Series “Towards a nonviolent civil defence”
Slides 3
Nonviolent struggles
against communist dictatorship
in Eastern Europe
Étienne Godinot
Translation : Claudia McKenny Engström
07.04.2015
Nonviolent struggles
against communist dictatorship
in Eastern Europe
Contents
1 - Poland
2 - Hungary
3 - East Germany
4 - Czechoslovakia
5 - Romania
Sources :
- Review Alternatives non-violentes,
n° 121, Les luttes non-violentes au XXè siècle (hiver 2001-2002)
n° 151, Berlin 1989, Un mur ne tombe pas tout seul ! (juin 2009)
- Wikipédia
1 - Poland
- 1976 : Creation of the KOR (Komitet Obrony Robotnikov :
Committee for Workers’ defence), intellectual group (Jacek
Kuron, Adam Michnik, etc.) who support minors and workers
striking against the cost of life.
- 16th October 1978: Karol Wojtyla, bishop of Krakow, is
elected Pope of the Catholic Church.
- 31st August 1980: launch of Solidarnosc (Solidarity) trade
union following the great strikes (in Lublin, Gdansk shipyards)
and rough negotiations with the power in place.
Photos : - Adam Michnik
- Karol Wojtyla
The birth and rise of Solidarnosc
The leader of Solidarnosc, Lech Walesa, is surrounded
by advisors from the KOR (Kuron, Michnik) and
initiators of the “flying universities”, Tadeusz
Makowiecki, Bronislaw Geremek, etc.
The action of the union rests on nonviolence*. It is
founded by the occupation of firms and does not flow
into the streets. It is progressively mediatised
internationally and then nationally.
Photo above: Lech Walesa
* The representatives of the Movement for a nonviolent alternative met
with Adam Michinik, and the distribution of the Polish Translation of J.M. Müllers book Strategy for a nonviolent Action.
Martial Law
Solidarnosc, which soon counts 10 million
workers, competes with and encroaches on the
power of the United Workers’ Party, the Polish
Communist Party.
- 13th December 1981: by orthodoxy and/or to
avoid Soviet military intervention, General
Jaruzelski, President of the Popular Republic of
Poland (and of the Communist Party) declares
the “state of war”, imprisons or assigns
Solidarnosc leaders to house arrest.
Photo : Wojciech Jaruzelski
An obstinate struggle
supported by international community
The martial law is suspended in July 1983, Solidarnosc
leaders are kept in prison, but the trade union pursues
its underground activity within in most companies.
- 11th December 1983 : Lech Walesa is awarded the
Nobel Prize for Peace
- 19th October 1984 : Jerzy Popieluszko is
assassinated by the SB, political police of the regime.
He was the preaching Priest for Solidarnosc and
celebrated the masses “presenting opportunities for
public gatherings in churches”. His sermons were daily
broadcasted on Radio Free Europe. 500 000 people
gathered at his funeral.
Photos : - Jerzy Popieluszko
- His funeral
Struggles and negotiations
- 1986 : Gorbatchev invites Jaruzelski to opening
the regime while keeping control, without giving
rise to visible contestations. The last activists of
Solidarnosc and the KOR are freed.
- Spring 1988 : new mass strikes due to brutal
increase of prices.
- February to April 1989 : “round table” negotiations
between the government and Solidarnosc.
- Photo : Mazowiecki, Kiszcsak, Walesa, Jaruzelski,
Geremek, Rakowski
The victory of democracy
- 4th June 1989 : first semi-free elections, victory
of Solidarnosc and first non-communist
government led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki
- 9th December 1990 : Lech Walesa becomes
President of the Republic
Photos : - Jacek Kuron and Lech Walesa
- Symbol of Poland
2 - Hungary
- 23rd October – 10th November 1956 : crushing of the
Hungarian insurrection by Soviet tanks. 3000 Hungarians are
killed. The Prime Minister Imre Nagy, arrested by the KGB,
was hanged in jail on 16th June 1958.
- 1980s : opponents to Janos Kadar’s regime (Laszlo Rajk,
Janos Kis, Miklos Haraszti) demonstrate in solidarity with the
Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Solidarnosc in Poland.
Photos : - Irme Najy
- Janos Kis, founder of underground paper Bezselö (“the parlor”).
The fall of the “Iron curtain”
- 1988 : creation of the Alliance of free democracies, of
the Democratic Forum and the Union of Young
Democrats. Demonstrations for Imre Nagy’s
rehabilitation, 30 years after his execution.
- 1989 : Kadar regime grants a certain political
pluralism. Historical leaders reach State power.
- From 2nd May, the “iron curtain” (photo above) is
dismantled by Hungarian border control. On 27th June
1989, Hungarian and Austrian Foreign Affairs ministers,
Gyula Horn and Aloïs Mock, officially reopen Sopron
border (photo below).
3 - East Germany
- Under Erich Honecker’s regime, opponents are
protected by the protestant Church who fights against
disarmament, for environmental protection, etc.
Independent newspapers are born, such as Grenzfall
(“limit situation”), clandestine links are tied with
opposition in foreign countries.
- January 1989 : repression of a demonstration
commemorating the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg
and Karl Liebknecht. Activists of the Initiative for peace
and human rights movement are arrested and exiled…
in West Germany.
Photos : - The two Germanies before reconciliation
- Erich Honecker eandLeonid Brejnev
Regular demonstrations…
- Growing demonstrations take place every Monday, in
the evening, candlelit, in front of the St Nicholas Church
in Leipzig, demanding more freedom and Germany’s
reunification: “We are one people!”. The Gewandhaus
music conductor Kurt Masur is regularly present.
- October 1989 : celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of
the German Democratic Republic (GDR/DDR). Launch
of the Neues Forum (“New Forum”), first dissident
political party.
Photos : St Nicholas Church in Leipzig on a Monday night
- “New Forum, new hope”.
… until the fall of the regime and the Berlin wall
- Monday 9th October in Leipzig : 70 000
demonstrators, in spite of the high number of
political police present (the Stasi).
Monday 16th October, the demonstration counts
170 000 people and western television.
- 9t h November 1989 : the Berlin Wall falls under
pacific assaults by the population on both sides of
the wall.
4 - Czechoslovakia
- 1977 : creation of the Charter 77, informal group of
intellectuals (play-writer Vaclav Havel, philosopher Jan
Patocka, etc.) defending human rights. This movement,
constantly harassed by the police, becomes a symbol of
opposition to the regime and publishes a clandestine bulletin of
information.
- Vaclav Havel is sentenced to imprisonment. He writes his
essay Power without power, a call to nonviolent resistance.
Photos :
- Vaclav Havel in 1977
- Jan Patocka, who died on 13th March 1977 of cerebral haemorrhage after
having been interrogated by the police.
January 1989: Jan Palach is back
- August 1988 : 20th Anniversary of the soviet military
intervention that put an end to the “Prague Spring”. A
petition for freedom rapidly got 50 000 signatures.
- 16th January 1989 : a demonstration takes place on
the date Jan Palach died and is rapidy repressed.
V. Havel who had been at his grave (and who had
already been imprisoned for 4,5 years) is sentenced
on 21st January to 9 months imprisonment.
He is freed on 16th May.
-
Photos :
Gustav Husak, President of the Republic 1975-1989
Jan Palach memorial on Wenceslas Square.
Demonstrations in August and November 1989
Popular indignation marks the beginning of the Velvet
Revolution.
- 21st August 1989 : Demonstrations commemorating the 21st
August 1969 occupation.
- Protest march in Bratislava on 16th November; violently
dispersed demonstration in Prague on 17th November 1989
(15 000 students, 600 wounded), on 19th November (200 000
demonstrators) and 20th November (500 000). The police
members who participated in the repression excused
themselves publically.
18 independent movements create the Obscancé Forum (Civic
Forum).
The fall of the communist regime
- 21st November 1989 : church man Francisek Tomasek
announces his support to the demonstrators
- 27th November : General Strike initiated by students
paralyses the country for two hours
- 28th November : Czechoslovakian Communist Party
announces it abandons its political power
- 5th December : barbed wires are dismantled on west
German and Austrian borders.
Photos :
- Demonstrations in Prague in November 1989
- 17th November 1989 Demonstration Memorial
The return of democracy
- 10th December 1989 : first largely non-communist
government since 1948
- 29th December 1989 : Alexander Dubcek becomes
Parliament President, Vaclav Havel is elected President
of the Republic
- June 1990 : first democratic government
- 31st December 1992 : gentle separation of Czech
Republic and Slovakia
Photos :
- Vaclav Havel, President of the Republic
- Scission of Czechoslovakia.
5 - Romania
- 2nd half of December 1989: Timisoara and
then Bucarest inhabitants, protest against
Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime.
- 16-21 December 1989: demonstrations in
Timisoara against the deportation of protestant
minister Laszlo Tökes, member of Hungarian
minority. The Securitate (secret services) shot
demonstrators, tanks intervened. On 21st
December 100 000 people demonstrated to the
sound of “We are the people! The army with
us!”
Photo : Nicolae Ceaucescu
Stronger and bigger demonstrations
- 21st December 1989 : a demonstrations organised by
the Securitate and in favour of Ceaucescu,
broadcasted on television, is transformed into a mass
protest demonstration against the regime.
After 8 minutes of presidential speech, the crowd cries
out “Timisoara”. The dictator has to stop. Public
transmission is interrupted soon after.
- 22nd December : more and more people go into the
streets, the army represses the movement,
demonstrators invade the buildings of the Communist
Party.
The end of the communist regime
Ceausescu and his wife try to leave the country and are
executed on 25th December after a fake trial.
Romania is the only eastern country in which the fall of
communism was a blood shed : 1 104 dead and 3 321
wounded. Several thousands of soldiers and civilians
died fighting among each other, each one of the groups
pretending to defend democracy against Ceausescu
dictatorship…
Conclusion
Eastern Europe communist regimes fell like dominos when
citizens stopped being afraid and collaborating with the
system.
“We got used to the totalitarian regime, we accepted it as an
eternal fact and kept it working. In other words: all of us –
naturally, each one on a different scale – are responsible of
the size reached by the totalitarian machine. No one is a
pure victim, we are all at the same time its co-founders”.
V. Havel in New Year Speech on 1st January 1990.
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