Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia

On November 17, 1989 Prague police beat thousands of students who had marched peacefully to mark the anniversary of a Nazi crackdown on Czech universities. Rumors that a student had died, which proved false, sent crowds into the streets. Within days the opposition formed Civic Forum, headed by the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel. Within six weeks, the communist government that had ruled since 1948 resigned, and on December 29, 1989 Havel was elected president. Hardly a shot was fired, hence the name 'velvet'.¹

The revolution had long roots. In 1968 the Prague Spring, a reform movement under Alexander Dubcek that promised 'socialism with a human face', was crushed by a Warsaw Pact invasion. The regime that followed imposed 'normalization': purges, censorship and fear. A small circle of dissidents, including Havel, kept up opposition through Charter 77, a human rights declaration, and paid with prison. By 1989 the setting had changed. Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union meant Moscow would no longer send tanks to prop up allies. Solidarity had won Poland's first partly free elections, Hungary opened its border, and the Berlin Wall fell on November 9.¹

The protests grew fast. Hundreds of thousands filled Wenceslas Square and the Letna plain, actors and students went on strike, and on November 27 a two-hour general strike showed that workers also backed change. The Communist Party gave up its monopoly on power on November 29. On December 10 President Gustav Husak swore in a government with a non-communist majority and resigned. Free elections followed in June 1990. Czechoslovakia peacefully divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993, in what is called the Velvet Divorce.¹²