Eastern Bloc countries

Dariusz Dąbrowski, Kamil Dworaczek - The Reaction of the Polish Opposition to Acts of Repression and Civil Rights Violations in Other Communist States in the Years 1987–1989
Abstract

In the second half of the 1980s, the first symptoms of what was to come became visible in Poland. At that time, a new generation of oppositionists was coming of age, who rejected the principle of underground resistance against the regime and instead opted for open manifestations of dissent. On the other hand, in other countries of the Soviet Bloc any expressions of dissatisfaction were still harshly punished. As the decade drew to an end and the process of liberalization progressed in Poland, this rift grew wider. Sensitive to the plight of their neighbours, Polish oppositionists staged acts of solidarity with other countries. It was an exceptional situation in which citizens of a non-democratic state were standing up for the rights of oppositionists living under dictatorships in other countries. This text is an attempt to describe this phenomenon. Apart from recreating the course of the most important actions, this paper is also intended to find out who the main actors in those events were, deter- mine the role of young people whose generation came of age in the late 1980s, and describe which forms of protest were used most frequently.

Matěj Bílý - To Drive the Slogan of Human Rights out of the Hands of Opponents of Socialism: Discussions on Human Rights on Warsaw Pact Summits in the Years 1985–1989
Abstract

This study addresses the as yet only marginally researched topic of the approach to human rights as discussed at the political summits of the Warsaw Pact in the late 1980s after Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Following research in the Czech, Polish and German archives, the paper analyses the course and consequences of this debate and puts them in the context of the last stage of the Cold War. The topic of the approach taken by the Warsaw Pact member states to the upholding of human rights was opened by the new Soviet leader in the very first year of his rule. It was undoubtedly part of his broader plan to improve the tense relations between the East and the West. The discussion that followed and intensified especially from the spring of 1987 played a significant role in the disintegration of the alliance. Although in the late 1980s the Warsaw Pact was functioning at its best in structural terms, the course of the debate shows that the strengthening of the political cooperation of the member states which occurred after Gorbachev came to power did not always have the intended effects. The vision that more regular and more open consultations would lead to the formulation of a more efficient joint foreign policy line was not fulfilled. On the contrary, freer discussion and the end of the Soviet pressure on the uniformity of opinions meant that the leaderships of the member states came to defend their own, often conflicting interests. That made the alliance unable to coordinate its work in many matters, which was especially true in relation to Gorbachov’s reforms, which also included a change in their approach to the protection of human rights. It turns out that the pressure from the West to uphold these rights not only affected the inner situation in the Warsaw Pact countries, but also created a source of friction between them that weakened the cohesion of the organisation as a whole. It therefore also undermined the multilateral relationships in the Eastern Bloc, symbolised by the Warsaw Pact.

Jens Gieseke - The Post‑Stalinist Mode of Chekism: Communist Secret Police Forces and Regime Change After Mass Terror
Abstract

The occasion of the centenary of establishing the Soviet secret police known as the “Cheka” encourages a closer examination of the “Soviet-type” of the secret police in terms of their long-term development. Secret police forces were evidently of constitutive importance to the communist regimes. At the same time, their role was subject to considerable change and variation concerning their role in the fabric of the communist power apparatuses, their methods, and the groups in society against which they were directed. In the first part of this study, four to five phases of the Soviet secret police development and their “brother organs” in the Eastern Bloc are outlined as a working hypothesis. In the second part, continuity and change will be exemplified by the transition to the third, “post-Stalinist” phase, focusing on the cases of the Soviet Committee for State Security (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, KGB) and the East German Ministry of State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS) in terms of their role within the fabric of power relations, their self-images and public representations, and their practices of violent persecution and preventive surveillance.