Modern Revolutions in Comparative Perspective Jan Plamper

Week 17: The Velvet Revolutions Introduction Causes Course Outcomes

(1) Introduction Term ‘Velvet Revolution’ from Czechoslovakia where Communist Party renounced monopoly after mass demonstrations in Nov.-Dec. 1989

(1) Introduction  Velvet Revolution = non-violent transition from Communist Party dictatorship with planned socialist economy to democratic republic with market economy

(1) Introduction Chronology Czech Velvet Rev. 1989 16 Nov.: 1 day before International Students Day, students demonstrate peacefully in Bratislava ( official holiday subverted) 17 Nov.: mass demonstrations in Prague, anti-Comm. slogans chanted, hoax of dead student (= trigger?)

(1) Introduction 18 Nov.: student strike 19 Nov. onwards: strikes and protests widen; at first, demands = modest: change members of gov’t (use non-compromised socialists) tv workers demand coverage of demonstrations, which then widen further Civic Forum as umbrella organisation for protesters; dissident Václav Havel as leader

Prague, between 20-24 Nov. 1989

(1) Introduction Václav Havel (1936-2011) in 1978 (explaining human rights violations after suppression of Charter 77 dissident group) and in 1989

(1) Introduction late Nov.: gov’t resigns, censorship eased, way paved for multiparty democracy 29 Dec.: Havel elected new President June 1990: free elections Dec. 1992: dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czech Republic; Slovakia

(1) Introduction But was the transition everywhere as peaceful as in Czechoslovakia? Is the title of today’s lecture, ‘The Velvet Revolutions’, appropriate?

(1) Introduction Romania http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnqPibIb8o4 Death toll protesters: circa 1,100

(1) Introduction Cult of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu

(1) Introduction Execution of Ceauşescus, 25 Dec. 1989

(1) Introduction Pro ‘Velvet Revolutions’: violence and dislocation associated with dissolution of one of two superpowers (Soviet Bloc) small when imagining what could have been

(1) Introduction Clampdown as an option. Beijing, Tiananmen Square massacre, June 1989.

(1) Introduction Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, 26 April 1986 … now imagine Eastern European nuclear power plants in violent revolutions or civil war…

(2) Causes Question of causes = deeply politicised And linked with grand narratives…

(2) Causes …Western Cold War triumphalist narrative: revolutions across Soviet bloc were bound to happen because of economic and ultimately moral inferiority of communism

(2) Causes …civil society narrative: regardless of economic system, Soviet-style societies suppress innate human freedoms  fight for democracy, embodied first by dissidents, later by larger segments of population (= civil society) top: Adam Michnik in prison, 1982 bottom: Michnik with Lech Wałęsa in 1989

(2) Causes Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936-2013) dissident who protested 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

(2) Causes …uncivil society narrative: Eastern European/Russian Revolutions of 1989-91 happened not because of anyone’s (dissidents’, civil society’s) strength, but because of elites’ and system’s weaknesses

(2) Causes Nonetheless, let us try to at least list the causes as neutrally as possible, without weighting them

(2) Causes: (a) (geo)political 1985: Gorbachev comes to power in Soviet Union and starts reforming  ‘If the necessity for [reforms] comes in troubled times, you are too late for harsh measures; and mild ones will not help you’ (Machiavelli)

(2) Causes: (b) economic planned economies have difficulty making transition from industrial/Fordist system to post-industrial/post-Fordist system from 1970s onwards: debts in West consumerism: East lagged behind West, but East saw higher standard of living on Western tv etc.

(2) Causes: (b) economic Robotron Computer, GDR, 1986 Apple Macintosh Plus, 1986

(2) Causes: (c) military Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), ‘Star Wars’, 1983

(2) Causes: (c) military Reagan’s SDI

(2) Causes: (d) environmental Chemical plant of Bitterfeld, GDR, 1989

(2) Causes: (d) environmental Bitterfeld, the city, 1989

(2) Causes: (e) alternative belief systems e.g. Catholicism in Poland, John Paul II = 1st Polish Pope, elected 1978

(2) Causes Pope visited his native Poland in 1979, 1983, 1987, June and Aug. 1991. Here shown with Wałęsa in 1987

(3) Course Different for each country, but some commonalities: alternative spaces where (small) groups of people had been meeting and started imagining different politics: e.g. churches

(3) Course protest widens over some cause or trigger gov’t does not choose ‘Chinese solution’ (clampdown) because of USSR’s soft line (Gorbachev). If it chooses Chinese solution, police et al. start fraternising with protesters

(3) Course new gov’ts formed with civil society participation; free elections announced all Eastern European countries interconnected, watching each other. China as horror scenario also looms large

(4) Outcomes Ironic, cynical narrative: Old elites stay in power, adapt to capitalism and democracy. Old dissidents live on tiny pensions.

(4) Outcomes European triumphalist narrative: Eastern European brothers and sisters finally return to their natural European home

(4) Outcomes Turning of tables (for brief moment, intellectuals and counterculture on top) narrative: Czech band Plastic People of the Universe (founded 1968) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7dXd10GCTU (22:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVEqxSlaQ64

(4) Outcomes Turning of tables (for brief moment, intellectuals and counterculture on top) narrative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXOUA9h1e2s Frank Zappa in Prague, 1990  Havel made Zappa cultural attaché of Czech Republic