1989:  the Year of Liberation           

•         Perestroika and glasnost along with growing economic hardships fed a rising tide of popular discontent among the Eastern Bloc countries that would lead to a new era in Easter Europe: 

•   POLAND:  In 1980 workers under the leadership of an electrician named Lech Walesa formed an independent labor union called Solidarity which pressed for free elections (Solidarity represented 10 million of Poland's 35 million workers!). General Wojciech Jaruzelski established a military dictatorship in December 1981 and arrested Solidarity leaders including Lech Walesa.  With a stagnating economy and a lack of popular support in a public referendum in November of 1987, he ended his military dictatorship by August of 1988 and started a civilian government with Walesa re-entering the political scene. Western business was allowed in Poland and Walesa pleaded on television for political pluralism and freedom with the backing of the Catholic Church.  By January of 1989 Solidarity was legalized.  In April 1989 the United Polish Workers Party (Communists) gave up its monopoly of political power, and Solidarity won the first free election which led to the formation of a noncommunist government in September 1989.
• By the end of 1989 Poland had a free press and lively political debate.  Although it was an economic     basket case, in 1990 a radical policy of quickly introducing a full-fledged market economy was started. Unfortunately, inflation has soared, along with the cost of living and unemployment.  Yet in December 1990 Lech Walesa was elected the president of Poland.  "But Poland's new path was not an easy one. Rapid free market reforms led to severe unemployment and popular discontent, and in November 1995, Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former communist, defeated Walesa and became the new Polish President" (Spiel.4^th Ed. 886).

• HUNGARY: May 1989 the Communist bureaucracy was abolished and by the end of the year a multiparty system (50 parties!) was in place. Although escaping from Soviet domination and embracing the ideals of democracy and free enterprise, Hungary also suffers from economic woes (despite generous help from the West).
•  
• EAST GERMANY:  From the beginning there was resistance to the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture in East Germany so that by June 1953 workers of East Berlin staged an uprising that gained some concessions. But the flow of skilled manpower to West Germany was so enormous that 3 million people left via West Berlin before the infamous Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961.
• Under the leadership of Erich Honecker (since the early '70s) the East Germans did enjoy the highest standard of living in the Soviet bloc. In 1972 détente opened diplomatic relations with West Germany and promoted closer economic ties so that East Germany became an indirect beneficiary of the European Community.
• Still in 1989 340,000 people escaped to West Germany across the recently opened borders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia (popular unrest was partly fueled by the continual economic slump of the 1980s and by the ongoing oppressiveness of Honecker's regime).  By the fall of 1989 with large numbers protesting in the streets, Honecker's colleagues deposed him on October 18 to no avail--the protests intensified until on November 6 almost a million antigovernment demonstrators in East Berlin resulted in a resignation of the government and on November 9 the Berlin Wall began to be torn down!  By October 3, 1990 East Germany was reunified with West Germany 

•   BULGARIA: Seeing the fall of the Berlin Wall and realizing the tide freedom sweeping the Eastern bloc was not in his favor, Zhivkov voluntarily resigned his dictatorship and by mid-December 1989 a multiparty system was installed in Bulgaria.
•  
•   ROMANIA:  Despite Ceausescu's attempts at economic improvement by building new agrotowns which he began in 1988 by leveling peasant villages, brutally suppressing all opposition in gross violation of human rights (e.g., ordering his soldiers to shoot into a crowd of antigovernment demonstrators in the town of Timisoara on December 17), mass demonstrations began in Bucharest on December 21, and by December 25 he and his wife were tried and executed after his army turned against him.
•  
•   CZECHOSLOVAKIA: In early 1989 antigovernment demonstrations escalated, alternating with government repression; a leading dissident writer, Vaclav Havel, was jailed.  But by November 24, after protests intensified, Havel was released and became the leader of the opposition Civic Forum.  The Communist leaders resigned. 
•   "After brief intermediary maneuvering among the Communist party and the Civic Forum, Havel, the articulate and outspoken advocate of democratic government, was chosen president of Czechoslovakia on December 25” (Perry 4th ed., 848).
• "Czechs and Slovaks disagreed over the makeup of the new state, but were able to agree to a peaceful division of the country. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Vaclav Havel was elected the first president of the new Czech Republic" (Spiel.4^th Ed. 887).

•   YUGOSLAVIA: "From its beginning in 1919, Yugoslavia had been an artificial creation. After World War II, the dictatorial Tito had managed to hold the six republics and two autonomous provinces that constituted Yugoslavia together.  After his death in 1980, no strong leader emerged, and his responsibilities passed to a collective stated presidency and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.  At the end of the 1980s, Yugoslavia was caught up in the reform movements sweeping through Eastern Europe” (Spiel.4^th Ed. 890). Under Tito Yugoslavia was less rigidly controlled than the Soviet satellites:  workers' councils were in charge of industrial enterprises expected to make a profit; 84% of the land was cultivated by private farmers, and there were close trade relations with Western Europe and the International Monetary Fund was loaning money.
• After Tito's death in 1980 the centralized government was further weakened with rotation of leadership.  Meanwhile Western influence had incited the desire for self-determination among ethnic minorities [Slovenes and Croatians (western Slavs) vs. Serbs (eastern Slavs); Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Muslim clergy denouncing Communist atheism.] and intensified economic discontent.
• Turmoil in 1988 led to the resignation of the government, but the new Communist government could not prevent the republic of Slovenia from declaring itself a sovereign state with Croatia moving in the same direction. By December 26 (shocked by the news of events in Rumania and Czechoslovakia) the Central Committee of the Communist party suggested the formation of a multiparty system.  In January 1990, this was adopted by the entire party.  Then ethnic fighting broke out and Yugoslavia broke up into: Slovenia, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Macedonia, and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (which includes the Serb Republic).

• THUS ALL OF EASTERN EUROPE HAD OVERTHROWN ITS COMMUNIST REGIMES IN A SINGLE YEAR (except Albania which would have its free elections in February 1991). So there was a pattern of events that lead to the spread of freedom all over the Communist bloc:
•  
• 1) Gorbachev had been willing to let the satellite peoples go their own way.
•  
• 2) Under the leadership of intellectuals and clergy, the people were united against foreign domination and economic misery, which contrasted so visibly with the prosperity of Western Europe.
•  
• 3) Like Gorbachev, the communist rulers had lost confidence in their Marxist-Leninist ideology
•  
• 4) The evidence of progress under freedom and democracy in the West was irrefutable (which heightened expectations beyond anything Communist regimes could offer)

• Problems after 1989:
•  
• 1) Economies can not be turned around immediately; all Eastern European countries are still facing the chaos of rising inflation, plummeting production, unemployment and shortages of staple foods--will the people be patient enough or will they succumb to demagogues?
•  
• 2) Many of these countries contain ethnic groups who are demanding self-determination and civil wars are occurring (esp. Yugoslavia--between Serbians and Croatians--and the Soviet Union).
• So, "While freedom in the West has tended to build bridges between different groups, in Eastern Europe it has stressed parochial self-assertion and led to bitter divisions by ethnicity, religion, or culture, resulting in anarchy and violence. Foreseeing much trouble, people are tempted to seek more peaceful opportunities further west, draining their lands of talent and enterprise. As in the Soviet Union, the future looks grim” (Perry 4th ed., 849).