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Now Out of Never - The Element of Surprise in The East European Revolution of 1989
Now Out of Never - The Element of Surprise in The East European Revolution of 1989
Now Out of Never - The Element of Surprise in The East European Revolution of 1989
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I. UNITED
IN AMAZEMENT
UR jaws cannot drop any lower," exclaimed Radio Free Europe one day in late 1989. It was commentingon the electrifying collapse of Eastern Europe's communistregimes.'The politicallandscape of the entireregion changed suddenly,astonishingeven the most
seasoned political observers.In a matterof weeks entrenchedleaders
were overthrown,the communistmonopolyon power was abrogated in
one countryafteranother,and persecutedcriticsof the communistsystem were catapultedinto high office.
In the West the ranks of the stunnedincluded championsof the view
thatcommunisttotalitarianismis substantiallymore stablethan ordinary
"It has to be conceded," wrotea leading proponentof
authoritarianism.2
this view in early 1990, "that those of us who distinguishbetween the
two non-democratictypesof governmentunderestimatedthe decay of
Communistcountriesand expectedthecollapse of totalitarianismto take
longer than has actually turnedout to be the case."3 Another acknowledged her bewildermentthroughthe titleof a new book: The Withering
Away ofthe TotalitarianState. . . And OtherSurprises.4
* This researchwas supportedby the National Science Foundation under grantno. SES8808031. A segmentof thepaper was draftedduringa sabbatical,financedpartlybya fellowship fromtheNational Endowmentforthe Humanities,at the InstituteforAdvanced Study
in Princeton.I am indebtedto WolfgangFach, Helena Flam, JackGoldstone,Kenneth Koford,Pavel Pelikan, Jean-PhilippePlatteau,WolfgangSeibel, Ulrich Witt,and threeanonymousreadersforhelpfulcomments.
bythe
1 BernardGwertzmanand Michael T. Kaufman,eds., The Collapseof Communism,
of "The New YorkTimes"(New York: Times Books, 1990),vii.
Correspondents
of thisthesis,see Hannah Arendt,The Originsof Totalitarianism,
2 For an earlystatement
2d ed. (1951; reprint,New York: World Publishing,1958), pt. 3. Arendt suggestedthat
communismweakens interpersonalbonds rootedin family,community,religion,and prodependenton thegoodwill of the stateand
fession,a situationthatmakes individualsterribly
thus blocks the mobilizationof an anticommunistrevolt.
' Richard Pipes, "Gorbachev's Russia: Breakdownor Crackdown?" Commentary,
March
1990,p. 16.
AwayoftheTotalitarianState... And OtherSurprises
4Jeane J.Kirkpatrick,The Withering
(Washington,D.C.: AEI Press,1990). A decade earlierKirkpatrickhad articulateda variant
of Arendt'sthesis,insistingthatthe communistsystemis incapable of self-propelledevolu-
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In late 1988,with less than a year to go, Havel was stillunsure about the
directionof events:
Maybe [the Movement forCivil Liberties]will quickly become an integral
featureof our country'slife,albeit one not particularlybeloved of the regime. . . . Perhaps it will remain for the time being merely the seed of
somethingthat will bear fruitin the dim and distantfuture.It is equally
possible that the entire"matter" will be stamped on hard.'2
Other Czechoslovak dissidentswere just as unpreparedfor the revolution. In November 1989 JanUrban suggestedthatthe oppositioncontestthe national electionsscheduled forJune1991-only to be ridiculed
by his friendsformaking a hopelesslyutopian proposal."3Within a matter of days, they were all celebratingthe fall of Czechoslovakia's communistdictatorship.
9 Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"(1979), in Havel et al., The PowerofthePowerless:
CitizensagainsttheState in Central-Eastern
Europe,ed. JohnKeane and trans.Paul Wilson
(Armonk,N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985),42.
10Ibid., 87, 89, 96.
11Havel, "Meeting Gorbachev" (1987), in William M. Brintonand Alan Rinzler, eds.,
WithoutForceor Lies: VoicesfromtheRevolutionofCentralEuropein 1989-90 (San Francisco:
MercuryHouse, 1990),266.
12
Havel, "Cards on the Table" (1988), in Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11),270-71.
13 Sidney Tarrow, " 'Aiming at a Moving Target': Social Science and the Recent Rebellions in EasternEurope," PS: PoliticalScienceand Politics24 (March 1991), 12.
10
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A few monthsbeforethe revolution,in neighboringPoland negotiationswere under way betweenthe communistregimeand Solidarity,the
trade union that for years had been demanding political pluralism. To
the surpriseof almost everyone,the regimeagreed in April 1989 to hold
open elections for a pluralisticparliament. In elections scheduled for
June all 100 Senate seats and 161 of the 460 Assembly seats would be
contestable.Exceeding the wildest expectations,Solidaritywon all but
one of the Senate seats in addition to all of the Assembly seats it was
allowed to contest.Stunned by the enormityof this success, Solidarity
officialsworried thatthe electoratehad gone too far,thatvictorywould
forceSolidarityinto making bold politicalmoves simplyto satisfyraised
hopes. They fearedthatsuch moves would provoke a communistcrackdown. The significantpointis thatneitherthegovernmentnor Solidarity
was prepared forsuch a lopsided result.The April accord was designed
to give Solidaritya voice in Parliament,not to substantiateand legitimate
its claim to being thevoice of the Polish people.14
We will never know how many East Europeans foresawthe eventsof
1989-or at least the impending changes in theirown countries.But at
each step,journalisticaccounts invariablypainted a pictureof a stunned
public. For example, two days afterthebreachingof the Berlin Wall, the
New York Times carried an article in which an East German remarks:
"It's unfathomable.If you had told me that one week ago, I wouldn't
have believed it. Mentally,I stillcan't. It will take a few days beforewhat
thismeans sinks in.""5
I know of only one systematicstudyof relevance.Four months after
the fall of communismin East Germany,the Allensbach Instituteasked
a broad sample of East Germans: "A year ago did you expect such a
peaceful revolution?" Only 5 percentanswered in the affirmative,although 18 percentanswered "yes, but not that fast." Fully 76 percent
indicated that the revolutionhad totallysurprisedthem.16These figures
are all the more remarkable given the "I knew it would happen" fal14 On
theelectionsand the reactionstheygenerated,see thereportsof JohnTaglibue, New
YorkTimes,June3-6, 1989. The eventsleading up to the April accord have been chronicled
and interpretedby Timothy Garton Ash, "Refolution:The Springtimeof Two Nations,"
New YorkReviewofBooks,June15, 1989,pp. 3-10. He observed:"Almost no one imagined
that the great gulf between 'the power' and 'the society,'between Jaruzelskiand Walesa,
could be so swiftlybridged" (p. 6). For anotherinformativeaccount of Poland's political
see Elie Abel, The ShatteredBloc: Behind the Upheavalin EasternEurope
transformation,
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1990),chap. 4.
15 New YorkTimes,November 12, 1989,p. 1.
16 Question 36 on the East German Surveyof the Institutfur Demoskopie Allensbach,
February 17-March 15, 1990, Archiveno. 4195 GEW. I am indebtedto Elisabeth Noelleforagreeingto insertthisquestion intoa broadersurvey
Neumann, directorof the institute,
on East German politicalopinions.
11
Even trained
lacy-the human tendencyto exaggerateforeknowledge."7
historianssuccumb to thisfallacy,portrayingunanticipatedeventsas inevitable, foreseeable,and actually foreseen."8In view of this fallacy,if
East Germans had been asked a year before the revolution,"Do you
expect a revolutionin a year's time?" the percentageof unqualifiednegative answers would undoubtedlyhave been even higher.
The eventsthat sealed the fateof East Germany'scommunistregime
took offin the final days of summer,when thousands of East German
vacationers in Hungary took advantage of relaxed border controls to
turntheirtripsinto permanentdeparturesforWest Germany.The East
itscitizens'access to HunGerman governmentrespondedby restricting
gary, only to see thousands show up at the West German embassy in
Prague. In the ensuing days it acceded to a seriesof face-savingarrangementsby which the vacationerscould departforthe West, but only after
firstreturninghome. Each new concession prompted furtherwaves of
emigrants,however,confutingthegovernment'sexpectationthatthe exodus would taperoffquickly.19The governmentwas not alone in failing
to anticipatewhere eventswere headed. Thousands of East German citizens rushed to join the exodus preciselybecause theyfelttheirchances
of reaching the West would never again be so good. Had they known
that the Berlin Wall was about to come down, few would have leftin
such haste, leaving behind almost all their possessions,including their
cars.
It mightbe said thatsome veryknowledgeable observersof the communist bloc had predictedits disintegrationbeforethe centurywas out.
As earlyas 1969,forinstance,the Soviet dissidentAndrei Amalrik wrote
that the Russian Empire would break up within a decade and a half.
Although it is temptingto credit Amalrik with exemplaryforesight,a
rereadingof his famousessay shows thathe expected the Soviet Empire
to meet its end followinga protractedand devastatingwar with China,
not througha stringof popular upheavals. In fact,he explicitlystated
that the Soviet systemof governmenthad left people too demoralized
17 Baruch Fischhoff,"Hindsight * Foresight:The Effectof Outcome Knowledge on
Human Perceptionand
Judgmentunder Uncertainty,"
Journalof Experimental
Psychology:
Performance1 (August 1975),288-99; and Baruch Fischhoffand Ruth Beyth," 'I Knew It
Would Happen'-Remembered Probabilitiesof Once-Future Things," OrganizationalBe13 (February1975),1-16.
haviorand Human Performance
18 David Hackett Fischer,Historians'
Fallacies: Towarda Logic ofHistoricalThought(London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1971),chaps. 6-8.
19For a compilationof pertinentreportsfromthe New YorkTimes,see Gwertzman and
Kaufman (fn. 1), 153-84. Superb eyewitnessaccountsinclude Timothy Garton Ash, "The
German Revolution,"New YorkReviewofBooks,December 21, 1989,pp. 14-19; and George
Paul Csicsery,"The Siege of Nogradi Street,Budapest, 1989," in Brintonand Rinzler (fn.
11),289-302.
12
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and too dependent on authorityto participatein a spontaneous uprising.20 So Amalrik did not reallyforeseethe eventsof 1989. Like a broken
watch thattellsthe correcttime everytwelvehours,he got the timingof
the firstcrack in the empire essentiallyright,but on the basis of a spurious forecastof events.
This is not to suggestthat the East European explosion came as total
surpriseto everyone.Though most were astonishedwhen it happened,
and thoughfew who saw it coming expectedit to be so peaceful,a small
number of commentatorshad prophesiedthat the revolutionwould be
swift and remarkably bloodless. Havel, despite his above-quoted remarks, is one of these. And Vladimir Tismaneanu, a Romanian emigre
livingin the United States,came close to predictingmajor change. About
a year before the collapse of the Romanian regime, he depicted it as
"probablythe most vulnerable" in Eastern Europe. Sensing an "all-pervasive discontent,"he observedthat"the Brasov riotsin November 1987,
when thousands of citizens took to the streets,chanted anti-Ceausescu
slogans and burned the dictator'sportraits,representan unmistakable
signal for Moscow that uncontrollableviolence may flareup in Romania."21Tismaneanu failed to place the Romanian uprisingin the context
of an upheaval spanning all of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact allies.
Nor did he predict that Romania would be the last Soviet satelliteto
overthrowits government.It is remarkable nonethelessthat he diagnosed the Romanian regime's vulnerability.Like Havel, he succeeded
where many Westernobserversfailed,because he understoodthe weaknesses thatunderlaytheapparentstabilityof thecommunistsystem.This
understandingprepared him for the type of explosion that eventually
occurred,although,as discussed furtheron, it did not endow him with
the abilityto predictwhen the revolutionwould break out.
While the collapse of the post-WorldWar II politicalorderof Eastern
Europe stunned the world, in retrospect it appears as the inevitable con-
sequence of a multitudeof factors.In each of the six countriesthe leadership was generallydespised, loftyeconomic promisesremained unfulfilled,and freedomstaken forgrantedelsewhereexisted only on paper.
But if the revolutionwas indeed inevitable,why was it not foreseen?
Why did people overlook signsthatare clearlyvisibleafterthe fact?One
of the centralargumentsof this essay is preciselythat interactingsocial
and psychologicalfactorsmake it inherentlydifficultto predictthe out20
Amalrik,WilltheSovietUnionSurviveuntil1984? (1969) (New York: Harper and Row,
1970),esp. 36-44.
21
Tismaneanu, "Personal Power and Political Crisis in Romania," Government
and Opposition24 (Spring 1989),193-94.
13
come of politicalcompetition.I shall argue thatthe East European Revolution was by no means inevitable. What was inevitable is that we
would be astounded if and when it arrived.
"The victimof today is the victorof tomorrow,/ And out of Never
grows Now!"22 Brecht'scouplet capturesperfectlyour centralparadox:
seeminglyunshakable regimes saw public sentimentturn against them
with astonishingrapidity,as tinyoppositionsmushroomedinto crushing
majorities. Currentlypopular theoriesof revolutionofferlittle insight
into this stunningpace; nor for that matterdo theyshed light on the
element of surprisein previous revolutions.All lay claim to predictive
power, yetnone has a trackrecordat veritableprediction.The next section brieflycritiquesthe pertinentscholarlyliterature.Without denying
the usefulnessof some receivedtheoriesat explainingrevolutionsof the
past, I go on to present a theorythat illuminatesboth the process of
revolutionarymobilizationand the limitsof our abilityto predictwhere
and when mobilizations will occur. Subsequent sectionsapply this argument to the case at hand.
The termrevolutionis used here in a narrow sense to denote a masssupported seizure of political power that aims to transformthe social
order. By thisdefinitionit is immaterialwhetherthe accomplishedtransfer of power bringsabout significantsocial change. With regard to the
East European Revolution,it is too earlyto tell whetherthe postrevolutionaryregimeswill succeed in reshapingthe economy,the legal system,
internationalrelations,and individual rights-to mention just some of
the domains on the reformistagenda. But even if the ongoing reforms
all end in failure,the upheavals of 1989 can continueto be characterized
as a regionwiderevolution.
II.
RECEIVED
THEORIES
OF REVOLUTION
AND THEIR
PREDICTIVE
WEAKNESSES
14
WORLD POLITICS
strongenough to paralyze the government.Through theirobstructionism theelitesgeneratea burstof antielitesentiment,which setsin motion
an uprisingaimed at transforming
the social order. The appeal of Skocpol's theorylies in its invocationof structuralcauses to explain shiftsin
the structureof politicalpower. It does not depend on such "subjective"
factors as beliefs, expectations,attitudes,preferences,intentions,and
goals, although these do creep into structuralistcase studies,including
those of Skocpol herself.
Tracking emotionsand mental statesis a treacherousbusiness,which
is why the structuralistschool considersit a virtue to refrainfromappealing to them. Social structuresare ostensiblyeasier to identify,which
would seem to endow the structuralist
theorywithpredictivesuperiority
over "voluntarist"theoriesbased on "rationalchoice." Theories that fall
under the rubricof rational choice have certainlybeen unsuccessfulat
predictingmass upheavals. What theyexplain well is the rarityof popular uprisings.24
The crucial insightof the rational-choiceschool is that
an individual opposed to the incumbentregimeis unlikelyto participate
in effortsto remove it, since the personal riskof joining a revolutionary
movementcould outweigh the personal benefitthat would accrue were
the movement a success. It is generallyin a person's self-interest
to let
othersmake the sacrificesrequired to secure the regime's downfall,for
a revolution constitutesa "collective good" -a good he can enjoy
whetheror not he has contributedto its realization. With most of the
regime's opponentschoosing to freeride,an upheaval may fail to materialize even if the potentialrevolutionariesconstitutea substantialmajority.Yet fromtime to time revolutiondoes break out, and thispresents
a puzzle that the standard theoryof rational choice cannot solve. The
standard theorysimply fails to make sense of why the firstpeople to
challenge the regimechoose selflesslyto gamble with theirlives.25
With respectto the East European Revolutionin particular,the standard theoryilluminateswhy, forall theirgrievances,the nations of the
region were remarkablyquiescent forso many years.It does not explain
why in 1989 theirdocilitysuddenlygave way to an explosivedemand for
change. For its part, the structuralisttheoryelucidates why the revolutionbroke out at a timewhen the SovietUnion was emittingincreasingly
convincingsignals thatit would not use forceto tryto preservethe East
24 The seminalcontribution
is Mancur Olson, The Logic of CollectiveAction:Public Goods
and the Theoryof Groups(1965; rev.ed., Cambridge:Harvard UniversityPress, 1971).
25 This point is developed by Michael Taylor,"Rationalityand Revolutionary
Action,"in
Taylor, ed., Rationalityand Rcvolution(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1988),6397. Taylor also offersan illuminatingcritiqueof structuralism.
REVOLUTION
15
16
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FALSIFICATION
AND REVOLUTIONARY
BANDWAGONS
17
18
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19
20
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{0, 10, 30, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100}.
21
22
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23
C' = {0, 10, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 60, 100}.
Like A', this sequence drivesS from10 to 90, implyingthatnine out of
ten individuals have an incentiveto say that theydespised the prerevolutionaryregime.If thresholdsbelow 50 reflectprivatesupportfora revolution,and thoseabove 50 privatesatisfactionwith the statusquo, eight
of the nine would be telling the truth,the one liar being person 9
(T9 = 60). It follows from the same assumption that four of the nine
would be lying if the thresholdsequence were A'. But once again, because thresholdsare not public knowledge,historiansmay have difficulty
determiningwhetherthe prerevolutionary
sequence was A or C-or for
thatmatter,whetherthe postrevolutionary
sequence is A' or C'.
Before moving to the East European Revolution,it may be useful to
commenton how the foregoingargumentrelatesto threesourcesof controversyin the literatureon revolutions:the continuityof social change,
the power of the individual,and the significanceof unorganized crowds.
24
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25
nationsrestson a cognitiveillusion: theindividual overestimateshis personal political influence.Another invokes an ethical commitment:the
individual feels compelled to do his fair share for the attainmentof a
jointlydesired outcome.37The approach used here, which is not incompatible with these explanations,places the burden of sparkingthe mobilization process on the individual's need to be true to himself.This approach is consistentwith the fact that revolutionaryleaders tend to be
surprisedwhen theirgoals materialize. The cognitive-illusionexplanation is not: people who challenge the governmentout of an overestimation of their personal abilityto direct the course of historywill not be
surprisedwhen theirwishes come true.The approach of thisessayis also
consistentwith the factthatsome people risk theirlives fora revolution
even as the vast majorityof the potentialbeneficiariesrefrainfromdoing
theirown fairshare.
Finally, the outlined theoryaccords organized pressuregroups and
unorganized crowds complementaryroles in the overthrowof the government.Organized oppositionsenhance the externalpayoffto dissent,
both by providingthe individual dissenterwith a supportnetworkand
by raisingthe likelihoodof a successfulrevolution.They also help shatter
the appearance of the invulnerabilityof the status quo, and through
propaganda, they shiftpeople's privatepreferencesin favorof change.
Charles Tilly is thereforerightto draw attentionto the structuraland
situational factorsthat govern a society'spatternof political organization.38But as Pamela Oliver warns,we must guard against overemphasizing the role of organization at the expense of the role of the unorganized crowd. A small differencein the resourcesat the disposal of an
organized oppositionmay have a tremendousimpact on the outcome of
This observationmakes perfectsense in the contextof the
its efforts.39
theorydeveloped here. Where a small pressure group fails to push a
bandwagon into motion a slightlybetterorganizedor slightlylargerone
might.
26
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27
28
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327.
Manea, "Romania: Three Lines with Commentary,"in Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11),
29
30
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31
of theirsubjects. If the factthat theykept the resultssecretis any indication,these were not entirelyflatteringto them or theirpolicies. Information for publication "was checked beforehandand given the appropriateinterpretation,"
to keep it fromemboldeningthe regime'sdeclared
and potentialopponents.56
It would be an exaggerationto suggest thatall East European supporters of communist rule were privatelyopposed to the status quo.
Some benefitedhandsomelyfromthe system,and othersfeltthreatened
by major reform.Nor did those who became consciousof the failuresof
communism necessarilylose faithin officialideals. Even leading dissidentsremainedsympatheticto centralplanningand collectiveownership
and ever suspiciousof the free-enterprise
system.57
By and large,theyfelt
that communism was betrayedby self-servingleaders, not that it was
inherentlyunworkable.
These observationsare consistentwith opinion polls of East Europeans travelingabroad conducted by Western organizationsin the 1970s
and early 1980s. With remarkableconsistencyand for each nation, the
data showed that in free elections offeringa full spectrumof choices,
including a Democratic Socialist Party and a Christian Democratic
Party,the Communist Party would receive at most a tenthof the vote,
and the socialistswould invariablybe the winners.58
Further systematicevidence is contained in surveysconducted from
1970 onward forthe benefitof the leadershipby the Central Institutefor
Youth Development in Leipzig. Now being declassified,these surveys
suggestthatuntilthe mid-1980smostEast Germans accepted the official
goals of socialism.In 1983,46 percentof a sample of tradeschool students
endorsed the statement"I am a devoted citizen of the German Democratic Republic," whereas 45 percentendorsed it with reservationsand
only 9 percentrejectedit. And in 1984,50 percentagreed that"socialism
will triumph throughoutthe world," whereas 42 percentagreed with
reservationsand 8 percentdisagreed. Between 1970 and 1985,the results
showed little variation.59They may, of course, have been based on a
56
Jifi Otava, "Public Opinion Research in Czechoslovakia,"Social Research55 (SpringSummer 1988),249. Everyissue of theCzechoslovak government'sofficialbulletinon public
opinion stated: "We remind all researchersthat this bulletinis not meant for the public,
which means not even foryourfriendsand acquaintances,but servesexclusivelyas internal
materialforpoll-takersand thosewho collaboratewithus" (p. 251 n. 2).
57 See Vladimir Tismaneanu, The CrisisofMarxist
Ideologyin EasternEurope: The Poverty
of Utopia(London: Routledge,1988),esp. chap. 4.
58 Henry 0. Hart, "The Tables Turned: If East Europeans Could Vote," Public Opinion
6 (October-November 1983), 53-57. The surveysreportedby Hart cover Czechoslovakia,
Hungary,Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
59 "Daten des Zentralinstituts
furJugendforshung
Leipzig" (Mimeograph),Tables 1 and
and distrib2. These tableswere compiled by WalterFriedrich,the directorof the institute,
32
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flawed methodology,as was much public opinion researchdone in Eastern Europe. But, as we shall see later,it is highlysignificantthat after
1985 thissame methodologyregistereda sustaineddeteriorationboth in
the citizenry'sattachmentto the regimeand in its faithin socialism.
It thus appears that while the East Europeans overwhelminglydisliked the regimes under which theywere living, they were much less
troubledby the principlesof socialism-at least until the mid-1980s.To
make sense of this finding,we need to touch on the cognitiveimplicaDisaffectedcitizenschoosingto conform
tionsof preferencefalsification.
to the regime's demands typicallypaid lip serviceto officialgoals, used
Marxist jargon, and made excuses for communism's shortcomingsby
pointing to the ostensiblyworse failuresof capitalism. In the process,
they unavoidably kept theirfellow citizens uninformedabout those of
their private beliefs that were inimical to the status quo. Worse, they
knowinglyexposed one anotherto falsefactsand misleadingarguments.
In short,they distortedpublic discourse. Since public discourse influences what is noticedand how eventsare interpreted,thisdistortionundoubtedly affectedthe evolution of East European private preferences.
East Europeans subjectedfromearlychildhood to predictionsof the imminent demise of capitalismand to theoriesof the incontrovertiblesuperiorityof communismmust have become more or less conditionedto
think in Marxist terms,developing some mental resistanceto the fundamental flawsof theirsocial order.60
If this reasoningis correct,Marxistdiscoursewould also have blunted
the abilityof East Europeans to articulatean alternativeeconomic order.
Vladimir Shlapentokh points to a paradox here. The socialist worker
mistruststhe market order, even though he obtains his treasuredblue
jeans through the only free market to which he has access-the black
market. Likewise, the enterprisemanager who turns regularlyto the
undergroundeconomy for vital spare parts dreads economic liberalization. Shlapentokhascribessuch inconsistenciesto a disjunctionbetween
the "pragmatic" and "theoretical" layers of the individual mind.61
uted to the participantsat a conferenceheld in Ladenburg in February 1991, under the
auspices of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
broughtthe documentto myattention;JohnAhouse translatedit intoEnglish.
60 For a fullerargumenton how preference
falsification
distortspublicdiscourseand how,
in turn,thisdistortionwarps theevolutionof people's privatepreferences,
see Timur Kuran,
"The Role of Deception in PoliticalCompetition,"in AlbertBretonet al., eds., The CompetitiveState (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff,1990),71-95.
61 Though Shlapentokhdevelopstheargumentwithrespectto theSoviet Union, it applies
also to Eastern Europe. See Shlapentokh,SovietPublic Opinionand Ideology:Mythology
and
in Interaction
Pragmatism
(New York: Praeger,1986); and idem,Publicand PrivateLife ofthe
SovietPeople: ChangingValues in Post-StalinRussia (New York: Oxford UniversityPress,
1989).
33
thisphenomenon
Known in cognitivepsychologyas mentalpartitioning,
is an inevitableconsequence of the mind's limitationsin receiving,storing, retrieving,and processinginformation.People are simplyunable to
incorporateinto a single, comprehensivemodel the multitudesof variables and relationshipsthat bear on their happiness; they thus ignore
many interconnectionsand treat closely related phenomena as unrelated.62
THE
REVOLUTION
The foregoingargumenthas two immediateimplications.First,the regimes of Eastern Europe were substantiallymore vulnerable than the
subservienceand quiescence of theirpopulationsmade them seem. Millions were prepared to stand up in defianceif ever theysensed that this
was sufficiently
safe. The people's solidaritywith their leaders would
then have been exposed as illusory,strippingthe veneer of legitimacy
fromthe communistmonopoly on power. Second, even the support of
those genuinelysympatheticto the statusquo was ratherthin. Though
many saw no alternativeto socialism,theirmanygrievancespredisposed
them to the promise of fundamentalchange. Were public discourse
62 See John H. Holland et al., Induction:Processes
of Inference,Learning,and Discovery
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986); and Amos Tverskyand Daniel Kahneman, "The Framing
of Decisions and the Rationalityof Choice," Science211 (January1981),453-58.
34
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35
36
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37
probablypushed the privatepreferencesof East Europeans against communism and communistrule. The East German surveysdiscussed above
provide dramaticevidence to thiseffect.They show thatafter1985 East
German attachmentto socialism steadilydeteriorated.By October 1989
only 15 percentof the surveyedtrade school studentsendorsed the statement "I am a devoted citizen of the German Democratic Republic,"
down from46 percentin 1983. Fully 60 percentendorsed it with reservationsand 25 percentrejectedit. In the same monthas few as 3 percent
continuedto believe that"socialismwill triumphthroughoutthe world,"
down from50 percentin 1984. Just27 percentagreed with reservations
and a whopping 70 percentdisagreed.72The contrastbetweenthe figures
for 1989 and those for 1983-84 is striking.It points to a massive rise in
discontentin the second halfof the decade, a risethatmust have lowered
the revolutionarythresholdsof millionsof individual East Germans.
What specificeventsset the revolutionary
bandwagon in motion? One
must recognize thatattemptingto answer thisquestion is akin to trying
to identifythe spark that ignited a forestfireor the cough responsible
fora fluepidemic. There were manyturningpointsin theEast European
Revolution,any one of which mighthave derailed it.
One turningpointcame in earlyOctober,when East German officials
refusedto carryout Partyleader Honecker's order to open fireon street
demonstrators.On October 7 Gorbachev was in Berlin for celebrations
marking the fortiethanniversaryof the German Democratic Republic.
With scores of foreignreporterslooking on, crowds took to the streets,
chanting,"Gorby! Gorby!" And the police clubs went into action. West
German televisionimmediatelyplayed these events back to the rest of
East Germany.The scenes alerteddisgruntledcitizensin everycornerof
the countryto the pervasivenessof discontent,while the government's
weak responserevealed itsvulnerability.A peacefulprotestbroke out in
Leipzig on October 9. Honecker ordered the regional Partysecretaryto
block the demonstration,by force if necessary. But bloodshed was
averted when Egon Krenz, a Politburo member in charge of security,
flew to Leipzig and encouraged the securityforces to show restraint.
Local leaders-some of whom had already appealed for restraint-accepted this contraventionof Honecker's order, and tens of thousands
marched withoutinterference.
Sensing the shiftingpoliticalwinds, more
and more East Germans throughoutthe countrytook to the streets.The
East German uprisingwas now in fullswing.As the regimetriedto stem
the tide througha stringof concessions,the swelling crowds began to
72
38
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39
shortof massive brutalitywould have broken theirmomentumand restored the status quo ante. Nonetheless, some incumbent communist
leaders were seriouslyconsideringa militarysolution,and the proclamation of the Sinatra doctrinemay well have tipped the balance against
the use of force.Had even one East European governmentresortedto
forceat this stage, the resultmay well have been a seriesof bloody and
protractedcivil wars.
Justas we cannot be certainthata delay in announcingthenew Soviet
doctrinewould have altered the course of history,we will never know
whetherthe contraventionof Honecker's orderto shoothad a significant
impact on the subsequent flow of events.What can be said is this: had
Honecker's subordinatesenforcedhis order, the growth of the opposition would have slowed, and later demonstrationswould probablynot
have stayed peaceful. The same historicalsignificancecan be attributed
to the restraintshown by theindividualsoldierson dutyduringthe demonstrationand by the individual demonstrators.In the tenseatmosphere
of the demonstrationa shot firedin panic or a stone thrownin excitementcould have sparkeda violentconfrontation.
It was an extraordinary
conjunctionof individual decisions that kept the uprisingpeaceful and
preventedthe revolutionfrombeing sidetracked.
The success of antigovernmentdemonstrationsin one country inspired demonstrationselsewhere. In early November, Sofia was shaken
by its firstdemonstrationin fourdecades as severalthousand Bulgarians
marched on the National Assembly. Within a week, on the very day
throngsbroke throughthe BerlinWall, Todor Zhivkov's thirty-five-year
leadership came to an end, and his successor began talking of radical
reforms.
Up to thattimeCzechoslovakia's communistgovernmenthad yielded
littleto its own opposition.Conscious of developmentselsewhere,it had
simply promised economic reformsand made minor concessions on
travel and religion.77These retreatsencouraged the swelling crowds to
ask formore. On November 24, just hours afterAlexander Dubvek addressed a crowd of 350,000in his firstpublic speech since 1968,the CommunistPartydeclared a shake-up in the leadership,only to face a much
largerrallyof people shouting,"Shame! Shame! Shame!" The new governmenttriedto placate the demonstratorsby vowing to punish thecommandant of the paramilitaryforcesthat had roughed up protestorsa
week earlier.Unimpressed,theoppositionleaders labeled theannounced
changes "cosmetic"and promisedto redoubletheirpressure.The success
77
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1990),
"Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution,"UncaptiveMinds3 (January-February
84
For the New YorkTimesreportsof theseevents,see Gwertzman and Kaufman (fn. 1),
332-39.
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cal, and demoralized societywould stand up with such courage and intelligenceto a foreignpower!" "And," he continues,"who would have
suspectedthat,afterscarcelya yearhad gone by,thissame societywould,
as swiftlyas the wind blows, lapse back into a stateof deep demoralization far worse than its original one!"94
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