How The Berlin Wall Fell
Berlin Wall, 1986 (Wikimedia)
My former boss Mike Tomasky will have written this article before the Iranian political crisis broke out, but that only makes the relevance all the more clear:
On June 27, 11 days after Nagy’s rehabilitation, Foreign Minister Gyula Horn met his Austrian counterpart, Alois Mock, at the border. Each official held large clipping shears and made ceremonial cuts in the barbed-wire border fence. Soon thereafter, an annual ritual, by which East and West German families divided by the Iron Curtain reunited for a short vacation in Hungary, started again. But this year, for some reason, Hungarian border guards began letting some East Germans slip through to the West. By summer’s end, there was a full-fledged refugee crisis at the border. It’s a shame that the date September 11 now carries the solemn historical weight attached to it, because it was on that date in 1989–after a brave decision by Horn to abrogate a treaty with East Germany forbidding Hungary from permitting East Germans to cross into the West–that East Germans started streaming by the thousands through Hungary into Austria.
The tumult spread quickly to Leipzig and eventually Berlin. George H.W. Bush and James Baker chose, correctly, to do and say little. Mikhail Gorbachev, more importantly and impressively, chose not to roll tanks into Budapest or Berlin. On November 9, with pressure mounting, East German official Gunter Schabowski announced–hastily and incorrectly, in fact, but, since the announcement was aired live across much of the world, irrevocably–that all rules for travel abroad would be lifted “immediately.” East Germans rushed to the Wall and overwhelmed the guards. They danced atop it and chipped away souvenirs.
In a way, these were important events in American history. Certainly, they proved to have important—and positive—consequences for American foreign policy. But ultimately the events were made by people in the Communist bloc. The heroes were a mix of brave dissidents who dared the powers that be to suppress them brutally, and holders of power who ultimately flinched away from doing so. Inserting the strategic priorities of the West directly into the situation in a heavy-handed way would not, ultimately, have helped improve the outcome in any clear way.
25 Responses to “How The Berlin Wall Fell”
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June 16th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Matt,
You haven’t given us a “Mike Pence is the dumbest member of Congress” post in awhile, so I think you need to give us a reminder. Here’s a little something to get you started:
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2009/06/mike-pence-undermines-the-iranian-people.html
June 16th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
To understand more properly the relation between Germany then and Iran now, one has to understand the context of H.W.’s policy.
What was required for the wall to come down was for the Russians to let it happen. A more vocal American policy risked shaming/pushing the Russians into acting more aggressively.
In this case, the actual power dynamics are more murky. But if, as according to some reports, what is going on is a coup by Ahmadinejad, then a silent policy, with the potential implication of tacit approval, may well produce a different outcome then in Berlin.
In general, the notion that the sole Superpower is, more or less, powerless to alter events outside her borders is rather senseless.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Without taking anything away from the brave people under Communist rule in Eastern Europe — and without questioning the wisdom of a certain amount of public discretion by the GHW Bush administration — it is also true that this day came because of the unremitting pressure put on the Soviet bloc for 40 years by the United States and its allies under the strategy of containment.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
It’s Gorbatchev. Very sad that it’s in the interest of no one to give the man credit.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
It’s Gorbatchev. Very sad that it’s in the interest of no one to give the man credit.
Ah, well, too bad we utterly fucked him over, causing the KGB and the reactionary part of the Army to try to take him out, allowing a corrupt – but undeniably brave – drunkard to take over.
And we kept fucking him over by pushing privatization schemes that looted the country, which in turn put in place a man far more ruthless than the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
In fact, often it’s true that the worlds only Superpower is, more or less, powerless to alter events outside her borders. Our previous attempt to intervene in Iranian domestic politics in 1953 has had very negative unintended consequences, one of which is massive distrust of US power and motives by even many of the ruling regime’s critics. The regime has lost a lot of its legitimacy of the popular sovereignty sort. Let’s not give it any legitimacy of the resisting foreign influence and domination sort.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Our previous attempt to intervene in Iranian domestic politics in 1953
Our *previous* attempt?
Elwood, 1979-1988 are at the door, asking where the hell you did your research.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
if, as according to some reports, what is going on is a coup by Ahmadinejad, then a silent policy, with the potential implication of tacit approval, may well produce a different outcome then in Berlin.
That’s operating under the assumption that public silence is matched by private silence. In addition, the US had formal diplomatic relations with the GDR. Given the current US non-relationship with Iran, there’s no ‘implication of tacit approval’ to be derived from the status quo. Iran’s already on the US Shit List, and the tacit assumption is that everything Iran does keeps it on the Shit List unless and until the US says so.
(That partly explains why governments in countries which do have formal diplomatic relations with Iran have been more vocal about the elections.)
June 16th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTQ5YzE0YTBkYWQwMjI4NTc5MjdmMGE1MGYwNWI1NzU=
Ancient MattY post: Iran has never killed American civilians in a terrorist attack.
Some guy at NRO: But the Iranians trained these Saudi terrorists who carried out this terrorist attack that killed American non-civilians! What about that, smart guy?
It’s stuff like this that makes it easy to understand why those lovable losers at the Corner are a step away from bottling K-Lo’s acne grease to pay the bills.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
It’s one of the great ironies of history that Reagan built his political persona over the course of three decades denouncing containment – he wanted a more aggressive “rollback” policy – only to take office and almost immediately see the success of containment come to fruition.
The fact that Reagan recognized this, and was willing to reverse course 180 degrees in response to it, despite his own ideological predisposition and the pressure put on him by his longtime political allies, is one of the most remarkable political performances in American history. But nobody wants to recognize that fact, because the right wants to portray him as an uber-Cold War hawk, and the left wants to portray him as a bungling, senile Cold War hawk.
Do you know what George Will wrote the day after Reagan signed the Reykjavik Accords? “Yesterday will be remembered as the day America lost the Cold War.”
June 16th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Something else that helped us win the Cold War: Loans and aid to Eastern European countries.
In early 1989 Hungarian Communist Party leaders realized that Gorbachev would no longer prop them up. They had to decide whether to crack down on the democratic movement themselves and adopt a harder line, or to push forward with reform, come what may.
As some former Party leaders have since admitted, one big factor in their decision to continue with reform was that they simply couldn’t afford to break ties with the West. They were already too dependent on our loans and aid.
Evidently our own citizens undervalue the power of U.S. foreign aid.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Terrible analogy at every level. The protesters definitely don’t want to tear down the Islamic republic, as the protesters in 1989 wanted to destroy communism in East Germany. So, on the fundamental level, the two situations are nothing like each other.
I don’t see the point of an analogy as a hermeneutic when we can simply use, oh, what we know about Iran as a hermeneutic. I would think analogy based fantasy would be discredited by now, MY! especially after the dribble that came out of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But the D.C. chattering class seemingly cannot ever, ever learn third world history. All those names, I guess. Rather, they dimly remember things about first world history – something vaguely heroic, and optimally, that has Churchill in it, but, if not, something heartwarming from the Cold war – and impose it on whatever is happening in the Middle East.
Well, misprision for the last fifty years, misprision for the next fifty. Except maybe we can’t afford that anymore.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Thanks for this post. Just possibly this will punch a hole in the myth that the U.S. “won the Cold War”. Yes, the US was the big beneficiary of the end of the CW, and the Soviet Union went down in ignomy, so to this extent the US won, but not in the sense of having defeated the SU. As a politically engaged 18-year-old Hungarian at the time, I had pretty strong pro-American sympathies (still do, but in a more discerning way), but it was always clear that the US never defeated the SU. Two things did: the fateful military adventure in Afghanistan, which revealed the weaknesses of the Soviet military and destroyed its morale, and more importantly, the 10-million strong Solidarity trade union in Poland, which showed that the Soviet leadership could no longer pacify but at most temporarily supress dissent in Eastern Europe. Reagan and Bush I deserve some credit in this story, but for exactly the opposite reason than for what they are usually praised: i.e. for having realized that the SU needs to be engaged rather than confronted at that point.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
If you want a clue as to what is happening in Iran, read these two articles (sent to Matt, but as usual he’s ignoring REAL information about a foreign policy topic he’s posting on):
Rafsanjani’s gambit backfires
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak05.html
The meaning of the Tehran spring
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF16Ak02.html
It’s clear that this election was actually a proxy fight between the Supreme Leader Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani. The voters were, as usual, just pawns.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
The communists nations were so broke they weren’t adequately paying their military and police. You have to pay to have your power enforced. I don’t think Iran is anywhere close to being overthrown for the reasons that the Soviets fell.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Oookaaay… I guess Matt’s right, but I don’t see the point of the post. George H.W. Bush and James Baker correctly realized that the long-term strategic interests of the United States would be better served by stepping aside while East Germany collapsed. This isn’t true in every situation, and it certainly doesn’t say anything about the success or failure of U.S. grand strategy during the Cold War. Sometimes highlighting and shaming bad behavior is what’s necessary.
If the religious hard line regains control of the country by brutalizing its citizens I would advise the President to publicly denounce the attacks and use the public outrage in Western Europe to build a European consensus around further sanctions. It goes without saying that Iran’s leaders should no longer be able to travel in Western nations without fear of prosecution.
Maintaining a policy of engagement will have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future. To do otherwise would be a travesty.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
It’s Gorbatchev. Very sad that it’s in the interest of no one to give the man credit.
huh? the man was a nobel peace prize laureate in 1990.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
“It’s clear that this election was actually a proxy fight between the Supreme Leader Khamenei and Hashemi Rafsanjani. The voters were, as usual, just pawns.”
That’s probably true, but don’t count out Rafsanjani yet. He’s been written off before and is still the second most powerful person in Iran. If Rafsanjani ordered his businesses to be closed for a month, Iran would collapse. In the end, even the clerics need the economy to function. I respect the opinions from the posts you posted, but they just look at a narrow view of what Iranian society is. Rafsanjani controls far more than his political positions and allegiances would suggest. Of course, he got to his place by being a political and economic opportunist, so he doesn’t want to make any waves. But if he does chose to makes some waves, they will devastating tsunamis. As always, a person’s power is derived from the power of others. But if one big cash-in can result in getting even more power, it might be worth the risk. Given his age and situation, the only thing keeping Rafsanjani from pulling a really big gambit is his desire to keep his family in power forever. He can lose 95% of what he’s got and still be very wealthy. But he has a very big family to keep in power. And Ahmadinejad is wise enough to not threaten Rafsanjani’s family. We’ll see what happens, but I can assure you that we haven’t seen the last of Rafsanjani.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
does your former boss hate chilean people or something? b/c if not i don’t see how he could claim that sep. 11th didn’t carry significant weight in ‘89… very strange.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
And by the way, Rafsanjani put Khamenei in power in the first place. And despite Rafsanjani’s ruthless economic and political ways, he still is a more respected cleric than Khamenei. Khamenei isn’t a real Ayatollah. He only got that title because it was a required title to hold the Supreme Leader position. Who orchestrated that? Rafsanjani, of course. But only because Rafsanjani wanted to be president.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:44 am
It seems Mr Tomasky is one of them what we like to call “revisionistical historians”.
What actually happened was – and I’m quoting here from what everyone already knows – was that Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and said “Mr Gorbachev, Tear. Down. This. Wall.”, and by sheer force of moral clarity willed the Evil Empire into submission and won the Cold War.
-Rarl Kove
June 17th, 2009 at 2:10 am
“Tear. Down. This. Wall.”
That was a great statement, but my sister probably did more to tear it down. Reagan was a master of rhetoric and knew when to do the line. The Communist Bloc was already collapsing from the weight of it’s absurd economic policies that relied on fighting foreign wars just to keep it alive. The fall was coming for sure, and Reagan knew it. He really could be so bold because it was inevitable. But that it happened so quickly is something nobody will ever understand. Six months before The Wall came down, nobody thought it would happen, least of all the Germans on both sides. It would eventually happen, but not now. Oh wait, it’s happening! My sister was in Munich on Nov 9. She saw the initial breakthroughs on TV. So she went to the hardware store, bought a sledgehammer, went to the train station, and bought an overnight train ticket to Berlin. Nov 10, she’s swinging a sledgehammer at the Berlin Wall. I am extremely grateful for the life I’ve had, and I’ve done some really awesome things. But that’s the coolest thing ever. Just one whack at that wall, and I’d have satisfied for life. Of course, I’d have taken a few hundred more. But so many people didn’t get just one.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Actually, activists in the GDR finally won the right to monitor polling locations in local elections and were able to provide convincing proof that the vote had been systematically rigged against opposition candidates. The protests were in response to the elections.
We could have expected some sort of systemic change (or brutal response from the Soviets a la 1953) in East Germany regardless of whether the floodgates had been opened to travel through Hungary or over the western border.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
The GDR was broke – Iran isn’t.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:53 am
It’s a shame that the date September 11 now carries the solemn historical weight attached to it, because..
actually, the wall fell on November 9 (9/11 in europe), but they don’t celebrate unification on that day, cause it was also the date of the beer hall putsch and also the date the weimar republic fell and also the day rosa luxembourg was executed