The Magic Lantern

To conclude the work, Garton Ash celebrates that the Communist system will no longer dominate Eastern Europe, whatever structural challenges and political battles lie ahead. When considering why the dissolution occurred, Garton Ash notes that some think communism was entirely unworkable, or unfeasible when imposed by force. He rejects the idea that Gorbachev alone is responsible for the course of the region’s revolutions, arguing that while a change in Soviet leadership was a necessary condition, to truly understand 1989 one must consider domestic politics. He argues that John Paul II’s visit to Poland, and the formation of Solidarity there, were integral to what came later.

Garton Ash then proceeds to engage in what he calls the favorite “parlour game” of the historian, comparing 1989 to the “springtime of nations” of 1848, when nationalist and socialist movements challenged monarchies and began to demand reform (120). Both revolutionary periods were a kind of intellectual backlash against reactionary regimes, and a rejection of specific ideologies. Garton Ash argues that the “semantic occupation” of Marxist-Leninist ideology via control of the mass media, was a key means of regime maintenance, if for no other reason than that it prevented open debate (123). Havel himself had written famous essays about how daily life in communist regimes required open performance of these ideologies, whatever one’s internal faith. This prevented anyone, however disaffected, from feeling truly free of the system. Garton Ash argues that this moral compromise explains why the population was so eager to consume accurate and representative media, especially during 1989, and declares, “there is a real sense in which these regimes lived by the word and perished by the word” (124).

Garton Ash also argues that he should attempt to explain why the revolutions of 1989 were largely peaceful, except in Romania. On the Communist side Gorbachev’s decision to reject the interventionist foreign policy of his predecessors was a significant factor. The increasing calls or international human rights and norms may have some explanatory power, nut Garton Ash ultimately argues that the Communist leadership had no animating faith that would have justified action, except in Romania.

Turning again to the example of 1848, Garton Ash notes that this revolutionary period gave way to intense conflict and national divisions—he thus alludes, however indirectly, to the conflicts of the 1850s, 1870s, and the decades of tension culminating in the First World War. Garton Ash is fundamentally optimistic about the region’s future, arguing that there is no need for alarm at a rebirth of national identity, as “pride in your own nation does to necessarily imply hostility to other nations” (128). While there is tension over minority rights, the new nations are relatively homogenous compared to the 1930s and 1940s, in part because Hitler and Stalin made liberal use of genocide and deportation to create the borders we now know. Garton Ash posits that economic health will lesson any possible tensions along ethnic and national lines.

Instead of nationalism, Garton Ash argues that most of the participants in 1989 spoke of “society” that is, common bonds within the polity, and the growing gulf between the wealth of Party elites and the rest of the population (131). He posits that the relative egalitarianism of the regimes, in contrast to the wealth of Party elites, helped build common bonds across classes and occupations. Moreover, people embraced the idea of free association and civic participation, what political scientists call “civil society.” Where Marxist ideology denigrated “bourgeois” property ownership and the social institutions that the middle class engaged in, Garton Ash argues that the public of 1989 declared, “we want to be citizens, but we also want to be middle-class” (133).

Turning to the international situation, Garton Ash again contrasts 1989 and 1848. In 1848, European powers refused to accept revolution, while in 1989 the USSR rejected imperial intervention and Germany was a participant in its own revolutionary process, uniting rather than remaining divided, as it had in 1849. Nationalism, Garton Ash notes, is an increasingly powerful force inside the Soviet Union, including the Baltics and possibly Ukraine, making any possible reconstitution of communism in Eastern Europe less and less likely.

Garton Ash argues that the lesson of 1989 is that democracy and market economies are the only viable path for successful states, though social programs and strong taxation may still be possible or preferred. Garton Ash even evinces some concern that unqualified celebration of the free market may overtake the region. The idea of ideological solidarity among socialist states has vanished, with the new European Community as the most likely alternative model for confederation and cooperation.

Yet Garton Ash evinces some nostalgia for the disappeared system, for it could be more communal, less materialist, and with more space for ideological debate and discussion. He admits that the economic transition to free markets is likely to be painful and difficult. But he finishes on an optimistic note, arguing that the 1989 revolutionaries have shown Western Europeans “the value of what we already have” and the “European community as the one and only, real existing common European home” (140). He quotes the Polish-Lithuanian poet Adam Mickiewicz, who celebrated his lost homeland after it was partitioned, asserting that readers should value a cooperative and united Europe the way Mickiewicz did his nation.