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> > National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 22
> > 
> > 
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > The Revolutions of 1989:
> > New Documents from Soviet/East Europe
> > Archives Reveal Why There Was No Crackdown
> > 
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > Edited by Thomas S. Blanton
> > November 5, 1999
> 
> > WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
> > National Security Archive and its research partners in East and Central
> > Europe today released previously secret documents from behind the Iron
> > Curtain detailing the ultimately futile scramble by the Communist parties of
> > the region to stay in power in 1989 -- evidence which explains in the actual
> > words of Communist leaders now for the first time in English how the system
> > imposed by Stalin’s armies gave way in the face of popular protest, largely
> > without violent repression.
> > 
> > The documents include verbatim transcripts of such historic meetings as the
> > Polish Communist party’s leadership on the day after Solidarity swept the
> > June 1989 elections, Solidarity leader Walesa’s talk in Warsaw with German
> > chancellor Kohl on the day the Berlin Wall was to fall, Soviet leader
> > Gorbachev’s meetings with Hungarian communist reformers, and the
> > Czechoslovak Communist Party’s central committee’s rationale for not calling
> > in the troops in the face of mass protests in November 1989.
> > 
> > The documents are the product of a five-year multinational research project
> > organized by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, in
> > collaboration with scholars, journalists and activists in Poland, Hungary,
> > the Czech Republic, Russia, Germany, Romania and Bulgaria, focused on the
> > collapse of Communism in 1989. The project organized four landmark "critical
> > oral history" conferences in which former adversaries, divided by ideology
> > and the struggle for power, sat at the same tables and discussed the end of
> > the Cold War, face to face with each other and their own documents. (Similar
> > gatherings co-organized by the Archive in recent years focused on the crisis
> > years of 1953, 1956, 1968, and 1980-81 in Eastern Europe.) The 1989
> > conferences began last year with a May 1998 meeting on St. Simons Island,
> > Georgia, and continued this year in Budapest on June 9-11, in Prague on
> > October 14-16, and in Warsaw on October 21-23. Participants included Czech
> > president Vaclav Havel, former Polish prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
> > current Polish foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek, Gorbachev aide Gyorgy
> > Shakhnazarov, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, and top
> > communist party officials and dissidents.
> > 
> > Research partners of the National Security Archive include:
> >  
> > 
> > > Cold War History Research Center, Budapest
> > > 
> > > Institute for the Study of the 1956 Revolution
> > > 
> > > Hungarian Academy of Sciences
> > > 
> > > Cold War International History Project, The Woodrow Wilson International
> > > Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
> > > 
> > > The Czechoslovak Documentation Center, Prague (Dobrichovice)
> > > 
> > > The Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech
> > > Republic
> > > 
> > > Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences
> > > 
> > > Gorbachev Foundation, Moscow
> > > 
> > > Institute of Universal History, Moscow
> > > 
> > > Memorial, Moscow
> > > 
> > > Cold War Research Group, Sofia
> > > 
> > > Civic Academy Foundation, Bucharest
> > 
> > 
> > DOCUMENTS
> > 
> > Click on a document number to view the transcription.
> > 
> > Document 1. Memorandum of Conversation between M.S. Gorbachev and Karoly
> > Grosz, General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, Moscow,
> > March 23-24, 1989. This document from Hungarian Archives reveals Gorbachev’s
> > contradictions, as the Soviet leader proclaims again that the Brezhnev
> > doctrine is dead and military interventions should be "precluded in the
> > future, yet at the same time, tries to set "boundaries" for the changes in
> > Eastern Europe as "the safekeeping of socialism and assurance of stability."
> > As it turned out, the boundaries crumbled along with the Wall.
> > 
> > Document 2. Transcript of the Central Committee secretariat meeting of the
> > Polish United Workers Party (PZPR), Warsaw, June 5, 1989. On the day after
> > Solidarity had swept Poland’s first open elections, ultimately winning 99 of
> > 100 Senate seats, the Polish Communists vent their shock and dismay ("a
> > bitter lesson," "the party are not connected with the masses," "We trusted
> > the Church and they turned out to be Jesuits" were typical comments).
> > Comrade Kwasniewski (who now serves as the elected President of Poland)
> > remarks that "It’s well known that also party members were crossing out our
> > candidates" (only two out of 35 Party candidates survived the epidemic of
> > X’s). But they see no choice but to negotiate a coalition government, and
> > specifically "[w]arn against attempts at destabilization, pointing at the
> > situation in China" -- since the Tienanmien massacre occurred the same day
> > as the Polish elections, the road not taken.
> > 
> > Document 3. Transcript of the Opening Full Session of the National
> > Roundtable Negotiations, June 13, 1989. This remarkable document
> > (transcribed from previously unpublished video recordings) points to the
> > unwritten "rules" of mutual civility that arose in the nonviolent dissident
> > movements and found an echo among the Communist reformers during the
> > negotiated revolutions of 1989. For example, Dr. Istvan Kukorelli from the
> > Patriotic People’s Front proposes to "refrain from questioning the
> > legitimacy of each other, since the legitimacy of all of us is debatable. It
> > is a question which belongs to the future - who will be given credit by
> > history and who will be forgotten."
> > 
> > Document 4. Report of the President of People’s Republic of Hungary Rezso
> > Nyers and Karoly Grosz, General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers
> > Party on their talks with Gorbachev in Moscow, 24-25 July, 1989. The excerpt
> > translated into English contains economic reformer Nyers’ assessment of the
> > political situation in Hungary, and first among the factors that "can defeat
> > the party," he lists "the past, if we let ourselves [be] smeared with it."
> > The memory of the revolution of 1956 and its bloody repression by the
> > Soviets was Banquo’s ghost, destroying the legitimacy of the Hungarian
> > Socialist Workers Party, just as 1968 in Prague and 1981’s martial law in
> > Poland and all the other Communist "blank spots" of history came back in
> > 1989 to crumble Communist ideology. For their part, the Communist reformers
> > (including Gorbachev) did not quite know how to respond as events
> > accelerated in 1989, except not to repeat 1956.
> > 
> > Document 5. Record of conversation between West German Chancellor Helmut
> > Kohl and the leader of Polish Solidarity Lech Walesa, Warsaw, November 9,
> > 1989. In this extraordinary conversation (available previously only in
> > German), Solidarity’s leader fears the collapse of the Wall would distract
> > West Germany’s attention - and money - to the GDR, at the time when Poland,
> > the trail-blazer to the post-communist era in Eastern Europe, desperately
> > needed both. "Events are moving too fast," Walesa said, and only hours
> > later, the Wall fell, and Kohl had to cut his Poland visit short to scramble
> > back to Berlin, thus proving Walesa’s fear correct.
> > 
> > Document 6. Entry from the Diary of Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy Assistant
> > Anatoly Chernyaev, 10 November 1989. This extraordinary diary entry from
> > inside the Kremlin, the day after the Wall fell, documents in the form of a
> > "snapshot" reaction the revolutionary mood of one of the closest and most
> > loyal of Gorbachev’s assistants. Chernyaev realized that this event meant
> > "the end of Yalta" and of "the Stalinist legacy" in Europe, and in a
> > striking statement, he welcomed this change, saying the key was Gorbachev’s
> > decision not to stand in the way.
> > 
> > Document 7. Speech by Premier Ladislav Adamec at the extraordinary session
> > of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, 24 November 1989.
> > This remarkable previously secret transcript shows the party elites choosing
> > against violent repression of the mass protests in Wenceslas Square. More
> > clearly than in almost any other Party document, the reasons for nonviolence
> > are spelled out: such a solution would only temporarily "return calm," it
> > would radicalize the youth, "the international support of the socialist
> > countries can no longer be counted on," and "the capitalist states" might
> > react with a "political and economic boycott."
> >  
> > 
> > Return to the National Security Archive homepage
> 
> 
>  
>