This is a chapter in World Peace Efforts Since Gandhi,
which is published as a book.
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Never before has so terrible a threat hung over mankind as now.
The only reasonable way out of the existing situation
is the reaching of an agreement by the opposing forces
on the immediate termination of the arms race,
the nuclear arms race on earth
and the prevention of arms in space.
We need an agreement on an honest and equitable basis
without attempts at "outplaying" the other side
and dictating terms to it.
We need an agreement which would help all
to advance toward the cherished goal:
the complete elimination and prohibition
of nuclear weapons for all time,
toward the complete removal of the threat of nuclear war.
This is our firm conviction.
Mikhail Gorbachev, March 11, 1985We want freedom to reign supreme
in the coming century everywhere in the world.
We want peaceful competition between different social systems
to develop unimpeded,
to encourage mutually advantageous cooperation
rather than confrontation and an arms race.
We want people of every country
to enjoy prosperity, welfare and happiness.
The road to this lies through proceeding
to a nuclear-free, nonviolent world.
We have embarked on this road,
and call on other countries and nations to follow suit.
Mikhail Gorbachev, PerestroikaFreedom and democracy, after all,
mean joint participation and shared responsibility.
Your government, my people, has returned to you.
Vaclav Havel, January 1, 1990We need a new system of values,
a system of the organic unity between mankind and nature
and the ethic of global responsibility
Mikhail Gorbachev
Modern history has many examples of people resisting imperial
domination
by using more or less nonviolent methods.
Between 1567
and 1579 Dutch Protestants revolted against the
Catholic Spanish
imperialism of Philip II and
established a republic governed by
States-General.
American colonists nonviolently refused to cooperate
with the British Stamp Act of 1765 until it was repealed.
Another
tax imposed without representation was resisted
by the "Boston
tea party" in 1773 when merchants dressed
as Mohawks threw
imported tea into the harbor.
John Adams later wrote that the
real American revolution was nonviolent
and had occurred between
1760 and 1775,
when the colonists had essentially become independent.
This was followed by a war between the newly
independent republic
and British imperialism.
Hungarians resisted domination by Austria;
but the violent revolt led by Kossuth was a failure,
while the
reformer Ferenc Deak got Austrian emperor Franz Josef to recognize
rights
of Hungarians in the Compromise of 1867 that made the empire
Austro-Hungarian.
The best revolutions are nonviolent.
On January 9, 1905 thousands
of Russians marched peacefully to the Winter Palace
of Czar Nicholas
II; but guards mowed down demonstrators with machine guns.
Russian
sailors on the cruiser Potemkin mutinied in July at Odessa,
and in October a general strike was called.
On October 17 Nicholas
granted a constitution with a parliament (Duma)
and civil liberties,
but later he withdrew his concessions and repressed dissent.
The 1917 revolution began with marches celebrating International
Women's Day
on March 8 (February 23 in the old Julian calendar).
After two days of strikes and riots, the Russian troops fighting
in the
Great War mutinied, and on March 15 Czar Nicholas II abdicated.
In July, Minister of War Kerensky headed a provisional government.
Housewives, who had to wait in long bread lines, began demonstrating,
and on November 6 (old October 24) V. I. Lenin ordered the signal
that
sent soldiers,
sailors, and factory workers rushing into
government offices and the Winter Palace.
Kerensky accepted Bolshevik
support to prevent General Kornilov from being dictator,
and Bolsheviks
led by Leon Trotsky gained a majority of the Petrograd Soviet;
the next day Kerensky fled, and Lenin took control as the
Council of People's Commissars with Leon Trotsky as commissar
for foreign affairs and Stalin as commissar for national minorities.
The first reform the Soviets made was to abolish capital punishment.
Peasants began seizing fields of the landlords.
Lenin kept his
promise by withdrawing the Russian army from the Great War;
they
were soon attacked by their former western allies.
This is not
the place to tell the sad story of how this revolution degenerated
into a totalitarian empire, especially after Stalin took power.
After Germany lost the Great War, on March 10, 1920 the right-wing
Wolfgang Kapp
and top army officers seized the government in Berlin;
but the Weimar Republic used nonviolent methods to survive this
coup (Putsch).
The Ebert government fled Berlin and told
people not to cooperate with the new regime.
When officers occupied
newspaper offices,
the Berlin printers went on strike, followed
by other workers.
A general strike was declared by the Ebert cabinet
and the
executives of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The Kappist
regime had no money and could not make the bureaucrats cooperate.
The Ebert government refused to compromise with the Kappists.
An airplane dropped leaflets announcing, "The Collapse of
the Military Dictatorship."
Even threats to shoot people
and the shooting of some failed to stop the strike.
On March 17
the Berlin Security Police demanded that Kapp resign,
and later
that day he did resign and fled to Sweden.
General Luttwitz remained
as Commander-in-Chief, but he resigned that night.
The next day
the Baltic Brigades marched out of Berlin,
shooting some civilians
who jeered at them.
The Ebert government resumed its functions
but still faced some chaos in the country.
The Versailles Treaty had forced Germany to give up the
coal-mining
Ruhr region to French and Belgian control.
By 1923 Germans resented
severe French repression and
increased their non-cooperation and
acts of sabotage.
The French realized that they were losing more
than they were gaining.
They agreed to withdraw French troops,
and the Germans ended the passive resistance campaign.
During World War II as Nazi Germany took over countries in
Europe,
nonviolent resistance gradually developed, especially
in Norway and Denmark.
The Nordic countries had declared neutrality;
but the German invasion in the spring
of 1940 defeated the Norwegian
defense forces as the cabinet fled to London.
Pressure groups
tried to influence political decisions under the German occupation.
In September all Norwegian political parties were dissolved,
and
the Parliament was disbanded as German commissioners took control.
Radios were confiscated, but a few remained or were built
to hear
the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) news.
Norwegian teachers were threatened with dismissal if they did
not follow the policies
of the new government; but instead of
signing on to that, teachers signed
a counter-declaration saying
they would teach according to their own consciences.
They refused
to teach Nazi propaganda in the schools
or cooperate with the
Nazi youth organization.
In February 1942 the Germans set up the
Norwegian Vidkun Quisling
as Minister-President but controlled
all his decisions.
He proclaimed a law creating the Norwegian
Teachers' Union.
Teachers and parents sent in letters of protest.
In March more than a thousand teachers were arrested and sent
to concentration camps.
In April Quisling allowed the teachers
to teach even though they still refused to indoctrinate.
Church
leaders also criticized the violence of the German occupation
and refused to reveal the secrets of the confessional.
A pastoral
letter was printed and distributed,
though the Germans confiscated
half of the 50,000 printed.
On Easter in 1942 the clergy renounced
their state-paid salaries
but continued to perform their spiritual
duties.
Denmark had also declared neutrality and offered little armed
resistance
as the Germans invaded their country on April 9, 1940.
The Danish government remained in place; although they had to
make some
concessions to the Germans, they rejected a common currency
and customs
with Germany and refused to let the Danish Nazis take
power.
The resistance developed gradually but increased in violence
when the Germans were losing the war.
The Danes, especially the
students, began to wear red, white, and blue caps,
and more Danes
began giving the German occupiers the "cold shoulder."
The BBC broadcasted to Danes in Danish.
Sabotage attacks dramatically
increased in 1942 to more than a hundred,
and in 1943 there were
more than a thousand.
In August 1943 spontaneous strikes and demonstrations
spread.
Germans gave the Danish government an ultimatum,
which
Erik Scavenius refused.
The Germans took over the government,
but that month the British recognized
the Danes' Freedom Council
that was trying to coordinate the resistance
and would not allow
army officers to participate until 1944.
In October 1943 Berlin
ordered all the 7,000 Jews in Denmark arrested;
but the Danes
managed to help all but 500 to escape to Sweden.
During the occupation
538 illegal newspapers circulated,
reaching ten million people
in 1944.
They effectively counteracted German propaganda.
The Soviet Union used their share of the military victory in
World War II
to expand their Communist empire into eastern Europe.
This turned into a conflict with the western capitalist nations
that became known as the Cold War.
The United States already had
atomic weapons; when the Soviet Union developed them
in 1949 and
the hydrogen bomb in 1953,
these rival nations became known as
"super-powers."
Yet despite the lack of free elections
and civil liberties in Communist nations
dominated by the Soviet
Union, nonviolent resistance began to develop in certain places.
After Stalin died in March 1953, 250,000 political prisoners
at Vorkuta
in the Soviet Union were informed that they should
not expect amnesty.
So they went on strike and were encouraged
when the hated head of the secret police,
Beria, fell; but strike
leaders were removed, and some were shot.
After three months lack
of food and fuel forced the strikers
to go back to work, but they
had gained some concessions.
East German workers proclaimed a more liberal course on June
11, 1953
and refused to accept an increase in hours without an
increase in pay.
Workers marched in Berlin and called for a general
strike.
About 300,000 workers were on strike in 272 towns by June
17.
The demonstrations the day before had been peaceful;
but on
this day posters and newspaper kiosks were smashed and burned,
and scuffling began with the police.
Some prisons were stormed,
and more than just political prisoners escaped.
Crowds even beat
to death a few officials and informers.
At 1 p.m. the strike committee
met and decided to tell workers
to go back into the firms but
stay on strike.
Two hours later a state of emergency was declared,
and Soviet tanks rolled in
with machine guns to quell the uprising,
killing 569 and wounding 1,744.
The Red Army took up strategic
positions along the border with West Berli,
at post offices,
railway stations, and docks.
They were ordered to act with restraint,
and in the entire country only 21 more people were killed.
Later Neues Deutschland portrayed the episode as "Fascism
Shows its Ugly Face."
Not wanting to start another world
war, US President Eisenhower
limited his response to sending food
aid to the East Germans.
In Poland Cardinal Wyszynski was arrested in 1953 and held
in prison.
In 1955 the Soviet empire formed the Warsaw Pact to
counter
the western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
When Nikita Khrushchev became the leader of the Soviet Union in
1956,
he criticized Stalin and exposed his cruel policies.
In
June striking workers in Poland gained some concessions
although
seventy workers were killed in clashes with the Polish army and
police.
Stalin had imposed the leader Rakosi on Hungary,
and he was
forced to resign in July 1956 as a gesture to the Hungarian people.
Khrushchev visited Warsaw on October 19, and two days later the
Central Committee elected Gomulka first secretary of the Polish
Communist Party.
The next day demonstrations occurred in Budapest
to support the Poles.
After a poor harvest and fuel shortages,
Hungarian students and workers began
demonstrating in the streets
for their Sixteen Points, demanding personal freedom,
more food,
and removal of secret police and Russian domination.
Imre Nagy
was named prime minister, and Janos Kadar became foreign minister.
The Red Army withdrew, and Nagy announced he was allowing political
parties.
In Poland, Gomulka released Cardinal Wyszynski from prison.
When Nagy broadcast on October 31 that Hungary was going to withdraw
from the Warsaw Pact, Kadar left and formed a government
in eastern
Hungary supported by Soviet tanks.
Four days later Soviet tanks
entered Budapest and brutally killed even the wounded,
dragging
around their bodies with tanks to scare away others.
An estimated
30,000 people were killed, and approximately
200,000 fled to the
west without their belongings.
Nagy was tried and executed, as
Kadar took control.
These dramatic events coincided with the Suez
crisis.
On January 5, 1968 Alexander Dubcek became
first secretary
of the Czech Communist Party.
His liberal policy ended censorship;
but in Warsaw on January 30 a play portraying
Poland suffering
under Russian imperialism in the 19th century was shut down,
and
student leader Adam Michnik was arrested.
On March 8 Polish students
began protesting these
and shouting that Poland is waiting for
a Dubcek.
Three days later the police and workers militia were
brought in to
quell the students in a battle that lasted eight
hours.
On March 14 students in Krakow began a sympathy strike,
and student protests spread throughout Poland.
Gomulka blamed
Zionists, and Moczar began anti-Semitic purges,
causing two-thirds
of the 30,000 Polish Jews,
who had survived the holocaust, to
leave the country.
After Kolakowski and five other Jewish professors
were
dismissed from the University of Warsaw, students demanded
that
Kolakowski be reinstated; 1,300 students were expelled.
That
spring major student demonstrations erupted in Paris.
On August 20, 1968 the Soviet Union with its Warsaw allies
invaded Czechoslovakia
with half a million troops and abducted
Dubcek, Prime Minister Cernik,
National Assembly President Smrkovsky,
and National Front Chairman Kriegel.
The popular Czech President
Ludvik Svoboda was put under house arrest,
and he refused to sign
a document for the conservative regime.
Czech officials issued
emergency orders for all troops to stay in their barracks.
The
Czech news agency refused to broadcast an announcement that
party and government officials had requested Soviet help.
The Extraordinary
Fourteenth Party Congress, the National Assembly,
and remaining
government ministers announced that the invasion
had begun without
their knowledge or consent.
The National Assembly also demanded
the release of their constitutional
representatives and the immediate
withdrawal of the Warsaw Pact forces.
They called for one-hour
general strikes and asked rail workers
to slow the trains bringing
equipment to jam radio broadcasts.
The Czech police refused to collaborate with the invaders.
Radio broadcasts warned that violence was futile and advised nonviolent
resistance;
students were asked to calm explosive situations.
The Soviet empire had militarily occupied Czechoslovakia,
but
they still faced a political challenge.
Svoboda was flown to Moscow
but refused to negotiate
without Dubcek, Cernik, and Smrkovsky.
They agreed on a compromise that retained them in their positions
but that gave
the party a more leading role and left Russian troops
in the country.
Many Czechs resented the loss of reforms and would
not accept it for a week.
Apparently the leaders did not think
the people would continue their resistance.
The next April, Dubcek
was replaced as party leader by Gustav Husak.
The lessons of Prague
1968 would not be forgotten.
On December 14, 1970 workers from the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk
went on strike;
but the Polish students, who felt they had been
betrayed
by the workers in 1968, refused to join them.
The next
day was called Bloody Tuesday as fighting broke out all over Gdansk,
and the following day there were terrible tank and helicopter
battles.
The strike spread to Gdynia and Szczecin, and the battles
shifted there on December 17.
Three days later Gomulka resigned
and was replaced by Edvard Gierek,
and the Christmas season ended
the battles.
The official report counted 45 dead and 1,165 wounded;
but other estimates were much higher.
On January 22, 1971 workers
went on strike because of a speed-up and demanded
to meet with
Gierek, who talked with them for nine hours and said he was a
worker too.
The workers decided to give him a chance, and he developed
a revised five-year plan that expanded the consumer sector.
On June 24, 1976 an official announcement that food prices
would be
raised up to 60% caused sit-down strikes throughout Poland.
The price increases were canceled, and the strikes ended;
but
many labor leaders had been arrested.
In September, Kuron, Michnik,
and other intellectuals formed the
Workers' Defense Committee
(KOR) to give workers legal advice and inform the public.
An underground
press spread ideas.
Michnik wrote how the bond between force and
deception kept people
from establishing honest relations with
each other
as they used deceit for self-preservation in the totalitarian
system.
The KOR broke through this isolation,
and they were wise
enough to reject violence and revenge.
Now people could gather
and look each other in the eye.
Michnik gave many writers credit
for sacrificing material comforts to do their writing
even though
it could only be published unofficially
on a small scale as samizdat
(self-published).
On October 16, 1978 Archbishop Karol Wojtyla
of Krakow was elected Pope John Paul II.
His visit to Poland in
June 1979 was an inspiration to many.
In September KOR's journal
published a Charter of Workers' Rights.
In December, Lech Walesa
and Andrezej Gwiazda organized a memorial service
for the 1970
martyrs, and many people were arrested.
Walesa warned that if
a memorial was not built, in one year 35 million Poles
would each
bring a brick to build it themselves.
In July 1980 the government nearly doubled meat prices, causing
strikes around Poland.
Warsaw strikers immediately gained pay
increases
of ten percent or more, and the strikes spread.
On August
14 the dismissed electrician Lech Walesa climbed into the Lenin
Shipyard
at Gdansk and began a sit-down strike over the illegal
dismissal
of a worker as 16,000 workers demanded an independent
union.
The sit-ins spread, and an Interfactory Strike Committee
was formed.
On August 20 Kuron and Michnik were arrested along
with twelve other KOR activists.
Strike leaders demanded communication
lines be restored before continuing talks
with the government,
and they posted their 21 demands.
By the end of August the government
had agreed to allow free trade unions,
free information and media,
and civil rights.
The new unions adopted the name Solidarity and
soon had more than ten million members.
Suddenly a closed society
was allowed to exchange
information openly, and the effect was
euphoric.
However, the economy was a mess with a huge foreign
debt,
and the media was still mostly controlled.
A polluted environment
and malnutrition caused diseases
the health care system could
not handle.
The Polish Communist Party lost hundreds of thousands
of members.
In September 1981 Walesa was elected president of Solidarity
but wanted it to stay
a trade union and not become a political
movement; yet many wanted political reforms.
In November, Solidarity
insisted on discussing major reforms
with the Communist Party,
and student strikes spread.
In December, Walesa warned that they
could not remain passive any longer.
The loyal Communist, General
Wojciech Jaruzelski, had been made prime minister
in February
1981, and on December 13 he declared a state of war
and ordered
thousands arrested as tanks patrolled the streets.
Strikes were
crushed one after another.
The Solidarity Union was officially
dissolved in October 1982,
and the next month Walesa was released
but kept under surveillance.
In December the state of war was
suspended.
Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but declined
to leave Poland
lest he not be allowed to return.
Martial law
was formally lifted in July 1983,
but more restrictive laws had
been instituted.
The economy continued in stagnation.
Thirty-three
university presidents were removed by authorities in 1985;
but
the next year they released 20,000 out of 114,000,
freeing 225
political prisoners including Michnik.
In June 1987 Pope John
Paul II made his third pilgrimage to Poland
and proclaimed that
Solidarity had "eternal significance."
Mikhail Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 during a famine
on the Stavropol steppe.
He was active in the Young Communist
League, then in the Komsomol,
and joined the Communist Party in
1952.
He studied law at Moscow State University, graduating
at
the same time as his wife Raisa in 1955.
The next year Gorbachev
became first secretary of the Komsomol in Stavropol,
and he continued
to rise in the government.
In 1964 his mentor Kulakov became head
of the agriculture department
on the Central Committee, and three
years later Gorbachev earned his degree
from the Stavropol Agricultural
Institute.
In 1970 he was elected first secretary of the Stavropol
Krai party
and was promoted to the Central Committee.
Raisa had
studied the self-accounting system used in Krasnodar that gave
people
cash incentives for larger harvests, and her husband gained
attention
for the success of the new Ipatovsky harvesting methods.
When Kulakov died in 1978, Gorbachev became Secretary of Agriculture
and
moved to Moscow; two years later he became a voting member
of the elite Politburo.
In 1982 his patron, KGB Chief Yuri Andropov, became General
Secretary.
While Andropov was dying, Gorbachev was his main link
to the Party elite.
When Soviet jets shot down the straying Korean
Air Lines Flight 007,
Gorbachev headed the crisis-management team.
In 1984 Konstantin Chernenko became General Secretary;
but he
was ailing too, and as his second, Gorbachev presided over meetings.
In December 1984 Gorbachev went to England
and met with Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher.
He hoped that with her help he could
persuade President Reagan to agree to free
western Europe of US
missiles and not go forward
on his Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI or Star Wars).
Gorbachev complained about the folly of the
nuclear arms race
and challenged Britain's acquiescence to US
missiles in Europe.
He asked for her suggestions on how he might
decentralize the Soviet economy
and wanted to learn how Britain
had adjusted to the
transformation of its empire to a commonwealth.
Afterward Thatcher announced, "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can
do business together."1
On March 10, 1985 Chernenko died, and
Mikhail Gorbachev became
the leader of the Soviet Union.
The very next day he called for
an end to the arms race
and for the complete abolition of nuclear
weapons.
He proposed freezing nuclear arsenals and stopping further
deployment of missiles
as steps leading to a substantial reduction
of the stockpiles,
and he warned against developing new weapons
in space or on Earth.
Gorbachev wanted to improve the inefficient Soviet economy
and
brought Boris Yeltsin from Sverdlovsk to head the Moscow party.
He moved aside the aging foreign minister Andrei Gromyko by giving
him
a ceremonial position as Soviet president,
appointing Eduard
Shevardnadze from Georgia.
A more hidden adviser was the bold
intellectual Alexander Yakovlev.
In April, Gorbachev began to
discuss restructuring (perestroika) the economy
by using
flexible cost accounting and retooling.
Because the enormous consumption
of vodka
had been weakening the economy and culture,
Gorbachev
decreed fines and punishments for being drunk in public,
introduced
treatment programs, and restricted the sale of alcohol,
raising
the drinking age from 18 to 21.
He courted the intellectuals by
encouraging writers, such as Vitaly Korotich,
whom he made editor
of Ogonyok (Little Flame).
Gorbachev and Yakovlev wanted
the press and literature to help people
to understand they could
express their own power.
Gorbachev began cutting back the military by making officers
retire,
and he was the first Soviet leader to take personal control
over the nuclear weapons.
In April he announced that he was suspending
the deployment of Soviet SS-20 missiles in Europe.
He announced
a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing in July,
began making
proposals for cutting the large numbers of strategic weapons in
half,
and for the first time opened Soviet military installations
to verification of disarmament treaties.
He wanted to keep the
commitment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
by halting and reversing
the nuclear arms race.
In September 1985 Gorbachev met with President
Ronald Reagan at Geneva.
He quoted Reagan's famous statement,
"A nuclear war could never be won
and must never be fought"2
and then asked why both nations were building new weapons
when
they were never even going to use the ones they already had.
In January 1986 Gorbachev proposed the complete elimination
of all nuclear weapons by the year 2000.
The next month the political
prisoner Anatoly Shcharansky was freed
and allowed to leave the
Soviet Union in a spy exchange.
During a satellite broadcast in
August 1986 Gorbachev accused Reagan of escalating
the arms race
in order to exhaust the Soviet economy, imposing hardships on
people.
He announced that the Soviet Union would extend its unilateral
moratorium on nuclear testing for another six months.
Also in
1986 Gorbachev proposed withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan,
and he planned to start converting defense industries to produce
consumer goods.
On April 26, 1986 the worst nuclear power disaster in history
so far occurred
when the plant at Chernobyl exploded and caused
much radioactive poisoning.
Gorbachev was troubled by international
criticism
and
took control of the bureaucratic ineptness.
He learned
that several other plants were also in danger, and he
made experts
sign papers that they would be responsible for fixing them.
As
a result he had the plant in Armenia shut down,
and five others
were ordered to stop operating.
Gorbachev urged historians to
report on the extensive horrors of the Stalin era
so that they
could understand their own past and learn.
Gorbachev and Reagan met again in October 1986 at Reykjavik,
Iceland.
Gorbachev proposed eliminating all strategic nuclear
weapons by 1996
and insisted that the Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) be delayed for ten years.
Never before had superpower leaders
even discussed reducing their nuclear arsenals.
In private he
even seems to have persuaded the US President,
but Reagan's advisers
did not agree because of the Star Wars program.
At the press conference
Gorbachev said that SDI did not scare them and that
their response
would be asymmetrical and would not cost as much.
He warned that
if they attacked the constraints of the
Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) Treaty, they would be worthless politicians.
In December 1986 Gorbachev called Andrei Sakharov
to tell him
he could return to Moscow.
Gorbachev would not immediately agree
to free all the prisoners,
but in the next three months about
three hundred political prisoners were released.
He initiated
his democratization campaign at the beginning of 1987.
He realized
that it would be a good and bad process of dialectic,
but he declared
that is real life; we must learn from the mistakes and go forward.
Publication of Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago was allowed,
and Gorbachev
had the moving anti-Stalin film Repentance
shown on television.
Russian broadcasts by the BBC and Voice of
America were no longer jammed.
In March 1987 Margaret Thatcher visited Gorbachev in Moscow.
He asked her what world opinion would think if the Soviets removed
their
medium-range missiles from Europe and reduced their strategic
weapons
by half while she continued building up her forces.
He
condemned the Brezhnev doctrine and called the iron curtain archaic,
suggesting that his policy toward eastern Europe would be more
liberal.
The next month Gorbachev traveled to Prague and began
implying that
these countries could be independent, indicating
his sympathy for the Dubcek reforms.
In July, Gorbachev proposed
the elimination
of all intermediate-range nuclear missiles in
the world.
Gorbachev got his reform program enacted into law by the Supreme
Soviet in June 1987
to begin decentralizing the economy by some
experimentation with free markets,
letting the nation's 50,000
businesses reorganize themselves under their own management
and
allowing them to make a profit or go out of business.
However,
the top Party administrators persuaded him to let them have seven
years
to make the transition, enabling them to get around many
of the new laws.
Gorbachev went into seclusion for 52 days during
the summer of 1987,
and in the fall he published his book Perestroika.
He called for "new thinking" and tried to find a synthesis
of what worked in other countries -
production in the United States,
labor-management relations in Japan,
and the social solutions
of Sweden.
A totalitarian bureaucracy was falling apart as the
democratic politics brought criticisms and reforms.
The outspoken
Yeltsin became a rival and advocated taking on the bureaucracy
directly.
Gorbachev visited Washington in December 1987, and the two
superpower leaders
agreed on the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)
treaty
that would eliminate two categories of nuclear weapons.
Reagan lectured the Soviet leader on human rights and challenged
him
to open up his society to allow free ideas and travel.
Gorbachev
restrained his temper, but privately he told his advisers
to commit
the Soviet Union to human rights reform.
As in Iceland, greater
strategic reductions were blocked at the last moment
because of
a disagreement on SDI and the
interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) treaty.
In February 1988 Gorbachev announced that
all Soviet troops
would be withdrawn from Afghanistan, and this
was completed one year later.
In April this process began, and
the USSR and the US both pledged not to interfere
in the internal
affairs of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In March 1988 conservative Communists led by Yegor Ligachev
tried to overthrow Gorbachev, who was able to fragment them
and
isolate Ligachev in order to lessen his power.
Generally the Soviet
economy was still in a mess although some reforms using private
enterprise and cooperatives created more wealth; but these tended
to be in services
such as restaurants rather than in industry.
Glasnost had opened the floodgates on much pent-up criticism.
Gorbachev gradually developed perestroika from restructuring
of the economy
into a larger moral reform and psychological empowerment.
At the Party Conference in June, Gorbachev proposed increasing
local power and
forming a new parliament called the Congress of
People's Deputies.
In October, Gorbachev was elected to replace
Gromyko
as president of the Supreme Soviet.
Gorbachev made an important speech to the United Nations in
December 1988.
He described his vision for a new era that would
leave the Cold War behind.
As a Christmas gift he announced that
the Soviet Union was going to reduce
its military forces by a
half million men by the end of 1990;
six tank divisions would
be withdrawn from Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
and East Germany and
be disbanded by 1991.
He called for a "new world order"
and renounced the use of force.
The next day he promised that
the Soviet Union would reform its laws to conform
to the international
human rights convention that had been signed at Helsinki in 1975.
The Soviet Union had lost more than 50,000 men in the costly Afghanistan
war,
and for the first time since Soviet troops had left Austria
in 1955,
they would withdraw from a nation they had conquered.
Unlike American presidents in their attitude toward Vietnam,
Gorbachev
would later admit that the Afghanistan war
was morally wrong and
a crime against humanity.
Polls of Europeans showed that he was
twice as popular as Reagan.
The leadership of Janos Kadar allowed some reforms in Hungary
and free travel,
and as a result living standards in Hungary were
rising.
In 1987 some young Communist academics wrote Turn and
Reform, calling for the
government to dialog with the people
on reforms,
and the following year Kadar and others were replaced
by reformers.
The Hungarians had learned from their failed uprising
of 1956,
and the Democratic Forum was committed to nonviolence.
In March 1989 at Budapest 75,000 people were allowed
to demonstrate
without being disrupted by the police.
That month the Soviet Union Army stopped drafting university
students.
The antireligious edicts of the 1960s were rescinded.
On 17 April 1989 the Polish government legalized
the Solidarity Union
and agreed to elections.
By staying nonviolent Solidarity could
now engage in a dialog
with the Communist leaders in a Round Table
discussion.
After the Soviet Army suppressed a demonstration at
Tbilisi, killing at least twenty people
and wounding hundreds,
the leader of the Communist Party in Georgia was replaced.
Seventy-four
Communist members of the Soviet Union Central Committee
were also
removed on the same day Soviet troops began leaving Hungary.
In
May the Hungarian government gave up Party control of the Interior
Ministry
for a multi-party system and began removing the electrified
fence on its Austrian border;
by September the border was opened,
and thousands of East Germans started going west.
Gorbachev visited China for five days in May to normalize relations,
sparking the students' democracy demonstrations.
While he was
there, Lithuania and Estonia passed legislation
declaring their
sovereignty, followed by Latvia in July.
The Soviet Union voted
to elect 2,250 members of the People's Deputies;
though about
a third were selected by Party organizations,
many new voices
were elected directly by the people.
On May 25 at the first session
of the Congress of People's Deputies,
Gorbachev was elected president
of the Soviet Union.
On June 4, 1989 Solidarity won every open election in Poland
except for one.
Meanwhile ethnic riots in Uzbekistan killed scores
of people.
On the first of July, Gorbachev went on television
to warn people about ethnic conflict.
Five days later in Strasbourg
he pledged that the USSR would not block reforms
in eastern Europe,
and the next day he announced at Bucharest that the Warsaw Pact
nations were free to choose their own paths to socialism.
At home
Gorbachev's liberalization was doing more for the intelligentsia
than for the workers; in July about two million suffering coal
miners went on strike
all across Siberia, though on television
he announced his support of the striking miners.
In August, Gorbachev
called Rakowski, the leader of Poland's Communist Party,
and urged
him to let Solidarity help lead the government.
Two days later
for the first time a Communist party was voted out of power
as
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected prime minister of Poland.
By early October people were leaving East Germany at the rate
of two hundred per hour.
2,500 East Germans had taken refuge at
the West Germany embassy in Prague,
and Erich Honecker agreed
to let them pass through East Germany to the West;
but on October
4 when he directed their train through Dresden, thousands tried
to board the train and were brutally beaten by police as 1,300
were arrested.
Dresden's Party leader Modrow was soon leading
the large demonstrations there.
Three days later the visiting
"Gorby" was cheered in East Berlin when he announced
that political decisions for the German Democratic Republic
were
decided in Berlin, not in Moscow.
The unpopular Honecker had ordered
German police to club demonstrators,
but a few days later he resigned.
The Hungarian Communist Party changed its name to the Socialist
Party,
and the Parliament planned multi-party elections.
Hungarians
rallied on the 23rd anniversary of the 1956 uprising, and
on October
24 hundreds of thousands of Hungarians nonviolently
overthrew
their Communist government and proclaimed a republic.
At Warsaw
three days later the Warsaw Pact nations announced their decision
allowing each nation the right to choose its own course and prohibiting
any intervention by one member in the affairs of another.
In early
November, Honecker's successor Egon Krenz opened the border to
the West,
and East Germans began rushing through the opening in
the Berlin Wall.
In Bulgaria hard-line Communist leaders were
removed.
In Czechoslovakia in 1977 playwright Vaclav Havel and other
intellectuals had formed
Charter 77 as an informal community to
monitor respect for human rights.
They were committed to nonviolent
and legal methods
and tried to engage the authorities in dialog.
Yet in 1979 Havel was imprisoned for four years for having stood
with people
who laid flowers by a statue in Wenceslas Square.
After he was released, Havel inspired many with
his long essay,
"The Power of the Powerless."
Authorities arrested dissidents
on October 28,
but Gorbachev urged them to allow change.
On November
17, 1989 a rally of 15,000 in Prague formed the Civic Forum;
but
student demonstrators were beaten by police;
more than a hundred
were arrested, and 561 were injured.
Over the weekend the first
student strike committee was organized
as Havel and other Civic
Forum leaders directed a nonviolent revolution.
On November 22
leaders of Civic Forum's sister organization,
Public Against Violence,
spoke to a hundred thousand people in Slovakia's capital at Bratislava.
The next day 300,000 people gathered during very cold weather
in Wenceslas Square
in Prague as Czech television employees voted
to give full coverage to the demonstrations.
A general strike
was called for November 27 and was observed by 80% of the workers.
The next day Havel met with Ladislav Adamec, who agreed to a new
federal government.
The day after that the Federal Assembly ended
political domination by the Communist Party.
When Alexander Dubcek
spoke to a gathering of 250,000 people,
the Communist leaders
resigned.
Even in Russia the 72nd anniversary of the Soviet Union on
November 7
turned into a protest of Communism by 5,000 students.
The Supreme Soviet of Georgia declared its sovereignty.
Gorbachev
loved change and said Europe must advance even faster
toward "a
commonwealth of sovereign democratic states."3
He visited
the Pope in Rome and announced a new law respecting freedom of
religion.
Old Russian churches became popular again,
and in Central
Asia mosques began to reopen.
The Supreme Soviet passed a law
banning censorship of the media and another law
that gave the
Baltic republics some economic autonomy.
At Malta in early December 1989 Gorbachev met US President
George Bush
and pledged he would not use force to prop up Communist
regimes in eastern Europe.
Bush agreed to cancel most prohibitions
against US trade with the liberalizing Soviet Union.
The Bush
administration had been concerned that the charismatic Gorbachev
had taken advantage of Reagan, and they had spent a year reviewing
their policy.
In East Germany the Central Committee, Egon Krenz,
and the ruling Politburo
all resigned on December 3, and a week
later President Gustav Husak of
Czechoslovakia resigned as non-communists
took over the government in Prague.
Romania was the only country
that used violence to overthrow its Communist rulers.
Riots began
breaking out, and on December 25 the dictatorial Nicolae Ceauscescu
and his wife were convicted by a military tribunal of murdering
60,000 people
during their rule; they were executed by a firing
squad.
Four days later playwright Vaclav Havel was inaugurated
as president
of Czechoslovakia as Dubcek became chairman of the
Czechoslovak parliament.
The accelerated pace of these revolutions
was indicated by some who said that they took
"ten years in Poland,
ten months in Hungary, ten weeks in East Germany,
ten days in
Czechoslovakia, and ten hours in Romania."
In January 1990 Soviet troops were sent to
quell riots in Azerbaijan
near the Iranian border.
When Gorbachev visited Vilnius, 250,000
Lithuanians
rallied for independence on January 11.
On the same
day Armenia declared its right to veto Soviet laws.
After conflicts
between Armenia and Azerbaijan killed thirty people,
the Soviet
army occupied Baku, taking sixty lives before order was restored.
In February, Gorbachev negotiated a deal with West German chancellor
Helmut Kohl
whereby a reunified Germany could remain in NATO if
its united forces
were smaller than those of West Germany alone
had been.
Gorbachev promised to withdraw Soviet troops within
three or four years,
and he hoped that the United States would
withdraw its forces too.
In exchange Germany would give the Soviet
Union
economic assistance and greater cooperation in all areas.
The nuclear arms race had also cost the United States,
which was
suffering a recession and had become the world's largest debtor.
Glasnost had allowed national and ethnic conflicts to
be expressed.
Gorbachev hoped to keep the union together in a
constitutional federation,
but secession fever was spreading.
He advised the Communist Party to allow multi-party elections,
and many opponents won places on local councils (soviets).
On
February 27 Gorbachev got the Supreme Soviet to increase his presidential
powers
on the same day the Congress of People's Deputies nullified
Article 6 of the Constitution
that had given the Communist Party
dominant control.
On March 11 Lithuania declared its independence
and elected Landsbergis president,
though Gorbachev called Lithuania's
action illegal and invalid.
Four days later Gorbachev was re-elected
president of the Soviet Union
with 59% of the Deputies' votes;
the next election in 1995 would be by popular vote.
Gorbachev
excluded the use of military forces outside of the Soviet Union
with the only exception being after a sudden attack from outside.
He appointed Yakovlev head of his Presidential Council with authority
over the KGB
and other security; this ended the investigation
whether Gorbachev
had taken bribes while he was in Stavropol.
Lithuanians were not intimidated by the Soviet Army and refused
conscription,
holding to their right by international law to secede.
In April, Gorbachev shut down oil and gas lines to Lithuania.
In 1990 Gorbachev was being severely criticized by the conservative
Communists
for destroying the old system and by the liberal progressives
like Yeltsin for not freeing the economy and expression even more.
Gorbachev still would not allow undesirables to speak on television
or radio stations or publish in newspapers he controlled.
He had
tried to reform much of the corruption but had maintained his
luxurious perks.
At Party meetings furious debates took place,
and Gorbachev often became angry with those he called "adventurers."
He was trying to ride the tiger of revolution he had unleashed,
and getting
the conservatives and progressives to work together
became increasingly difficult.
Gorbachev still believed in socialism
and was not willing to take one side or the other.
Under Communism
the state socialism had become very corrupt with bribes
of bureaucrats
and a legal system that seldom provided justice because of organized
crime.
Ironically freeing the economy tended to increase
this
corruption as the black market was legalized.
Shifting toward
a more capitalistic system gave great advantages
to those already
in positions of power.
The gross domestic product of the Soviet
Union was now
declining ten percent a year, and crime was increasing.
Radicals had won many elections, and at the May Day parade
protesters chanted
that Gorbachev should resign; he issued a presidential
decree banning demonstrations
in central Moscow, and he pushed
through a law making it a crime to damage
the honor and dignity
of the newly created Soviet President.
At the end of May the price
of bread was to be tripled,
and panicking buyers emptied the markets.
Gorbachev opposed Yeltsin, who won a close vote
to become the
president of Russia's parliament.
In June they proclaimed that
Russia's laws were sovereign over those of the Soviet Union.
In
July, Yeltsin resigned from the Communist Party,
and Gorbachev
decreed the end of Party control over the media
and approved Yeltsin's
500-day plan for a market economy.
The Ukraine and Byelorussia
declared their sovereignty,
followed in August by Armenia, Turkmenistan,
and Tajikistan.
In September the Soviet Union agreed to friendship
treaties recognizing the
reunification of Germany, ending the
authority by the "four powers"
(US, Britain, France,
and USSR) in Germany.
That month the Supreme Soviet gave Gorbachev
special powers
for the transition to a market economy.
In October 1990 mass demonstrations in the Ukraine led to the
resignation of Prime Minister Vitaly Masol.
That month the United
States and the Soviet Union agreed to a treaty
on conventional
forces in Europe and for reducing greatly their nuclear arsenals.
Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
He devalued the ruble
and announced that foreigners could now own Soviet enterprises.
Nationalists defeated the Communists in the republic of Georgia.
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan declared their sovereignty.
In November,
Gorbachev promised the military that he would preserve
the country's
unity and warned that disintegration could mean a bloodbath.
Four
days later the Supreme Soviet approved a Federation Council
that
would include the leaders of the fifteen republics.
The next week
the name of the country was changed
to the Union of Sovereign
Socialist Republics.
Gorbachev barred the republics from controlling
nuclear weapons in their territories
and authorized soldiers to
use force if they were harassed.
In December the Russian parliament
legalized private ownership of land,
and Lech Walesa was elected
president of Poland.
Fearing a coming dictatorship, Foreign Minister
Shevardnadze resigned.
Three days later KGB head Kryuchkov warned
that violence may be necessary
to restore order as he accused
the CIA of fomenting dissent in the USSR.
In January 1991 Soviet troops began seizing media outlets in
Lithuania
and used force to quell demonstrations opposing this.
Gorbachev said he had not ordered it but approved nonetheless,
causing many intellectuals to withdraw their support from Gorbachev.
In response the European Parliament voted to withhold one billion
dollars' worth of food aid.
In February, Yeltsin called for Gorbachev's
resignation, and strikes by coal miners spread.
The next month
troops were brought into Moscow
but were unable to stop a large
Yeltsin demonstration.
The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved.
The Russian Supreme Soviet gave Yeltsin greater powers.
Strikes
began in Minsk, and Georgia declared independence.
In June, Yeltsin
was elected president of Russia with 57% of the votes.
In July
the USSR Supreme Soviet approved the idea of a union treaty
but
suggested changes, and Gorbachev was unable to get much economic
assistance
from the capitalist Group of Seven meeting at London.
On August 17, 1991 Kryuchkov, Pavlov, and Yazov
demanded that
Gorbachev relinquish power to them.
When Gorbachev refused to
order a crack-down the next day,
Vice President Yanayev claimed
presidential powers.
The day after that an emergency committee
assumed power,
but Yeltsin declared the coup illegal.
On August
21 the coup failed, and Gorbachev returned to Moscow.
No longer
believing that the Communist Party could be reformed,
three days
later he suspended the Communist Party and resigned as general
secretary.
Now Gorbachev could see no other way but democracy.
In the next week the Ukraine, Belarus (Byelorussia), Moldova,
Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan all proclaimed their independence.
On September 6 Georgia broke free of the USSR, whose council that
day recognized
the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania,
supporting their membership in the United Nations.
Residents of
Leningrad voted to change the name of their city back to St. Petersburg,
and Tajikistan and Armenia declared their independence.
In October the Russian Congress gave Yeltsin power to implement
economic
reforms by decree, and the next month he banned the Communist
Party.
Yeltsin and leaders of the other republics in the
USSR
State Council agreed on a new confederation.
In December the Ukraine
voted to be independent and elected Leonid Kravchuk president.
A week later Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and the Belarussian chief of state
Shushkevish met
and
decided to replace the Soviet Union with a
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Two days later Belarus
and the Ukraine ratified the CIS agreement,
followed the next
day by the Russian parliament.
Central Asian leaders met in Ashkhabad
the day after that
and requested membership in the CIS.
By December
22 the leaders of eleven republics (all except Georgia) signed
the
Commonwealth Declaration, and three days later Gorbachev resigned
on television
as the Russian flag replaced the Soviet flag over
the Kremlin.
On April 20, 1993 at the Global Forum in Kyoto, Gorbachev announced
the birth
of Green Cross International nine months after it had
been conceived at the Rio summit
in order to help sustain and
manage life on planet Earth.
He noted that the environmental movement
usually focuses on local threats,
but he warned that global problems
such as the greenhouse effect required urgent action.
He called
for the united efforts of natural and social scientists to work
for human survival.
He suggested that state self-determination
needs to be harmonized
with the principles of international relations.
He noted that the end of the Cold War had not ended the conflicts
between nations
and that the growth of freedom did not automatically
bring a growth in morality.
He recommended an "ecology of
spirit" and a moral strengthening of humanism.
Human pride
and passion must be curbed by a philosophy of limits,
for plundering
Nature is stealing from ourselves.
The civilization of the future
must be planetary with high diversity.
He urged research and international
cooperation.
The Earth Charter initiative was begun by Earth Council chairman
Maurice Strong
and Gorbachev in 1994 in order to implement the
action plan
of the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro.
The first
international workshop was held at The Hague in May 1995
with
representatives from thirty countries and seventy organizations.
A commission of 23 people issued a Draft Earth Charter
at the
Rio+5 Forum in March 1997.
The consultation process continued
for two more years, and in April 1999
the Earth Charter Benchmark
Draft II was issued.
The mission of the Earth Charter was officially
launched in June 2000 at The Hague
"to establish a sound
ethical foundation for the emerging global society and to help
build a sustainable world based on respect for nature, universal
human rights,
economic justice, and a culture of peace."4
In 2002 the Earth Charter was recognized by the United Nations,
and many countries and organizations have adopted it as an educational
tool.
The main principles of the Earth Charter are the following:
I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE
1. Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
2. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.
3. Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable,
and peaceful.
4. Secure Earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations.
II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRIT
5. Protect and restore the integrity of Earth’s ecological systems, with special
concern for biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life.
6. Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and, when
knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.
7. Adopt patterns of production, consumption, and reproduction that safeguard
Earth’s regenerative capacities, human rights, and community well-being.
8. Advance the study of ecological sustainability and promote the open exchang
and wide application of the knowledge acquired.
III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
9. Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and environmental imperative.
10. Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human
development in an equitable and sustainable manner.
11. Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development
and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.
12. Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social
environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being,
with special
attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE
13. Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and provide transparency and
accountability in governance, inclusive participation in decision making, and
access to justice.
14. Integrate into formal education and life-long learning the knowledge, values,
and skills needed for a sustainable way of life.
15. Treat all living beings with respect and consideration.
16. Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.5
Gorbachev attended the third global summit of Nobel Peace Laureates
in October 2002,
and in their final statement they lamented that
the United Nations World Summit on
Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg the previous month had not addressed such
fundamental
problems as poverty, environmental degradation, and the increasingly
acute
energy crisis.
The participants declared that unilateral
action against Iraq was unacceptable, and they
supported the "Water
for Peace" initiative of Green Cross International to resolve
the
global water crisis.
1. Quoted in The Man Who Changed the World by Gail Sheehy,
p. 164.
2. Ibid., p. 194.
3. Ibid., p. 219.
4. The Earth Charter brochure of the Earth Charter Commission
published in 2002.
5. Ibid.
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