7. Communism in Eastern Europe

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent”.

This phrase defined one of the most devastating phenomena of contemporary history: the cold war.

Overall view of Rooms 25-27 : A Timeline of the Cold War
The cold war spread its impossible tension over half the 20th century, the century of the two world wars, claiming the blood of several million people. Some even called it “World War III”. Because, although no declaration of war was made, other millions of inhabitants died in local wars, in organized massacres, in prisons and forced labour camps.

Detail from Rooms 25-27 : A Timeline of the Cold War
Since 1945, two thirds of the European territory were under Soviet control. In Asia, itself covered by the Chinese and Soviet colossi, as well as in Africa, many of the countries that were, at some point, called “third-world”, were themselves engulfed by Communism. In 1979, Soviet colonialism reached its peak, through its attempt to colonize Afghanistan. But, as if a spring had broken, this entire abusive imbalance, which the world already took for granted, was overthrown in the ‘80s.

Detail from Rooms 25-27 : A Timeline of the Cold War
Books by dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), by which he raised awareness about the issue of gulags and forced labour camps in the Soviet Union. In 1947 he was banished, and he would only return to Russia in 1994.

His best-known works, “The Gulag Archipelago” or “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” with the author’s autograph for the Sighet Memorial.

Detail from Rooms 25-27 : A Timeline of the Cold War
The solution for overcoming the crisis, which had been concerning people ever since the last day of war, came up in 1989. Although there are still countries where demagogy and even the madness of leaders threaten humanity with its destruction, humanity is mature enough not to allow itself to be tangled again in the drained ropes of the border war.

Detail from Rooms 25-27 : A Timeline of the Cold War

“There is no freedom for the enemies of freedom, there is no democracy for the enemies of democracy”

(SED Congress of September 1947)

The uprising on 16-17 June 1953 in Eastern, Sovietized Berlin extended almost instantaneously to another few districts of the German Democratic Republic, and was repressed just as quickly as it had spread.

The thawing imposed – paradoxically, by the Soviets – to the Ulbricht regime, which was stuck in Stalinist dogmas even after Stalin’s death, proved to be, like so many times in the history of dictatorships, an occasion for the desire of freedom to burst out. Less than two weeks after the launch of the “new track”, strikes started, then spontaneous and simultaneous manifestations, tacitly tolerated by the Soviets.

Detail from Room 81: The uprising in Berlin and Thuringia (1953)
Realising they had been playing with fire, the Soviets were the ones to squash the uprisings, to stop them from repeating in other countries. The Ulbricht regime could not, however, stop the mass escapes of Germans to the West, and on 16 August 1961 the barbed wire border was raised across Germany, as a continuation of the Berlin Wall

Detail from Room 81: The uprising in Berlin and Thuringia (1953)
After decades of uprisings and then since the fall of the borders, in November 1989, one can clearly see that June 1953 was, in its time, the first step towards the German reunification.

Overall view of Room 81: The uprising in Berlin and Thuringia (1953)

The anti-Communist revolution of Hungary (23 October – 4 November 1956) represented a fundamental moment for the history of Eastern Europe.

The start of the popular revolt was preceded by a series of actions of the Hungarian political elite, but also of the intellectual elite, of the civil society in general.

The Nagy Imre government had gathered the popular support for a multiparty system and for leaving the Warsaw Pact and, eventually, The Soviet invasion of 4 November 1956 put an end to the 13 days of national Hungarian uprisings, a period when the entire population seemed to be taken with the revolutionary spirit.

Detail from Room 83: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)
The room’s essential element is the endless list in the centre of the image, with the names of the victims of this spontaneous movement for freedom.

General view of Room 83: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)
Detail from Room 83: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)
The trial of the Imre Nagy group was the most important trial held in the repression which followed the 1956 revolution. The group members were then executed on 16 June 1958.

Hungary then entered the Kadar era, or “Goulash Communism”.

Detail from Room 83: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)
Detail from Room 83: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)

The population’s discontent with the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia flamed out in 1968, through the attempt to impose, in the very heart of the Communist Party, a “Socialism with a human face”. The liberalization experienced during the “Prague Spring” triggered a reforming movement within the entire Czechoslovakian society, and the movement’s programme was “The Two Thousand Words”, launched by a group of intellectuals, led by Ludvik Vaculik.

Detail from Room 82: The Prague Spring (1968), Charter 77 (1977), the Velvet Revolution (1989)
The emancipation sounded so dangerous to the Kremlin – and to its acolytes in Hungary, the GDR, Poland, and Bulgaria – that on the night of 20/21 June 1968 the troops of the Warsaw Pact – except, to its credit, Romania’s – invaded Czechoslovakia, claiming to liberate it.

Then came a period of exclusions from the party and dismissals, the reintroduction of censorship and terror, and the Czechoslovakian society entered a period of deep despair and apathy, during the so-called “process of normalization”.

Detail from Room 82: The Prague Spring (1968), Charter 77 (1977), the Velvet Revolution (1989)
The Human Torch

JAN PALACH

(11/08/1948 – 19/01/1969)

A second-year student with the Faculty of Letters of the Charles University in Prague, Jan Palach poured gasoline all over his body and self-immolated in the centre of Prague, on 16 January 1969. He would die three days later.

“Seeing that our peoples are on the brink of despair, we have decided to manifest our protest and to awaken the people of this country as follows: Our group is made of volunteers who, for our cause, are intent on self-immolating. I was privileged to draw number one, and thus I earned my right to write the first letter and be the first torch.”

(fragment of his farewell letter, found in his briefcase)
A multitude of associations, movements, literary circles, clandestine universities, jazz clubs, were set up, carrying an almost continuous activity of protecting human rights and of harassing the inertia of the Communist government led by Gustav Husák. The most important protester group was the “Charter 77”.

Detail from Room 82: The Prague Spring (1968), Charter 77 (1977), the Velvet Revolution (1989)
Vaclav Havel was one of the founders of Charter 77. He was arrested several times, for short periods of time. He received his longest sentence in 1979, for 4 years and a half. Over the ‘80s, he became the Czech dissidents’ unofficial leader, and during the “velvet revolution” of November 1989 he led the discussions with Communists to surrendered power. At the end of 1989, he was elected the president of Czechoslovakia.

Detail from Room 82: The Prague Spring (1968), Charter 77 (1977), the Velvet Revolution (1989)

An image history of the “Šolidarnosč” Polish union.

The birth of the Gdansk union is presented through numerous photo panes, its rising, its repression and ultimately its victory which, in 1989, contributed to the fall of Communism.

Detail from Room 44: Solidarność: 18 days that shook the world
“In 1980, in early summer, the government made the decision of increasing prices for meat products, but then gave up this decision. The situation was very unclear. This was enough for some rail workers’ strikes to start in July. Then there were the strikes, on an increasingly large scale, throughout Southern and Eastern Poland… In the meantime, in Gdansk, Mrs. Ana Walentynowicz, member of the free unions, was fired on disciplinary grounds. This event was the last straw”.

Bogdan Lis, one of the historic leaders of the Solidarność (fragment from a conference held by the Sighet Memorial)
“We decided that, on 14 August, a group of members from the free unions at the shipyards in Gdansk would start a protest action, a strike… Lech Walesa, together with other colleagues, started going through all the shipyard’s workshops – at the time, 16,000 people were working there – stirring up a strike, telling them that we needed to start these protest actions. Up to the end, a crowd of several thousand people gathered. On the next day, other seven factories went on strike in Gdansk.”

Bogdan Lis, one of the historic leaders of the Solidarność (fragment from a conference held by the Sighet Memorial)
Detail from Room 44: Solidarność: 18 days that shook the world
LECH WALESA, union leader and human rights activist from Poland

In December 1970 he was one of the strike leaders, which led to his arrest. He was fired several times for his political activities. He became the president of the Solidarity, a movement with several million members. During the “martial law”, he was arrested again.

In 1983 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, and on 22 December 1990 he was elected Poland’s first democratic president.

Detail from Room 44: Solidarność: 18 days that shook the world

Rooms 25- 27, ground floor: A Timeline of the Cold War

Room 23, ground floor: Eastern Europe Countries (1945 - 1989)

Room 81, 2nd floor: The uprising in Berlin and Thuringia (1953)

Room 83, 2nd floor: The Hungarian Uprising (1956)

Room 82, 2nd floor: The Prague Spring (1968), Charter 77 (1977), the Velvet Revolution (1989)

Room 44, etaj 1: Solidarność: 18 days that shook the world

7. Communism in Eastern Europe