Revolutions of 1989
As revolutions in 1989, revolutions, peaceful revolution (s ), Autumn revolutions, the fall of nations or fall of communism, the changes in Central and Eastern Europe referred, led to the abolition of the local systems from 1989.
Possible triggers, along with glasnost and perestroika in the USSR, was one of the so-called Sinatra Doctrine of Mikhail Gorbachev, which the other Eastern bloc countries first time allowed to go own ways. Once in the People's Republic of Poland, the government changed, the People's Republic of Hungary from May 2, 1989, the border fences to Austria degraded, occupy GDR citizens in summer the Prague embassy and on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell, followed among others, the Velvet Revolution in the Czechoslovakia. In the following period, the Soviet Union disintegrated itself, many states gained independence.
The process is often the revolutions of 1848 compared to the European peoples spring that followed the French Revolution of February 1848.
Peaceful revolutions
The revolutions in 1989 are also referred to as the " Peaceful Revolution (s) ". There were only a few acts of violence (eg the shooting of the Romanian dictator and his wife after a brief trial ).
In the Eastern bloc since the mid- 1970s, small, irregular civil rights movements had formed that occurred with courage and awareness of democracy against the totalitarian orientation of companies. Mid-1980s, then loosened the conditions Gorbachev: he practiced glasnost and perestroika. Gorbachev called ( according to its own description ) during the funeral ceremony for his predecessor Chernenko in March 1985 the leaders of the Eastern Bloc countries to himself and made it clear to them that from now on every country of his way ( and the consequences thereof ) itself was responsible. This new doctrine was known as the " Sinatra doctrine "; thus ending the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, which Brezhnev had announced in 1968 after the suppression of the Prague Spring to justify the invasion.
It was not until 1988/1989 developed civic movements, the offensive civil and human rights demanded. Their means were often civil disobedience or symbolic actions of a small scale and short duration. As a starting point, performed in Bratislava on 25 March 1988 candles manifestation can be considered. The old state power disintegrated rapidly in Poland, Hungary, the GDR, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, the socialist system of government was abolished and changed according to the model of Western democracy and a market economy in an overall social transformation. The peaceful revolution in the GDR ended in German reunification on 3 October 1990.
The upheavals in Romania in December 1989 and in the Baltic States, where three independent states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the Soviet Union bought out again, went not without bloodshed. Compared with the events at the Hungarian 1956 Revolution can these subversions however ( relative) rate or rename as peaceful.
The ' peaceful revolution ' radiated to other revolutions in the countries of the former Soviet Union ( CIS ); but these included less closely to Western Europe.
Survey
Germany - based overview
- Monday demonstrations in 1989/1990 in the GDR from September 4, 1989
- Turn (DDR ) from 7 / October 9, 1989 ( the term " reversal " was coined by Egon Krenz in the televised speech when he took office on 18 October 1989 which was critically / added sarcastically. )
- Deposition of Erich Honecker October 17, 1989
- Demonstration at Alexanderplatz on 4 November 1989, approximately one million participants
- Freedom to travel from November 9, 1989
- Fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989
- Appeal "For our country," November 28, 1989
- Ten -point program on 28 November 1989
Regional and national initiatives in the GDR (in brackets the date of incorporation)
- Environmental Library (2 September 1986) Berlin
- Initiative for Peace and Human Rights (24 January 1986) active nationwide
- New Forum ( 9-10. September 1989 ) active nationwide
- Church of Bottom ( DDR) ( mid-1987 ), Berlin
- Human Rights Working Group Leipzig
- Green Ecological Network Ark ( January 1988)
- Village Republic Rüterberg
- Peace Bell Dessau
- Group of 20 ( Dresden)
Party -ups before and after the Revolution ( in brackets the date of incorporation)
Shortly before, or as a result of the peaceful revolution, many new parties and organizations were founded in the GDR, almost all of which later - or suffer merged today with shrinking importance - mostly with established parties of the FRG.
Selection: Democracy Now (12 September 1989), Social Democratic Party in the GDR, SDP (7 October 1989), the Green League ( as a network on November 18, 1989), the Green Party in the GDR (24 November 1989), Independent women's Association (3 December 1989), the United Left ( as a " grassroots movement " January 1990), carnations (13 January 1990), German Social Union, DSU (20 January 1990), democratic Awakening, DA ( 16-17 December. , 1989, with Angela Merkel as a press officer )
Other States
- People's Republic of Poland: (reserved 65 % of seats for the Polish United Workers' Party ( PZPR ) and the other pro-communist parties ) Round Table from 6 February to April 5, 1989, April 17, "Solidarity ", semi-free elections in the summer, 13 September. government under the new Catholic journalist Tadeusz Mazowiecki. These events in Poland, which were supported by Gorbachev, were a precursor to the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany and contributed to the demise of socialism in Eastern Europe.
- Tiananmen massacre on Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China, in June 1989, a student demonstration by special units of the People's Liberation Army violently suppressed
- Pan-European Picnic on the Austrian- Hungarian border near the town of Sopron ( Sopron ) on 19 August 1989. On the same site had previously Austrian the then Foreign Minister Alois Mock and his Hungarian counterpart Gyula Horn on 27 June 1989 jointly cut the border fence to to underline the May 2, begun in 1989 by Miklós Németh degradation of surveillance systems by Hungary. On September 10, the present in Hungary GDR citizens were allowed the free departure.
- People's Republic of Bulgaria November 10, 1989, Todor Zhivkov ouster of
- In the Socialist Republic of Romania, the revolution of 1989, in contrast to the other countries a violent overthrow
- The Velvet Revolution in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in November and December 1989
- The Singing Revolution in the Baltic Soviet republics Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic with the aim of restoring the independence of the three countries