The Czechs are calling their 1989 revolution the gentle, or velvet, revolution. The revolutionaries did not kill or beat a single person - or even break a window. Intellectuals, religious people, students, and others concerned with morality were able to overcome a government hostile to their interest by using civil means. Throughout the 12-day upheaval, the revolution's leaders insisted that if the toppled communist tyranny was met with revenge, another tyranny would take its place.
Václav Havel, the nation's new president, called the upheaval a revolution of understanding because he wanted Czechs to understand even their enemies. When former Stalinist Antonin Čapek, who supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, shot himself in a suicide attempt after the communists lost control of the government, Havel sent his best wishes for Čapek's recovery.
This gentle revolution was the result of many factors, but prominent among them was Havel's own political thought. In his political writings, such as The Power of the Powerless, Havel stressed the values that finally manifested themselves in the Czech revolution. He called for people to support each other's efforts to live within the truth regardless of their diversity in the hope that the sphere of truth would expand until it overpowered the communist lie that opposed it. He chose this approach to change over a more narrow, and potentially more confrontational, political opposition. Havel represents an ethical approach to public affairs.
This approach is also embodied in Charter 77, the famous statement about human and civil rights drafted and promoted by Havel and a handful of other dissidents in 1977. Charter 77 called attention to the many areas of human rights abuse that abounded, often in violation of laws proclaimed by the government. The government became so active in organizing opposition to Charter 77 that it became widely known, in name at least, throughout the nation and remained the focal point around which public awareness of dissident activities coalesced.
The most prominent student leader in the 1989 revolution, Martin Mejstrik, put it this way: "The boiling inside society came into being in various strata of the society. Only the revolution united us. If someone began it, it was Havel and Charter 77. Without them, all this would have been more difficult.”
Today, most of the important positions in the government are filled by Charter 77 activists. Already more than 13 political parties have formed, carrying on the tradition of political pluralism articulated by Havel. These parties include the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, the Czechoslovak Neutrality Party, Free Agricultural Party, and the Greens.
The government is just beginning to develop policies that will implement meaningful political pluralism, secure free election, develop the private sector while holding down inflation and unemployment, and negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet troops. There is a common sensibility shared by those who now hold power, one shaped by many years of shared experiences; this is a source of stability for the government.
The mood in the country is already freer and happier than at any time during the last 40 years, even at the height of the 1968 Prague Spring. There
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