Was is something that the general population was aware of or did people live like before until 1989? I am not talking about big political changes like the rise of Solidarnosc, but something like upkeep of infrastructures or availability of items or anything mundane
10 comments
As for Poland in the 1980s, AFAIK most people had an impression that the system is more or less rotten and unsustainable, but the Soviets were unpredictable, the Red Army was present in the country and all over the block and people knew how 1968 turned out for Czechoslovakia and that 1981 in Poland was bloody. Soviet-Afghan war was going on.
I have a friend who participated in an underground student movement and he says most of the people were scared of the system and turned a blind eye on the protesters. Did not want to participate. So I guess no one really was able to tell that this regime will fall. Communists were as shocked as the opposition.
The fall pf communism in Poland wasn’t the sudden result of the rise of Solidarność tho. Solidarność first became an issue for the commies in the early 80s when they suddenly were banned which pissed of a lot of people. Due to that they introduced martial law to squash the any resistance left.
When it came to actual regime change, it was all a deal. A series of deals between the commies and the opposition. We call it “transformacja ustrojowa” – “regime transformation” because it was a process. The election of 1989 were semi-free. The commies won because it was in the contract for them to win 65% of the seats in the lower house. The free part was for the opposition where 35% in the lower house were in for the actual democratic elections and the newly reinstated Senste. The office of the president was brought back and they elected the previous 1st secretary because that was the deal.
Poland only technically ditched the communist constitution in 1997.
Of course it was a process. In the USSR there were several years of perestroika, when there was more democracy and freedoms. You got the opportunity to create alternative movements and parties, there was more cooperative movement, less repression of religion.
Czechoslovakia (eastern part – Kosice): My parents said, they had no idea the regime could fall. They participated in protests to skip the school.
Perestroika (rebuilding) started in mid-80’s, things started to change, people got more freedom, censorship became less strict, saying something even remotely negative about the government wasn’t punishable with prison any more, so the smell of change was in the air.
Upkeep and produce availability was always shit, so that didn’t change until a lot later.
As someone from the Western part of Europe but still witness to it, I think that with Gorbatsjov and his perestroika were signs that things were going to change. But when the revolution in Romenia began, it was still a great surprise. I remember being glued to the television (as was everyone else here) when Ceaucescu and his wife were executed. I believe that the successful revolt in Romenia hastened the end because a lot of other Eastern European governments were scared it would happen in their countries too.
And when the Wall in East Berlin fell, I remember the celebrating people, breaking down the wall. It was a glorious thing to witness.
„Everything was forever until it was no more”. In Poland the shift towards market economy was seen as inevitable, the question was whether it would be the Party in charge or would it be a deeper structural shift. If you look closely you’ll see the preparedness, with Party members speaking openly capitalist lingo in the second half of the 80s. The success of Solidarność in the 1989 election came as a surprise – it was assured they will get recognized as a political force because this was agreed at the Round Table – but not to that extent. It can be assumed that the Communists had a plan to shift towards a monoparty-led free market state.
1986/87 is when the sentiment in Latvia really changed. The “Helsinki-86” group was founded with widespread attention among anyone who didn’t like Soviet rule, and they were publicly protesting the government. Initially it was protests against Soviet policies and demands for better rights, without talking about independence. But a year later they started displaying symbols of independent Latvia, talking about Latvia’s incorporation into USSR as a forceful annexation, and that was very different from the previous decades. At the same time, Gorbachev’s reforms resulted in such criticism being somewhat tolerated. There wasn’t free political discourse as we’d understand it now, but you could be critical of the government without being punished.
Infrastructure and availability of the items sucked before and after that, so that’s no indicator of change. The major change was the recognition of those facts. The newspapers and TV news only ever said good things about our prosperity. I’m old enough to have watched Soviet news, and of course they’d pretty much never mention anything negative. So it was a huge change when the press started talking about the things everyone knew, like long queues, shortages of goods or the subpar communal apartments.
Looking back, it feels like the outcome was predestined. But at that moment, it didn’t really felt like this.
In my opinion, Soviet communist regime in USSR became more and more liberal since 60’s. Movies, literature, art were more and more about eternal human values (sure propaganda art and movies existed, but not in mainstream). So when Gorbachev came with his Glasnost(freedom of speech”) in the middle of 80’s , it’s very naturally removed propaganda dome and in few years resulted that what happened. I was 13 in 1990 and I remember these years as the most free years ever in Russian history.