Velvet Revolution - Open Questions

Open Questions

Not all the events of the Velvet Revolution have been explained completely. For over a decade conspiracy theorists tried to portray it as the result of a plot by the StB, KGB, reformists among party members, or Mikhail Gorbachev. According to these theories, the Communist Party only transformed its power into other, less visible forms and still controls society. Belief in such theories has decreased, but well-known individuals such as KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn and Czech dissident (and former friend of Václav Havel) Petr Cibulka still contend that the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was staged by the Communist StB secret police.

The most contentious points were:

• It is not clear to what extent events were spontaneous or orchestrated by the secret police. For example, the incident with the "dead student" was staged by secret police provocateur Ludvík Zifčák and assisted by other secret agents (those who took him to the hospital and initially disseminated the rumor). Zifčák is currently a chairman of the "Communist Party of Czechoslovakia", a non-parliamentary group aiming to restore a Communist regime, with popular support below 1%, and rejects all inquiries relating to his role in the revolution.
• The Army and People's Militia were ready to attack the demonstrators, but did not receive orders to do so.
• Secret police carried out surveillance on all the leaders of the revolution and had the ability to arrest them. However, they did not do so and let the revolution progress.
• A Soviet military advisor was present in the control center of the police force, which beat the demonstrators on November 17. Supposedly, he did not intervene, but his role is unclear.

It is assumed that there was a split between different factions of the Communist leadership (namely, reform Communists anxious to replace those afraid of any change) and some of them tried to use the popular unrest to promote their agendas – ultimately ending Communist rule. Another likely factor is that with communism crumbling everywhere abroad, the Czech communists didn't see their position as tenable, as the days when a significant part of the populace actually sympathised with them were long gone. Most importantly, it was always the military power of the Soviet Union that was holding the Eastern Bloc communist governments in power (as evidenced by the suppressed attempts at revolution in many communist states in the 1950s and 1960s), and by 1989 it was clear that that power is gone in all but name (the Soviet Union wasn't formally dissolved until 1991).