Russia

Yet the images were deceptive. A Czech parliamentary inquiry into the police violence of 17 November was quietly discontinued once it was learned that no one had been killed and that the blood spilled had been stage blood. The ‘victim’ turned out to be a member of the secret police. The public had been treated to a piece of political theatre, staged by Czech security in conjunction with the KGB - a drama worthy of Havel himself. But it had served to launch a genuine revolution. Early in December Civic Forum transformed itself into a political party; on 7 December Communist Party leader Adamec resigned. By the end of the year Havel was installed in the Hradshin Castle as provisional president pending elections. Meanwhile only Ceausescu, of all the old Communist leaders, remained to be disposed of - and Gorbachev and the KGB had a discreet hand in the resolution of that problem too.

The critical date in Bucharest was 22 December. Ceausescu, just returned from a state visit to Iran, appeared on the balcony of the Party headquarters building to make a speech and receive the dutiful plaudits of the crowd assembled in the open space below, as he had done on several occasions in the past. Only this time, instead of applauding, the crowd began to jeer. As the situation became threatening, the dictator and his wife were taken to the roof and flown away by helicopter. But they were soon caught, tried by a summary court martial, and shot. As it transpired, leading figures in the regime which replaced his were already in the building when Ceausescu had begun to speak. In what had been, until the last instalment, a series of bloodless revolutions Gorbachev had cut the satellites loose. He had yet to ensure the security of the Soviet Union in its new circumstances, however, and to shore up his own, increasingly fragile, position as its leader.

The Soviet standard of living deteriorated steadily during 1989. Food rationing became commonplace in many areas, political protests more frequent, and in April there were nineteen fatal casualties in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, when troops fired on a crowd of demonstrators. In August, on the anniversary of the Nazi—Soviet Pact, there were demonstrations in the Baltic republics too, and nationalists soon began to organize in Ukraine. Averting his eyes from the deterioration in the economy and from the threat of dynamic nationalism, Gorbachev persevered with political and constitutional reform. In February 1990 he asked the Central Committee to discontinue the Soviet Party’s political monopoly, and, true to its tradition of obedience to the leader, it complied, albeit unhappily. In foreign affairs, however, matters did not go well for Gorbachev.

He had hoped for an orderly transition from authoritarian Communism in the countries of the Bloc but, except in Bulgaria and Romania, the reformed socialism that he promoted was rejected and, rather than the gradualism which he envisaged, change came in a rush. Gorbachev also intended to maintain the strategic balance in Europe but with excitement at the prospect of reunification running high on both sides of the German divide Chancellor Kohl moved to absorb East Germany and so reunite his country. The United States affected indifference, Britain disliked the idea and so did France; but neither was disposed to invoke its powers under the Four Power Treaty to prevent German reunification. Gorbachev was entitled to send in troops to maintain the divide and might well have received some support from the West had he done so. But he shrank from it. It would have ended the detente with West Germany, which had become a pillar of Soviet foreign policy. So Gorbachev, who might have prevented unification, allowed it to happen, and confined himself to seeking economic concessions from Kohl to help bolster the now tottering Soviet economy. It was a modest price to pay for Soviet complaisance, and a major political triumph for the German leader. ¹⁹

So it was that by the end of 1990 the unification of Germany, which had been unimaginable even a year before, became a fact. Concerns emerged in west Germany about the cost of absorbing the east, and in the east about the loss of full employment, the erosion of cultural values in which many East Germans had taken some pride, and the inflow of carpetbaggers. But by then it was too late.