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40 Historically Speaking · September 2003 The Threads of Revolution: Central Europe's Moment Padraic Kenney //Tn Poland it took ten years, in HunI gary ten months, in East Germany -L ten weeks: perhaps in Czechoslovakia itwill take ten days!"1 These words, spoken byTimothyGartonAsh toVaclavHavel in late November 1989 duringaplanningsession in Prague'sMagic LanternTheater, have become one ofthememorable phrases ofthat revolutionary time. There are a few others (everyrevolution has them, ofcourse): Gennadi GerasimoVS quip thatthe Brezhnev doctrine had been replaced by the "Sinatra Doctrine " (itself a misquote, but never mind); Lech Walesa's devastating retort, in a television debate, that the Polish communists mightbe takingthe countryto the future, but on foot, while everyone else was travelingby car; and Ronald Reagan's Berlin exhortation: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Garton Ash's bon mot, though, seems to encompass the entire sequence ofevents, in a waydearto the hearts ofstudents everywhere. In fact, I offeritto mystudents everysemester , as a handy mnemonic device. Itwas also instantly popular in Czechoslovakia itself. Before Garton Ash could relate his story in the New York Review ofBooks, the phrase had beenimmortaUzed on hand-painted banners in Prague; in Poland commentators dryly added the ominous prediction thatin Romania the revolution would require only ten minutes. Yetwhenitcomes to makingsense ofthe revolutions of1989, GartonAsh's quip is not a very good guide. It was not, of course, intended to be so; itwould be a drearyworld were people held accountable for the accuracy of their jokes! Nevertheless, Garton Ash's line is incorrect in three fundamental ways: it underestimates the past; elides the present; and allows for an overlybenignview ofthe future. Was it only ten days (or ten weeks, ten months)? Ten days describes ratheracoupd'etat . GartonAsh had in mind, though, somethingmore . Polandovertenyears had seen a universalization and pluralization ofopposition —aparallelsociety, touse aphrase coined by Vaclav Benda. This, of course, could hardly be accomplished in ten days, or even ten mondis. In my view, the revolution took much longer. In the mid-1980s anewwave ofopposition groups emerged across the region. These social movements, tiny at first, shared many characteristics. They were formed by people born in the late 1950s to mid-1960s: in Poland they had been high school or college students during Solidarity's heyday in 1980-81; in Czechoslovakia they were the first generation with no memory of the Prague Spring; inHungarytheirparentswere (mosdy) tooyoungto have participatedinthe 1956 revolution. All were thus distant from the ideological battles thatmarked theirelders . At the same time, this was a generation that had no illusions about reforming the communistsystem. I have interviewed people across the region, and amongthem are some ofthe toughest poUtical animals I have ever met. They would choose their campaigns with an eye to embarrassing, compromising, and discomforting the communists. Politics—rather than ideology—also meant specific, achievable goals: instead of "sovereignty," the right not to serve in the army, instead ofeconomic reform or a rise in the standard ofliving, they demanded that specific plants be closed to ensure clean air and water; and instead of "democracy" and "civil society," dieycalled for the "breakdown offear" (a phraseIheard dozens oftimes) and the freedomto laugh on the street Each aim offered something concrete to the individual : a specific goal to be accomplished, often one thatplaced die communists in anuncomfortable situation. Forregimes looked foolish or arbitrary ifthey repressed protesters for opposingahydroelectricproject, orforoffering to serve in the armyunder differentconditions , or for demanding the restoration of the medieval Bohemian monarchy. These protests helped lowerthe barriers offearand increased the pool ofpeoplewho couldimagine change. Bythe autumn of1989 such activityhad been going on notfor days, weeks, or months, butyears. Ofcourse, attention to these social movements doesnotpreclude other explanations. After all, revolutions belong to that category of events (like world wars) that cannot be explained monocausaüy. Explanations rooted in the greatpowergame ofthelate ColdWar, or in the decrepitude ofthe communist economic system, or in the spread oftheories of democratic civil society among the intellectual elites are all true, their relative importance depending on what precisely we wish to explain. Thatsomethingis missingin other explanations of the revolution is easy to understand ifwe imagine for a moment one ofthe many crowd scenes of 1989, such as thatinVaclavSquare in Prague thatNovember . Simplifyinga bit...

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