Civil Resistance in the East European and Soviet Revolutions of 1989–91

Abstract

The death knell of communist rule, which has now ended in all European countries, was sounded not by nuclear weapons, nor even for the most part by the use of military force, but by civil resistance. In the last quarter of 1989, "people power" in various forms – generally nonviolent in character – played a significant part in undermining communist regimes in several central and eastern European countries; in 1990-91 it played a major role in the campaigns in the Baltic states to assert their independence from the Soviet Union; and in August 1991 it was a key factor in the defeat of the attempted putsch in the Soviet Union, thus contributing decisively to the undermining of communist power there as well. (...)