Volume 16 , Issue 8

The Velvet Revolution of 1989

The Velvet Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia. The period of upheaval and transition took place from November 27 to December 29, 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia combined students and older dissidents.

The term Velvet Revolution was coined by Rita Klimova, the dissidents' English translator who later became the ambassador to the United States. The term was used internationally to describe the revolution, although the Czechs also used the term internally. In 1993, after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia used the term Gentle Revolution, the term that Slovaks used for the revolution from the beginning.

The end result was the end of 41 years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent conversion to a parliamentary republic.

On International Students Day, 17 November 1989, riot police suppressed a student demonstration in Prague. That event sparked a series of demonstrations from November 19 to late December of 1989. By November 20, the number of protesters assembled in Prague had grown from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated 500,000. There was a two hour general strike involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia held on 27th of November 1989. On the 24th November, the entire top leadership of the Communist Party, including General Secretary Milos Jakes, resigned.

It was in a response to the collapse of other Warsaw Pact governments and the increasing street protests, the Communist party of Czechoslovakia announced on November 28, 1989 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single party state. Two days later, the legislature formally deleted the sections of the Constitution giving the Communists a monopoly of power. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. It was on 10 December 1989, President Gustav Husak appointed the first largely non-communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander Dubcek was elected speaker of the federal parliament on 28 December 1989 and Vaclav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989. It was June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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