1990 Reports

Comparative Communism’s Fall - The First Phase: The ‘Intelligentsia Revolution’ of 1989-1990

Cappelli, Ottorino

The Soviet Union held the first contested elections in its postwar history—still within the framework of the one-party system—in spring 1989. That same summer, the ruling Polish United Workers’ Party underwent a dramatic electoral defeat by Solidarnosc, then just beginning to organize as a political party. Waves of mass demonstrations, primarily led by the intelligentsia, shook the Soviet bloc the following fall and winter. The Berlin Wall was opened. By late spring 1990, popular vote had sanctioned radical change in the political landscape of key Eastern European countries, with onetime ruling communist parties becoming minority groups in their parliaments. During this period the Communist Party of the Soviet Union relinquished its ‘leading role, and a splinter group of radical intellectuals, deputies, and dissenting communist officials began organizing as a legal opposition party. In little more than a year the transition away from the political system and institutions of the communist ancien régime has reached what may be the point of no return.