Birth Mark
How the “Velvet Revolution” Degenerated into a “Regime Change”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Prague Spring did not come to an end in August 1968. Only the internal occupation by the armed Czechoslovak state power a year later broke the resistance. What followed was the demise of society, the retreat of people to the private sphere. The destruction of trust between people in the 20 long years of “normalisation” had consequences that went far beyond the year 1989. Predatory capitalism has turned the disorder of the shadow economy into law. What remains is “the solidarity of the shaken”, which is what Charta 77 held together as a pluralistic community without ideology.
(Osteuropa 2-3/2009, pp. 27–40)