Talk:Revolutions of 1989

An entry from Autumn of Nations, now merged into Revolutions of 1989 appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 3 April, 2006.

Wikipedia

Comments about a premerge Revolutions of 1989 article

Moved from Talk:Revolutions of 1989, now a redirect.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Article needs restructuring

Although a lot of good content has been posted in this article, the structure that seems to be taking shape here is problematic. The current country-by-country list tends to oversimplify matters. It disregards the fact that there is still considerable discussion and debate about the meaning of events in 1989 and to what extent they were interconnected. As the events were going on, the leading participants in these conflicts were outlining a debate that is only now beginning to drawn up in clear categories among historians and scholars in other fields. The leading anticommunist politicians of Europe, including Thatcher, Kohl, Havel, and Walesa, saw the events as clearly interconnected, with Eastern Europeans finally standing up to communism and overthrowing it. Thatcher considered "the fall of communism" a triumph of freedom and capitalism, which became the prevailing view in Britain and the United States. In Russia, however, Gorbachev, among many others, has accused Western leaders of writing a victor's history, triumphalism, and even Bolshevik-style rhetoric owing to a narrow ideology.

In the decade after 1989, accounts of the events in the West have generally reflected the views of the key actors who had participated in them, but a much more nuanced picture is emerging among historians and scholars in other fields. There is debate on who were the major protagonists in these "revolutions." Were they popular or elite revolutions? What should we mean by "revolution?" What gave the "revolutions" their particular character? Or was there even a particular character encompassing all of them? On a broader level, how should we categorize these revolutions and what factors do they share with revolutions of the past?

The consensus among academic Soviet specialists is that as important as the 1989 "revolutions" in Eastern Europe were, the events were linked to a breakdown of Communist rule in the Soviet Union. This breakdown was a much longer, more involved process explained by various factors internal to the Soviet system, relations between the Soviet Union and the East European countries, and the international political and economic context. As another example, specialists on democracy offer a somewhat different account. To them the "revolutions" of 1989 were subsumed under a much larger wave of democratization that started in Southern Europe in the 1970s and then swept through Latin America, and into the Soviet bloc, culminating in the "revolutions" of 1989, which is a thesis most popularly associated with Samuel P. Huntington.

I am not seeking to minimize the importance of any of these events in Eastern Europe or question speaking in terms of this category. But since the term "revolutions of 1989" was a neologism hardly more than a decade ago, with a scholarly literature only beginning to crystallize very recently, there is no way for this article to keep its current structure without inadvertently adopting many assumptions that are still getting sorted out by historians, social scientists, and even the participants in the events themselves. Thus, this article should not be an almanac-style chronology, assuming that any such event was indeed a "revolution" and indeed connected with all the other "revolutions" in 1989 (which brings us into very slippery ground with respect to WP:NOR and WP:NPOV), but rather an article on the discourse and various interpretations of the events of 1989. 172 | Talk 20:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Clearly the article needs an overall discussion section and perhaps one detailing the academic controversy. But the governments in question did change, and that's encyclopedic. This article provides a necessary overview to the process, and should cover the factual side. The "meaning" of the revolutions is a social analysis which is separate from documenting the transfer of power. --Dhartung | [[User talk:Dhartung|Talk]] 07:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

But the governments in question did change, and that's encyclopedic. Sure. I'd just add to the above that the distinction between the "factual side" and the "social analysis" is not so clear cut. Analysis and editorial judgment always underpin the presentation of all facts. An infinite amount of information can be provided on any subject, but we always make a judgment on what to include or exclude. The way in which we go about 'documenting the transfer of power', as you put it, is implicitly a social analysis of meaning in and of itself. On one hand, if the article is structured along the lines of a country-by-country chronology of the dramatic events unfolding in the Eastern European capitals in 1989, as it is now, the implicit assumption is that the events are clearly interconnected, with the agents of change each time being Eastern Europeans who finally stood up to Communism and overthrew it. On the other hand, if the narrative is a chronology of the shifts in Kremlin policy on Eastern Europe under Gorbachev, the events start to look less like a series of global "revolutions"; instead, they start looking like the dramatic aftershocks of the effects on power relations between the Soviet Union and the East European countries caused by the breakdown of the Communist regime in Moscow, and more explicable by factors internal to the Soviet system. So, we have two plausible organizations for on this topic that leave us dramatically different impressions of what was going on. In this sense the organization of the article is "analysis" in and of itself. Moreover, there is the problem that drafting a country-by-country chronology under the heading of "revolutions" of 1989 means that Wikipedia is explicitly classifying the events as all part of the same "revolution." Of course a series of 'regimes changed' in 1989; but a series of 'regimes change' every year. Nor is any 'change in a regime' necessarily a revolution. In short, since the concept of "revolutions of 1989" is still on the murky side, the most neutral organizational structure possible on this subject is one putting the discourse and perspectives on the events at the center of its focus, while moving the chronology to the various timelines on 1989 and pages related to contemporary Eastern European history. 172 08:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Peaceful revolutions?

The Autumn of Nations begun in Poland[3]. and sparked similar peaceful revolutions in Germany), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

I don't think the Romanian revolution was peaceful. --Candide, or Optimism 01:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point - added the qualifier 'mostly'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The term

Who coined the term Autumn of Nations? --BillC 12:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

And how much currency does it have? Seems to me like someone's neolgism that didn't catch (233 Google hits), and hence a poor title for an article. In any case, I've done my best at cleanup, but perhaps this should be merged into Revolutions of 1989? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Huh, good find. Revolutions of 1989 is certainly more popular (40k for Google, and hundreds of books). But as it was poorly linked from other Wikipedia articles, I must have missed it when I was looking for interwiki for the Polish article - so I translated it using the terms in it (which as you can see are supported by some citations, and on the sidenote the revolutions article is completly unreferenced). I agree we should merge both articles, probably under the 'revolutions' title - although I'd appreciate it if this (or merged?) article could still go for DYK.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 23:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Can't really do DYK unless it's new (and you can't get there by writing a second article on the same topic: if I used smilies, I'd put one here). - Jmabel | Talk 04:13, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought we were going to put the merged article at Revolutions of 1989 beause Autumn of Nations doesn't really have that much currency… - Jmabel | Talk 20:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

So did I. Should we move it back then?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I certainly think so. In fact, I will. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I have now merged the articles (and the histories, which didn't happen last time). It should now all be back together here, like a "normal" article. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Umm, how do one merges history of articles? That's a useful trick to know.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You have to be an admin; it involves a series of deletions, moves and restorations. Frankly, it's tedious and error-prone. The best explanation is at Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves, but I still occasionally mess it up. - Jmabel | Talk 00:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I am an admin :) Tnx for the link, I'll check it out. We are always learning, aren't we? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Citation for Spring of Nations

Can someone come up with a better citation for "Spring of Nations"? Of course the term is common, so it should be easy to find something, but as far as I can tell it is not used at all on the cited page. - Jmabel | Talk 22:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Collapse of the Soviet Union

In this section, can we re-write the image caption, please? While it is factually correct, in the picture it looks like Yeltsin is accusing Gorbachev, not the other way around. I am not sure what would be better wording, so I'm leaving it as is for now. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 12:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Autumn of Nations

The expression "Autumn of Nations" has simply not gained traction. Outside of Wikipedia and its mirrors, it does not even get 100 Google hits. I am strongly inclined to remove it from the article. The analogy to an inverse of the "Spring of Nations" is weak, at best: after all, it's not as if in '89 a bunch of nations were swallowed up by an empire. It's pretty much a neologism, and I don't think it should be here. - Jmabel | Talk 04:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Over 10 notable publications vote 'keep' :) Seriously, if it's good enough for a notable scholar like Arend Lijphart, it's good enough for us.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you please add the three of these you consider the most significant to the article as citations? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 02:19, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The term didn't catch up: compare 13 Google scholar hits versus 1,300 hits for "revolutions of 1989". IMO it should be deleted, not every failed neologism is WP notable. Pavel Vozenilek 00:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

As Google is scanning more books, now the search yelds 25 publications. I think that's notble enough for an inclusion.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

These books have hundredths of pages and mention many trivialities. Neologisms should be accepted on WP if they really catch on as a recognizable symbols. Pavel Vozenilek 16:10, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

At this time, I recommend against inclusion of this term. It has simply not gained widespread usage. And it is not the place of Wikipedia or its editors to campaign for such. Unschool 21:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Not the fall of communism but the fall of stalinism

Technically, it is incorrect to call these events "the collapse of communism" or the "overthrowing of communist states" becouse there was no communism or even socialism for that matter in the first place. It should be called "the collapse of Stalinism". More precicely, it was the last phase of the stalinist counter-revolution wich was initiated in the USSR in the mid 1920's. The bureaucratic upper caste transformed itself into the new bourgeoisie (capitalist class) in the events of 1989. Ocrouse, parts of the old stalinist caste wanted to keep their bonapartist position, and they offered resistance to the other parts of the bureaucratic caste.

It should also be noted that the working class, wich was a significant force in these revolutions, were in the first place fed up with the stalinist regime. The revolutionairy wave was initiated by them, but this wave did not at all have the aim to restore capitalism. It was just aimed against the stalinist bureaucracy. The revolution could well have turned into a political revolution as was argued for by Leon Trotsky. Wich means that the working class would reclaim the power and controll over the means of production and the planned economy, and thus be on the way to socialism again. However, the bureaucracy saw the direction of the movement, and parts of them decided to push the movement into the way of capitalist restoration. The workers, lacking a revolutionairy vanguard in the form of a party, went with this current fed by illusions in capitalism.

In the end, dispite the nature of the former regimes, the event was used by the capitalist class to initiate a ideologial offensive against the ideas of socialism, marxism and communism. This has indeed an effect on a world scale, the workers' movement took a major blow at that time of wich it is still recovering. The interesting thing is once again that communism and marxism could not at all be held responsible for the crimes of the stalinist remgimes, wich were first of all aimed at the distruction of the gains and power of the workers and the socialist revolution.

It is like a wolf dressed up like a sheep. The wolf is the badguy while the sheeps get all the blaim for his actions.

Bobby Siecker 17-7-2007

Technically, stalinism ended in 1950s with destalinization, and revolutions of 1989 meant the fall of the Eastern Bloc and its version of communism. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  09:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Mongolia

I just wrote a small article on the 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia. My impression is that it should be included here, even if it was a bit of a late-comer. The background, course of events, and outcome are all quite similar (pro-Soviet dictatorship -> largely peaceful protests -> democracy & market economy), the difference is maybe that the ruling party won the ensuing elections, and their pre-1990 politicians are still quite respected. Yaan (talk) 19:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Yaan. I think Mongolia deserves a place in this article.--GenuineMongol (talk) 11:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine! Now we only need a volunteer, plus maybe some reliable sources. Yaan (talk) 10:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

East Germany

I think the following sentence seems to make no real sense:

The opening of the Berlin Wall proved to be fatal for the GDR, as disgruntled citizens did not leave permanently, but returned home after a day trip to put pressure on authorities.

The GDR never wanted to make "disgruntled citizens" "leave permanently". Otherwise there would have been no need to erect a wall in the first place. They also did not want this in November 1989, all reports seem to indicate that the opning of the wall was one big accident (a fortunate one, I must say though). If anything the problem with opening the wall were that it instilled a sense of "anything is possible", fueled patriotism/nationalism, awakened the desire for eventual reunification, and maybe gave the west more opportunities of influence East Germany. But disgruntled protestors really had been marching since early October, notably on Nov. 4th, 5 days before the wall fell. That protestors would not start to emigrate en masse just at the moment they began to feel a change for the better and the leverage they had seems very logical to me, so why this very logical behaviour should be mentioned is unclear. On the other hand, it also seems unclear how mass emigration would have helped to stabilize the regime.

I will therefore delete this sentence. Yaan (talk) 14:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yugoslavia

I know it would later collaps in to civil war but i'd like to here abour events in yugoslavia or at least albania and how the communist party was overtrown in each of the constetute states --J intela (talk) 06:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)--69.113.2.197 (talk) 06:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Policemen and flowers.jpg

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• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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"Revolution"

To describe events in these countries as a "revolutionary tide" is a violation of Wikipedia's policies. Scholars do not describe these developments as revolutionary. Rather, they were palace coups.

"Bulgaria underwent a palace coup that ousted Todor Zhivkov and elevated reformist leaders to power." Commitment to Purpose, Richard L. Kugler. Page 500

"There was a palace coup: Honecker was forced by the Party to resign on 18 October." The Last Division, Ann Tusa

"The situation in Romania was similar to that in Bulgaria. At the end of 1989, Party officials bent on ousting Ceausescu launched a coup, staging armed clashes." From Communists to Foreign Capitalists, Nina Bandelj

"There were no mass demonstrations and there was no change in government. It was not a revolution. It was a palace coup." Eastern Europe, Sabrina P. Ramet

At the May, 1988 communist party conference János Kádár and hisfollowers were ousted in a coup

RZimmerwald (talk) 17:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Ahem, there were mass demonstrations in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland etc. It is also very easy to find scholars describing those events as "revolution" (quotation marks mine) Yaan (talk) 18:59, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

To have deleted sourced observations from scholars as you have constitutes vandalism. Please refrain from such actions in the future. RZimmerwald (talk) 19:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Alright, let's play that google game then:

"Fall 1989 saw the virus of revolution spread to the Balkans as well", "the most striking change came in Romania, where the dictator Ceaucescu was toppled by a violent revolution and executed on Christmas day", "These dramatic changes clearly indicated an impending revolution in the GDR" -- Kugler, op.cit.

"The fall [of the wall, Yaan] symbolized what may be the most dramatic and revolutionary transformations of political and economic institutions in the 20th century - the collapse of Communist regimes and socialist command economies", "Inspired by successful protests in Poland and Hungary, the initially weak Czechoslovak opposition grew rapidly, mobilizing large-scale protests in a Velvet Revolution", " At the end of 1989, Party officials bent on ousting Ceausescu launched a coup, or "scripted revolution" (Condrescu 1992), staging armed clashes." -- Nina Bandelj, op.cit, p. 2, 38, 39

"In the former GDR, on the other hand, the revolution ended abruptly with reunification, thus depriving the East German population of this crucial experience." -- Brigitte H. Schulz, "The German Democratic Republic", in Eastern Europe, p. 115

"Bulgaria's "Gentle" Revolution" -- Spas T. Raikin, "Bulgaria", in Eastern Europe, p. 240

Frankly, in case you are not just one more WP troll, I think you really need to learn how to properly quote from a given source. What you have been doing above, esp. with the N. Bandelj quote, makes you look pretty dishonest. Yaan (talk) 15:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It is very dishonest for you to selectively pluck quotations in an attempt to push an agenda. Such tactics show a lack of scholarly integrity. The above sources I have cited describe these developments as palace coups. RZimmerwald (talk) 17:58, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

q.e.d. Yaan (talk) 20:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Name Change

The name will be changed to Fall of Communism because this is the most common term employed by western scholars for political developments in Eastern Europe. There are 3,340 results in Google Books for "Revolutions of 1989" and 7720 results for "Fall of Communism".RZimmerwald (talk) 18:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I count only 1203 hits for "Fall of Communism". But "Fall of Communism" seems to be a much too ambigous title, anyway. Did it fall in 1973 (Chile) or did it even completely fall at all (North Korea? Cuba? China/Vietnam/Laos??). What about the communist parties in the west - did they fall? What about the Soviet Union? Obviously it had something to do with the fall of communism, yet it is clearly outside the focus of this article. Yaan (talk) 18:53, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

As I have demonstrated above, the term "Fall of Communism" or "Collapse of Communism" is the term employed in Anglo-American discourse for the political developments in the region in concern. See, for example, this article by Encarta The use of the term "revolution" is not an appropriate representation of the events in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere. There were changes of governments in these countries not because of the actions of the masses but simply because people like Zhivkov, Honecker, Kadar, and Jakeš were pressured to resign by right-wing elements in the ruling party such as Mladenov, Németh, etc. Power passed over to those that were already in the government. There was not a popular revolution such as in Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. Even if all these observations are wrong, it is not acceptable to delete the sourced observations of scholars describing events in Romania, etc as palace coups.RZimmerwald (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I used to think Wałęsa, Havel, de Maizere etc. all were not in the government before 1989. But I may be wrong, maybe you could google this up for me? This article deals with events outside the USSR, "Fall of Communism" is usually meant to include the USSR - just look at all those fine search results or that fine Encarta article you found. I.e. it is obviously a wider topic.

You might want to look the usual meaning of revolution in a [dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revolution], I don't see anything about requiring armed insurgencies or excluding palace coups. In any case, the French Revolution of 1789 left the king in power, and the abdication of Wilhelm II in Germany's November Revolution in Germany was the work of Prince Max von Baden - but both events still can be called revolution, no?

Btw. I also think the Shah of Persia was dethroned by his prime minister. Yaan (talk) 14:34, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I oppose renaming to Fall of Communism; that is a much larger phenomenon than the Autumn of Nations. I could support renaming the article to Autumn of Nations, but do not consider it a high priority. As for revolutions -- sometimes they turn out to be bloodless. Consider, for example, the Singing Revolution -- as revolutions go, it was quite peculiar, yet that is how it's called.

By the way, are you aware that fall is American English for autumn? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 16:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Leaving aside the fact that serious scholars call these developments palace coups, it is immensely partisan to use the name "revolution" to describe developments in these countries. What happened in these countries was no different than what is called the August 1991 coup in Russia. To call the usurpation of power by the right-wing inter-party opponents of Ceauşescu, Kádár, Honecker, and Zhivkov a revolutionary wave is rather hyperbolic. What Wikipedia calls the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 and Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944 were actually much more revolutionary than what developed in 1989. RZimmerwald (talk) 18:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Object to renaming to "fall of communism". Fall of communism is broader and eventually the redirect will become an article or be pointing to something else (since fall of communism occurred also in USSR, which was not affected by the revolutions of 1989).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:23, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The events in Eastern Europe during the late 1980s are described as "The Fall of Communism" or "Collapse of Communism" by western observers. Your own subjective observations such as "fall of communism is broader" are irrelevant. The name will be changed to reflect scholarly consensus. See, for example, this article by Encarta. Brittanica contains over 1000 entries for "Fall of Communism" and barely 100 for "Revolutions of 1989" RZimmerwald (talk) 19:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you neet to leave out that "Poland" and "Bulgaria" in your second Britannica search. Yaan (talk) 20:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

A Brittanica search of "1989 Revolutions" yields results that have nothing to do with the subject. Case in point:

Ken Post, Revolution, Socialism, and Nationalism in Vietnam, 5 vol. (1989–94), is a Marxist interpretation of the Vietnamese revolution.

RZimmerwald (talk) 21:01, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

And it appears as early as page 9. Yaan (talk) 21:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems User:RZimmerwald is trying to claim that if people didn't "actively participate", it's a "palace coup" and not a "revolution". This does not hold; as anybody even passingly familiar with Sun Tzu understands, if the mob outside palace is ready to lynch the king, should he not permit a peaceful revolution to take place, then the mob has participated in the change of government no matter whether the king surrenders or is lynched.

In Baltic states, this is pretty much exactly what happened: the people demonstrated that they were no longer afraid, and the Soviet central power did not dare to enforce fear through violence any more. They attempted, but not in large scale. And that's a form of revolution. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 02:02, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The argument is not whether these events were revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. The indisputable fact is that scholars employ terms like the "Collapse of Communism" to refer to political developments in the region in concern. Even if the term "Collapse of Communism" itself is overstated, misleading, or oversimplistic, it is still the proper term to use in Wikipedia because it is the one employed in scholarly discourse and the mass media. RZimmerwald (talk) 19:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Endgames of totalitarian systems

I am tempted to classify Carnation Revolution together with such as Revolutions of 1989, Singing Revolution and others as Category:Endgames of totalitarian systems, albeit perhaps with a slightly less ambitious title. Thoughts? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 20:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The Map

Why does the map have Romania and Albania in pink - to illustrate the autonomous nature of their regimes within Soviet dominated eastern europe - but yet Yugoslavia is not shaded in the same way making it appear on this map part of western europe? This was a socialist country too without democracy and is normally considered within the area "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic" and thus part of the eastern block? James Frankcom (talk) 08:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

the keyword here is "Soviet-dominated". Yugoslavia was not Soviet-dominated, they were non-aligned. That said, putting Albania into the Eastern Bloc is nonsense, too. Yaan (talk) 16:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This map needs to be changed. I removed it once - it was somewhat fixed.. to avoid disputes, I'll leave the new one for now (which is just as bad). I can understand Albania being in light pink, because for a short time, it was closely aligned with the USSR (part of the Warsaw Pact for a short period of time), but there is no reason for Romania to be in the same color. As Romania was always undoubtedly in the Bloc, it should be red like the other members. Someone please fix it!! Its driving me crazy! --Buffer v2 (talk) 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)