1989 – European revolutionary year

1989 – European revolutionary year

For the history of Europe and that of the entire world, the memorable year of 1989 represents an historical turning point, during which the totalitarian regimes of Central Europe crashed in a chain reaction, and between December 25th 1989, the day of execution for the Ceausescu couple, and December 25th 1991, the day the USSR fell, changes took place, unimaginable one or two years before.

The reasons for the great anti-totalitarian, democratic shift, successfully unfolded in the known geopolitical space, as well as the medium and long term consequences that followed, are far from being illuminated. It seems that the US and the western world still haven’t sobered up from the disappearance of the Warsaw treaty, the dissolution of CMEA the disappearance of the Soviet armed forces from Germany and Central Europe and their retreat 1500 km east, the dissolution of the USSR, the disbandment of the Red Army and the unification of Germany.

The schools of political analysis and forecasting all over the world, including that of the US, directed by the CIA, with the vast human, financial and technological resources at their disposal, couldn’t anticipate the essential changes of the 90’s. The heart of the great events, that lead to the downfall of communism in Europe, was Moscow; as such communism being born (1917) and having died here (1991), dragging behind all the political regimes that it cultivated and maintained in the countries of Central Europe. Therefore the path was open for abandoning the system of planned economy, totalitarianism and adopting a new economical system – that of market economy as well as adopting a new democratic political governing system.

The great changes of the 20th century conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev lead on to a complete political astonishment from the US and that of it’s NATO allies – the effects of which could last for centuries (historians and analysts are steal dealing with the American Revolution of 1776 the French Revolution of 1789-1794, the European Revolutions of 1848, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 – all these offering new topics for debates and new interpretations).
The essence of THE POLITICAL ASTONISHMENT of the western world consists of the elimination of the “communist threat” which constructed the main American external policy as well as the “binding agent” by which the US rallied and united the capitalist forces of the world against the USSR.

The fundamental cause of the 1989 revolutionary process was of economic nature. The economies of the former communist countries, though some advanced (Czechoslovakia, GDR, Hungary), have failed in contrast with economic standards of the more advanced nations of the world such as France, Germany, Sweden, the USA, the United Kingdom, because they were based on the political will of the leadership factors, and not on the natural criteria of the internal and international market (supply and demand).

American analysts evaluate that from the duration point of view, the anti-totalitarian Revolution of Central Europe unfolded as such: ten years in Poland, ten months in Hungary, ten weeks in Czechoslovakia, ten days in GDR and ten hours in Romania – all with the same final result: the abandoning of the planned economical system, the destruction of the monopoly of political power held by the Communist Parties, adopting market economy and pluralist democracy, the emergence from under the Soviet hegemony (minus Romania, who had accomplished this in 1964) and the orientation towards Western Europe and its values.

The democratic, anti-totalitarian revolutions of Central and Eastern Europe are different from what mankind had accumulated until then concerning revolutionary movements, proving themselves to be unique in history because they did not propose to bring a new social project in the world, like in the case of the Russian and French revolutions.

The countries in which these revolutions occurred proposed that during a period of transition they would accomplish what was already in Western Europe, the United States and Canada – that being a democratic society, based on a modern market economy in which man could enjoy his rights at the modern standards of civilization of the 20th and 21st centuries. This difficult social work has three sources: the values of western democracy, the national pre-communist values and the authentic values accumulated from the experience of the communist era (the right for a job, social protection, and a equitable distribution of the national wealth).

That which ties the nations of Central and Eastern Europe – their common historical experience, their mutual influences and connections, are far more powerful, more numerous and more durable than that which separates them.

The revolutionary events of the year 1989 can only be understood by a global approach because of their causal unity and mutual influence.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 is an integral part of this European process.



Colonel Viorel Ciobanu
President of the Teleorman County Organization
For military armed forces in reserve