Velvet Revolution – World History – Free PDF Download

1989 REVOLUTIONS

• The Revolutions of 1989 formed part of a revolutionary wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
• The events of the full-blown revolution began in Poland in 1989 and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
• One feature common to most of these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance, demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to the pressure for change.

COMMUNISM

• The Communist Party seized power on 25 February 1948. No official opposition parties operated thereafter.. They also didn’t allow Czechs and Slovaks to travel to other non-communist countries.
• The nature of blacklisting changed gradually after the introduction of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) in 1985.
• The first anti-government demonstrations occurred in 1988 and 1989, but these were dispersed and participants were repressed by the police.
• The immediate impetus for the revolution came from developments in neighbouring countries and in the Czechoslovak capital. On 9 November, 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, removing the need for the detour.

THE BEGINNING

• On the eve of International Students Day Slovak high school and university students organised a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Bratislava.
• The Socialist Union of Youth (SSM/SZM, proxy of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) organised a mass demonstration on 17 November.
• Theatres in Bratislava, Brno, Ostrava and other towns went on strike. Members of artistic and literary associations as well as organisations and institutions joined the strike.

NOVEMBER

• Students and theatres went on “permanent” strike. Civic Forum added a demand: the abolition of the “ruling position” of the Communist Party from the Constitution.
• The first mass demonstration in Prague (100,000 people) and the first demonstrations in Bratislava occurred.
• The first official meeting of the Civic Forum with the Prime Minister took place. The Prime Minister agreed to personally guarantee that no violence would be used against the people.

REVOLUTION

• A separate demonstration demanded the release of the political prisoner Ján Čarnogurský (later Prime Minister of Slovakia) in front of the Palace of Justice.
• Alexander Dubček addressed this demonstration— his first appearance during the Velvet Revolution. As a result, Čarnogurský was released on 23 November Further demonstrations followed in all major cities of Czechoslovakia.
• For the first time during the Velvet Revolution, the “radical” demand to abolish the article of the Constitution.

REVOLUTION

• On 27 November successful two-hour general strike led by the civic movements strengthened what were at first a set of moderate demands into cries for a new government.
• The strike took place throughout the country between 12:00 and 14:00, supported by a reported 75% of the population.
• The Ministry of Culture released anti-Communist literature for public checkouts in libraries, effectively ending decades of censorship. The civic movements mobilised support for the general strike.

REVOLUTION

• On 29 November The Federal Assembly deleted the provision in the constitution referring to the “leading role” of the Communist Party, officially ending Communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
• On 10 December President Gustáv Husák swore in the first government in 41 years that was not dominated by the Communist Party. He resigned shortly afterward.

AFTERMATH

• The victory of the revolution was topped off by the election of rebel playwright and human rights activist Václav Havel as President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989.
• The Dissolution of Czechoslovakia which took effect on 1 January 1993, was the self-determined split of the federal republic of Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
• It is sometimes known as the Velvet Divorce, a reference to the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989.

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