Paul Seary Case

On Wednesday, 20 November 2013, Paul Seary wrote:
Despite decades of often brutal repression, the eventual transition out of communism was generally peaceful throughout east central Europe. Discuss why this was the case and identify why it was not in those states and regions where conflict did arise.

‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet Sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence
Along the Baltic Coast, more than 500,000 workers downed tools in protest. In Gdansk, in the Lenin shipyard , a female activist was sacked and Lech Walesa , a former worker at the shipyard, who had been sacked four years before for trade union activities ,persuaded the workers to form an inter-factory strike committee under his chairmanship – and thus Solidarity was formed.’ When Jaruzelski imposed martial law and Solidarity was driven underground, between 1981 and 1984, it emerged even stronger and more militant . In 1989 a historic deal was done between Jaruzelski and Walesa which paved the way for the first democratic elections in the communist bloc in 45 years. Months later, in Warsaw, on Sunday June 4th 1989, victory was assured. ‘It was clear that a revolution had taken place within the Soviet Empire and it had happened peacefully, in the polling booths of Poland. Nobody expected the overwhelming scale of the Communists’ defeat – it was total humiliation for the Party that had ruled Poland for more than 40 years.’(3) Jaruzelski was furious and he blamed the Catholic Church for hastening the demise of the ruling regime but in truth the party had outlived itself and was disintegrating . Many within the party realised that this was more than just an election defeat – ‘it was the end of an age’.
‘The best managed of these transitions was the Hungarian one where, almost until the end of 1989, the local ruling party managed to control the process. Hungary’s communists were well aware of the growing crisis of authority. The younger better educated membership looked to recast the basis on which the party exercised its authority by seeking an alliance with political traditions outside the party – especially nationalism. Pozsgay and nationalist intellectuals founded the country’s first non-communist organisation since 1956.....by Spring 1989, Hungary’s Communists were formally committed to a multi- party system and the introduction of a market economy to replace the socialist economic system...At the same time, an increasingly organised opposition grew in strength – they brought 150,000 people on to the streets of Budapest on March 15th, 1989, the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution. They were increasingly unified, forming an opposition round table and demanding negotiations with the government over the nature and timing of democratic transition- negotiations that began in the summer and which had led by September to basic agreement over most of the details of Hungary’s transition.