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Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Revolution (Czech: Sametová revoluce) or Gentle Revolution (Slovak: Nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.[3]

This article is about the event in Czechoslovakia. For other uses, see Velvet Revolution (disambiguation).

Velvet Revolution

17 November – 29 December 1989

Main phase: 17 – 28 November 1989

Collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia

On 17 November 1989 (International Students' Day), riot police suppressed a student demonstration in Prague.[4] The event marked the 50th anniversary of a violently suppressed demonstration against the Nazi storming of Prague University in 1939 where 1,200 students were arrested and 9 killed (see Origin of International Students' Day). The 1989 event sparked a series of demonstrations from 17 November to late December and turned into an anti-communist demonstration. On 20 November, the number of protesters assembled in Prague grew from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated 500,000. The entire top leadership of the Communist Party, including General Secretary Miloš Jakeš, resigned on 24 November. On 27 November, a two-hour general strike involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia was held.


In response to the collapse of other Warsaw Pact governments and the increasing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on 28 November that it would relinquish power and end the one-party state. Two days later, the federal parliament formally deleted the sections of the Constitution giving the Communist Party a monopoly of power. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. On 10 December, President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on 28 December and Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989.


In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections[5] since 1946. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.


The dissolution of Czechoslovakia occurred mainly due to national governance issues between the Slovaks and Czechs (the two major ethnicities comprising the former Czechoslovakia).

Prior to the revolution[edit]

The Communist Party seized power on 25 February 1948. No official opposition parties operated thereafter. Dissidents (notably Charter 77 and Civic Forum) created Music Clubs (on a limited basis as only allowed NGOs) and published home-made periodicals (samizdat). Charter 77 was quashed by the government and its signed members were persecuted until the fall of the regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, with the advent of the Civic Forum, independence could truly be seen on the horizon. Until Independence Day on 17 November 1989, the populace faced persecution by the authorities from the secret police. Thus, the general public did not openly support the dissidents for fear of dismissal from work or school. Writers or filmmakers could have their books or films banned for a "negative attitude towards the socialist regime". They also did not allow Czechs and Slovaks to travel to other non-communist countries. Following this they banned music from foreign countries. This blacklisting included children of former entrepreneurs or non-Communist politicians, having family members living in the West, having supported Alexander Dubček during the Prague Spring, opposing Soviet military occupation, promoting religion, boycotting (rigged) parliamentary elections or signing Charter 77 or associating with those who did. These rules were easy to enforce, as all schools, media and businesses belonged to the state. They were under direct supervision and often were used as accusatory weapons against rivals.


The nature of blacklisting changed gradually after the introduction of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) in 1985. The Czechoslovak Communist leadership verbally supported Perestroika, but made few changes. Speaking about the Prague Spring of 1968 was taboo. The first anti-government demonstrations occurred in 1988 (the Candle Demonstration, for example) and 1989, but these were dispersed and participants were repressed by the police.


By the late 1980s, discontent with living standards and economic inadequacy gave way to popular support for economic reform. Citizens began to challenge the system more openly. By 1989, citizens who had been complacent were willing to openly express their discontent with the regime. Numerous important figures as well as ordinary workers signed petitions in support of Václav Havel during his imprisonment in 1989.


Already in early 1989, the first signs of thawing relations began to appear between Communist Czechoslovakia and Israel, with meetings held on shared issues, including Jewish religious freedom, the memory of the Holocaust and ties of remaining Czechoslovak Jews with the Diaspora, including the strong Jewish community in the United States.[6]


Reform-minded attitudes were also reflected by the many individuals who signed a petition that circulated in the summer of 1989 calling for the end of censorship and the beginning of fundamental political reform.[7]


The immediate impetus for the revolution came from developments in neighbouring countries and in the Czechoslovak capital. From August, East German citizens had occupied the West German Embassy in Prague and demanded exile to West Germany. In the days following 3 November, thousands of East Germans left Prague by train to West Germany. On 9 November, the Berlin Wall fell, removing the need for the detour.


By 16 November, many of Czechoslovakia's neighbours were beginning to shed authoritarian rule. The citizens of Czechoslovakia watched these events on TV through both foreign and domestic channels. The Soviet Union also supported a change in the ruling elite of Czechoslovakia, although it did not anticipate the overthrow of the Communist regime.

Chronology[edit]

16 November[edit]

On the eve of International Students Day (the 50th anniversary of Sonderaktion Prag, the 1939 storming of Prague universities by the Nazis), Slovak high school and university students organised a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Bratislava. The Communist Party of Slovakia had expected trouble, and the mere fact that the demonstration was organised was viewed as a problem by the Party. Armed forces were put on alert before the demonstration. In the end, however, the students moved through the city peacefully and sent a delegation to the Slovak Ministry of Education to discuss their demands.

External factors[edit]

The events of November 1989 confirmed that outside factors were significant catalysts for the downfall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. Therefore, the transformations in Poland and Hungary and the collapse of the regime in East Germany, both of which could be traced to the new attitude of the Soviets toward East Europe, encouraged Czechs and Slovaks to take to the streets to win their freedom. However, national factors, including the economic and political crisis and the actions of groups and individuals working towards a transformation, destabilised support for the system.[19]


Relations with the US and Israel began to change in early 1989, with ties warming up, and meetings and negotiations being held on various open issues. All sides involved had a strategic interest in an improvement of ties, and the treatment of Jews and the Jewish heritage and Holocaust memory was one of the litmus tests for the success of the overall rapprochement.[24]

Pace of change[edit]

The State's reaction to the strikes demonstrated that while global isolation produced pressures for political, social, and economic change, the events that followed could not be predetermined. Hardly anyone thought that the Communist State could collapse so quickly. Striking students and theatres did not seem likely to intimidate a state that was able to suppress any sort of demonstration. This "popular" phase of the revolution, was followed by victories made possible by the Civic Forum's successful mobilisation for the general strike on 27 November, which established its legitimacy to speak for the nation in negotiations with the state.[8] The mass demonstrations that followed 17 November led to the resignation of the Party leadership of Miloš Jakeš, the removal of the Party from its leading role and the creation of the non-Communist government. Supporters of the revolution had to take instant responsibility for running the government, in addition to establishing essential reforms in political organisation and values, economic structure and policies and foreign policy.[25]

Jingled keys[edit]

One element of the demonstrations of the Velvet Revolution was the jingling of keys to signify support. The practice had a double meaning – it symbolized the unlocking of doors[26][27] and was the demonstrators' way of telling the Communists, "Goodbye, it's time to go home."[21]


A commemorative 2 Euro coin was issued by Slovakia on 17 November 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary. The coin depicts a bell with a key adjoining the clapper.[28] Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a short story, "Unlocking the Air", in which the jingling of keys played a central role in the liberation of a fictional country called Orsinia.

and Public Against Violence (political movements that played major role in the revolution)

Civic Forum

(peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia a few years later in 1993)

Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Eastern Bloc emigration and defection

Civil resistance

Revolutions of 1989

Monday demonstrations in East Germany

Armenian Velvet Revolution

Georgian Rose Revolution

Ukrainian Orange Revolution

Civilian-based defense

Kukral, Michael Andrew. Prague 1989: Theater of Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press. 1997.  0-88033-369-3.

ISBN

We the People: The Revolution of '89, Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (Cambridge, 1990).

Timothy Garton Ash

Marek Benda, Martin Benda, Martin Klíma, Pavel Dobrovský, Monika Pajerová, and , Studenti psali revoluci (Students wrote the revolution -in Czech). Prague: Univerzum, 1990. ISBN 80-85207-02-8.

Šimon Pánek

Tauchen, Jaromír – Schelle, Karel etc.: The Process of Democratization of Law in the Czech Republic (1989–2009). Rincon (USA), The American Institute for Central European Legal Studies 2009. 204 pp.  978-0-615-31580-5.

ISBN

Wein, Martin J.. A History of Czechs and Jews: A Slavic Jerusalem. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis Limited, 2019, chapter 6 on Jews and the Velvet Revolution

[5]

Williams, Kieran, 'Civil Resistance in Czechoslovakia: From Soviet Invasion to "Velvet Revolution", 1968–89,' in and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-955201-6.

Adam Roberts

Detailed documentation, textual and visual, of the Velvet Revolution partly in English.

Velvet Revolution on web project of Institute of Contemporary History, Prague

The Velvet Philosophical Revolution, City Journal, Winter 2010

Detailed day-to-day history with key documents quoted (in Czech only). Shortened version was used as a source for Chronology above.

Velvet Revolution on totalita.cz

A shortened version of the Velvet Revolution.

Velvet Revolution on Prague-life

In the footsteps of November 17 – Czech.cz

dialogue between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik, English, salon.eu.sk, November 2008

After the Velvet, the Existential Revolution?

An oratorio based on the events of the Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Oratorio

at the Wayback Machine (archived 9 November 2020) English translation of an authentic diary of a student participating in the revolution plus scans of US articles from that time

Velvet Revolution Diary