Good-bye, Charlie! 20 Years since the Fall of Communism in Europe

Twenty years ago, Europe was transformed. Twenty years have passed since the dramatic events that shaped the continent the way we know it today. This is a united and democratic Europe, Europe without borders.

From today’s vantage point, one might perceive the re-union of the European continent over the past decade as a smooth, almost inevitable process. But the perspective was surely different in 1989, when Europe wore a rather gloomy face. Back then, very few could forecast a common, democratic future for this part of the world.

The year 1989 has been called the year of miracles - annus mirabilis. Suddenly – as if by a chance of luck! - Communism in Europe collapsed. Since about 1945, when World War II drew to a close, Europe had been divided into two camps, a democratic Western Europe and a communist Eastern Europe. Several states in the eastern half of the continent were forcibly drawn into the “outer empire” of the Soviet Union. After a mutual assistance pact, signed in Warsaw in 1954 by Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and, of course, the USSR, these states were at times called the “countries of the Warsaw Pact”, or just the “Eastern Bloc”. The political systems of these states were modelled after the pattern of a communist dictatorship established by Joseph Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s. The foreign policies of these states were more or less directed from Moscow. From Western Europe, the communist world was separated by hermetic borders, an Iron Curtain, which blocked the free movement of people, goods and information.

Suddenly, this world order, shaped and frozen by the Cold War, melted away. 

The events of 1989 have been interpreted in numerous ways. Some say this was a revolution, others that this was a reform from above; some call it “the autumn of nations”, others “the year of Truth”. Be as it may, one thing is clear: the dramatic years from 1989 to 1991 deserve close examination.

If one looks for symbols, particularly for something that would represent the physical and mental borders so characteristic of communist societies, the Berlin Wall with its many crossing points is an obvious place to look at. Checkpoint Charlie – a passage through the Wall that was used by Allied diplomats, military personnel and, of course, spies – became a symbol of the Iron Curtain. But the Berlin Wall collapsed and Checkpoint Charlie was demolished – so Charlie seems a fitting symbol for the Collapse of Communism in Europe. Let us say: good-bye to checks and imposed frontiers, good-bye to a communist utopia enforced by bayonets! Good-bye, Charlie!

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As the Eastern European “pot” was beginning to prepare for democracy, beside it there was boiling a much bigger and threatening “kettle”, the Soviet Union with its fifteen vassals, the soviet republics. Although this part of the world had by 1989 witnessed many dramatic twists and turns also, no one could foresee whether all this would have a happy ending.
We should remember that 20 years ago Communism collapsed in Europe, but not in all other continents; in some it has proved more resilient. On the same day as Poland voted for a free society (4 June 1989), on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing the communist leaders of China killed hundreds of peaceful protesters. Besides China, communists have clung to power in Vietnam, Laos, North-Korea and Cuba.

The Tiananmen massacre shows that the relatively bloodless end of Communism was never a foregone conclusion. The situation in the USSR was especially explosive. This state resembled a barrel of gunpowder. Firstly, the country possessed the world's largest number of weapons, conventional and nuclear; it had an arsenal of atomic bombs sufficient to blow up the world many times over. Secondly, ethnic conflicts in this huge empire could prove a fertile ground for ethnic cleansing and genocide, possibly far worse than what later happened in Yugoslavia.
Why did this never happen? Polish-American political scientist Adam Przeworski has pointed to the utter moral bankruptcy of Communism in Europe: “By 1989, party bureaucrats did not believe in their speech. And to shoot, one must believe in something. When those who hold the trigger have absolutely nothing to say, they have no force to pull it”. The people in power could save Communism only by launching a mass terror against their own people, but for this the rulers had no will.
It is time to look back on the seminal events of 1989-1991 and pause for a moment to ponder about the reasons and the results of the collapse of Communism.


An Exhibition of the European Commission Representation in Estonia and the European Parliament Information Office in Estonia

GOOD-BY, CHARLIE! 20 YEARS SINCE THE FALL OF COMMUNISM IN EUROPE

Compiled by: Estonian History Museum
Curator: Kaarel Piirimäe
Project manager: Herke Vaarmann
Design team: Velvet
Worksheet: Triin Siiner
Language editor: Sirje Toomla
Translation into English: Kaarel Piirimäe
Editor in English: Gordon Allan Leman
Translation into Russian: Kirill Lebed (Luisa Translating Bureau)
Film editor: Rivo Mehilane

We thank the following persons and organisation for help and support:

Inge Laurik-Teder, Mariann Raisma, Epp Alatalu, Ragnar Axelsson, Vello Ederma, Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson, Kolfinna Baldvinsdóttir, Erki Holmberg, Ernö Horvath, Sigrid Huik, Merle Jääger, Mari-Ann Kelam, Mati Kiirend, Anneli Kivisiv, Kaido ja Virve Krass, Üllar Kosk, Merit Kuusk, Eve Pärnaste, Tiit Pruuli, János Vargha, Agata Witerska, Estonian Film Archive, AS Tallinnfilm, Estonian Public Broadcasting, National Library of Estonia, Museum of Occupations, Harjumaa Museum, Järvamaa Museum, Estonian Theatre and Music Museum, Embassy of Poland, Hungarian Institute, Museum an der Mauer, Chronos Media, Corbis/Scanpix, European Pressphoto Agency.