15jun2002 Prague timeline 1918 October 28 - independent Czechoslovakia established 1939 March 14 - Slovakia cedes, becomes Nazi state Invasion of German army Drivers have to switch to right from left October 28: - 21st anniversary of Declaration of Independence - celebrations became mass protests - young medical student Jan Opletal fatally wounded November 17: - funeral of Opletal became student demonstration - 9 student leaders sentenced to death - Czech universities closed - 1200 students sent to concentration and labour camps 1942 Continutued activity by Czechoslovak army units from abroad May 27 - assassination of Reinhard Heidrich (German Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the architects of the "Final Solution") by Czechoslovak parachutists - martial law declared - "Heydrichiada", the terror, begins - resistance movements put down until end of war 1944 Slovak National Uprising - "brutally" put down 1945 May - Prague Uprising - a few days later, liberating troops arrive in cities Liberation by Soviets and Americans May 11 - last shots fired on Czechoslovak territory Resistance movement has become very left wing during war Right wing parties banned (real and alleged collaboration with Nazis) Communists gain many places in government 1946 Czechoslovakia considers Marshall Plan but refuses it based on advice from Stalin 1948 February 25 - Communist coup, "Victorious February" (Vitezny unor) May 9 - constitution guaranteeing leading role for Communists passed 1949 September - first Soviet advisors arrive. Anti-semitic purge Trials from 1948-1953: "did much to populate the forced labor camps - the most notorious of which was at the Jachymov uranium mines - and to decimate the anti-Communist opposition. Subsequent acts of resistance to the regime remained isolated and unorganized." Also around this time that the authorities claim liberation was by Soviets, not Americans -- counterfactual 1953 Anti-communist protests put down by force 1955 May 14 - Warsaw pact founded "Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance" signed by Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Albania. - dissolved in 1991 1960 New constitution renames country to The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR) 1968 year of the Prague Spring April 8 - new government headed by Oldrich Cernik appointed. First Secretary of the Communist Party given to Alexander Dubcek, a Slovak (parallels with Mikhail Gorbacev, also relatively unknown) Dubcek starts reforms. Government proclaim basic human rights and liberties Lidvik Vaculik writes "2000 Words", a call for struggle against bad and for people to take control of their own lives Jazz, rock, pop, miniskirts gain popularity. Main writers and artists. Socialism with a human face: "Prague Spring" Criticisms of Czechoslovakia by Soviet Union + satellites peak in mid summer August 20-21 (night) - Soviet invasion (by invitation, letter found after 1989): "Normalisation" begins 1969 January - Most famous protest, Jan Palach (philosophy student) self-immolated in Wenceslas Square Dubcek spends next 20 years in Slovak forestry service Reformers replaced by hardliners April - Husak replaces Dubcek as party chief 1970s Bleak Active opposition to normalisation 1976 "The Plastic People of the Universe" (underground rock group) arrested and charged with crimes against the state for holding a rock concert. 1977 Charter 77 underground group formed (Vaclav Havel, Jan Patocka, Jiri Hajek), to monitor and internationally report human rights abuses. Catalysed by 1976 arrest of rock group. - 1000 sign Charter 77 (not many) 1985 Mikhail Gorbacev elected Late 1980s Introduction of Perestroika reforms in Soviet Union Hard line continued by Gustav Hasak, Mikhail Gorbacev upset Gorbacev warns that the Soviet Union will no longer run the satellites' affairs. Chechoslovakian leadership believes this to be temporary deviation from Marxist-Leninist line. 1987 April - Gorbacev visits Chechoslovakia, but fails to urge reform. Reformists disappointed. Refusals to review events of 1968. Soviet press is censored in Checkoslovakia. Slovaks publish "Bratislava Aloud," a damning statement of the communist state's disregard for public health [environmental protection]. One organiser was Jan Budaj. 1988 Organisated demonstrations demanding change Radio Free Europe no longer blocked Dubcek gives interviews defending his reformist stance in 1968. Debcek sings "Green Green Grass of Home" in Slovakian for western reporters to prove he's a regular guy. Sunday August 21 - 20th anniversary of Soviet invasion. 100s of protestors gather without incident in Wenceslas square. They disperse in a single direction, and are joined by 10,000 onlookers, spontaneously, without policemen in sight, chanting "We want freedom", "Long live Debcek", "to the Castle" [head of state], marching through the centre of Prague. The police eventually turn up, and disperse the crowd by force. "It took hours for enough police to be brought in to block the bridges across the Vltava River leading to the castle. As the sun set across the river, secret police instigated a wild melee of beatings in front of the Slavia Cafe and the National Theater." October 70th anniversary of founding. Protest of 20,000 people. Police beat passersby, including tourists. International condemnation. 1989 For revolutions, see timeline at file://localhost/Users/matt/Desktop/Prague%201989/mirrors/www.andreas.com/berlin.html January - 20th anniversary of Jan Palach's immolations - attempted suppression of student demonstrations marking this - attempts to lay flowers near Palact's act in Wenceslas square [now paved over, to hide the spot with traffic] - Vaclev Havel arrested, and imprisoned for 4 months after international and domestic pressure (he was sentenced to 8) - a week of demonstrations follow May - Havel released - Dubcek arrives at Havel's house to congratulate him In-between months: Communist party (led by Jakes) wary of Dubcek because he used to be a communist. Continued refusal to review the events of 1968. Ex communists group themselves into an organisation called "Obroda" (renewal). August 21 Pro-democracy demonstration in Prague fails to attrack many people. Is forcibly broken up. Very similar to October 28 1989 one. October 28 Police brutality Only 10,000 are protesting in Wenceslas Square. Leipzig seeing demonstrations of 150000-300000. 20,000 protesting in central Prague. 71 anniversary of founding. November - cold and dry November 9 Berlin Wall breached, many revolutions so far in 1989 Jan Urban: "Now it was completely clear that Czechoslovakia would be next." - for more theories based on Urban's work, see Note 1 below November 11 East Germany collapsing November 17 (Friday) - International Students Day - Provokation - given a license to the students, provided they stayed out of the centre of Prague - See Note 2 - started as legal rally to commemorate death of Jan Opletal 50 years earlier - riot police stopped students on their way from Czech National Cemetery at Vysehrad to Wenceslas Square, in Narodni Trida (National Street) - 30 minutes/ hour, quietly sitting/standing and singing - students offered flowers, singing "we have clean hands" - some police started beating, some police peaceful - police had flexiglass, helmets - at least 167 people injured - "Almost immediately, rumors (which have never been proved) began to circulate that the impetus for the Velvet Revolution had come from a KGB provocateur sent by Gorbacev, who wanted reform rather than hardline communists in power. The theory goes that the popular demonstrations went farther than Gorbacev and the KGB had intended. In part because of this, the Czechs do not like the term "Velvet Revolution," preferring to call what happened "the November Events" (Listopadove udalosti) or - sometimes - just "November" (Listopad)." November 18: - rumours of death of student caused 1968 veterans to gain interest - Radio Free Europe broadcast news item about death of Martin Smid. Information given to them from a Prague dissident newsservice. Report triggers anti-regime demonstrations in Wenceslas Square from Monday November 20 November 19: - Civic Forum (Czech) established at the Cinoherni Klub theatre, led by Vavlav Havel During the protests of the following week: "The secret police, riot police, Interior Ministry troops and the army all waited in vain for orders to act. But the orders never came. As with the Berlin Wall, Moscow monitored the situation in Prague closely but refrained from any interference." November 20: - Public Against Violence (Slovak) formed - Czech media freed of censorship within the next week November 25: Speech by Alexander Dubcek carried live by media Dubcek speaks to 100,000s in Wenceslas square, and symbolically embraces them Jakes and the politburo resign en masse November 27: - General strike November 28: - press releases: . government to be formed by December 3 . New constitution offered, three articles deleted: those "guaranteeing a leading role in political life for the Czechoslovak Communist Party and for the NationalFront, and mandating Marxist-Leninist education" - CF and PAV demand resignation of government by December 10 November 29: - Constitutional changes unanimously approved by communist parliament December 10: - new government named by Gustav Husak (president) - evening: Husak goes on television to announce resignation - Civic Forum cancel general strike scheduled for December 11 19th joint session of two houses of Federal Assembly: - Alexandr Dubcek elected Speaker of the Federal Assembly - one day later: Vavlav Havel elected president 1990 July 5 - Havel re-elected as president in parliamentary elections Martin Smid: - Mathematics student at Charles University - visually handicapped? StB: - the secret police ==== Note 1 from that .pdf: (based on work by one of the leaders of the Civic Forum) Sections of the regime clearly hoped they could stage manage a transition which would maintain nearly all their power. They needed to reform the political system by separating party, state and economic structure and, at the same time, win Gorbachev's approval. But events ran beyond their control, although not so far beyond as to endanger the whole process of transition to capitalist parliamentary democracy. On 17 November riot police made a violent attack on a Prague demonstration, and a carefully planned security operation was mounted to make it seem as if a student, Martin Smid, had been killed. The incident was meant to be reported by the dissident press. The security forces then planned to produce the unhurt student, discredit the opposition and pave the way for `reform Communist' Zdenek Mlynar to replace Husak as president. At the same time a StB security service briefing was arguing: "Use influential agents to intensively infiltrate opposition parties. Aim to disinform the opponent. Compromise the most radical members of the opposition and exacerbate divisions within the opposition. At the same time, create conditions for StB officers to obtain civil service promotions and posts at selected companies." The narrower part of this plan, to replace Husak, failed for two reasons. Firstly, Mlynar refused to play his allotted part, even though Gorbachev sought to persuade him. Secondly, and more importantly, after the fall of the Berlin Wall the mass movement took on a momentum which swept aside such plans for an orderly succession. A week after the Berlin Wall came down the numbers protesting in Prague rose to 50,000. Two days later, on 19 November, they doubled to 100,000. The next day the numbers doubled again to 200,000. Four days later, 24 November, 500,000 demonstrated in Wenceslas Square and listened to Alexander Dubcek, the disgraced leader of the Prague Spring in 1968. The same day the entire politbureau of the CP resigned. On 25 November, another crowd of 500,000 gathered to hear Civic Forum leader Vaclav Havel and Dubcek speak. On 27 November three million workers took part in a two hour general strike, and 200,000 demonstrated in Wenceslas Square. The result of this massive spasm of popular activity was that Civic Forum announced the suspension of the demonstrations and the government conceded free elections. Within a week a majority reformist government took over. The Civic Forum leaders were thrown to the head of the movement, but they did not create it. Indeed, it was not until 19 November 1989 that 400 activists founded Civic Forum. But the long history of dissent by the leaders of Civic Forum, many of whom were Charter 77 activists, made them natural figureheads, symbols of the revolt. But it could not be said that they actively and organisationally prepared the revolt in the way that the KOR activists prepared for, and then built and led, Solidarity. The deficiencies of organisation and ideology were made good by the cumulative weight of the revolutions in Eastern Europe, which led directly to massive mobilisations and the internal decay of the regime. Jan Urban's recollections make explicit both the rapidity of the regime's collapse and the limited aims of the opposition: The entire political power structure collapsed in front of our eyes. We didn't want to allow the state to collapse with it, so we had to act. There was no one else to do so. There were even moments when we had to support some Communist Party officials against whom we had just fought. Martin Palous, a philosopher at the university in Prague and one of the founders of Civic Forum, describes a similar experience: "Civic Forum leaders were constantly shocked that their proposals, dreamlike, turned into reality. It gave everyone a false impression that they were really marvellous politicians... The party structure of communications and power disintegrated." The crucial weakness lay in the `popular front' style political strategy which the Civic Forum leadership had long espoused. Urban again: "In a few hours we had created, from the far left to the far right, a coalition with only one goal: to get rid of Husak... We did it ourselves, and having done so, we found out it was not enough. Now we had to change the whole system! We decided that the best way to achieve this was through free elections." Here the forces which determined the fate of the Czechoslovak Revolution stand out in high relief. An exhausted empire was collapsing. The national regime fell apart under the impact of popular mass mobilisations. The working class was willing to take part in general strike action under the leadership thrown to the fore by the revolution itself. But these leaders previously committed themselves to a perspective which limited the revolution to achieving the kind of political structure which dominates the Western powers. They chose to pursue this aim by a cross-class alliance stretching from the political left to the far right. At the crucial juncture they found that this ideology, and the consequent lack of real roots among the mass of the working class, led them to suspend further mass mobilisations and strikes. What followed was an accommodation between the Civic Forum leaders and members of the ruling class which allowed that class as a whole, barring only a few symbolic political figures, to maintain its power by utilising the new political and economic methods of exploiting the working class. ==== Note 2: (from part 5 of the RFE 10 Years history) A demonstration in Prague on November 17, 1989 ignited the peaceful revolution that swept Prague in the next ten days. It was International Students Day, and Prague's communist authorities had granted a student request to hold a rally. But the authorities insisted that protesters stay out of the center of Prague. As some 15,000 people began marching from the medical school, an undercover secret police officer (Ludvik Zifcak) steered them into the center of the city. Within an hour, the crowd swelled to 50,000. That evening, riot police encircled some 10,000 of the demonstrators on Narodni Avenue, which leads to Wenceslas Square, and began closing in, physically beating hundreds of them. The event that galvanized the crowd is still not fully explained. The undercover agent posed as dead and was seen being taken away in an ambulance. Other undercover police agents, posing as the "dead" student's friends, informed dissident Petr Uhl that a student had been killed. Uhl believed the story and informed news agencies, which spread the word further. Outraged, students and actors announced a week-long strike at universities and theaters. On Sunday, November 19, Uhl told a visiting reporter he suspected that he was the victim of a secret police disinformation plot, as he had learned that no one had died from the beatings. Minutes later, police detained Uhl for disseminating false reports that a student had been killed. That evening, another huge demonstration drew 150,000 people. Meanwhile, in a Prague theater (Cinoherni klub), a group of intellectuals, students, and actors held the founding meeting of a new opposition group, the Civic Forum. Overnight, the first snow of the season bathed Prague in a fine white veil. In the morning, scores of reporters poured into the riverside apartment of dissident playwright Vaclav Havel for a news conference. Havel announced the new Civic Forum's demands as cameramen and photographers jostled and clambered over furniture for a better view. Just up the river at the Manes art gallery, hundreds of art students began painting posters and banners for what were to become nightly mass demonstrations. The demonstrations grew night by night, filling one of Europe's largest squares to capacity. State television began broadcasting the demos live. On Thursday, November 23, Havel spoke to a crowd of more than 300,000. "We want to live in a free, cooperative and prosperous Czechoslovakia, we want to return to Europe and we shall never give up our ideals regardless of whatever happens in the coming days," he said, to mass cheers dissolving into chants of "freedom!" That same night in Bratislava, the leader of the 1968 reforms, Alexander Dubcek, emerged from obscurity after 19 years of public banishment and spoke to an immense, cheering crowd of demonstrators. He joined Havel in Prague the next day and addressed a joyful crowd there. Across the river, the Central Committee met all day (Nov. 24). That evening, state television announced personnel changes. "At 19:00 at the extraordinary session of the central committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, comrade Milos Jakes took the floor and announced that he personally and all the other members of the Politburo and secretariat had agreed to give up their functions so that a new leadership of the party could be appointed." The news reached Dubcek and Havel at a post-demonstration news conference at a Prague theater. They hugged and toasted the revolution with champagne, while outside on Wenceslas Square, total strangers began dancing and singing for joy. Some were overcome. One old man broke down in tears. "The greatest experience of my life..." That weekend up to 700,000 protesters filled a Prague park, demanding an end to Communist rule. Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec met (at Obecni Dum) with Vaclav Havel and other leaders of the revolution in a series of roundtable talks regulating the disintegration of communist power. The Civic Forum denounced the reformed cabinet and demanded a truly representative government. Havel said at his nightly news conference that Husak should be replaced as president by "an honorable, wise, and good" person who is not a communist. Two days later, Husak announced his resignation. "A new government of national understanding can be named tomorrow. I hope that works out. As soon as the new government is appointed, I will step down from the function of the president of the CSSR in accordance with the wishes of the political parties in the National Front to ease further development." The following day, December 10, was International Human Rights Day, and the Civic Forum organized another mass demonstration on Wenceslas Square. Vaclav Havel delivered the most memorable slogan of the revolution. "We will not allow anyone in any way to sully this beautiful face of our peaceful revolution. Truth and love must triumph over lies and hatred," he said to cheers and chants of "long live Havel." The following morning, posters of Havel with his slogan about truth and love were plastered all over Prague. Overnight, the playwright had become the leading candidate for president, without even declaring an intention to run. A deal was reached for the still-communist Federal Assembly to elect Dubcek speaker of parliament on December 28. The following day, December 29, 1989, in a ceremony at Prague Castle, Dubcek announced that parliament had unanimously elected Havel president. "In view of the accord by both houses of parliament, I state that Mr. Vaclav Havel has been elected president of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic." There was hardly a dry eye in the house as Dubcek and Havel walked down the red carpet past the applauding guests -- dissidents, diplomats, and even communists. A short while later, the guests filed across the castle courtyard and into St. Vitus cathedral for a mass celebrated by the Czech Roman Catholic primate, Frantisek Tomasek. In a strong voice quivering with the emotion of the moment, the 90-year-old cardinal thanked God for what he termed "the great hope which has opened before us in the last days of this year." "May God accept our grateful praise and bless our acts so that we live in this present age in reason, justice, and devotion." Then, in an act as off-beat as the entire velvet revolution, the Czech Philharmonic erupted in the wild American Indian drumbeat of Antonin Dvorak's rarely heard "Te Deum." ====