2. Major Mass Eastern European Bloc Uprisings 1945 - 1988
Where When What Outcome
Hungary Autumn, 1956 Small revolution against Intervention by Soviet troops, roll-
Stalinist-like authority back of reforms, repression
Czechoslovakia Spring-Summer Liberalization of society Intervention by Soviet troops, roll-
1968 and political system, non- back of reforms, repression
violent public
demonstrations
Poland December 1970 Strikes and demonstrations Polish authorities use violence to end
(also 1976) against rise in food prices the uprising
Romania August 1977 Miners in Jiu Valley protest Romanian authorities use Securitate
low (and non-existent) pay agents to identify and arrest the
and poor working leaders of the opposition, many
conditions workers were fired, and promised
reforms reneged
Poland August 1980 Strikes against proposed Polish authorities declare Martial Law
raise in food prices and until 1983
poor work conditions start
in Gdansk shipyards, spread
throughout country, creation
of Solidarinosc
3. Themes from Mass Uprisings Against the
Communist System
-- Working class protest and the desire of workers to
form trade unions independent of the Communist
Party,
-- Liberalization and proposed political reforms met
with harsh resistance by authorities within the
country and by the Soviet Union,
-- The constant threat of Soviet military intervention.
“history of resistance”
4. The Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe 1989: A Timeline
January
September
February Poland: non-Communist government
Poland: roundtable talks
October
March Hungary: Communist party re-names
itself as Socialist Party, becomes non-
April Communist
Czechoslovakia: Velvet Revolution begins
May
November
June East Germany: Fall of Berlin Wall
Poland: Elections Bulgaria: Protests (Communist
government falls in January 1990)
July
December
August Romania: Violent revolution, Ceasescu
„arrested” and executed on Christmas
Day.
5. Theories of the Social Change of 1989
Reagan Won Cold War
Gorbachev Effect/Liberalization Theory
Failure of Socialist Economy
6. What does the fall of communism in 1989 mean geographically?
Dissolution of states means that they disappear from current maps:
-The Soviet Union does not exist anymore; Russia is the only formal
successor of the USSR.
-Czechoslovakia no longer is a political entity; we have the Czech
Republic and Slovakia.
-Yugoslavia divided into Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia
- The German Democratic Republic was incorporated into the
Federal Republic of Germany, and on the map we have simply
Germany.
7.
8.
9. "People here feel a real schizophrenia... No one wants to go back to the days
of dictatorship, but at the same time we're not really happy with the new
system. It's full of challenges for which we were totally unprepared... From a
purely economic standpoint things are definitely better than before, although
far too many of our people have lost their jobs. But even those who have jobs
and have cars and take nice vacations are worried about what is happening to
our society. Brutal competition and the lust for money are destroying our
sense of community. Almost everyone feels a level of fear or depression or
insecurity.„ -- Rev. Christian Fuhrer of Germany, 1994
"No one on either side of the wall had any idea how far apart we had grown
in 40 years...Only now are we beginning to understand it. I can tell you that
if West Germany had absorbed Italy or France, the problems would have
been far less than they are with the absorption of East Germany... Imagine if
the United States, overnight, had to adopt the entire Chinese bureaucratic,
legal, political and economic system... That gives you an idea of how
traumatic the change has been over here." -- Heinrich Lehmann-Grube,
Mayor of Leipzig, Germany, 1994
