TruthNews

Blood And Velvet In Eastern Europe’s Season Of Change

Michael Hirshman and Ron Synovitz
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 5, 2009

It was a tumultuous year in world history -- a year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism across much of Eastern Europe.

The revolutions of 1989 -- some peaceful and some violent, some popular revolts and some orchestrated within the Communist Party leadership -- cast aside Europe's Cold War dictators, paving the way for democracy and the free-market reforms of the 1990s.

It was June 12, 1987, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan stood at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the wall dividing the city between the Soviet East and the democratic West.

Gorbachev that same month introduced the political and economic reforms of perestroika in an attempt to rejuvenate the Communist Party. East European leaders learned they could no longer depend on Soviet tanks to suppress their political opponents.

Looking back 20 years later, Gorbachev tells RFE/RL he has no regrets about the decisions he and the Soviet leadership made at that time. He says his decisions were made in the interests Russia, the Germans, Europe, and the whole world:

Gorbachev says that people in Russia ask him how he could have given up Soviet control. "But what did I give up? When I answer that way, people don't know how to answer," he says.

"What did I give up? Poland to the Poles. Czechoslovakia to the Czechs and the Slovaks. And so on. To whom did [those lands] belong? 'No!' people say -- they still don't agree. But [letting the Soviet bloc go] made life easier for our country. In that sense, how Russia acted shouldn't be the subject of debate."

The Wall Came Tumbling Down

East Germany's communist regime started to falter in May 1989 when Hungary created a hole in the Iron Curtain, eventually allowing tens of thousands of East Germans to pass to the West through Austria. Thousands took refuge in West German embassies in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw.

The flood of migrants accelerated after September 10, 1989, when Hungary granted official permission for East German refugees to exit to the West. Czechoslovakia and Poland passed comparable agreements in October 1989.

Many see the turning point of East Germany's "Peaceful Revolution" as October 9, 1989. That's when East German police abandoned plans to forcibly disperse a massive, peaceful demonstration in Leipzig.

Gorbachev had just visited East Germany's hard-line communist leader, Erich Honecker, to push him to accept perestroika reforms. From then on, with daily protests of more than 1 million people in Leipzig and East Berlin, Honecker's days in office were numbered. He resigned on October 18, claiming poor health:

Egon Krenz took over from Honecker. But he was ineffective against the mass protests, and could not hold back East German emigration to the West through Czechoslovakia.

On November 9, the East German government decided to open its borders to West Germany and West Berlin. The announcement was made by Gunter Schabowski, a member of the East German Politburo:

When asked by a Western journalist when the regulation would take effect, Schabowski quickly scanned the legal document and said: "This has become effective, to my knowledge. It's now. Immediately. Without delay."

Schabowski's answer was premature. The law said East Germans were required to apply for a special visa and wait at least one day before they could go West.

Without knowing about the requirement to get a visa from their own government, tens of thousands of East Berliners flocked to border crossings and discovered unprepared police who would not let them through. As the size and anger of the crowds increased, some border police chiefs decided to open the gets and let people through:

The Berlin Wall had fallen. Within a year, East and West Germany would be reunified.