Revolution 1989
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART ONE - COLD WAR
ONE - THE WORKERS’ STATE
TWO - A MESSAGE OF HOPE
THREE - SOLIDARITY
FOUR - THE ELECTRICIAN
FIVE - CIVIL WAR
SIX - THE BLEEDING WOUND
SEVEN - THE POWER OF THE POWERLESS
EIGHT - ABLE ARCHER
NINE - AMERICA’S LEADING DOVE
TEN - A PYRRHIC VICTORY
PART TWO - THE THAW
ELEVEN - THE NEW TSAR
TWELVE - THE SWORD AND SHIELD
THIRTEEN - LENIN’S APOSTLE
FOURTEEN - SILENT MEMORIES
FIFTEEN - ‘WE CANNOT WIN’
SIXTEEN - ‘LET THEM HATE’
SEVENTEEN - CHERNOBYL: NUCLEAR DISASTER
EIGHTEEN - ETHNIC CLEANSING
NINETEEN - HUMBLED IN RED SQUARE
TWENTY - THE GANG OF FOUR
TWENTY-ONE - GORBACHEV’S VIETNAM
TWENTY-TWO - OLD MEN’S TALES
TWENTY-THREE - ENDGAME IN POLAND
TWENTY-FOUR - PRESIDENT BUSH TAKES CHARGE
TWENTY-FIVE - TRIUMPH IN MANHATTAN
PART THREE - REVOLUTION
TWENTY-SIX - THE WAR OF WORDS
TWENTY-SEVEN - HAVEL IN JAIL
TWENTY-EIGHT - THE ROUND TABLE
TWENTY-NINE - SHOOT TO KILL
THIRTY - THE FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE
THIRTY-ONE - THE CURTAIN FALLS
THIRTY-TWO - THE CAUTIOUS AMERICAN
THIRTY-THREE - THE LOYAL OPPOSITION
THIRTY-FOUR - THE DICTATOR PAYS HIS DEBTS
THIRTY-FIVE - A STOLEN ELECTION
THIRTY-SIX - EXPULSION OF THE TURKS
THIRTY-SEVEN - THE LANDSLIDE
THIRTY-EIGHT - FUNERAL IN BUDAPEST
THIRTY-NINE - A PRESIDENTIAL TOUR
FORTY - TRAIL OF THE TRABANTS
FORTY-ONE - A GOVERNMENT OF DISSIDENTS
FORTY-TWO - REFUGEES
FORTY-THREE - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
FORTY-FOUR - PEOPLE POWER
FORTY-FIVE - THE WALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN
FORTY-SIX - THE COUP
FORTY-SEVEN - THE VELVET REVOLUTION
FORTY-EIGHT - THE MOMENT OF WEAKNESS
FINALE
REFERENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Revolution 1989
VICTOR SEBESTYEN
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2009
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
© Victor Sebestyen 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher.
The right of Victor Sebestyen to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 2978 5788 4
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
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London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
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This ebook produced by Jouve, France
In memory of my mother Éva
and Patricia Diggory
ILLUSTRATIONS
SECTION ONE
Brezhnev and Honecker, East Berlin, 7 October 1979 (Corbis)
Lech Wałesa, Lenin shipyard, Gdansk, 26 August 1980 (Press Association)
The Plastic People of the Universe, c.1980s
Václav Havel, Prague, 10 December 1988 (Getty)
Chernobyl, 14 hours after the explosion, 27 April 1986 (Corbis)
Boy runs after a Soviet tank patrol, Kabul, April 1989 (Getty)
Yakub Khan militants in Afghanistan (RIA Novosti / TopFoto)
George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Pavel Palazchenko and Mikhail Gorbachev, Governors Island, 1 December 1988 (Time & Life / Getty)
Lech Wałesa and Wojciech Jaruzelski, Westerplatte, 1 September 1989 (Chip Hires, Gamma / Camera Press)
Boris Gromov, Termez, 6 February 1989 (RIA Novosti / TopFoto)
Mother embracing her son, Termez, 6 February 1989 (Getty)
Gorbachev in Prague, 4 November 1987 (Patrick Aventurier, Gamma / Camera Press)
Dismantling the Iron Curtain, Hungarian border, 1 May 1989 (Eric Bouvet, Gamma / Camera Press)
East German refugees flee through a gate near Sopron, 19 August 1989 (Reuters)
Lech Wałesa, Gdansk, 3 June 1989 (Press Association)
James Baker and Eduard Shevardnadze, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, September 1989 (Corbis)
SECTION TWO
Torchlit procession, Berlin, 6 October 1989 (H.P. Stiebing, Bridgeman Art Library)
Günter Schabowski’s press conference, 9 November 1989 (Eric Bouvet, Gamma/ Camera Press)
Crowds at the Berlin wall, 9 November 1989 (Bouvet-Merillon, Gamma / Camera Press)
East German soldier peers through Berlin Wall, 12 November 1989 (Press Association)
Crowds at the Berlin Wall, 9 November 1989 (Press Association)
Berliners dance on the Berlin Wall, 10 November 1989 (Press Association)
Opening of the Berlin Wall, 11 November 1989 (Patrick Piel, Gamma / Camera Press)
Prague demonstrations, 21 November 1989 (Bouvet-Merillon, Gamma / Camera Press)
Václav Havel and Alexander Dubcek, Prague, 24 November 1989 (Bouvet- Hires-Merillon, Gamma / Camera Press)
Protestor with riot police, Prague, 21 November 1989 (Herbert Slavik)
Nicolae Ceausescu, rally in Bucharest, 21 December 1989 (Press Association)
Tanks in Palace Square, Bucharest, December 1989 (Corbis)
Soldiers in Palace Square, Bucharest, December 1989 (Corbis)
Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu after their arrest, 25 November 1989 (Romania TV / Gamma / Camera Press)
Image of Ceausescu released immediately after his execution, 25 December 1989 (Romanian National Television / Getty)
Pope John Paul II, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev, Vatican, December 1989 (TopFoto)
Soviet tanks leave Hungary, 1989 (Eric Bouvet, Gamma / Camera Press)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have been travelling to Central Europe for work and pleasure since the late 1970s when, to Westerners, cities like Prague and Budapest were considered mysterious, occasionally sinister, faraway places of which we knew little. It is directly because of the events I describe here that once again they are thriving cities at the heart of the European tradition. This book is the result of more than two hundred trips over three decades and it could not have been written without enormous help from a great number of people, some of whom in the dark days of totalitarianism risked a great deal to talk with me. I have space to mention just a few of them here. I have weaved into the narrative interviews and conversations from many years ago - a lot of them in 1989 - with more recent reflections. Often I talked to the same people again years later, who spoke with the benefit of hindsight.
In Poland I am grateful to Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Jerzy Urban, Lech Wałesa and the Lech Wałesa Institute, Anna Walentynowycz, Danuta Galecka
and Jadzia Komornicka. While I was researching and writing this book three people died who, over the years, and during many visits to Poland, had been extremely helpful: Mieczyslaw Rakowski, Alina Pienkowska and Bronislaw Geremek. The Andrzej Stelmachowski papers were very useful, as were the staff at the Central Military Archives and at the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.
In the Czech Republic and Slovakia I am particularly indebted to Ondrej Soukoup, Michael Kocáb, Jefim Fistein, Peta Brod, Jacques Rupnik, Dasa Antelova, Jirí Dienstbier, Anna Bryson, Peter Uhl, Tom Gross, Jan Urban, and the staff at the Archive of the President’s Office, at the Home Office archive and at the Czech Parliament’s archive. The Alexander Dubcek Institute in Bratislava and surviving members of the late Mr Dubek’s family were hugely helpful.
In Hungary Katalin Bogyay, Miklós Haraszti, Maria Vásárhelyi, László Rajk, Csilla Strbik, Adam LeBor, Imre Pozsgay, Ferenc Köszeg, Gábor Demszky, Béla Szombaty, Istvan Rév, Csaba Békes, Dominic Arbuthnott, Nora Walko, Andrea Kalman, János Kis, László Eörsi, Gábor Kélemeri, Károly Makk, Sándor Revesz and Nick Thorpe went out of their way to help me. I would like to thank the staff at the Hungarian National Archive, the archive of the Hungarian Parliament, the Institute for the Study of the 1956 Revolution and the archive of the Open Society Institute in Budapest.
In Germany I am immensely grateful to Dr Matthias Mueller, Reinhard Schult, Aram Radomsky, Rüdigger Rosendahl, Carsten Krenz, Christian Führer, Klaus Peter Renneberg, Philip Lengsfeld, Günter Schabowski, and the staff in charge of the Stasi Files, the Commission for Records of the State Security, Berlin, and the State Archive of Political Parties and mass organisations of the GRD, also in Berlin.
In Romania I want to thank Mircea Dinescu, Gheorghiu Constantinescu, Alex Serban, Pavel Câmpeanu, Sergiu Celac, Oleanna Tedescu, Petre Roman, and the staff at the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship, the archive of the Romanian Ministry of Home Affairs and of Foreign Affairs, and the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania.
Ivan and Tanya Pojarleff and Lyubo Markov were exceptionally generous with their time in Sofia, where I am also grateful to Stefan Tafrov, Petar Mladenov, Blaga Dimitrova, Kalin Manolov, Krassen Stanchev, Rumen Danov, staff at the Institute for the Study of the Recent Past, the Archive of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers and of the Files Commission, the Inquiry into the records of the Bulgarian State Security Service.
In the US, James Baker III was immensely generous with his time and I would like to thank the office of General Brent Scowcroft. Charles Gati, Jamie Dettmer, Rebecca Mead, Joan Stein and Christopher Hitchens were thought-provoking companions who gave me new ideas about American foreign policy. The Cold War International History Project in George Washington University, the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Library of Congress and the US State Department were vastly helpful.
In Moscow, I am indebted to staff at the Russian Presidential Archive, the Gorbachev Foundation and the Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documents. Many people in Russia were extremely helpful over the years. For depressing reasons to do with politics in Moscow now, most of them asked not to be mentioned by name. But you know who you are and how much I owe you.
Two books in particular were inspirational: Timothy Garton Ash’s We the People and Michael Dobbs’s Down With Big Brother.
In England I am immensely grateful to Lord Powell, Simon Sebag Monte- fiore, Maria Stanowski, Mitko Dimitrov, Annabel Markova, Joachim von Halasz, Anjelica von Hase, John Hamilton, Lucy Perceval, Christopher Silv- ester, Mátyás Sárkozi, Sir Bryan Cartledge, Peter Unwin, Anna Reid, Amanda Sebestyen, Tira Shubart, Mark Jones, Anne McElvoy, Daniel Johnson, Boris Marelic, Marina Daskalova, my sister Judith Maynard and brother John Walko. The staff at the London Library, at Chatham House, the British Library and the Bodleian Library were ever useful, as were the staff at the library of King’s College, London, where the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives houses a set of invaluable transcripts of interviews for two TV series: Brian Lapping Associates’ ‘Fall of the Wall’, and CNN’s ‘Cold War’. The constant support of Paul, Wendy, Peter and Jayne Diggory and Adil Ali has been vital.
I must praise the deep, reassuring calm of my friend and my editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Ion Trewin. The word ‘sage’ might have been invented just for him. It is a joy to work with my enthusiastic and tireless assistant editor Bea Hemming, and with my exceptional copy-editor Linden Lawson. My agent Georgina Capel was ever optimistic, encouraging and generous.
But most of all I am indebted to Jessica Pulay. Without her loving support, wise counsel, clear mind, imagination and editing skills I could not have completed this book. Her informed understanding of Central Europe has been invaluable. At many stages she pointed out new ideas and new avenues to explore. Her constant encouragement has been my beacon.
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it comes, it moves irresistibly.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Ideas that have outlived their day may hobble about the world for years, but it is hard for them ever to lead and dominate life. Such ideas never gain complete possession of a man, or they gain possession only of incomplete people.
Alexander Herzen
God preserve me from those who want what’s best for me.
From the nice guys
always willing to inform on me
from the priest with a tape recorder under his vestments
from the blankets you get under without saying good evening
from those angry with their own people. . . .
now when winter’s coming.
Mircea Dinescu
INTRODUCTION
This is a story with a happy ending. Nobody who witnessed the joy on the streets of Berlin, Prague or Budapest at the end of 1989 will ever forget those extraordinary scenes of celebration. The people’s will had triumphed over tyranny in a dizzying few months of almost entirely peaceful revolutions which changed the world. That is where this narrative finishes, at a point of bright hopes, intelligent optimism, sincere thanksgiving - and great parties. One of history’s most brutal empires was on its knees. Poets and philosophers who had been languishing in jails became presidents and government ministers. When the Berlin Wall fell on a chilly November night it seemed as though the open wounds of the cruel twentieth century would at last begin to heal. These were not entirely foolish dreams. Some pundits - most notably, but not uniquely, Francis Fukayama - became carried away and predicted the end of history and of future ideological conflicts.
The pundits were right about the scale and importance of the changes in 1989 - if not about the end of history. An entire way of life and of looking at reality - communism as inspired by Marx, Lenin and Stalin - had been exposed as a gruesomely failed experiment. Freedom and independence for a large part of Europe that had been imprisoned for four decades became feasible within weeks. At the start of 1989 neither seemed possible for years ahead. The Cold War was declared over. There remained two powers which possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilisation several times over, but neither now looked like using them. The Year of Revolutions appeared as a beacon of hope for oppressed people elsewhere who dared to dream that they too could free themselves.
The sudden collapse of the Soviet empire was entirely unexpected. After the event, many sages in academia, the military, the media, politics and diplomacy boasted that they had seen it coming. But it is hard to find any evidence, least of all from inside the intelligence agencies. Espionage played a vital role in the Cold War - in reality as well as in the imagination of a public in East and West fed on a diet of thrillers and spy movies. Despite the huge resources lavished on the intelligence services in both camps, spies were not telling their masters in Washington or Moscow or London how weak the Soviet system was. Before it happened, nobody of significant influence proposed that the entire monolithic structure feared
by so many for so long would disintegrate - and within a matter of months. I discount the late British journalist Bernard Levin who at the end of 1988 wrote an unusually prescient piece that foreshadowed events with bizarre accuracy, but at the time even he said that he was indulging in fantasy, not prophecy. Received wisdom was that the USSR faced a long, slow and painful decline and it would be many years, maybe decades, before the satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe escaped the Soviet orbit. As James Baker, the US Secretary of State during part of this story, said: ‘Anyone who tells you they knew it was going to happen - well, they’re blowing smoke at you.’
For nearly half a century, the Soviets had held on firmly to their spoils of war. The Red Tsars in the Kremlin saw possession of their satellite states as proof of their power and a vindication of their Communist faith, though by the 1980s nationalism had become a stronger impulse than ideology. They had crushed any potential rebellions with ruthless savagery - in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. It looked as though the Iron Curtain, 300 kilometres of concrete walls and wire fences dividing a continent, was permanent. Many revisionists since have argued that it was inevitable the Soviet empire would fall the way it did. They claim it was a classic case of imperial ‘overstretch’; the USSR could not afford to hang on to its burdensome outposts. To the brave Czechs, East Germans and Bulgarians who demonstrated in their hundreds of thousands demanding freedom, the fall of their oppressive regimes did not seem inevitable at the time. If the police answering to their own dictators did not shoot at them, the Soviets might. The Russians had done so before, many times and at a high cost in blood. It was not beyond the realms of possibility that the Red Army, with an occupation force of more than half a million soldiers, would revert to traditional methods. An entire way of life was swept away along with a half-dozen incompetent, corrupt and at times vicious tyrannies. It happened with little violence, apart from a few days in Romania. But it was not a given that these revolutions would be peaceful. There were many occasions when one spark could have lit a fuse that set half a continent ablaze.