Vaclav Havel: The Velvet Revolution

Source:  The Freedom Collection www.freedomcollection.org /
Interviewed April 2010
Václav Havel (1936-2011) was a playwright and poet who played a leading role in bringing an end to communist rule in Czechoslovakia. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003).
Havel was born into a wealthy, intellectual family. For political reasons he was not accepted into any post-secondary humanities program, but eventually he was able to study drama by correspondence and began publishing articles and plays. In 1968 he was a prominent participant in the “Prague Spring,” a brief period of liberalization that ended when the Warsaw Pact stationed troops in the country.
In 1976 and 1977 Havel helped lead the effort to produce the human rights manifesto known as Charter 77, which criticized the government of Czechoslovakia for failing to abide by its human rights obligations under the Czechoslovak Constitution, the Helsinki Accords, and United Nations covenants. In April 1979, Havel co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. He was imprisoned three separate times for his activities.
In 1989, Havel played a leading role in the nonviolent “Velvet Revolution” which brought an end to the communist political system in Czechoslovakia. Havel was elected president of the country that year. He led Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy and presided over the country’s accession into NATO. Since leaving office, Havel has committed himself to the promotion of democracy in other parts of the world such as Cuba and Burma. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2003.

Transcript
I believe that if by success we understand a complete change of conditions in this country, which actually happened not until 1989, that means twelve years after the formation of Charter 77. And the certainty that the conditions would really change, we had sometime around the 20th or 25th of November when it was already clear that the huge demonstrations would not be suppressed by force and the then rulers started to give up power.
I, personally, recall one such large demonstration that took place at the Letná Park where about three quarters of a million people gathered. And, on that day, the Czech Saint Anežka was canonized. And, at that time, I personally felt that we had already, we had crossed the Rubicon and that no counterattack would happen.
Still, there were some hawks in the army who still contemplated that during this very demonstration some aircraft would fly over people’s heads and that would lead to mass psychosis and panic and something would happen and they would, in the name of order, bring back the former conditions.
It is a well-known fact that dictators always carry a banner bearing the words law and order in their hands. Nothing like that happened; they did not have the courage for that anymore. And then, I personally felt that we won.
Well, I think, that the, the entire revolution of ours, we would have to agree on what we understand by the term “revolution.” Some say only coup d’état or change of political conditions and they do not call it revolution.
I think that the entire movement at that time was simply supported mostly not necessarily by the bravery of all citizens or by their desire to sacrifice themselves or risk something, but it was simply supported by the fact that the citizens just lost their patience. And, when the snowball in the form of the alleged death of a student on Národní třída, where students were beaten at a student demonstration during the anniversary of Students’ Day, well, during the Students’ Day. Artists of the theater started to join in and then the others.
We established Civic Forum. Civic Forums started springing up in all companies, all offices, all over the country. They were established as a sort of improvised speaker for the public and their interests. And, what was important was the fact that there were already some, some structures in place.
Well, someone in the center had to negotiate with the power, that could not have been done by random passersby. Some structures had to be here. And that was the important role of Charter and the previous opposition movement. They helped to form Civic Forum and offered some, some, let’s call it improvised, temporary leadership. Because without it, nothing could hardly be transformed into any real changes.
But, at that time already, due to the fact that it was supported by the whole of society, the feeling of personal danger was perhaps not as strong as before. Here, society basically woke up and everything was spreading on a mass scale and it was not so risky. Even though, on the other hand, we have to see, we have to see the ethos and we have to see the outburst that was admirable in its way.