Out of Ashes

PEACEFUL REVOLUTION

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. Source: bpk, Berlin / Brandenburg Gate, Berlin / Dietmar Katz / Art Resource, NY.

On the evening of November 9, 1989, journalists assembled in East Berlin, eager to listen to the latest SED Central Committee plans for liberalizing travel and emigration. Asked when the new regulations would take effect, press spokesman Günter Schabowski, who had not been sufficiently informed, erroneously replied “immediately.” Hearing this welcome news on TV, incredulous East German citizens rushed to border-crossing points such as the Bornholmer Strasse, demanding to be allowed to go to West Berlin. The frantic frontier guards could not reach any higher officers, who had already retired for the night, to instruct them on how to react. They therefore eventually decided to yield to the growing crowd and simply opened the gates. Hearing of the first breach, “hundreds of thousands of East Berliners romped through the newly porous Wall in an unending celebration” to express their joy. Chancellor Helmut Kohl reassured the elated newcomers: “We are on your side; we are and remain one nation. We belong together.” Lifted by accident and popular pressure, the Iron Curtain could never be closed again.1

The fall of the Wall was the product of a democratic awakening that swept over Eastern Europe much like the Springtime of the Peoples in 1848. It started in Poland, the least repressive satellite, when in 1979 Gdańsk dockworkers led by Lech Wałęsa formed an independent trade union called Solidarność, which martial law proved unable to suppress. The unrest subsequently spread to Hungary with hundreds of thousands of Budapest citizens turning out for the reburial of the heroes of the 1956 uprising, thereby protesting anew against communist repression. Thereupon a crisis of mass flight to the West and mass demonstrations against the regime engulfed East Germany, challenging the SED dictatorship and demanding unification with the West. Next the popular rebellion, encouraged by Soviet passivity, confronted the orthodox Husák regime in Prague, and from there moved to Bulgaria and Romania, attacking Zhivkov and Ceauşescu. Finally the movement reached the Soviet Union itself when nationalists in the former Baltic states and Ukraine demanded independence, and Russians themselves began to repudiate communism.² It was a stunning grassroots revolt that fundamentally redefined Europe.

For Central and Eastern Europeans, the surprising events of 1989–90 mark a caesura that overturned the Potsdam system of Soviet domination that had governed their lives for almost half a century. The democratic awakening concluded the Cold War, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant that the eastern protagonist had collapsed while the western antagonist triumphed. Moreover, the fall of the Wall marked the overthrow of communist dictatorships that had suppressed the “captive nations” since 1945. The lifting of the Iron Curtain finally ended the division of Europe along the lines of military occupation at the end of the Second World War. At the same time, the crumbling of the Soviet Bloc initiated the recovery of national independence, previously submerged by Russian hegemony. Moreover, the uprising of East Europeans gave their countries another chance to revive their democratic institutions as well as to restore market economies, permitting them to live freer and more prosperous lives. Finally, the removal of the barbed wire barrier allowed the continent to overcome its division and gradually grow together again.3

Overwhelmed by the speed and extent of the changes, many observers are still wondering what exactly happened during the tumultuous year of 1989. Leftist conspiracy theorists blame a secret deal between the superpowers for selling out the socialist experiment so as to profit from privatization. Rightist analysts who look down from above stress that communism simply imploded because of its poor performance, internal self-doubt, and inept leadership, exemplified by Gorbachev’s illusions. Liberals instead emphasize that a civil contestation from below overthrew the Soviet-style dictatorships, calling it a real revolution. Dissidents who actually participated in the uprising are loath to use that term, because they associate it with Jacobin or Bolshevik bloodshed, ignoring that revolution means, by definition, “an effort to transform the political institutions” of a state by mass mobilization. What set the revolutionary process of 1989 apart from other rebellions was, however, its nonviolent character, which made for a negotiated transition rather than a bloody struggle. As a result, most commentators have gradually accepted the designation of a “peaceful revolution.”⁴

The overthrow of communism marked the defeat of the socialist modernization project in the ideological competition with its liberal democratic rival. In the long run the dictatorship of “real existing socialism” proved less attractive than the “open society” of democracy and capitalism because the latter satisfied citizens’ desires more successfully. Initially communism seemed to have a good chance of prevailing, since it could contrast the exploitation of crisis-ridden capitalism with the utopia of a more just and stable socialist order. But the practice of Marxism-Leninism ultimately disappointed most of its supporters in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, since it turned out to be more repressive and less productive than its western rival. Capitalism and democracy also became more attractive after liberals had remedied some of the glaring deficits of their own system by introducing a comprehensive welfare state and by integrating Western Europe. Since comparisons between the systems through travel generally came out in favor of the West, most East Europeans ultimately chose the more enticing democratic version of modernity.5

EROSION OF COMMUNISM

The overthrow of communism came as quite a surprise, because for decades the Soviet system had looked utterly impregnable. Convinced that history was on their side, the eastern dictators were confident, in Erich Honecker’s children’s rhyme, that “neither ox nor ass will stop socialism’s advance.” When looking at the massive military parades that celebrated the Russian victory over the Nazis, foreign journalists were also sure that Soviet military might was ready to put down any challenge. Moreover, western intellectuals like Günter Grass reluctantly believed that the division of Europe was the price to be paid for the Second World War and that the maintenance of peace depended on its perpetuation. A handful of Kremlinologists who were able to read between the propaganda lines pointed to signs of trouble: the stagnation of the planned economy, the demographic decline, and youthful dissatisfaction. But virtually all social scientists were certain that the Soviet Union and its empire would endure, hoping at best for a softening of repression through the functional logic of advanced industrial society.6

Behind the impressive facade, a series of unresolved problems, nonetheless, gradually eroded the solidity of the Soviet edifice. Chief among them was the loss of ideological certainty in the moral superiority and practical feasibility of the socialist quest. Ideology played a central role in Marxism-Leninism because the social-engineering project of creating a revolutionary modernity depended on firm belief in its ethical authority, scientific rationality, and historical inevitability. But the repeated military interventions in 1953, 1956, 1968, and 1981 showed that the system was incapable of self-renewal, because each time efforts to democratize socialism were brutally suppressed with force. While the use of tanks in East Germany and Hungary could still be justified as prevention of counterrevolution, the subsequent repression of “socialism with a human face” in Prague and of the independent trade union in Warsaw violated the claim that the communists were acting on behalf of the working class.⁷ As a result of such shocking experiences, intellectuals became disenchanted, and socialism lost its utopian appeal.

Ironically, the spread of détente actually helped destabilize the communist dictatorships by removing the essential foreign adversary. In order to justify its continued militancy, socialism needed a “class enemy” as a threat against which it was necessary to preserve the unity and momentum of the movement. Soviet rhetoric was replete with references to foes that had to be vanquished, since it rested on an image of valiant revolutionaries struggling against internal and external antagonists. The gradual shift to détente made capitalism seem less menacing, transforming the West from a mortal enemy into a potential partner in trade, athletic competitions, and science. Moreover, the admission that both camps of the Cold War shared a common interest in preserving peace meant that the East-West dialogue might develop into real cooperation in arms limitation and other areas. Dissident appeals to the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Declaration also created more space for internal discussion. Facilitated by German Ostpolitik, the increasing communication across the Iron Curtain confused the secret service, because it dissolved the clear-cut image of an external enemy.8

Another underlying problem was the stalling of the centrally planned economies, because their disappointing performance falsified the claim of socialism’s material superiority. The propaganda machine continued to churn out statistics pointing to vigorous growth achieved by exceeding planned targets and employing innovative technology. But the reality was starkly different, since infrastructure was deteriorating, machines were outdated, and many workers just went through the motions. Part of the problem was the priority of basic investment goods over the consumer products that the public really wanted. Another part was the structural inefficiency of planning due to its fixation on production figures and artificial pricing. Yet another cause of stagnation was the protection of inefficient producers from international competition through the lack of convertibility of eastern currencies, which reduced international trade to cumbersome bartering. For a while members of the Soviet Bloc like Poland and the GDR compensated for these shortcomings by borrowing from the West, but soon they ran into trouble servicing their external debt.⁹ Even a fleeting glance, such as comparing a cramped Trabi car with a comfortable VW Golf automobile, revealed how much the East was falling behind.

These unresolved issues led to the increasing disaffection of several groups that were crucial for the stability of “real existing socialism.” Of central importance was the disenchantment of the working class, since it was supposed to be the chief beneficiary of communism. As survey research remained taboo and secret service reports were “improved” on their way up, it is difficult to know what the proletariat was actually thinking. Nonetheless, it appears that the political bargain of the 1970s, which offered an increase in the standard of living in exchange for loyalty to the system, was fraying precisely because the plan was not delivering enough consumer goods. In contrast to the rhetoric of equality, daily encounters demonstrated that socialism had produced a stratified society of its own, with the party nomenklatura and western currency holders on the top, workers and peasants in the middle, and members of the former bourgeoisie as well as practicing Christians on the bottom. The result was a growing cynicism about the regime, which expressed itself in caustic jokes claiming that everything was better under communism: “The party congresses are larger, the shopping lines are longer, there are ten times as many secret policemen and instead of one country there are two Germanys.”10

The reluctant liberalization in the wake of détente allowed an internal dissident movement to emerge, which gradually coalesced into a veritable opposition. Spurred by fears of nuclear annihilation, dissenters like the H-bomb designer Andrei Sakharov began to raise their voice in the Soviet Union, urging disarmament. In order to reconstitute a public space free of party censorship, they developed an underground press, called samizdat, consisting of mimeographed copies of news sheets and homemade periodicals. The dissident challenge spread to Poland, where the Catholic Church provided some protection while intellectuals like Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik also founded secular groups, such as KOR, supporting restive workers. In Czechoslovakia it was Charta 77, a group of intellectuals around Václav Havel, that developed an antipolitical agenda of reconstituting civil society, while in East Germany disappointed communists like Robert Havemann and Wolfgang Biermann criticized the SED dictatorship.¹¹ Police repression did not silence these dissidents but rather hastened their progression from critiquing individual policies to questioning the entire socialist system.

The final factor that undermined the legitimacy of Soviet rule was the ruling parties’ loss of confidence in the mission that entitled them to hold power. In the bureaucracies, factories, and universities, communist functionaries played a central role in keeping the system going, since they controlled all decisions and supervised their implementation. Many younger party members were increasingly frustrated with the stagnation, called zastoi in Russian, which they blamed on the entrenched gerontocracy that was unwilling to make any changes. Through international travel even reliable cadres became gradually convinced that they were losing the competition with the West in technology and living standards. Therefore many party members were enthusiastic about Gorbachev’s attempts to revitalize the system, only to find themselves blocked by their orthodox elders in the bureaucracy who denounced any reform as counterrevolution. For the party, the challenge was therefore to find a way to liberalize socialism in order to enable its survival without having the process get out of hand.12

During the 1980s the discrepancy between the formidable outward appearance and the internal weakening of the Eastern Bloc increased surreptitiously. On the one hand, the military power of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was never greater in terms of nuclear warheads and troop strength. If the East German Stasi is any indication, the secret police had also gotten larger and more sophisticated in combating foreign subversion and internal dissent. Moreover, the communist parties controlled the mass organizations such as the trade unions, had a media monopoly, and dominated the economy. But on the other hand, the self-will (Eigensinn) of the workers increased at the same time, since they no longer feared physical retribution for their noncompliance. Moreover, youth subcultures, literary circles, and dissident groups slowly revived a civil society independent of control and capable of formulating its own opinions about political issues.¹³ Finally, the ruling parties began to fragment as hard-liners clashed with reformers. Owing to all these sources of creeping erosion, the alternative of communist modernity gradually lost its stability.

GROWING UNREST

A concatenation of unforeseen events was nonetheless necessary to expose this structural weakness and bring communism crashing down in Eastern Europe. In early October 1989 the German Democratic Republic could still celebrate the fortieth anniversary of its founding with the heads of the Warsaw Pact reviewing a huge parade of communist armed forces, party faithful, union workers, and youth-group members cheering the leaders. Yet behind the scenes the rift between an immobile Erich Honecker and an impatient Mikhail Gorbachev became obvious when the Soviet guest warned his host to embrace change with the perhaps apocryphal comment that “whoever comes too late, will be punished by life.” None of Eastern Europe’s specific problems—its economic underperformance, labor unrest, nationalist sentiment, or intellectual dissent—was in itself unsolvable, but their accumulation proved too much for the aging leaders of the communist parties. Ultimately, it was the surprising mass flight of East German citizens in the summer of 1989 that provided the push which shattered the Soviet Bloc.14

Civil resistance from below began in Poland with the organization of an independent trade union called Solidarność (Solidarity). Under the intrepid leadership of Lech Wałęsa, the workers of the Gdańsk shipyards banded together to protest the rise of food prices, which consumed too much of their already meager wages. The popular movement ignored the retaliation of the security organs because it was supported by the Polish pope John Paul II from abroad and by parts of the Catholic Church within. Although the creation of a nonparty trade union was a clear rejection of the communist claim to represent the interests of the proletariat, the government was forced to recognize Solidarity in August 1980 because it had mobilized about ten million members, one-third of the entire workforce! The Soviet Bloc leaders were outraged, but Brezhnev decided to let the Poles suppress the unrest themselves, having General Wojciech Jaruzelski proclaim martial law in order to use the army to arrest the union leadership. Forced to go underground, Solidarity nonetheless continued its agitation for constitutional reform, while a resurgent civil society insisted on free elections.¹⁵

The Soviet Union no longer intervened to suppress dissent when Gorbachev’s “new thinking” in Moscow allowed the satellites greater latitude in coping with their problems. Frustrated by the resistance of the old party cadres, the Russian leader gradually radicalized his attempts at reform so as to save communism by modernizing it. Concretely that meant revitalizing the economy by introducing market incentives, building public support by lifting censorship, and changing the power balance within the party by holding competitive elections. In foreign policy Gorbachev initially moved carefully, only suggesting that he was more reluctant than his predecessors to interfere in the internal issues of the client states. Expecting that the leaders of the satellites would follow the reformist example of their big brother, he grew impatient with the old hard-liners, hoping that generational change would take care of the problem. In February of 1988 he went a step further when he proclaimed each country’s “freedom to choose” its political system, thereby in effect repudiating the Brezhnev doctrine of Soviet intervention to maintain communist regimes.16

In Hungary a flexible communist leadership followed the call to reform and even went beyond Moscow’s example. Budapest had always chosen a slightly more liberal course in allowing some economic and intellectual latitude, but only the arrival of new leaders such as Karoly Grosz and Miklós Németh in 1988 opened the door for major change. Trying to head off the pressure from below, the Hungarian parliament passed a “democracy package” in January 1989 offering civil rights, constitutional reform, and trade-union pluralism, which led to the emergence of noncommunist groups. The government also admitted that the 1956 rebellion was a popular uprising instead of a counterrevolution and permitted the reburial of Imre Nagy, which attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in a reaffirmation of national pride. At the same time the party leadership reoriented its foreign policy, intensifying its relations with Western Europe.¹⁷ During the summer of 1989 Hungary’s dismantling of the 150-mile-long fence on its frontier with Austria and the suspension of border policing literally cut a hole in the Iron Curtain.

Fearing that reform would become uncontrollable, the orthodox communist regimes in the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria vigorously resisted making any changes. Since they were sure they could suppress internal dissent, Erich Honecker, Gustav Husák, Nicolae Ceauşescu, and Todor Zhivkov rejected Gorbachev’s liberalization course as a misguided effort and called for joint Warsaw Pact action to maintain the Iron Curtain. But supported by the Poles and Hungarians, the Soviet Union refused to intervene, lest it endanger its own reform process and jeopardize détente. The hard-liners were encouraged by China’s bloody repression of student protests at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, which demonstrated that a resolute leadership in command of the armed forces could reassert control if it was willing to pay the human price.18 Instead, Gorbachev reaffirmed his renunciation of force in a speech to the Council of Europe, calling interference in the domestic affairs of another socialist state “inadmissible.” This unequivocal repudiation of the Chinese bloodbath further encouraged the restive dissidents and dissatisfied workers in Eastern Europe.

Ironically, the antireform front caved in where it was least expected—the German Democratic Republic. A key bastion of Soviet power, East Germany, occupied by about four hundred thousand Soviet army troops, was Russia’s victory prize for its horrendous suffering in World War II. The dictatorship of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) was also one of the most repressive, though the standard of living in the GDR was the highest in the communist world, generously supported by West German transit fees and loans. The internal opposition was relatively weak, consisting of a peace and environmental movement operating in the shadow of the Protestant Church, hamstrung by the Stasi tactic of expelling dissidents to West Germany. But in spite of all efforts at interdicting western influence, the electronic media penetrated the Iron Curtain, allowing GDR citizens to emigrate figuratively each evening in front of their TV sets and restive youths to record rock music from the air waves. Cooped up behind the Wall, many East Germans wanted to leave for a better life in the West, shouting in demonstrations “We want to get out.” Suddenly the cutting of the fence during a pan-European picnic at the Austro-Hungarian frontier in July of 1989 opened an escape route.¹⁹

The ensuing East German mass exodus transformed the gradual erosion of communism into an acute crisis with which the system proved unable to cope. Afraid that its citizens would not return, the SED leadership had restricted vacations even to other countries in the Soviet Bloc, offering only loyal party members and retirees the privilege of travel to the West. East Germans vacationing at Lake Balaton in Hungary therefore considered the removal of the barbed wire at the Hungarian border with Austria a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cross the weakly policed frontier. Western media rushed to the scene, broadcasting emotional pictures of overjoyed refugees arriving in freedom, creating a panic among those who remained behind, afraid of missing their chance. When the GDR tried to stop the human hemorrhage by forbidding travel, desperate would-be emigrants crowded into the FRG embassies in Prague and Warsaw, drawing other states into the humanitarian drama and forcing their release to the West. Incapacitated by Honecker’s gall-bladder surgery and slow recovery, East Berlin called for Warsaw Pact solidarity. But the Communist comrades failed to respond and the mass flight continued apace.20

Amplifying the prior Polish and Hungarian challenges, the East German exodus threatened Soviet control over Eastern Europe. The flight of tens of thousands of ordinary citizens from the GDR was a symbolic rejection of the Leninist version of modernity. The spontaneous escapes undermined the Iron Curtain and showed that the SED had lost its control over its citizenry. At the same time, the humanitarian emergency of the mass movement evoked a wave of international sympathy, which made measures to restrict the flow look arbitrary and repressive. The stampede from East to West also created a diplomatic crisis by forcing countries to choose sides: Aided by West German credits, the Hungarians maintained the border opening, while the Czechs tried to crack down at the risk of alienating their own people. TV images of East German refugees in overcrowded trains, tearfully celebrating their arrival in the West, also reopened the national question for FRG politicians who had become all too comfortable with division. Finally, the mass flight was the moment of truth for Gorbachev, forcing him to decide whether to live up to his own promises.²¹

FALL OF THE WALL

Among the many joyful moments of 1989–90, the fall of the Berlin Wall stands out because of its practical and symbolic importance for the overthrow of communist dictatorship. The opening of the border in Berlin and along the whole frontier between East and West Germany allowed GDR citizens to witness the reality of everyday life in the West firsthand. Their shocking experience of the FRG’s superior standard of living and political pluralism derailed the project of the reform communists and civic-movement dissidents who wanted to democratize East Germany but maintain its independence as an alternative to liberal capitalism. Moreover, the free movement of West Germans to the East also endangered the Soviet military presence by exposing the numerous Soviet army bases, creating pressure for their withdrawal from amidst a largely hostile population. At the same time, forcing open the Brandenburg Gate was also a highly symbolic event that signaled the breach of the Iron Curtain at a central barrier of the Cold War. Other satellite regimes could liberalize without endangering Russian hegemony, but toppling communism in East Germany threatened the survival of the entire Soviet empire.22

The drama of the mass flight from East Germany mobilized the previously docile population to risk mass demonstrations, demanding internal reform with the slogan “we’re staying here.” The protests began with Monday night peace vigils at St. Nikolai Church in Leipzig during which Pastor Christoph Wonneberger criticized the SED and dissidents met to encourage each other. Brutal police repression attracted increasing numbers of sympathizers who responded by intoning “we are the people,” thereby disputing the legitimacy of the so-called people’s government. The decisive moment came on October 9, when about seventy thousand demonstrators marched peacefully around the inner city, forcing the local SED and Stasi leaders, without clear orders from Berlin, to decide between ordering a massive bloodbath and permitting protests against the regime. Owing to a joint civic and party appeal against violence, led by the orchestra conductor Kurt Masur, they decided to allow the demonstration to proceed, thereby conceding the recovery of free speech. Broadcast by western and increasingly open eastern TV, the protests spread to hundreds of towns in the GDR. As a result, opposition groups like the New Forum formed, demanding a public dialogue and insisting on reform.²³

The ruling Socialist Unity Party responded to the challenge of mounting criticism in a confused fashion, because it was divided over which course to pursue. The aging dictator Honecker denounced the popular movement as “counterrevolution” and insisted on using force to put it down. Younger and more flexible leaders wanted instead to follow Gorbachev’s example and offer controlled reforms in order to keep the party in power. Sure of Moscow’s support, the pragmatists deposed Honecker on October 18, choosing the younger head of the Free German Youth and of the national defense council Egon Krenz as his successor. Though he offered to initiate an open dialogue, the restive public distrusted his sincerity, since he had endorsed the bloody repression in China just a few months before. Disappointed in the failure of the socialist experiment and afraid of being attacked by angry citizens, tens of thousands of SED members left the party, weakening its resolve.24 Unimpressed by reform promises, the dissidents and workers kept demonstrating, with half a million protesters assembling at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz to demand democracy.

On November 9, 1989, the distinctive strands of mass exodus, public protest, and regime reform combined to precipitate the fall of the Wall. Free travel was one of the key demands on the placards and slogans of the demonstrations all through the GDR. The SED was in a bind, since it feared that allowing unconditional emigration and tourist travel would lead to an even greater loss of population, ready to take up the FRG offer of immediate citizenship. Nonetheless, the Central Committee decided on liberalizing travel, dropping most preconditions and making the process less cumbersome. Schabowski’s mistaken announcement that the change would take place immediately surprised the border guards and emboldened the citizens to test the change of policy on the spot. Western news reporters like Tom Brokaw of NBC captured the resulting opening of the transit gates on TV, broadcasting the spontaneous joy of Berliners around the globe. Already asleep in the Kremlin because of the two hourtime difference, the leaders of the Soviet Union woke up to a changed world, unable to close the border again by force without risking a major international crisis.²⁵

In spite of the pent-up anger, the democratic awakening remained peaceful because the Round Table provided a way to negotiate a gradual transfer of power. Spreading to the entire Eastern Bloc, the idea had originated in Poland when Solidarity leaders met with representatives of the ruling Polish Workers Party to discuss necessary changes. It proved attractive in East Germany because the SED controlled the levers of power but lacked legitimacy, while the opposition groups of the civic movement had legitimacy but lacked resources and organization. Mediated by the churches, the debates of the central and local round tables turned out to be constructive, since both the regime and its opponents agreed on the need to democratize the state in order to preserve a freer version of socialism. The Round Table worked as an organ for controlling the SED government, now led by the more flexible Dresden party chief Hans Modrow, by insisting on the revitalization of parliamentary institutions, the dissolution of the secret police (Stasi), and invigoration of the economy through competition. The most important Round Table decision was the agreement on constitutional reform and free elections.26

The attempt to find a “third way” between the blocs failed, however, as public sentiment in the GDR shifted decisively in favor of reunification with the FRG. After the fall of the Wall the protesters began to shout “we are one people,” modifying the previous slogan in one crucial detail. Though West German politicians had initially demanded only the democratization of the East, on November 28 Chancellor Helmut Kohl boldly proposed a Ten Point Plan, outlining a progression of steps from confederation to federation in order to regain popular-opinion leadership. This surprising suggestion created a storm of international criticism, because it moved the “German question” from pious platitudes to the level of actual politics. When tens of thousands of Dresden citizens shouted enthusiastically “Helmut! Helmut!” and “Deutschland! Deutschland!” during his visit in December, an emotional Kohl resolved to push for immediate unification in spite of Gorbachev’s opposition, Thatcher’s criticism, and Mitterrand’s vacillations. Unlike the skeptical political elites, most ordinary people in the neighboring countries favored German self-determination.²⁷

In the election of March 18, 1990, the East Germans decisively rejected communism and clearly endorsed German unification. The campaign was heated, because this time it involved not just a ritual of “folding ballots” but rather a decision about the future of the GDR. Drawing on western campaigners, finances, and polling, some eastern parties joined forces with their larger FRG counterparts. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) relied on Kohl’s support of unity, but the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was handicapped by the warnings of its leader Oskar Lafontaine about the potential cost. The outcome vindicated the Christian Democrats and their allies, who gained more than two-fifths of the votes, while the disappointing Social Democrats came in second with a quarter. The communists (former SED), renamed as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), survived with one-fifth, and the Liberals got one-tenth. The fragmented civic movement, which had been the spearhead of the demonstrations, was the loser, receiving less than one-twentieth of the ballots due to its rejection of unification. The clear winner overall, CDU chief Lothar de Maizière, formed a coalition government so as to prepare the GDR for accession to the FRG according to Article 23 of the Basic Law, prepared by a customs union and codified in a unification treaty during the summer.28

The complicated two-plus-four negotiations (between the two Germanies seeking unification and the four Allied powers of the postwar occupation) translated this election mandate into an accepted international order for a postcommunist Europe. Seeing a chance to win the Cold War, President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker supported German unification from the beginning. But a disappointed Gorbachev refused to give up the GDR until it became clear in January 1990 that his satellite was bankrupt and discredited. Talks between representatives of the two German states and foreign ministers of the four victor powers succeeded in producing an agreement accepted by all parties. International pressure forced Chancellor Kohl, who did not want to offend his refugee constituency, to accept the Oder-Neisse line as Germany’s eastern frontier in exchange for keeping the issue of reparations off the table. Similarly, American arguments and sizable West German aid payments persuaded Secretary General Gorbachev to permit a united Germany to remain in the NATO alliance. The final settlement of the German question tied up the loose ends of World War II, dissolved the GDR as a separate state, and removed the Russians from Central Europe.²⁹

SOVIET COLLAPSE

In a reverse scenario of American fears during the Vietnam War, one East European domino fell after another, dissolving the empire and eventually the Soviet Union as well. The Polish and Hungarian protests were the beginning, the fall of the Wall in the GDR removed the keystone, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans followed suit, the Baltic states and Ukraine shattered the USSR, and finally communism imploded in Russia. Amplified by the media, a process of contagion drove this astounding sequence, with each successful challenge in one country inspiring another elsewhere. Instead of saving communism by modernizing it, Gorbachev’s strategy of reform from above unleashed popular forces that the party dictatorship was unable to control. Each time, a temporary alliance between dissidents calling for human rights and workers demanding a better life used the recovered freedom of speech and assembly to discredit the tired apparatchiks, setting an irresistible process of change in motion.30 The crucial factor was Gorbachev’s decision not to use force, since it gave away the one instrument that might have reasserted control.

Although the outcomes were similar, each path toward ending communist rule was somewhat different, depending on the particular situation of a country. In Poland the confrontation began with pressure from below such as the strikes in favor of relegalizing Solidarity. In April 1989 Jaruzelski agreed at the Round Table to opposition demands to permit free elections. The result of the June 4 balloting was a complete repudiation of the Polish Workers Party candidates, since in the lower house Solidarity won all seats for which it could compete and in the Senate it gained ninety-nine out of one hundred. As a result of the landslide the Catholic editor Tadeusz Mazowiecki became prime minister in mid-August, creating the first noncommunist government of Poland since 1945. The country then changed its name to the Republic of Poland and elected Lech Wałęsa as president in December 1990.³¹ Since this transition proceeded by incremental steps, was based on overwhelming popular support, and took place peacefully, Gorbachev refused hard-line calls for intervention and agreed to withdraw Soviet troops.

Encouraged by the fall of the Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia emulated the successful example of its neighbors and overthrew communism in a mere six weeks. The dissident appeals of Charta 77 had already begun to resonate because of popular dissatisfaction with economic and political stagnation. But the spark that set off mass protests was the brutal repression of a student demonstration on November 17, 1989, by riot police in which one participant was rumored to have been killed. In subsequent days intellectuals in the media and in theaters, where public discussions took place, called for strikes, while hundreds of thousands of citizens turned out on Wenceslas Square to demonstrate against the Husák regime. A two-hour general strike on November 27, supported by three-quarters of the population, showed overwhelming support for the opposition Civic Forum, forced the unpopular president to resign, and enabled a noncommunist government to be appointed. On December 29, dissident writer Václav Havel was chosen president, and the free elections in June 1990 completed the transfer of power to the anticommunist parties.³³

While Bulgaria followed the Czech pattern, the Romanian revolution resulted in eleven hundred dead because Ceauşescu was not willing to relinquish his rule. The Timisoara protests against the arrest of László Tökés, a Hungarian Protestant pastor who had made critical remarks in a TV interview, were brutally suppressed by Securitate, the secret police, and the army. When Ceauşescu condemned the uprising in a speech in front of about one hundred thousand people in Bucharest, he was booed, to his utter astonishment, then shots were fired and a riot broke out. The dictator ordered force to be used to quell the unrest, leading to the killing and wounding of many civilians. After the purported suicide of the minister of defense, many soldiers switched sides. Tanks joined the crowd and battled secret police and communist loyalists. When the commander in chief also abandoned the dictator, Ceauşescu fled with his wife by helicopter but was captured, tried for treason, and shot on December 25, 1989. As a result, a surprising combination of popular upheaval and regime opportunism brought Ion Iliescu and the reform communists into power.34

The crumbling of its East European empire ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, since the liberalization of debate allowed nationalist sentiment to resurface. Sensing that the federal structure with fifteen separate republics was held together more by compulsion than by consent, the peripheral states with non-Russian ethnic majorities seized the opportunity to reclaim their independence. Resenting their annexation during World War II as illegal, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were the first to opt out, declaring their sovereignty in the spring of 1990. This desire was initially suppressed by force but was granted in the fall of 1991 by a weakening Soviet center. The larger Ukraine and Belarus followed this example, seceding from the Soviet Union by popular referendum, which was recognized in the Belavezha Accords, that dissolved the Soviet Union. In mid-December the Alma Ata Protocol created a new voluntary association of the remaining republics, called Commonwealth of Independent States.³⁵ The Soviet Union’s legal successor was the Russian Republic, largely reduced to its ethnic core and shorn of its imperial pretensions.

The loss of empire hastened the collapse of communism in Russia, since Communists-turned-democrats under Boris Yeltsin won the struggle for postimperial power. The fragmentation of the Soviet Union and its empire aggravated long-standing dissatisfaction with disappointing economic performance and the continued lack of political freedom. Communist hard-liners wanted to defend their federation and ideology by force; centrists around Gorbachev were ready to let the disaffected provinces go and liberalize the system; and reformers around Yeltsin intended to create a democratic Russia out of the wreckage. Owing to his popularity Yeltsin, the former mayor of Moscow, succeeded in resisting efforts to oust him as president of Russia, declaring it sovereign—that is, no longer subject to the Soviet Union. When on August 19, 1991, Communist plotters, including the chairman of the KGB Vladimir Kryuchkov, attempted a military coup, Yeltsin beat the putsch back by courageously defending the parliament building.36 But as a result Gorbachev lost power, communism was discredited, and the Russian Republic embarked on the difficult road to independence, capitalism, and democracy.

Owing to their surprising lack of violence, the East European upheavals between 1989 and 1991 constituted a new type of “peaceful revolution.” The basic pattern of civil contestation was similar everywhere, with dissident protests against the communist regime finding increasing resonance in the general population. While the challengers from below lacked weapons for a violent struggle, the authorities above were restrained by international opinion that would have abhorred any repetition of the “Chinese solution.” The crucial innovation of the revolutionary process was the Round Table, which brought the opposition and the rulers together in order to discuss the necessary steps toward an orderly transition. Agreements on the restoration of human rights such as free speech and reform of the constitution to allow political pluralism prepared the ground for holding free elections as a way of deciding the issue of power. This “negotiated transition” offered a nonviolent way of consulting the population about the future shape of the political and social system. In spite of its gradualism, the impact of this process was quite revolutionary.³⁷

AMBIVALENT CONSEQUENCES

The stunning events of the peaceful revolution marked the most important caesura since 1945, because they fundamentally transformed the structure of Central and Eastern Europe. Within the short period of three years, the communist dictatorships that controlled half of the continent were overthrown by their own citizens. Unlike the violent ruptures of 1918 and 1945, the process of regime change remained remarkably peaceful, requiring neither another world war nor outside intervention. Instead, a popular movement from below used the space generated by reforms from above and by international détente to reclaim human rights and force a transition to democracy. Dissatisfaction with the material performance of the planned economy inspired the return to capitalist competition in order to obtain a greater share of prosperity. The disintegration of the Soviet empire and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union reconfigured international relations by freeing the satellites from Russian domination and ending the Cold War between the superpowers. Thereby Eastern Europe gained another chance for self-determination and a better life.38

The end of the Cold War concluded the ideological rivalry of the Soviet Union and the United States, which had divided Europe and polarized the globe for the second half of the twentieth century. As a result of the strengthening of détente, George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev declared the Cold War over at their summit meeting on Malta in December 1989. During the subsequent months NATO changed its military doctrine to remove any trace of offensive intent in order to make it easier for the Soviet Union to allow Germany to remain in the Atlantic alliance as a safeguard against neutralist temptations. At the summit of July 1991 the offer of a strategic partnership facilitated the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Eastern Europe by reassuring Moscow that the United States harbored no offensive designs. Though still somewhat suspicious of each other, both countries finally signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty at the same meeting and concluded a second START agreement in January 1993.³⁹ Since Russia was preoccupied with its own transformation, the United States remained the only superpower during the 1990s.

The lifting of the Iron Curtain provided an opportunity for healing the division of Europe by reconnecting the East to the West. The abolition of the reinforced border suddenly made the ancient capitals of Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest accessible, triggering a new tourism. The restoration of train connections and building of superhighways facilitated travel and trade, putting truckers into the forefront of reintegration. At the same time neighbors like Hungary and Austria rediscovered their historic connections, while former enemies like Poland and Germany launched efforts at reconciliation. In order to improve their security vis-à-vis Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary joined NATO in 1999, and the Baltic countries, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania followed suit in 2004. The eastward expansion of the European Union was more complicated because of the enormous disparity between East and West in economic potential, western workers’ fears of an influx of cheap labor, and the need of eastern economies to catch up to the prior level of western integration. After a considerable preparation period, eight East European states entered the EU in 2004 and two more in 2007, increasing its membership to twenty-seven.40

Unfortunately, the withdrawal of the Soviet army and collapse of the Soviet Union opened the door not only to human rights and democracy but also to the revival of nationalism as an ideological replacement for discredited communism. Finding itself reduced to the borders of the 1918 Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Russian Republic looked back to tsarist times to find new sources of pride in its national heritage and used nationalist appeals in order to recover remnants of its former empire in the Caucasus, Crimea, and Ukraine. Russia’s retreat and Germany’s diminution revived the independence of a whole series of states such as the Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova that had barely, if at all, existed before. Within the newly sovereign countries, the wish for consolidation and self-assertion fostered an intolerant nationalism, which reignited old minority problems that had escaped ethnic cleansing, for instance between Hungarians and Romanians. Nationalist fervor also led to the disintegration of two post–World War I barrier states, triggering a peaceful divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia but resulting in a series of bloody successor wars with the breakup of Yugoslavia.⁴¹ As a result, the new countries vacillated between asserting their independence and cooperating with Europe.

Map 11. NATO expansion, 2004. Adapted from German Historical Institute, Washington, DC.

The democratic awakening and the two-plus-four agreement also solved the long-standing “German problem” in Europe by restoring a chastened national state. International approval extended only to the accession of the bankrupt GDR to the flourishing FRG, since the latter had proven to be peaceful in the postwar decades. The price for unification was the unified Germany’s confirmation of the permanent loss of the previously German provinces farther east, facilitated by an official acceptance of responsibility for the Second World War and the Holocaust. Though returning to the old capital of Berlin in 1999, the enlarged FRG remained a civilian power, firmly embedded in a web of multilateral obligations in NATO and the EU while sacrificing its hard DM currency to European integration by the creation of the euro. Nonetheless, Germany had the largest population on the continent with about eighty-two million people and also possessed the biggest economy, still relying to a considerable degree on manufacturing of high-end products. With unification the FRG regained its central position in Europe, serving as a bridge between East and West and becoming a leader by default.42

For the independent East European states the overthrow of communism brought great opportunities combined with difficult challenges, because they largely had to reinvent themselves. It was not enough to restore the formal structures of self-government; parliamentary life and democratic behavior had to be learned by representatives as well as citizens. After decades of planned scarcity, the economy had to be restructured for market competition, while the public had to figure out how to deal with the temptations of consumer society. At the same time the change from living in a collective to acting as a separate individual was a great shock, since much of the social-security apparatus evaporated and people had to make their own decisions. The problem of coming to terms with the legacy of communist dictatorship was especially taxing, since sweeping crimes under the rug seemed initially easier but poisoned societal relationships in the long run.⁴³ In the transition the Baltic countries and Central European states, which had some tradition of democracy, had more success than their less-experienced cousins.

Since the transformation involved Central and Eastern Europe, the West Europeans were only indirectly affected by it. Many westerners watched the spectacle of the peaceful revolution with amazement, incredulous that the Soviet Union was willing to relinquish its gains. But even those distant from the democratic awakening were soon drawn into some participation: Members of democratic parties worked as consultants in creating parliamentary institutions and running election campaigns. Businessmen and managers helped in the privatization of state-run companies and in procuring investments for start-up companies. Bureaucrats assisted in setting up public administration independent of party favors and in disbursing funds from aid organizations. Academics gave guest lectures and provided their expertise for introducing international standards of scholarship. Especially when they had to pay a surcharge as in West Germany, taxpayers grumbled about the steep costs of refurbishing the East.44 But these complainers tended to forget the multiple benefits of a growing market, improved security, and enhanced community.

Experiences of the new reality after communism were therefore somewhat mixed, since not all sanguine hopes could be realized. Confronted with the contrast between the empowering elation during the democratic awakening and the labors of daily life thereafter, many East Europeans felt frustrated with the emerging postcommunist order.⁴⁵ During anniversaries of the peaceful revolution most editorial writers agreed that there had been substantial advances in international peace, political freedom, and individual prosperity for many citizens. But leftist critics could also point to important losses in economic security, predictable routine, and social services like free public child care. Unexpectedly, new problems arose, such as high unemployment, widespread corruption, and ugly xenophobia. Yet there were also unprecedented chances for intellectual debate, foreign travel, and the purchase of attractive consumer goods. Since the postcommunist transition to capitalist democracy remains a work in progress, East Europeans continue to hope that the gains will ultimately prove more important than its attendant aggravations.

TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY?

Essentially, the overthrow of communism ended the century-long competition between the socialist and democratic alternatives of modernity in Europe. The American theorist Francis Fukuyama therefore concluded that history, understood as ideological confrontation, had come to an end: “The twin crises of authoritarianism and socialist central planning have left only one competitor standing in the ring as an ideology of potentially universal validity: liberal democracy, the doctrine of individual freedom and popular sovereignty.” The Right was therefore rather triumphant, celebrating liberal democracy as the “final form of human government,” and promoted a further liberation of capitalism from its remaining restraints. In contrast, the Left was not relieved that the defeat of Leninism opened the way for a more moderate version of social democracy. Dejected intellectuals like Eric Hobsbawm instead saw their entire project of social equality discredited.46 Even if understandable, both responses contained dangerous oversimplifications: the neoconservative gloating fed unilateral hubris, while the Left’s despondence deprived capitalism of its critics.

The antithetical reading of the struggle between communism and democracy has tended to obscure their common roots and similarities as modernization blueprints. Both philosophies stemmed from the Enlightenment, with socialism harking back to Rousseau’s volonté générale and liberalism deriving from Montesquieu’s balance of power. Both ideologies also shared a belief in science and technology, relied on industrialized economies, promoted social organization, and followed elaborate rule systems. In practice both systems also produced nation-states, established huge bureaucracies, developed powerful militaries, and sought to shape international affairs according to their own interests. No wonder that in the lengthy competition both sides were forced to adopt rhetorical references as well as actual policies from each other, leading to a degree of functional convergence as advanced industrial societies: The Soviet Bloc maintained the trappings of democratic institutions in order to claim popular legitimacy, while the free world introduced welfare-state provisions in order to moderate class conflict.⁴⁷

Following the conventions of propaganda, commentators have instead stressed the differences between socialism and liberalism in order to establish the superiority of their own camp. In the East scientific research was directed from above, the economy planned, society collectivized, and law instrumentalized to serve the grand project of establishing socialism. In the West technology was free to develop, market competition drove economic growth, individualism characterized social relations, and the legal system remained independent because liberals assumed that personal initiative would contribute more to the collective good. To achieve their political aims the communists stressed internationalism, subordinated the bureaucracy to the party, built an ideological fighting force, and ruled their empire by compulsion from above, because they believed in the necessity of struggle to overturn the bourgeois system. The democrats instead favored national self-determination, relied on an impartial civil service, preferred a professional military, and developed an “empire by invitation,” since they thought voluntary cooperation more effective.48

To a large degree the failure of communism as a modernization strategy from above stemmed from a disappointment in the realization of its promises. For the exploited working class, faced with unemployment, the prospect of social security and an egalitarian society appeared attractive. For the intellectuals the social-engineering project of creating a new order was inspiring, since they would play a central role in it. And for leaders of developing countries the example of Stalinist (and later Maoist) industrialization provided hope, since it promised to jump over stages of development so as to catch up to or surpass the advanced West. In “real existing socialist” practice, however, the performance of the planned economy left much to be desired, since it proved inadequate in producing coveted consumer goods. At the same time the intellectuals found themselves subordinated to the party, limited in their artistic styles and censored in their criticism of the system. Finally, for the more developed satellites, smokestack industrialization was a step backward that inhibited the transition to a high-tech economy.⁴⁹

To many East Europeans, unfamiliar with the problems of the other system, the western version of modernity therefore seemed superior enough to make them want to join it. Used to propaganda exaggerations, they tended to discount the party’s stereotypical warnings against drugs, crime, unemployment, and inequality. Reinforced by travel impressions, the East Europeans’ exposure to Western films, TV series, and Radio Free Europe broadcasts conveyed an enticing picture of popular affluence, intellectual debate, and technical sophistication. Though perhaps not perfect, the combination of market competition and individual freedom appeared to have produced a consumer democracy, supported by a social safety net, that was more colorful and satisfying than the drab existence under communist rule. Knowing what they disliked and hoping to get what they wanted, East Europeans repudiated Marxism-Leninism and chose liberal democratic modernity instead. In taking this leap, many assumed that they would retain socialist safeguards while adding the blessings of western competition. Little did they realize that they would be in for a difficult transition.50