Why did the communist regimes in eastern Europe break down so quickly after 1989?

The real reason for the fall of communism in Eastern Europe was the great revolution of autumn 1989. Without the momentous events that took place in the Soviet Union, state communism would not have dissolved as easily as it did. It may have succumbed in time, but;

                the real trigger for what happened in 1989 was the                                         decision of Mikhail Gorbachev to let the Central and                                 Eastern European countries go their own way

And why did he do this? Firstly it was Gorbachev’s belief that state communism was in need of dramatic reform. This reform or perestroika began as early as February 1986, when Gorbachev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He started out with a plan to modernise the economy but this plan soon became radical and far-reaching as the end of the end of the decade became ever nearer.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s main plan for reform was to do so on the back of economic restructuring. In his book – The Post-Soviet States – Graham Smith argues that this plan relied on three major elements; economic modernisation; regionalism; and a limited market sector. Smith argues that;

                labour was to be encouraged to be more innovative and                                 productive. This included improving discipline in the                                 workplace, increasing worker motivation, strengthening                                 managerial initiative and authority, and rationalising the                                 labour force.

In effect, perestroika seemed to be attacking the old Russian labour practices and the government was attempting to solve many problems, including ‘excessive labour absenteeism, overmanning and high turnover’. Gorbachev obviously thought that cost cutting and efficiency of labour would help generate the economic power that his administration needed in order to succeed.

His policy of ‘regionalism’ was based on the principle thought that with more control over their economy, the regions of the Soviet Union would surely help themselves towards greater economic efficiency. Gorbachev wanted landowners and farmers to have ‘more say in the running of their localities and enterprises’. This included his plans of decentralisation, so that these regions could have more responsibility in the way they were run. Smith also argues that this was not only to encourage the public, but also to take some of the power away from the party-state bureaucracy.

Perestroika also introduced a limited market sector. This idea was put in place to provide space in which new enterprises could establish themselves. With these new types of business, there was the thought that they would ultimately be better for the country than the large, state-controlled enterprises we had seen under communist regimes. Smith goes on to point out that in 1987-8, laws were passed so that smaller businesses could now form their own companies and fix their own prices. It seemed as though communism was finally going to break for good.

However, there were teething problems for Gorbachev’s new regimes. Many ordinary Soviet citizens felt that it had ‘spawned a nouveau riche’ that had no place in their socialist society. The reformists themselves acknowledged that this economic transition would need time to work, but most of all it needed to step out of communism and towards democratisation. The leaders, with such fixed ideals wanted to make sure that this first step towards democracy worked;

                The long held tenet that socialism was superior to capitalism                         and that soviet style socialism had resolved problems such         as                         social inequality, urban decay and corruption, supposedly                                 endemic only to capitalism, was debunked and those                                 problems were publicly acknowledged.

This openness or glanost that was apparently required set out to involve society in the reformation of communism rather than merely announcing it. Ironically, this new and brave step taken by the government backfired. It led to people further down the hierarchy of society calling for the reformation to begin with them, rather than its roots being solely political. Glanost thus enabled the occupants of civil society to act in social and political change for the first time in Soviet history.

It was not just in the Soviet Union that communism was beginning to break down. There had been many sources of tension within the Eastern Bloc countries during the 1980s and every time a difficulty arose, change in some form looked likely. Whether there were religious problems in Poland and Bulgaria, or economic problems in Romania and Czechoslovakia, there were many sources of antagonism across Eastern Europe.

For instance, Bulgaria had been very Soviet orientated and until 1989 was ruled by a party which supported the CPSU. Bulgarians being the ‘guinea pigs’ for proposed Soviet policies proved this;

                It test-marketed Soviet foreign policy options and                                         some Soviet economic experiments

Without the Soviet Union to protect it, Bulgaria would be lost and when the revolutions of 1989 came, she quickly followed Russia’s lead.

Huge economic difficulties led to reform of the communist regimes in Romania. It was to be the end of the Ceaucescu era and a joyous and prosperous time for many Romanians. At the time, Romania was going through ‘a sixth winter of energy-saving’ and ‘the economy depended on guaranteed cheap energy’. The future looked seriously bleak for Romania and even without any noticeable input from the Soviet Union, reformations looked to be on the horizon. In Romania the act of reform was so rapid that even Gorbachev’s regime looked slow when the two were compared.

However, not all Eastern European countries had waited for ‘mother Russia’ to break down communism. Poland and Hungary had seen the need for reformation in the 1970s, but this was a slow process and ‘the problems remained unsolved when Gorbachev became CPSU General Secretary in March 1985’. So it came about that these two countries would join in the great revolutions of 1989. Both would ultimately succumb to new and younger governments with bigger and better ideas as to how to get rid of their debts and economic problems.

We did see the surprise element of the revolutions of 1989 - the involvement of East Germany. Moreover, with Gorbachev’s plans firmly laid in the Soviet Union, the East German people found the temptation of democracy too hard to resist. There had been ‘a flood of emigrants to the West after Hungary opened its borders with Austria’. However, any radical solution was rejected when Gorbachev revealed his plans to sever all ties with the bloc countries. After this announcement East German communism basically fell apart and the lack of Soviet protection led to eventual democratisation.

So we can see, with reference to ‘The European Mosaic’, that it was indeed in most cases a Soviet-led revolution which caused the communist regimes to break down so quickly. This was aided by various problems of the countries, but nevertheless Gorbachev’s radical plans for reformation worked throughout Eastern Europe.

After such revolutionary developments, there clearly had to be many consequences for all concerned. We will now look at the consequences that the break down of communism brought to European politics as a whole.

‘In 1994 most of the Eastern European states moved into their fifth year of revolution’. As J.F Brown puts it, five years after the events of 1989, things have steadily kept moving forward; forward at least from where they were. It is strongly evident that, however quick the foundations of reformation were to set in, it would take time for Eastern European states to adjust both economically and politically to their new regimes.

As Gowland argues in his conclusions on the subject;

Central and Eastern Europe still confront awesome         

problems … post-communist systems may be fragile, but         

democracy has certainly been strengthened

he certainly has some depth to his argument. It has been the view of many observers that however long it may take, these countries are definitely heading in the right direction, and if it takes years to sort out, then they are in luck, as time is one thing they have on their side. Their task is not impossible and they must not try to make it that. I believe that the whole process must be slowed down in order for it to be successful. Five years after the first revolution, Eastern Europeans were still ‘trying to do in one or two decades what has taken much longer in the West’. Some people are of the opinion that going for both objectives – democratic and market parity – will mean that they end up with nothing.

Yes there is danger due to the nature of the goals that the reform is aiming for. These dangers come in the form of increasing social hardship, drastic economic reform and the reaching for political democracy. Even five years after Gorbachev’s plan went into action, it was really still only just the beginning.

The breaking down of communism may have been a rapid process; but the rebuilding left both at home and throughout Europe is something that these countries will have to live with, in my opinion for a number of years hence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, J.F., Hopes and Shadows (Duke University Press, 1994)

Garton Ash, T., We The People: the revolution of 89 (Granta Books, 1990

Glenny, M., The Rebirth of History (Penguin, 1990)

Gowland, D et al., The European Mosaic (Longman, 1995)

Kuran, T., ‘Now Out Of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989’, Journal of World Politics, vol. 44 (1991)

Smith, G., The Post-Soviet States (Arnold Publishers, 1999)

Steiner, J., European Democracies (Longman, 1995)

Stokes, G., The walls came tumbling down (Oxford University Press, 1993)