination.
Labour turmoil in Poland during 1980 had led to the formation of the independent trade union,
Solidarity, led by
Lech Wałęsa, which over time became a political force. On
December 13,
1981, Communist leader
Wojciech Jaruzelski, fearful of Soviet intervention started a crack-down on Solidarity, declaring martial law in Poland, suspending the union, and temporarily imprisoning most of its leaders. Throughout the mid-1980s, Solidarity persisted solely as an underground organization, supported by the
Catholic Church and the
CIA. However, by the late 1980s, Solidarity became sufficiently strong enough to frustrate Jaruzelski's attempts at reform, and nationwide strikes in 1988 forced the government to open a dialogue with Solidarity.
In April 1989, Solidarity was again legalized and allowed to participate in parliamentary elections on
June 4,
1989 (incidentally, the day following the midnight crackdown on Chinese protesters in
Tiananmen Square). A political earthquake followed. The victory of Solidarity surpassed all predictions. Solidarity candidates captured all the seats they were allowed to compete for in the
Sejm, while in the Senate they captured 99 out of the 100 available seats. At the same time, many prominent Communist candidates failed to gain even the minimum number of votes required to capture the seats that were reserved for them. A new non-Communist government, the first of its kind in Eastern Europe, was sworn into office in September 1989.
Following Poland's lead, Hungary was next to revert to a non-communist government. Although Hungary had achieved some lasting economic reforms and limited political liberalization during the 1980s, major reforms only occurred following the replacement of
János Kádár as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1988. That same year, the Parliament adopted a "democracy package", which included trade union pluralism; freedom of association, assembly, and the press; a new electoral law; and a radical revision of the constitution, among others.
In October 1989, the Communist Party convened its last congress and re-established itself as the Hungarian Socialist Party, which still exists as of today (see
MSZP). In a historic session from
October 16 to
October 20, the parliament adopted legislation providing for multi-party parliamentary elections and a direct presidential election. The legislation transformed Hungary from a
People's Republic into the Republic of Hungary, guaranteed human and civil rights, and created an institutional structure that ensured separation of powers among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
''Main article:
Fall of the Berlin Wall''
Germans celebrating the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the defining symbol of the East-West divide.
After Hungary's reformist government opened its borders, a growing number of East Germans began emigrating to
West Germany via Hungary's border with
Austria. By the end of September 1989, more than 30,000 East Germans had escaped to the West. Thousands of East Germans also tried to reach the West by staging sit-ins at West German diplomatic facilities in other Eastern European capitals. The mass exodus generated demands within East Germany for political change, and mass demonstrations with eventually hundreds of thousands of people in several cities – particularly in
Leipzig – continued to grow.
On 6–7 October, Gorbachev visited East Germany to mark the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic, and urged the East German leadership to accept reform. However, the elderly
Erich Honecker remained opposed to any internal reform, with his regime even going as far as forbidding the circulation of Soviet publications that it viewed as subversive.
Faced with ongoing civil unrest, the ruling
Socialist Unity Party (SED) deposed Honecker in mid-October, and replaced him with
Egon Krenz. Unable to stem the flow of refugees to the West through Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the East German authorities eventually caved into public pressure by allowing East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany, via all border points, on
November 9. Hundreds of thousands of people took advantage of the opportunity; new crossing points were opened in the
Berlin Wall and along the border with West Germany. The opening of the Berlin Wall proved to be fatal for the GDR. By December, Krenz had been replaced, and the SED's monopoly on power had ended. This led to the acceleration of the process of reforms in East Germany that ended with the
reunification of East and West Germany that came into force on
3 October 1990.
The Kremlin's willingness to abandon such a strategically vital ally marked a dramatic shift by the Soviet superpower and a fundamental paradigm change in international relations, which until 1989 had been dominated by the East-West divide running through Berlin itself.
The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
Non-violent protesters "fight with flowers" against armored policemen in Czechoslovakia.
Emboldened by events in neighbouring East Germany, and the absence of any Soviet reaction,
Czechoslovaks rallied in the streets to demand free elections. On
November 17,
1989, a peaceful student demonstration in
Prague was severely beaten back by the riot police. That event sparked a set of popular demonstrations from
November 19 to late December, and a general two-hour strike of the population on
November 27. By
November 20 the number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague had swelled from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million.
With other Communist regimes falling all around it, and with growing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on
November 28 they would give up their monopoly on political power. Barbed wire was removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. A sign seen in Prague summed it up this way: "Poland—10 Years; Hungary—10 Months; East Germany—10 Weeks; Czechoslovakia—10 Days."
[1] ("Romania-10 Hours" was added after the revolution in Romania)
On
December 10, the Communist leader
Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned.
Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on
December 28 and
Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on
December 29.
Upheaval in Bulgaria
People on the streets of Sofia during 1989
On
November 10 1989 – the day after the Berlin Wall was breached – Bulgaria's long-serving leader
Todor Zhivkov was ousted by his Politburo. Moscow apparently approved the leadership change, despite Zhivkov's reputation as a slavish Soviet ally. Yet, Zhivkov's departure was not enough to satisfy the growing pro-democracy movement. By the time the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform program in the Soviet Union was felt in Bulgaria in the late 1980s, the Communists, like their leader, had grown too feeble to resist the demand for change for long. In November 1989 demonstrations on ecological issues were staged in Sofia, and these soon broadened into a general campaign for political reform. The Communists reacted by deposing the decrepit Zhivkov and replacing him with
Petar Mladenov, but this gained them only a short respite. In February 1990 the Party voluntarily gave up its claim on power and in June 1990 the first free elections since 1931 were held, won by the moderate wing of the Communist Party, renamed the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Although Zhivkov eventually faced trial in 1991, he escaped the violent fate of his northern comrade,
Romanian President
Nicolae Ceauşescu.
The Romanian Revolution
Main articles: Romanian Revolution
Unlike other Eastern European countries, Romania had never undergone even limited
de-Stalinization. In November 1989, Ceauşescu, now aged 71, was re-elected for another 5 years as leader of the Romanian Communist Party, signalling that he intended to ride out the anti-Communist uprisings sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe. As Ceauşescu prepared to go on a state visit to
Iran, his
Securitate ordered the arrest and exile of a local Hungarian-speaking
Calvinist minister,
László Tőkés, on
16 December, for sermons offending the regime. Tőkés was seized, but only after serious rioting erupted. After learning about the incident from Western radio stations, years of repressed dissatisfaction boiled to the surface throughout the Romanian populace and even among elements in Ceauşescu's own government, and the demonstrations spread.
Returning from Iran, Ceauşescu ordered a mass rally in his support outside Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. However, to his shock, the crowd booed as he spoke. At first the security forces obeyed Ceauşescu's orders to shoot down protesters, but on the morning of
22 December, the Romanian military suddenly changed sides. Army tanks began moving towards the Central Committee building with crowds swarming alongside them. The rioters forced open the doors of the Central Committee building in an attempt to get Ceauşescu and his wife,
Elena, in their grip, but they managed to escape via a helicopter waiting for them on the roof of the building.
Although elation followed the flight of the Ceauşescus, uncertainty surrounded their fate. On Christmas Day, Romanian television showed the Ceauşescus facing a hasty trial, and then suffering
summary execution. An interim National Salvation Front Council took over and announced elections for May 1990.
Aftermath of the upheavals
By the end of 1989, revolts had spread from one capital to another, ousting the regimes imposed on Eastern Europe after
World War II. Even the isolationist Stalinist regime in
Albania was unable to stem the tide. Gorbachev's abrogation of the
Brezhnev Doctrine was perhaps the key factor that enabled the popular uprisings to succeed. Once it became evident that the feared Red Army would not intervene to crush dissent, the Eastern European regimes were exposed as vulnerable in the face of popular uprisings against the one-party system and power of
secret police.
Coit D. Blacker wrote in 1990 that the Soviet leadership "appeared to have believed that whatever loss of authority the Soviet Union might suffer in Eastern Europe would be more than offset by a net increase in its influence in western Europe."
[5] Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Gorbachev ever intended for the complete dismantling of Communism and the Warsaw Pact. Rather, Gorbachev assumed that the Communist parties of Eastern Europe could be reformed in a similar way to the reforms he hoped to achieve in the CPSU. Just as ''perestroika'' was aimed at making the USSR more efficient economically and politically, Gorbachev believed that the
Comecon and Warsaw Pact could be reformed into more effective entities. However,
Alexander Yakovlev, a close advisor to Gorbachev, would later state that it would have been "absurd to keep the system" in Eastern Europe. Yakovlev had come to the conclusion that the Soviet-dominated Comecon could not work on non-market principles and that the Warsaw Pact had "no relevance to real life."
[4]
End of the Cold War
On
December 3,
1989, the leaders of the two world superpowers declared an end to the Cold War at a
summit in
Malta. In July 1990, the final obstacle to German reunification was removed when West German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl convinced Gorbachev to drop Soviet objections to a reunited Germany within
NATO in return for substantial German economic aid to the USSR.
On
July 1,
1991, the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague. At a summit later that same month, Gorbachev and
U.S. President
George H.W. Bush declared a U.S.-Soviet strategic partnership, decisively marking the end of the Cold War. President Bush declared that U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the
Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991 had laid the groundwork for a partnership in resolving bilateral and world problems.
Collapse of the Soviet Union
Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)
As the USSR rapidly withdrew its forces from Eastern Europe, the spillover from the 1989 upheavals began reverberating throughout the Soviet Union itself. Agitation for self-determination led to first
Lithuania, and then
Estonia,
Latvia and
Armenia declaring independence. Disaffection in other Soviet republics, such as
Georgia and
Azerbaijan, was countered by promises of greater decentralization. More open elections led to the election of candidates opposed to Communist Party rule.
''Glasnost'' had inadvertently released the long-suppressed national sentiments of all peoples within the borders of the multinational Soviet state. These nationalist movements were further strengthened by the declining Soviet economy, whereby Moscow's rule became a convenient scapegoat for economic troubles. Gorbachev's reforms had failed to improve the economy, with the old Soviet
command structure completely breaking down. One by one, the constituent republics created their own economic systems and voted to subordinate Soviet laws to local laws.
In an attempt to halt the rapid changes to the system, a group of Soviet hard-liners represented by Vice-President
Gennadi Yanayev launched
a coup overthrowing Gorbachev in August 1991.
Russian President
Boris Yeltsin rallied the people and much of the army against the coup and the effort collapsed. Although restored to power, Gorbachev's authority had been irreparably undermined. In September, the Baltic states were granted independence. On
December 1,
Ukrainian voters approved independence from the USSR in a referendum. On
December 26,
1991, the Soviet Union was officially disbanded, breaking up into fifteen constituent parts, thereby ending the world's largest and most influential Communist state, and leaving
China to that position.
See also
★
Color revolutions
★
Commonwealth of Independent States
★
January Events
★
Yugoslavian civil war
References
★
1. E. Szafarz, "The Legal Framework for Political Cooperation in Europe" in ''The Changing Political Structure of Europe: Aspects of International Law'', Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-1379-8. p.221.
2. Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismăneanu, "Independence Reborn and the Demons of the Velvet Revolution" in ''Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath'', Central European University Press. ISBN 963-9116-71-8. p.85.
3. Piotr Sztompka, preface to ''Society in Action: the Theory of Social Becoming'', University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-78815-6. p. x.
4. Steele, Jonathan. Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. Boston: Faber, 1994.
5. Coit D. Blacker. "The Collapse of Soviet Power in Europe." ''Foreign Affairs.'' 1990.
6. Steele, Jonathan. Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy. Boston: Faber, 1994.
External links
★
The Enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe, , Jacques, Lévesque, University of California Press, 1997,
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