HIST362 Study Guide

Unit 10: 1989: Nonviolence and the End of the Cold War

10a. Provide a concise historical narrative of the 1989 revolutionary events in Eastern Europe

  • Define the cold war, the Iron curtain, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact.
  • Describe the role of these prominent political leaders: Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Wojciech Jaruzelski, Vaclav Havel, and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
  • Describe the origins and outcomes of the Soviet Invasion of Hungary (1956) and the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia (1968).
  • How did the revolts in Poland and Hungary differ? Define martial law. Describe the Solidarity movement in Poland (Solidarnosc).
  • Why did the revolution turn violent in Romania and not elsewhere in the region?

The end of the Cold War is associated with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the removal of the so called Iron Curtain between the East (communist Europe) and the West (western Europe). Three main revolutions shaped the end of communist authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe: The Hungarian Revolution in 1956, The Prague Spring in 1968, and Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland in the 1980s.

These revolutions progressively weakened the communist regime and caused its eventual collapse in 1989. In its place, the countries established more democratic structures and governments, with organized elections, and a more welcoming relationship toward Western Europe and the United States. 

Review this material in:

an in these notes by Anna Cienciala:


10b. Examine the reasons why communist authorities were willing to sit at the negotiating table with dissidents in 1989 and 1990

  • Name four factors that were critical to ending the cold war in the Soviet Bloc in the 1980s.
  • Define glasnost and perestroika. How did these principles that Gorbachev espoused precipitate the end of the cold war in 1989?
  • Describe the role prominent Russian dissidents, such as Andrei Sakharov and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, played in the fall of the Soviet Union.

Four factors played a significant role in the events leading to the end of the Cold War in 1989:

  1. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union and Russia from 1985–1991, introduced social and economic reforms to provide more political freedom (glasnost or openness) and restructure of the economy (perestroika) in the Soviet Union. Communist leaders in Eastern Europe were forced to consider similar reforms in their own countries.

  2. Gorbachev disavowed the Brezhnev doctrine said the Soviet Union would intervene militarily in Eastern Europe to prevent reform movements as it had in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

  3. A growing regional economic crisis inspired leaders to seek market-based solutions, rather than relying on Soviet-era, centrally-planned economies.

  4. Citizens increased the amount of popular pressure they put on their governments to support change by engaging in mass street protests to demand an end to authoritarian control by the Communist party.

Review this material in:


10c. Interpret primary documents from the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe

  • What connections do you see between Adam Michnik's values and ideals, and those of the American and the French Revolutionaries?
  • What were Viktor Orban's primary claims regarding the possibility of a stable transition away from Communism?
  • What effect did communist rule have on Czechoslovak society according to Victor Havel? What did say were the most important tasks ahead?
  • How does the dissent of the Romanian communist party members against Nicolae Ceaușescu differ from liberal democratic dissent? What similarities do you notice?

Nationalism reasserted itself during the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe. For example, Adam Michnik explains that Germans began to insist that East and West Germany were one country and should not be separated. Like the revolutionaries in the American Revolution, leaders and thinkers demanded that they be allowed to make their own decisions, as a people, and not be controlled by a far-away government whose primary concern was the welfare of the Soviet Union. Victor Havel celebrated that the Czech Republic would no longer be "an appendage" of the Soviet Union.

Victor Havel believed that the worst part of living under Soviet rule was the "contaminated moral environment", in which people were forced to say one thing when they believed something else. This disconnect created a type of inhumanity. Like the Americans who wrote the Declaration of Independence, Romanian communist party leaders sent Ceauşescu a letter to outline their grievances. However this letter did not seek to defend natural rights, but objected to the failures of the central planning system.

Review the following primary documents:


10d. Compare 1989 in Eastern Europe to the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution in terms of ideology, goals, and the use of revolutionary violence

  • Name some barriers to transitioning from communism to democracy?
  • What policies did the new governments implement to transition from a planned to a market-based economy?
  • Name some important social problems that resulted from the changes in 1989?
  • How did peaceful revolution in 1989 differ from violent revolution in France in 1789 and Russia in 1917.

Compared to the revolutions we explored in previous units, the movements in Europe at the end of the Cold War were relatively peaceful. We can trace the most violent episodes back to the Soviet repression during the Hungarian Revolution (1956), the Soviet-led tanks entering Prague in 1968, Wojciech Jaruzelski's imposition of martial law in Poland from 1981 to 1983, and the violent execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, the Romanian dictator and his wife, in 1989. While these instances were certainly violent and terrifying, they pale in comparison to what we have studied so far.

Review this material in Central and Eastern Europe since the Fall of Communism by Anna Cienciala and the article from Unit 1 Velvet Revolution: The Prospects by Timothy Garton Ash.


10e. Analyze the outcomes of 1989 for Russia and the world

  • Explain the major challenges faced in transitioning away from communism.
  • Compare the use of violence in the 1989 revolution with the French, Russian, Mexican, Chinese, and American Revolutions.
  • How and why did protests in China end differently that protests in Eastern Europe in 1989?

Although there was broad consensus regarding the immediate objectives of the revolutions that followed the end of the Cold War in Eastern Europe, most of the governments were unprepared for the post-communist reality that followed.

Economic crisis and inflation hit many of the countries that had been part of the Soviet bloc. In many countries, as borders were redefined, the ethnic tensions that dictatorship and the Soviet Union had held in check for so many years erupted into violence and turmoil. For example, violent and destructive power struggles ensued in Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Balkans, which resulted in a return to authoritarian rule.

Meanwhile, governments that had democratic traditions in their past and were fairly homogeneous ethnically, such as Poland and East Germany, were more ready to experiment with democratic forms of government as they struggled to compete economically with their new foreign competition. Today, support for democratic rule and market-based principles in these countries, and Russia itself, continues to ebb and flow.

Review Central and Eastern Europe since the Fall of Communism by Anna Cienciala.


Unit 10 Vocabulary

  • Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
  • Andrei Sakharov
  • Berlin Airlift
  • Berlin Wall
  • Cold war
  • Glasnost
  • Iron curtain
  • Lech Walesa
  • Mikhail Gorbachev
  • Nicolae Ceaușescu
  • Perestroika
  • Prague Spring
  • Solidarity (Solidarność)
  • Soviet Invasion of Hungary
  • Soviet Union
  • USSR
  • Vaclav Havel
  • Warsaw Pact
  • Wojciech Jaruzelski