the fall of the iron curtain

1989

• The Fall of the Berlin Wall

• Revolutions in Eastern Europe

• The end of Communism in Eastern Europe

• The dissolution of the Soviet Bloc-

• The beginning of the end and disintegration of the Soviet Union

• The ‘end’ of the Cold War and the dawn of a new era

• The ‘victory’ of the Western Bloc, i.e. liberal democracy and capitalism

victory?

Francis Fukuyama:

• “The End of History?” (National Interest, 1989)

• End of ideological battles between East and West

• Triumph of western liberal democracy

Questionable:

• No end of history: post-Cold War order

• Was it a triumph?

  • If yes, only that of western liberal democracy?

What and/or who brought about the end of the Cold War?

• Systemic?

• Actors?

actors at the fall

• Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush

• Mikhail Gorbachev

• European leaders

• Civil society groups and initiatives and their leaders

Melvyn P. Leffler

• “It was Gorbachev who ended the Cold War. Among all the leaders […], it was his thinking that shifted most fundamentally. He came to feel that Soviet security was not endangered by capitalist adversaries. Nor were there many opportunities for communist advances abroad. He could focus, therefore, on restructuring communist society in the U.S.S.R.”

• “Gorbachev would not have persevered had he not found empathetic interlocutors in Washington. Ironically, Reagan’s greatest contribution to ending the Cold War was not the fear he engendered but the trust he inspired.”

pragmatism vs idealism

Gorbachev:

• Idealism: to create a better communist/Soviet system

• Pragmatism: to save the Soviet Union from its systemic difficulties

Reagan:

• Idealism: to overcome the Cold War and spread freedom and democracy

• Pragmatism: to take advantage of Soviet weakness and US strength

Pragmatism reflected their response to events and the Cold War system.

• Idealism and pragmatism in Eastern Europe too:

  • March towards freedom and democracy

  • In tune with the evolution of the Cold War system and, especially, Soviet policy

jacques Levesque

• “While each revolution had specific national characteristics, their pace and scale were largely shaped by the gradual discovery of the scope of Soviet tolerance.”

outline

• rise of civil society

• gorbachev

• revolutions

historical failures of challenging soviet rule

• hungary 1956

• Czechoslovakia 1968

• failure of direct and governmental challenges

• shift of contestation and challenge to communist and soviet rule from the top to the bottom

• challenge from below

  • civil society

  • stimulated by Helsinki process and final act

  • rendered possible by the kremlin’s reluctance to apply the Brezhnev Doctrine

  • Avant-gardists in Czechoslovakia and Poland

Czechoslovakia

• Intellectuals emboldened by the promises their government and the Soviet Union had made in Helsinki.

• 1 January 1977: creation of the Charter 77 group

• Prominent regime critics: e.g. Václav Havel, Jiří Hájek, and Jan Patočka

• declaration of charter 77 - criticised the government’s human rights violations

  • ‘virtual organisation‘

  • inclusive

  • contacts with western europeans

  • linkages with eastern europeans

the power of the powerless (havel 1978)

Widely circulated in Czechoslovakia, published in Hungary and Poland, and translated in the West

• Two types of powerlessness:

  • ‘Dissident’: category of sub-citizen outside the power system.

  • ‘Conformist’: hides behind official ideology and claims that all citizens are living in the best possible world.

  • Need to refuse to live the public lie to recover personal identity and dignity

repression in Czechoslovakia

Repression:

• Negative ‘official’ press

• Wave of arrests

• Most lost their jobs

• Led to prudence among ordinary citizens.

Human rights remained, however, high on the international agenda (e.g. Jimmy Carter and follow-up of the Helsinki process).

• Parallel polis:

  • Civil society attempts to create such a polis in Czechoslovakia

  • Emergence of a ‘parallel’ or ‘counter’ polis in Poland

poland

• rebelled from warsaw pact

• social upheavals 1956 and 1970

• new stage of opposition 1976

  • raise of basic meat prices by 50% and other staples by 30%

  • nationwide protests

  • gov backtracked

  • dismissal and demotion of strike leaders

  • committee for the defence of workers (KOR):

    • formed by warsaw intellectuals

    • medicial, financial and legal help for persecuted works

    • independent information network to record gov persecution and violence

    • obtained release and reinstatements of those dismissed 1976

    • rebranded committee for social self-defence with a widened agenda

    • courageous demonstration could say no to communist state

• Pope John Paul 2 1979 visited poland

  • popular success, called for dialogue, reconciliation and open borders

  • in response emboldened and called for institutions to defend workers

• culminates in crisis 1980-1

solidarity

• July and August 1980: large-scale strikes in reaction to massive food-price increases

• Major political concession by the government: Solidarity

• 31 August 1980 in Gdańsk:

  • The Government officially accepted the independent Solidarity trade union.

  • In exchange, Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Solidarity, accepted the political primacy of the Communists.

• Dramatic membership growth

• Spontaneous strikes, which were settled with wage increases

• Solidarity turned – ‘involuntarily’ – into a major political organisation.

• The government was repetitively forced to back down.

soviet reaction to solidarity

• Hostile to Solidarity

• Military manoeuvres to intimidate Solidarity and push the Polish government into action

• Despite failure of intimidation strategy, reluctance to use force

• Secret Politburo decision of June 1981 not to intervene militarily in Poland under “any circumstances”

• Frustration with the Polish leadership

General Wojciech Jaruzelski:

• Became party leader in autumn 1981.

• December 1981: imposed martial law.

• Arrest of Solidarity’s leaders and activists

USSR 1980s

• Troubled giant by the early 1980s

• World power with nearly seventy satellites and dependencies

• Costly client states

• Failure of socialist nation-building (e.g. Ethiopia)

• War in Afghanistan

• Limited economic growth and low productivity

• Lack of technological innovation

• Disproportionate defence spending

• Mass dissatisfaction and rampant alcoholism

• Chronic shortages and corruption

• Ruled by an oligarchy of old men

1980-5

• Passing away of Brezhnev era leadership (Brezhnev, d. 1982)

• Renewal and rejuvenation of Soviet leadership

• Gorbachev’s accession to power

Belief that radical change was necessary for Communism to survive

gorbachev the reformer

• Consolidation of power and ministerial reorganisation

• Promotion of reformers

• Slowed down by diehard communists and remaining old guard

• Perestroika: restructuring of the Soviet economic and political system

  • Return to the ‘true’ Leninist path

  • Promotion of small-scale private enterprise

  • Degree of intra-party democracy

  • Semi-prohibition to tackle low productivity

  • Emergence of a small private sector

• Glasnost

  • Introduction of greater pluralism of opinion into politics

  • relelaxation of control of dissidents

  • Degree of academic freedom

  • Reduction of censorship

  • Unsuccessfully challenged by alarmed diehards.

limited democratisation USSR

• Replacement of the Supreme Soviet with a Congress of People’s Deputies

• 26 March 1989: elections to the Congress of People’s Deputies

• Selected Supreme Soviet remained dominated by party apparatchiks.

• Yet the shift towards a more open political system was real.

gorbachev’s foreign policy

• Aim to end the Cold War for idealistic (peace) and pragmatic (breathing space) reasons

• Reforms at home required peace abroad.

• Willingness to compromise

• Perestroika applied to foreign policy: call for the denuclearisation of the Cold War

• Like-minded aides: Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Foreign Policy Advisor Anatoly Chernyaev

• Required flexibility of western leaders, especially Reagan, but also Margaret Thatcher.

• Superpower summitry, starting in Geneva in November 1985

• Reykyjavik 1986

• June 1988 Moscow Summit

• dec 1988 announcement by Gorbachev to the UN General Assembly to unilaterally cut Soviet forces by 500,000 troops

• 1989: Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan

• Europe (1985-1989):

  • Parallel diplomacy

  • Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, etc.

  • Aim to overcome the Cold War division of Europe

  • Nuclear free Europe

  • Security through a continent-wide community of nations

  • Signal of ‘tolerance’ to the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe

reykyjavik 1986

• No agreement, but nevertheless a milestone

• Both Gorbachev and Reagan proposed significant cuts in medium-range missiles in Europe.

• Discussion on the potential destruction of all thermonuclear weapons

• Obstacle: Reagan’s refusal to abandon the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

• Realisation that substantial arms reductions and peace were within reach

washington 1987

• breakthrough

• intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF Treaty)

Poland revolution

• Shared sense of weakness leading Jaruzelski’s regime and Solidarity to compromise

• Roundtable negotiations with a focus on domestic, and not foreign policy

• 7 April 1989: signing of roundtable agreements

  • Legitimization of Solidarity as an opposition force

  • Acceptance by Solidarity of an electoral system that preserved the Communist party’s leading role

• Compromise welcomed by Gorbachev

• Humiliating ‘victory’ for the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP)

• De-legitimization of the government and moral victory of Solidarity

• New compromise:

  • Summer 1989

  • Solidarity-led government

  • Communist ministers

  • Soviet-blessing, if not encouragement

• End of the PUWP’s hegemony

• Emancipation from the Soviet Union was, however, yet to come.

Hungary

• May 1989: reformers of the Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party (HSWP) forced János Kádár to resign the party leadership.

• Opening of the political system to reformers

• Summer 1989: roundtable negotiations leading to a commitment to free and competitive elections

• Remaining commitment to socialism

• Seemingly bright prospects for the reformed HSWP, which temporarily remained in power.

• 10 September 1989: opening of the western borders to East German citizens

• East German exodus through Hungary to Austria

GDR

• Autumn 1989: peaceful but growing demonstrations

• Gorbachev urged Erich Honecker to enter into a dialogue with civil society, but the East German leader refused.

• October: the East German Politburo replaced Honecker with Egon Krenz

• Egon Krenz: youngest SED Politburo member who advocated reforms to save the socialist state

• November 1989: exodus and demonstrations reached unprecedented proportions.

• Flooding of asylum seekers to neighbouring Czechoslovakia, which threatened to close its borders with East Germany.

• 9 November: fateful decision by the East German government to allow free travel

• Without waiting for visas and passports, East German crowds breached the wall in the night of 9/10 November 1989

• New government under the leadership of Hans Modrow, which included numerous non-SED ministers

• fall of berlin wall

  • The demise of the Brezhnev Doctrine was definitely confirmed.

  • Catalyst for regime change and revolution in the Eastern ‘Bloc’

  • Respect for Soviet power evaporated.

Poland and Hungary

• The equilibria between Communists and opposition parties collapsed

• New governments eventually decided to leave the Warsaw Pact (1990)

Czechoslovakia revolution

• Growing demonstrations following the fall of the Berlin Wall

• Police repression

• 19 November 1989: on Havel’s initiative, formation of the Civic Forum bringing together opposition groups

• Negotiations between the regime and the Civic Forum

• Formation of a government with non-Communists in the majority

• 29 December 1989: election of Havel as President

• Later joined Poland and Hungary in dismantling the Warsaw Pact

eventually also regime change in bulgaria (peacefully) and romania (violently)

conclusion

• “The East European revolutions occurred when Gorbachev’s tolerance for reform surpassed anything that his contemporaries had imagined. As his tolerance became clear, the reformers were emboldened, […] East European peoples had long yearned for change; Gorbachev made it possible” (Jacques Lévesque)

What did Solidarity and Charter 77 respectively stand for?

What were the ways and means used by dissidents and the opposition within the Soviet Bloc during the 1980s?

How did the Polish and Czechoslovak governments, as well as the Kremlin respond to opposition movements?

How did Reagan approach the Soviet Union?

What was Gorbachev's vision for a reformed Soviet Bloc?