The 1989 Revolutions in Retrospect

Abstract

Reminding us of the failure of academia to predict the East European revolutions, and the challenges presented by the latter to the theories of revolution, the essay claims that in order to understand why the exit from communism comprised so many varied modes, one should take a ‘path-dependence’ diachronic and synchronic comparative perspective. Based on this dual approach and a set of variables, the essay advances a typology of East European revolutions and argues that the issues regarding the type of political regime, the development of civil society and its way of interacting with the state are of paramount importance for comprehending how the ‘negotiated revolutions’ in Central Europe came about. Finally, the significance of the Central European civil society strategy under late communism for the era of globalisation is addressed.

Notes

¹ The reason for referring to the Yugoslav case as one involving partial violence is that I consider the break-up of Yugoslavia, which entailed prolonged wars, a separate phenomenon from the exit from Communism.

² See also Brown (2007, pp. 157–90). Indeed, the ‘negotiated revolutions’ in Poland and Hungary were the combined outcome of the basically post-totalitarian and reformist features of the Polish and Hungarian late Communist regimes and the non-violent change strategy proposed by the former Central European dissidents. Arguing the need for non-violent, rather than violent change, the former Central European dissidents were taking into consideration not only geopolitical constraints (fear that violent protest could precipitate Soviet intervention), but also ‘a moral dimension, including a desire to expose the systematic falsity of communist party regimes’ (Roberts & Ash 2009, p. 32). Self-limited and focused on incremental change from below, whether in the form of the civil society's ‘self-defence’ and ‘self-management’ (Jacek Kurón), ‘new evolutionism’ (Adam Michnik), ‘parallel polis’ (Václav Benda), ‘power of the powerless’ (Václav Havel), ‘anti-politics’ (György Konrád) or ‘new social contract’ (János Kis), this strategy successfully cleared the way and prepared the ground for the Central European ‘negotiated revolutions’ of 1989.