Velvet Revolution (1989): Czechoslovakia's Peaceful Overthrow

The Velvet Revolution was the peaceful overthrow of communist rule in Czechoslovakia between 17 November and 29 December 1989. It began when riot police beat students on a march in Prague and grew within days into mass demonstrations, a nationwide general strike and negotiations that forced the Communist Party to give up power. In just six weeks the dissident playwright Václav Havel went from opposition leader to president of the republic.

Background

Communists took full control of Czechoslovakia in February 1948. Twenty years later the reform movement known as the Prague Spring, led by Alexander Dubček, tried to create “socialism with a human face”. It was crushed in August 1968 by a Warsaw Pact invasion, and the following period of “normalisation” under Gustáv Husák brought purges, censorship and conformity.

A small dissident movement survived. In 1977 a group of intellectuals including Václav Havel launched Charter 77, a document demanding that the state respect the human rights it had formally accepted, for example in the Helsinki Accords. Many signatories were harassed, lost their jobs or were imprisoned. Havel himself spent several years in prison.

By 1988 and 1989 the mood was changing. Demonstrations marked the anniversary of the 1968 invasion, and in January 1989 police broke up gatherings commemorating Jan Palach, a student who had set himself on fire in protest in 1969. Havel was arrested and jailed again before being released in May. The regime, now led by the hardliner Miloš Jakeš, watched with alarm as communist rule collapsed in Poland and Hungary and the Berlin Wall opened on 9 November.

17 November: the march on Národní třída

The spark came on 17 November 1989, International Students’ Day. The date marked the 50th anniversary of the Nazi closure of Czech universities in 1939, which followed the funeral of the student Jan Opletal, who had been fatally wounded during an anti-occupation protest. The official socialist student union organised a permitted commemoration in Prague, and independent students joined in large numbers.

After the official programme ended at Vyšehrad, thousands of marchers headed towards Wenceslas Square in the city centre. On Národní třída (National Avenue) they were surrounded and blocked by riot police and special units. Many protesters sat down and offered flowers, chanting that their hands were empty. Police then beat them as they were forced through a narrow corridor, and many were injured.

That night a rumour spread that a student named Martin Šmíd had been killed. It later proved false; the “dead student” had been played by an undercover secret police officer, and the episode’s purpose is still debated. But the story spread rapidly and turned outrage into action.

Strikes, Civic Forum and mass rallies

On 18 November students in Prague declared a strike and theatres stopped performances, turning their stages into places for public discussion. On 19 November Havel and other opposition figures founded the Civic Forum (Občanské fórum) in the Činoherní klub theatre in Prague. In Bratislava, activists created a sister movement, Public Against Violence (Verejnosť proti násiliu).

From 20 November daily rallies filled Wenceslas Square, growing to crowds estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Havel and other speakers addressed them from the balcony of the Melantrich publishing house. Protesters jingled their keys, a gesture that came to symbolise the revolution, telling the leaders that it was time to go.

On 24 November Dubček, the hero of 1968, appeared before the crowd in Prague for the first time in two decades. That evening Jakeš and the entire party Presidium resigned. On 25 and 26 November rallies on Letná plain drew crowds estimated at up to 750,000 or more, the largest demonstrations in the country’s history.

The general strike and the transfer of power

The Civic Forum called a two-hour general strike for noon on 27 November. Millions of workers across the country took part, showing that the movement had spread far beyond students and intellectuals in Prague. Factories, offices and shops stopped, and sirens and bells sounded in many towns.

Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec began talks with the opposition. On 29 November the Federal Assembly deleted the article of the constitution that guaranteed the Communist Party’s “leading role” in society. An attempt in early December to form a new government still dominated by communists was rejected by protesters.

On 10 December President Husák appointed a “government of national understanding” under Marián Čalfa, in which communists were in a minority for the first time since 1948. Husák then resigned. On 28 December Dubček was elected chairman of the Federal Assembly, and on 29 December the same assembly, still made up of deputies chosen under the old system, unanimously elected Václav Havel president of Czechoslovakia.

Key people

Václav Havel (1936–2011), a playwright and essayist, was the moral leader of the opposition. His writings, especially the essay “The Power of the Powerless”, argued that ordinary people could undermine a regime simply by refusing to live within its lies.

Alexander Dubček (1921–1992), the leader of the Prague Spring, returned to public life as a symbol of continuity with the hopes of 1968, especially in his native Slovakia.

Miloš Jakeš (1922–2020), the Communist Party general secretary from 1987, was forced to resign on 24 November. Marián Čalfa (born 1946), a communist lawyer who became prime minister, helped manage a smooth handover and soon left the party.

Beyond Prague: Slovakia, the regions and the talks

The revolution was not confined to Prague. In Bratislava, students marched on 16 November, a day before the Prague events, and after the news from Národní třída large crowds gathered daily on the city’s squares. Public Against Violence, led by figures such as the actor Milan Kňažko and the sociologist Fedor Gál, became the main voice of the Slovak opposition and worked closely with Civic Forum.

In smaller towns, students travelled out from the universities to explain what had happened in Prague, because the state media at first gave only the official version. Actors read appeals on stage, and local strike committees formed in factories and offices. This spread of information from person to person helped ensure that the general strike on 27 November had support far beyond the capital.

The role of television was also important. In the last week of November, journalists at Czechoslovak Television began broadcasting rallies and statements by the opposition, so that people across the country could see the scale of the protests for themselves.

The handover of power was achieved through talks rather than violence. Civic Forum and Public Against Violence presented their demands, including the release of political prisoners, the resignation of leaders responsible for the 1968 invasion and its aftermath, and free elections. Prime Minister Adamec met opposition delegations from 26 November.

When the government reshuffle of 3 December left communists firmly in control, the opposition threatened another general strike. Adamec resigned, and his deputy Čalfa negotiated a new cabinet with the opposition. Political prisoners were freed under an amnesty, and in December work began on removing the barbed-wire fences along the border with Austria, so that Czechoslovaks could soon travel west freely for the first time in decades.

Consequences

Czechoslovakia held its first free elections since 1946 on 8 and 9 June 1990. Civic Forum and Public Against Violence won decisively, and Havel was re-elected president. Soviet troops, stationed in the country since 1968, completed their withdrawal in June 1991.

The new government launched rapid economic reforms, including the voucher privatisation of state companies. Disagreements between Czech and Slovak leaders over the country’s future grew, and Czechoslovakia was peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993. Havel became the first president of the Czech Republic and served until 2003.

Myths and facts

The revolution was not entirely spontaneous; students and dissident networks had been preparing for change, and the Civic Forum quickly organised negotiations. Nor was it free of violence: the beating of 17 November was its trigger. But after that night there was no large-scale bloodshed, which is why it is remembered as velvet.

Some theories claim the secret police deliberately staged events to engineer a controlled change of leadership. Investigations, including one by the Czechoslovak parliament, examined the role of the security services, but there is no conclusive evidence that the revolution as a whole was planned from above.

Timeline

• 1989, 16 January: Police break up protests marking Palach Week in Prague; Havel is among those arrested.
• 1989, 17 November: Riot police beat student marchers on Národní třída in Prague.
• 1989, 19 November: The Civic Forum is founded in Prague; Public Against Violence forms in Bratislava.
• 1989, 24 November: Dubček speaks in Prague; Jakeš and the party leadership resign.
• 1989, 27 November: A two-hour general strike takes place across the country.
• 1989, 29 November: The Communist Party’s leading role is removed from the constitution.
• 1989, 10 December: A government with a non-communist majority is sworn in; Husák resigns.
• 1989, 29 December: Václav Havel is elected president of Czechoslovakia.
• 1990, 8–9 June: The first free elections are held.

Why it matters

The Velvet Revolution was one of the defining moments of the revolutions of 1989, showing that a deeply entrenched regime could be removed through peaceful mass protest. It reversed the defeat of the Prague Spring of 1968 and, together with the fall of the Berlin Wall, became a lasting symbol of the end of communism in Europe.