The Magic Lantern

Garton Ash recalls his time in Prague, including one “contribution” when he said to future Czechoslovak president Havel, “‘In Poland it took ten years, in Hungary ten months, in East Germany ten weeks, perhaps in Czechoslovakia it will take ten days” (69). Upon hearing this, future president Havel has a television crew record the remark, which gained traction in the international and domestic media (69-70). Garton Ash argues that the episode illustrates Havel’s unique personality and flair for the dramatic. Garton Ash revels in his front row seat as a historian, the lone foreign observer in the theatrical production that was the incipient democratic process.

The historic roots of the 1989 revolution began with student activism and underground publishing, often called “samizdat” from the Russian for self-publish., that is, using illegal underground presses rather than going through state channels and censorship. More immediately, In Prague, Student activists demonstrated on November 17, 1989, in memory of a young man murdered during Prague’s Nazi occupation. This transformed into an anti-government demonstration on Wenceslas Square, long a site of political action. Brutal police resistance led the student activists to call for a strike.

Groups of dissidents who had first organized around the signing of Charter 77, resumed political activity, with Havel as the most prominent among them. Charter 77, as the Contextual Analysis section of this guide will make clear, was a movement for greater freedom in Czechoslovakia, in accordance with the country’s signing of the international agreements known as the Helsinki Accords. The framework obligated the signatories to defend human rights, including freedom of expression and association.

The heterogenous revolutionary movement, which included members of government parties, took the name Civic Forum. The Forum called for mass government resignations and a repudiation of the repression that had followed the Soviet invasion in 1968. Five days after the initial protest, the country’s Prime Minister declined to establish martial law and agreed to meet with the Forum. During these events, Garton Ash finds Havel in a dressing room deep inside the theater, debating various issues and ideological stances. Membership in the Forum is partly through personal ties, with former signatories of Charter 77 comprising a key network. Other nodes form around occupations and nationality, including Slovak representatives. Garton Ash treats these constituencies as players in a drama, referring to them as “The Worker” “The Students” or “The Prognostics” (after the name of an economic institute). Other participants are Catholic or radical socialists. Over time the Forum divides itself into subcommittees to discuss specific issues.

The Forum was not a popularly elected legislature, and the people on the streets were a powerful source of its legitimacy. Yet it also depended on Havel’s personal leadership and trust. His world of the theater was not the only sphere of action, as Garton Ash recalls the importance of “‘the people, the powers that be, and the world’” (80). Prague itself was a key domestic stage, with local outposts of the Forum coming into being in workplaces. Garton Ash argues that the term “the powers that be” captures the unique constellation of the Czechoslovak Party, the Czech national party, the police and the military, and the external importance of the Soviet Union as a possible check on the revolution’s success. (81-2). This included not only Gorbachev’s personal intentions, but the historical memory of the failed revolution of 1968, crushed by Soviet military force. Foreign journalists also took a strong interest in the events of 1989, and the presence of television likely constrained governments from using force.

Garton Ash witnesses the past collide with the present, in the form of Alexander Dubček, who was party leader during the 1968 Prague Spring. Garton Ash likens this to “as if the ghost of Winston Churchill were to be striding down the Burlington Arcade” (84). He is met with great popular acclaim, and his name was chanted with Havel’s. The Archbishop of Prague, František Tomášek, a Dubček supporter in 1968, also spoke. Later that day, Havel and Dubček celebrate on camera as the entire government resigns. The Civic Forum returns to debate late into the night, deciding the general strike is also to be interpreted as “national referendum” on the political system (87). Though Czechoslovakia was not majority-Catholic, public celebrations of the canonization of Agnes of Prague, and Tomášek ’s participation, add to the festive atmosphere of political expression. That same day, at a massive demonstration near a football stadium, Havel speaks in support of the Prime Minister, at his request, in an attempt at preserving regime stability. But the crowd, often chanting in obvious consensus, demands the resignation of unpopular political figures and ignores the prime minister.

For Garton Ash, the following days are a rapid blur of Forum meetings, Forum negotiations with the government, and mass demonstrations. The forum adopts a broad political program in favor of democracy, free civil society, and becoming a “normal country in the center of Europe” (92), with the worker Peter Miller urging its quick and unanimous adoption. Garton Ash argues that this recipe is nearly universally adopted across the region, with no sense of socialism as a viable alternative, even a softened version. The two-hour general strike, brief to avoid economic disruption, leads to more mass demonstrations in favor of democracy and free elections. The crowd calls for a new prime minister, surprising the Forum. Forum leadership had expected Communist Prime Minister Adamec to serve as a transitional figure. The Forum calls for a new president and urges the Soviet government to re-evaluate the 1968 invasion. The parliament caves to political pressure and removes the Party’s leading role from the constitution, and the ideological primacy of Marxism in education. They do so without much hesitation, which Garton Ash interprets as evidence of their lack of real conviction.

Garton Ash stresses that much of the decision making in the Forum is spontaneous—Havel verbally dictates a communique, deciding at the last moment to request that the new cabinet have a non-Communist interior minister. By day fourteen, the Forum takes up the issue of how to constitute a new parliament, and whether to do so legally, and thus slowly, or immediately, and thus employ the same authoritarian methods they deplore. Garton Ash poses this as the question “can you take an undemocratic short-cut to democracy?” (102). The existing communist government continues to bring back exiled communists from 1968, but Garton Ash argues this is merely a sign of its desperation.

By day 15, the deadline for a new government approaches. Garton Ash admires Havel’s casual air and “enormous stamina” as he has engaged in long negotiations with the government (105). The new proposed cabinet is largely unacceptable to the Forum, but they also risk a power vacuum since no executive branch will exist unless a new government forms. Havel prepares a reaction statement. At the same time, a formerly repressed folk singer gives a heartfelt performance to great applause. A demonstration the next day features renewed calls for elections and a coalition government. Garton Ash thinks it is likely the reforms will succeed, as the Warsaw Pact has formally repudiated the 1968 invasion, signaling Soviet willingness to let reforms continue.

Garton Ash leaves Prague soon after, summarizing events after he left. These included the formation of a new government with many Forum members, with Communists in the minority. Havel becomes president, with Dubček as chair of the federal assembly. Garton Ash notes that Czechoslovakia was a democracy before World War II, so it may seem surprising that resistance took so long. The fall of the Berlin Wall was the ultimate catalyst, with the earlier revolutions providing models for the process of negotiation. Others suggested that there was a kind of historical force at work, what Garton Ash calls, “the angels” (114), as it was also a matter of luck that a heterogenous coalition if inexperienced people were able to reshape a government. Garton Ash celebrates the triumph of his friends, while recalling past tragedies, and declares that “the most Western of all the so called East European countries was resuming its proper history” (116).