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Now Out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989
Author(s): Timur Kuran
Source: World Politics, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Oct., 1991), pp. 7-48
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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NOW OUT OF NEVER

The Elementof Surprisein theEast
EuropeanRevolutionof 1989
By TIMUR KURAN*

I. UNITED

IN AMAZEMENT

UR jaws cannot drop any lower," exclaimed Radio Free Europe one day in late 1989. It was commentingon the electrifying collapse of Eastern Europe's communistregimes.'The politicallandscape of the entireregion changed suddenly,astonishingeven the most
seasoned political observers.In a matterof weeks entrenchedleaders
were overthrown,the communistmonopolyon power was abrogated in
one countryafteranother,and persecutedcriticsof the communistsystem were catapultedinto high office.
In the West the ranks of the stunnedincluded championsof the view
thatcommunisttotalitarianismis substantiallymore stablethan ordinary
"It has to be conceded," wrotea leading proponentof
authoritarianism.2
this view in early 1990, "that those of us who distinguishbetween the
two non-democratictypesof governmentunderestimatedthe decay of
Communistcountriesand expectedthecollapse of totalitarianismto take
longer than has actually turnedout to be the case."3 Another acknowledged her bewildermentthroughthe titleof a new book: The Withering
Away ofthe TotalitarianState. . . And OtherSurprises.4
* This researchwas supportedby the National Science Foundation under grantno. SES8808031. A segmentof thepaper was draftedduringa sabbatical,financedpartlybya fellowship fromtheNational Endowmentforthe Humanities,at the InstituteforAdvanced Study
in Princeton.I am indebtedto WolfgangFach, Helena Flam, JackGoldstone,Kenneth Koford,Pavel Pelikan, Jean-PhilippePlatteau,WolfgangSeibel, Ulrich Witt,and threeanonymousreadersforhelpfulcomments.
bythe
1 BernardGwertzmanand Michael T. Kaufman,eds., The Collapseof Communism,
of "The New YorkTimes"(New York: Times Books, 1990),vii.
Correspondents
of thisthesis,see Hannah Arendt,The Originsof Totalitarianism,
2 For an earlystatement
2d ed. (1951; reprint,New York: World Publishing,1958), pt. 3. Arendt suggestedthat
communismweakens interpersonalbonds rootedin family,community,religion,and prodependenton thegoodwill of the stateand
fession,a situationthatmakes individualsterribly
thus blocks the mobilizationof an anticommunistrevolt.
' Richard Pipes, "Gorbachev's Russia: Breakdownor Crackdown?" Commentary,
March
1990,p. 16.
AwayoftheTotalitarianState... And OtherSurprises
4Jeane J.Kirkpatrick,The Withering
(Washington,D.C.: AEI Press,1990). A decade earlierKirkpatrickhad articulateda variant
of Arendt'sthesis,insistingthatthe communistsystemis incapable of self-propelledevolu-

WorldPolitics44 (October 1991),7-48

WORLD POLITICS

Even scholarswho had rejectedthe conceptof a frozenand immobile

region were amazed by the eventsof 1989. In 1987 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences inviteda dozen specialists,including several
living in Eastern Europe, to prepare interpretiveessays on East European developments.As theDaedalus issue featuringtheseessayswent to
press,the uprisingstook off,promptingmany authorsto change "whole
sentencesand paragraphs in what were once thoughtto be completed
essays."Daedalus editorStephen Graubard remarksin his prefaceto the
issue: "A quarterlyjournal has been obliged to adapt, inconveniently,
but in some measure necessarily,the techniques of a weekly or even a
daily newspaper."5 Graubard proudly points out that even before the
last-minuterevisionsthe essays offeredremarkableinsightsinto the intellectual,social, and political stirringsthat were transformingthe region. But he concedes thatneitherhe nor his essayistsforesawwhat was
to happen. Recalling that in a planning session he had asked whether
anythingcould be done to avoid publishing "an issue that will seem
'dated' threeyearsafterpublication,"he continues:"Was this passage a
premonitionof all that was to follow? One wishes that one could claim
such extraordinaryprescience.Regrettably,it did not reallyexist."6
Wise statesmen,discerningdiplomats,and giftedjournalistswere also
caught offguard. So too were futurologists.JohnNaisbitt's celebrated
Megatrends,which sold eight million copies in the early 1980s,does not
predictthe fall of communism.7As the Economistobserved even before
the East European Revolutionhad run its course, 1989 turnedout to be
a year when "the most quixotic optimists"were repeatedly"proved too
cautious."8

Within Eastern Europe itselfthe revolutioncame as a surpriseeven

to leading "dissidents."In a 1979 essay,"The Power of the Powerless,"
VaiclavHavel recognized thatthe regimesof Eastern Europe were anythingbut invincible.They mightbe toppled,he wrote,by a "social movement, an "explosion of civil unrest,"or a "sharp conflictinside an apNovember 1979,
tion.See Kirkpatrick,"Dictatorshipsand Double Standards,"Commentary,
pp. 34-45.
Central Europe ... Europe,'
5 Graubard, "Preface to the Issue 'Eastern Europe ...
Daedalus 119 (Winter 1990),vi.
6 Ibid., ii.
7 Naisbitt,Megatrends:
Ten New DirectionsTransforming
Our Lives (New York: Warner
Books, 1982). The monthsfollowingthe East European Revolutionsaw the appearance of
JohnNaisbitt and Patricia Aburdene,Megatrends2000: Ten New Directionsfor the 1990's
(New York: William Morrow, 1990). This sequel characterizesthe East European developmentsof the late 1980s as an unforeseen"politicalearthquake" and thenpredictsthat the
1990swill witnessthe furthererosionof communism(chap. 3).
November 18, 1989,p. 13.
8 Economist,

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

parentlymonolithicpower structure,"among other possibilities.9This

essay is at once a brilliantprobe into the communistsystem'sstability
and a penetratingprognosisof its ultimatedemise. Yet it steersclear of
speculation on the timing of the collapse. It is replete with statements
such as "we must see the hopelessnessof tryingto make long-rangepredictions"and "far-reachingpoliticalchange is utterlyunforeseeable,"although it ends on a cautiouslyoptimisticnote: "What if [the 'brighter
future']has been here fora long time already,and only our own blindness and weakness has preventedus fromseeing it around us and within
us, and kept us fromdeveloping it?."10
Eight years later Havel himselfwould exhibit "blindness" to events
that were usheringin a "brighterfuture."Less than threeyears before
the revolutionhe commentedas followson the rousing welcome given
by a Prague crowd to visitingSoviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:
I feel sad; this nation of ours never learns. How many times has it put all
its faith in some external force which, it believed, would solve its problems? . . . And yet here we are again, making exactlythe same mistake.
They seem to think that Gorbachev has come to liberate them from Husa~k!

In late 1988,with less than a year to go, Havel was stillunsure about the
directionof events:
Maybe [the Movement forCivil Liberties]will quickly become an integral
featureof our country'slife,albeit one not particularlybeloved of the regime. . . . Perhaps it will remain for the time being merely the seed of
somethingthat will bear fruitin the dim and distantfuture.It is equally
possible that the entire"matter" will be stamped on hard.'2

Other Czechoslovak dissidentswere just as unpreparedfor the revolution. In November 1989 JanUrban suggestedthatthe oppositioncontestthe national electionsscheduled forJune1991-only to be ridiculed
by his friendsformaking a hopelesslyutopian proposal."3Within a matter of days, they were all celebratingthe fall of Czechoslovakia's communistdictatorship.
9 Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"(1979), in Havel et al., The PowerofthePowerless:
CitizensagainsttheState in Central-Eastern
Europe,ed. JohnKeane and trans.Paul Wilson
(Armonk,N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985),42.
10Ibid., 87, 89, 96.
11Havel, "Meeting Gorbachev" (1987), in William M. Brintonand Alan Rinzler, eds.,
WithoutForceor Lies: VoicesfromtheRevolutionofCentralEuropein 1989-90 (San Francisco:
MercuryHouse, 1990),266.
12
Havel, "Cards on the Table" (1988), in Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11),270-71.
13 Sidney Tarrow, " 'Aiming at a Moving Target': Social Science and the Recent Rebellions in EasternEurope," PS: PoliticalScienceand Politics24 (March 1991), 12.

10

WORLD POLITICS

A few monthsbeforethe revolution,in neighboringPoland negotiationswere under way betweenthe communistregimeand Solidarity,the
trade union that for years had been demanding political pluralism. To
the surpriseof almost everyone,the regimeagreed in April 1989 to hold
open elections for a pluralisticparliament. In elections scheduled for
June all 100 Senate seats and 161 of the 460 Assembly seats would be
contestable.Exceeding the wildest expectations,Solidaritywon all but
one of the Senate seats in addition to all of the Assembly seats it was
allowed to contest.Stunned by the enormityof this success, Solidarity
officialsworried thatthe electoratehad gone too far,thatvictorywould
forceSolidarityinto making bold politicalmoves simplyto satisfyraised
hopes. They fearedthatsuch moves would provoke a communistcrackdown. The significantpointis thatneitherthegovernmentnor Solidarity
was prepared forsuch a lopsided result.The April accord was designed
to give Solidaritya voice in Parliament,not to substantiateand legitimate
its claim to being thevoice of the Polish people.14
We will never know how many East Europeans foresawthe eventsof
1989-or at least the impending changes in theirown countries.But at
each step,journalisticaccounts invariablypainted a pictureof a stunned
public. For example, two days afterthebreachingof the Berlin Wall, the
New York Times carried an article in which an East German remarks:
"It's unfathomable.If you had told me that one week ago, I wouldn't
have believed it. Mentally,I stillcan't. It will take a few days beforewhat
thismeans sinks in.""5
I know of only one systematicstudyof relevance.Four months after
the fall of communismin East Germany,the Allensbach Instituteasked
a broad sample of East Germans: "A year ago did you expect such a
peaceful revolution?" Only 5 percentanswered in the affirmative,although 18 percentanswered "yes, but not that fast." Fully 76 percent
indicated that the revolutionhad totallysurprisedthem.16These figures
are all the more remarkable given the "I knew it would happen" fal14 On
theelectionsand the reactionstheygenerated,see thereportsof JohnTaglibue, New
YorkTimes,June3-6, 1989. The eventsleading up to the April accord have been chronicled
and interpretedby Timothy Garton Ash, "Refolution:The Springtimeof Two Nations,"
New YorkReviewofBooks,June15, 1989,pp. 3-10. He observed:"Almost no one imagined
that the great gulf between 'the power' and 'the society,'between Jaruzelskiand Walesa,
could be so swiftlybridged" (p. 6). For anotherinformativeaccount of Poland's political
see Elie Abel, The ShatteredBloc: Behind the Upheavalin EasternEurope
transformation,
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1990),chap. 4.
15 New YorkTimes,November 12, 1989,p. 1.
16 Question 36 on the East German Surveyof the Institutfur Demoskopie Allensbach,
February 17-March 15, 1990, Archiveno. 4195 GEW. I am indebtedto Elisabeth Noelleforagreeingto insertthisquestion intoa broadersurvey
Neumann, directorof the institute,
on East German politicalopinions.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

11

Even trained
lacy-the human tendencyto exaggerateforeknowledge."7
historianssuccumb to thisfallacy,portrayingunanticipatedeventsas inevitable, foreseeable,and actually foreseen."8In view of this fallacy,if
East Germans had been asked a year before the revolution,"Do you
expect a revolutionin a year's time?" the percentageof unqualifiednegative answers would undoubtedlyhave been even higher.
The eventsthat sealed the fateof East Germany'scommunistregime
took offin the final days of summer,when thousands of East German
vacationers in Hungary took advantage of relaxed border controls to
turntheirtripsinto permanentdeparturesforWest Germany.The East
itscitizens'access to HunGerman governmentrespondedby restricting
gary, only to see thousands show up at the West German embassy in
Prague. In the ensuing days it acceded to a seriesof face-savingarrangementsby which the vacationerscould departforthe West, but only after
firstreturninghome. Each new concession prompted furtherwaves of
emigrants,however,confutingthegovernment'sexpectationthatthe exodus would taperoffquickly.19The governmentwas not alone in failing
to anticipatewhere eventswere headed. Thousands of East German citizens rushed to join the exodus preciselybecause theyfelttheirchances
of reaching the West would never again be so good. Had they known
that the Berlin Wall was about to come down, few would have leftin
such haste, leaving behind almost all their possessions,including their
cars.
It mightbe said thatsome veryknowledgeable observersof the communist bloc had predictedits disintegrationbeforethe centurywas out.
As earlyas 1969,forinstance,the Soviet dissidentAndrei Amalrik wrote
that the Russian Empire would break up within a decade and a half.
Although it is temptingto credit Amalrik with exemplaryforesight,a
rereadingof his famousessay shows thathe expected the Soviet Empire
to meet its end followinga protractedand devastatingwar with China,
not througha stringof popular upheavals. In fact,he explicitlystated
that the Soviet systemof governmenthad left people too demoralized
17 Baruch Fischhoff,"Hindsight * Foresight:The Effectof Outcome Knowledge on
Human Perceptionand
Judgmentunder Uncertainty,"
Journalof Experimental
Psychology:
Performance1 (August 1975),288-99; and Baruch Fischhoffand Ruth Beyth," 'I Knew It
Would Happen'-Remembered Probabilitiesof Once-Future Things," OrganizationalBe13 (February1975),1-16.
haviorand Human Performance
18 David Hackett Fischer,Historians'
Fallacies: Towarda Logic ofHistoricalThought(London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, 1971),chaps. 6-8.
19For a compilationof pertinentreportsfromthe New YorkTimes,see Gwertzman and
Kaufman (fn. 1), 153-84. Superb eyewitnessaccountsinclude Timothy Garton Ash, "The
German Revolution,"New YorkReviewofBooks,December 21, 1989,pp. 14-19; and George
Paul Csicsery,"The Siege of Nogradi Street,Budapest, 1989," in Brintonand Rinzler (fn.
11),289-302.

12

WORLD POLITICS

and too dependent on authorityto participatein a spontaneous uprising.20 So Amalrik did not reallyforeseethe eventsof 1989. Like a broken
watch thattellsthe correcttime everytwelvehours,he got the timingof
the firstcrack in the empire essentiallyright,but on the basis of a spurious forecastof events.
This is not to suggestthat the East European explosion came as total
surpriseto everyone.Though most were astonishedwhen it happened,
and thoughfew who saw it coming expectedit to be so peaceful,a small
number of commentatorshad prophesiedthat the revolutionwould be
swift and remarkably bloodless. Havel, despite his above-quoted remarks, is one of these. And Vladimir Tismaneanu, a Romanian emigre
livingin the United States,came close to predictingmajor change. About
a year before the collapse of the Romanian regime, he depicted it as
"probablythe most vulnerable" in Eastern Europe. Sensing an "all-pervasive discontent,"he observedthat"the Brasov riotsin November 1987,
when thousands of citizens took to the streets,chanted anti-Ceausescu
slogans and burned the dictator'sportraits,representan unmistakable
signal for Moscow that uncontrollableviolence may flareup in Romania."21Tismaneanu failed to place the Romanian uprisingin the context
of an upheaval spanning all of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact allies.
Nor did he predict that Romania would be the last Soviet satelliteto
overthrowits government.It is remarkable nonethelessthat he diagnosed the Romanian regime's vulnerability.Like Havel, he succeeded
where many Westernobserversfailed,because he understoodthe weaknesses thatunderlaytheapparentstabilityof thecommunistsystem.This
understandingprepared him for the type of explosion that eventually
occurred,although,as discussed furtheron, it did not endow him with
the abilityto predictwhen the revolutionwould break out.
While the collapse of the post-WorldWar II politicalorderof Eastern
Europe stunned the world, in retrospect it appears as the inevitable con-

sequence of a multitudeof factors.In each of the six countriesthe leadership was generallydespised, loftyeconomic promisesremained unfulfilled,and freedomstaken forgrantedelsewhereexisted only on paper.
But if the revolutionwas indeed inevitable,why was it not foreseen?
Why did people overlook signsthatare clearlyvisibleafterthe fact?One
of the centralargumentsof this essay is preciselythat interactingsocial
and psychologicalfactorsmake it inherentlydifficultto predictthe out20
Amalrik,WilltheSovietUnionSurviveuntil1984? (1969) (New York: Harper and Row,
1970),esp. 36-44.
21
Tismaneanu, "Personal Power and Political Crisis in Romania," Government
and Opposition24 (Spring 1989),193-94.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

13

come of politicalcompetition.I shall argue thatthe East European Revolution was by no means inevitable. What was inevitable is that we
would be astounded if and when it arrived.
"The victimof today is the victorof tomorrow,/ And out of Never
grows Now!"22 Brecht'scouplet capturesperfectlyour centralparadox:
seeminglyunshakable regimes saw public sentimentturn against them
with astonishingrapidity,as tinyoppositionsmushroomedinto crushing
majorities. Currentlypopular theoriesof revolutionofferlittle insight
into this stunningpace; nor for that matterdo theyshed light on the
element of surprisein previous revolutions.All lay claim to predictive
power, yetnone has a trackrecordat veritableprediction.The next section brieflycritiquesthe pertinentscholarlyliterature.Without denying
the usefulnessof some receivedtheoriesat explainingrevolutionsof the
past, I go on to present a theorythat illuminatesboth the process of
revolutionarymobilizationand the limitsof our abilityto predictwhere
and when mobilizations will occur. Subsequent sectionsapply this argument to the case at hand.
The termrevolutionis used here in a narrow sense to denote a masssupported seizure of political power that aims to transformthe social
order. By thisdefinitionit is immaterialwhetherthe accomplishedtransfer of power bringsabout significantsocial change. With regard to the
East European Revolution,it is too earlyto tell whetherthe postrevolutionaryregimeswill succeed in reshapingthe economy,the legal system,
internationalrelations,and individual rights-to mention just some of
the domains on the reformistagenda. But even if the ongoing reforms
all end in failure,the upheavals of 1989 can continueto be characterized
as a regionwiderevolution.
II.

RECEIVED

THEORIES

OF REVOLUTION

AND THEIR

PREDICTIVE

WEAKNESSES

In her acclaimed book Statesand Social Revolutions,Theda Skocpol treats

social revolutions as the product of structuraland situational conditions.23Specifically,she argues thata revolutionoccurs when two conditions coalesce: (1) a state'sevolving relationswith other statesand local
classes weaken its abilityto maintain law and order, and (2) the elites
harmed by this situationare powerlessto restorethe statusquo ante yet
22 BertoltBrecht,"Lob der Dialectic" (In praiseof dialectics,1933),in Gedichte
(Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1961),3:73; poem translatedby Edith Anderson.
23 Skocpol,Statesand Social Revolutions:
A Comparative
AnalysisofFrance,Russia,and China
(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1979).

14

WORLD POLITICS

strongenough to paralyze the government.Through theirobstructionism theelitesgeneratea burstof antielitesentiment,which setsin motion
an uprisingaimed at transforming
the social order. The appeal of Skocpol's theorylies in its invocationof structuralcauses to explain shiftsin
the structureof politicalpower. It does not depend on such "subjective"
factors as beliefs, expectations,attitudes,preferences,intentions,and
goals, although these do creep into structuralistcase studies,including
those of Skocpol herself.
Tracking emotionsand mental statesis a treacherousbusiness,which
is why the structuralistschool considersit a virtue to refrainfromappealing to them. Social structuresare ostensiblyeasier to identify,which
would seem to endow the structuralist
theorywithpredictivesuperiority
over "voluntarist"theoriesbased on "rationalchoice." Theories that fall
under the rubricof rational choice have certainlybeen unsuccessfulat
predictingmass upheavals. What theyexplain well is the rarityof popular uprisings.24
The crucial insightof the rational-choiceschool is that
an individual opposed to the incumbentregimeis unlikelyto participate
in effortsto remove it, since the personal riskof joining a revolutionary
movementcould outweigh the personal benefitthat would accrue were
the movement a success. It is generallyin a person's self-interest
to let
othersmake the sacrificesrequired to secure the regime's downfall,for
a revolution constitutesa "collective good" -a good he can enjoy
whetheror not he has contributedto its realization. With most of the
regime's opponentschoosing to freeride,an upheaval may fail to materialize even if the potentialrevolutionariesconstitutea substantialmajority.Yet fromtime to time revolutiondoes break out, and thispresents
a puzzle that the standard theoryof rational choice cannot solve. The
standard theorysimply fails to make sense of why the firstpeople to
challenge the regimechoose selflesslyto gamble with theirlives.25
With respectto the East European Revolutionin particular,the standard theoryilluminateswhy, forall theirgrievances,the nations of the
region were remarkablyquiescent forso many years.It does not explain
why in 1989 theirdocilitysuddenlygave way to an explosivedemand for
change. For its part, the structuralisttheoryelucidates why the revolutionbroke out at a timewhen the SovietUnion was emittingincreasingly
convincingsignals thatit would not use forceto tryto preservethe East
24 The seminalcontribution
is Mancur Olson, The Logic of CollectiveAction:Public Goods
and the Theoryof Groups(1965; rev.ed., Cambridge:Harvard UniversityPress, 1971).
25 This point is developed by Michael Taylor,"Rationalityand Revolutionary
Action,"in
Taylor, ed., Rationalityand Rcvolution(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1988),6397. Taylor also offersan illuminatingcritiqueof structuralism.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN

REVOLUTION

15

European statusquo. But it explains neitherwhy the old order collapsed

so suddenlyin several countriesat once nor why the eventsof 1989 outdistancedall expectations.
Neither school has come to termswithitspredictiveweaknesses.That
granted,can the deficienciesin question be overcome by incorporating
additional relationshipsinto these theories?It would seem, on the basis
is an unachievable
of reasons developed below, thatperfectpredictability
objective. The theorydeveloped here accommodates some of the major
featuresand implicationsof these two theories,with the added virtue,
however,of illuminatingwhy major revolutionscome as a surpriseand
why,even so, theyare quite easilyexplainedafterthefact.
Like all unanticipatedrevolutions,the East European Revolution is
generatingmultitudesof retrospectiveexplanationsthat draw attention
to itsdiversecauses and warningsigns.To cite just one example,an essay
writtenshortlyafterthe fall of the East German regime begins with a
flashbackto April 1989: two passengerson an East German train,mutual
strangers,share witheach othertheirnegativefeelingsabout the regime,
within earshot of others-a highly uncommon event, because of the
ubiquityof informants.This opening gives the impressionthatEast Germany was obviouslyreaching its boiling point,although the rest of the
essay makes clear that the East German uprising was in fact scarcely
anticipated.26Like so much else now rolling off the presses,this essay
leaves unexplained why events seen in retrospectas harbingersof an
imminentupheaval were not seen as such beforethe actual revolution.
Not that signs noticed in retrospectare necessarilyfabrications.The
a mental shortcutwe use to compensateforour cogavailabilityheuristic,
nitivelimitations,highlightsinformationconsistentwithactual eventsat
the expense of informationinconsistentwiththem.27Accordingly,events
considered insignificantwhile the regime looked stable may suddenly
gain enormous significanceafterit falls.Among all the events that are
consistentwitha particularoutcome,thosethatfitintothe models at our
disposal will be the ones thatattractattention.Thus, a structuralistwill
be predisposed to treatas significantthe structuralsigns of the coming
revolution.These signs need not be imaginary,but there is nothing in
26 Edith Anderson,"Town Mice and CountryMice: The East German Revolution,"in
Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11), 170-92.
27 On the availabilityheuristic,
see Amos Tverskyand Daniel Kahneman, "Availability:
A Heuristic for JudgingFrequency and Probability,"CognitivePsychology5 (September
1973), 207-32. The biases thatthis heuristicimpartsto the use of historicalknowledge are
discussedby ShelleyE. Taylor,"The AvailabilityBias in Social Perceptionand Interaction,"
in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky,eds., Judgmentunder Uncertainty:
Heuristicsand Biases (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1982), 190-200.

16

WORLD POLITICS

the structuralisttheory-or, for that matter,in the standard theoryof

rationalchoice-that explainswhy it is betterat explanationthan at prediction. This paradox is seldom appreciated,partlybecause the authors
of retrospectiveaccounts do not always concede theirown bafflement.
They generallywrite as though theirfavoredtheoryshows the revolution to have been inevitable,seldom pausing to explain why,if thisis so,
theythemselveshad not offeredunambiguous,unequivocal forecasts.
If one bete noire of the structuralist
school is the rational-choiceapproach to the study of revolutions,another is the relative-deprivation
approach. According to thisthirdapproach revolutionsare propelled by
economic disappointments,thatis, by outcomes that fall shortof expectations.If theconsequentdiscontentbecomessufficiently
widespread,the
With
to
the
revolutions
she
resultis a revolt.28
respect
major
investigates,
Skocpol correctlyobserves that theybegan at times when levels of discontentwere by historicalstandardsnot unusual. More evidence against
the relative-deprivation
theorycomes fromCharles Tilly and his associates, who find that in France the level of collectiveviolence has been
uncorrelatedwith the degree of mass discontent.29
Thus, the relativedeprivationtheoryneitherpredictsnor explains. The reason is simple.
While relative deprivationis doubtless a factorin every revolutionin
history,it is too common in politicallystable societiesto provide a complete explanation foreveryobserved instability.By implication,to treat
relativedeprivationas an unmistakablesign of impendingrevolutionis
to subject oneselfto a continuousstringof alarms,mostlyfalse.
III. PREFERENCE

FALSIFICATION

AND REVOLUTIONARY

BANDWAGONS

So mass discontent does not necessarilygenerate a popular uprising

against the politicalstatusquo. To understandwhen it does, we need to
identifythe conditionsunder which individualswill display antagonism
toward the regime under which theylive. Afterall, a mass uprisingresults frommultitudesof individual choices to participatein a movement
for change; there is no actor named "the crowd" or "the opposition."
28 For two of the major contributions
to thisapproach,see JamesC. Davies, "Toward a
Theory of Revolution,"AmericanSociologicalReview 27 (February1962),5-19; and Ted R.
Gurr, WhyMen Rebel (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1970).
29 David Snyderand Charles Tilly, "Hardship and CollectiveViolence in France, 1830 to
1960," AmericanSociologicalReview 37 (October 1972), 520-32; and Charles Tilly, Louise
Tilly,and RichardTilly,TheRebelliousCentury:1830-1930(Cambridge:Harvard University
Press, 1975). For much additional evidence against the theoryof relativedeprivation,see
Steven E. Finkel and JamesB. Rule, "RelativeDeprivationand Related PsychologicalTheories of Civil Violence: A CriticalReview," in Louis Kriesberg,ed., Researchin Social Moveand Change(Greenwich,Conn.: JAI Press, 1986),9:47-69.
ments,Conflicts

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

17

The model presented here is in agreement with the rational-choice

school on this basic methodologicalpoint,although it departs in importantways fromthe standardfarein rational-choicemodeling.
Consider a societywhose membersare indexed by i. Each individual
member must choose whetherto supportthe governmentin public or
oppose it; depending on his public acts and statements,each person is
perceived as eithera friendof the governmentor an enemy,forthe political statusquo or against. In private,of course,a person may feel torn
between the governmentand theopposition,seeing bothadvantages and
disadvantages to the existingregime. I am thus distinguishingbetween
and publicpreference.
The formeris efan individual'sprivatepreference
a
the
latter
under
his control.
fixed
at
variable
fectively
any given instant,
Insofaras his two preferencesdiffer-that is, the preferencehe expresses
in public diverges fromthat he holds in private-the individual is engaged in preference
falsification.
Let S representthe size of the public opposition,expressed as a percentageof the population. Initiallyit is near 0, implyingthatthe government commands almost unanimous public support. A revolution,as a
mass-supportedseizure of political power, may be treated as an enormous jump in S.
Now take a citizen who wants the governmentoverthrown.The
likelyimpact of his own public preferenceon the fateof the government
is negligible: it is unlikelyto be a decisivefactorin whetherthe government stands or falls.But it may bringhim personal rewardsand impose
on him personal punishments.If he chooses to oppose the government,
for instance,he is likely to face persecution,though in the event the
governmentfallshis outspokennessmay be rewarded handsomely.Does
this mean that our individual will base his public preferencesolely on
the potential rewards and punishmentsflowing from the two rival
camps? Will his privateantipathyto the regimeplay no role whatsoever
in his decision? This does not seem reasonable,forhistoryofferscountless examples of brave individuals who stood up for a cause in the face
of the severestpressures,includingtorture.
On what, then,will our disaffectedindividual'schoice depend? I submit thatit will depend on a trade-offbetween two payoffs,one external
and the otherinternal.30
The externalpayoffto siding with the oppositionconsistsof the justdiscussed personal rewardsand punishments.In net terms,thispayoffis
apt to become increasinglyfavorable(or increasinglyless unfavorable)
30 For a detailed analysisof thistrade-off,
see Timur Kuran, "Privateand Public Preferences,"Economicsand Philosophy6 (April 1990),1-26.

18

WORLD POLITICS

with S. The larger S, the smaller the individual dissenter'schances of

with the oppositionand the fewer
being persecutedforhis identification
hostilesupportersof the governmenthe has to face. The latterrelationship reflectsthe fact that governmentsupporters,even ones privately
sympatheticto the opposition,participatein the persecutionof the government'sopponents,as part of theirpersonal effortsto establish convincingprogovernmentcredentials.This relationshipimplies thata rise
in S leaves fewerpeople seeking to penalize membersof the public opposition.
The internalpayoffis rooted in the psychologicalcost of preference
falsification.The suppressionof one's wants entails a loss of personal
autonomy,a sacrificeof personal integrity.It thus generateslastingdiscomfort,the more so the greaterthe lie. This relationshipmay be captured by postulatingthat person i's internalpayofffor supportingthe
oppositionvaries positivelywith his privatepreference,
xA.The higherxi,
the more costlyhe findsit to suppresshis antigovernmentfeelings.
So i's public preferencedepends on S and xi. As the public opposition
grows, with his privatepreferenceconstant,therecomes a point where
his externalcost of joining the oppositionfallsbelow his internalcost of
preferencefalsification.This switchingpoint may be called his revoluP. Since a thresholdrepresentsa value ofS, it is a numtionarythreshold,
ber between 0 and 100.
If xi should rise,7 will fall. In otherwords,if the individual becomes
more sympatheticto the opposition,it will take a smaller public opposition to make him take a stand againstthe government.The same will be
true if the governmentbecomes less efficient,
or the oppositionbecomes
more efficient,at rewarding its supportersand punishing its rivals. In
fact,anythingthataffectsthe relationshipbetweenS and the individual's
externalpayoffforsupportingthe oppositionwill change his revolutionary threshold.Finally, P will fall ifi develops a greaterneed to stand up
and be counted,forthe internalcost of preferencefalsificationwill then
come to dominate the externalbenefitat a lower S.31
This simple frameworkoffersa reason why a person may choose to
voice a demand for change even when the price of dissentis veryhigh
and the chances of a successfuluprisingverylow. If his privateopposi31 The theoryoutlined in this sectionis developed more fullyin Timur Kuran, "Sparks
and PrairieFires: A Theory of UnanticipatedPoliticalRevolution,"Public Choice61 (April
1989),41-74. A summaryof the presentformulationwas deliveredat the annual convention
of the AmericanEconomic Association,Washington,D.C., December 28-30, 1990.This presentationappeared under the title"The East European Revolutionof 1989: Is It Surprising
That We Were Surprised?"in theAmericanEconomicReview,Papersand Proceedings
81 (May
1991), 121-25.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

19

tion to the existingorder is intenseand/orhis need forintegrityis quite

strong,the sufferinghe incurs for dissent may be outweighed by the
satisfactionhe derives from being true to himself.In every society,of
course,thereare people who go againstthesocial orderof the day. Joseph
Schumpeteronce observed thatin capitalistsocietiesthisgroup is dominated by intellectuals.Their position as "onlookers" and "outsiders"
with much time for deep reflectioncauses them to develop a "critical
attitude"toward the statusquo. And because of the high value theyattach to self-expression,they are relativelyunsusceptibleto social pressures.32The same argumentapplies to noncapitalistsocieties.As a case
in point,a disproportionately
large shareof the East European dissidents
were intellectuals.
Returningto the general model, we can observethatindividuals with
differentprivate preferencesand psychologicalconstitutionswill have
differentrevolutionarythresholds.Imagine a ten-personsocietyfeaturing thethreshold
sequence
A = {0, 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100}.
Person 1 (T1 = 0) supportsthe oppositionregardlessof its size, just as
person 10 (T10 = 100) always supportsthe government.The remaining
eight people's preferencesare sensitiveto S: depending on its level, they
opt forone camp or the other.For instance,person 5 (P = 40) supports
the governmentif 0 < S < 40 but joins the oppositionif 40 ' S ' 100.
Let us assume thatthe oppositionconsistsinitiallyof a single person,or
10 percentof the population,so S = 10. Because the nine otherindividuals have thresholdsabove 10, thisS is self-sustaining;that is, it constitutesan equilibrium.
This equilibrium happens to be vulnerable to a minor change in A.
Suppose thatperson 2 has an unpleasantencounterat some government
ministry.Her alienation from the regime rises, pushing her threshold
down from20 to 10. The new thresholdsequence is
A' = {0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100}.
Person 2's new thresholdhappens to equal the existingS of 10, so she
switchessides,and S becomes 20. Her move intothe oppositiontakes the
form of tossing an egg at the country'slong-standingleader during a
government-organizedrally.The new S of 20 is not self-sustainingbut
as it drives person 3 into the opposition.The higherS
self-augmenting,
of 30 then triggersa fourthdefection,raisingS to 40, and this process
32 Schumpeter,Capitalism,Socialismand Democracy,3d ed. (1950; reprint,New York:
Harper Torchbooks,1962),chap. 13.

20

WORLD POLITICS

continues until S reaches 90-a new equilibrium. Now the firstnine

individualsare in opposition,withonlythe tenthsupportingthe government. A slight shiftin one individual's thresholdhas thus generated a
revolutionary
bandwagon,an explosivegrowthin public opposition.33
Now considerthe sequence
B = {0, 20, 30, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100},
which differsfromA only in its thirdelement: 30 as opposed to 20. As
in the previous illustration,let 1 fall from20 to 10. The resultingsequence is
B'

{0, 10, 30, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100}.

Once again, the incumbentequilibrium of 10 becomes unsustainable,

and S rises to 20. But the opposition'sgrowthstops there,forthe new S
is self-sustaining.Some governmentsupportersprivatelyenjoy the sight
of the leader's egg-splatteredface,but none followsthe egg throwerinto
public opposition.We see thata minorvariationin thresholdsmay drasticallyalter the effectof a given perturbation.And in particular,an event
that causes a revolutionin one settingmay in a slightlydifferentsetting
produce only a minor decline in the government'spopularity.
Neither private preferencesnor the corresponding thresholds are
common knowledge. So a societycan come to the brinkof a revolution
withoutanyone knowing this,not even thosewith the power to unleash
it. In sequence A, forinstance,person2 need not recognize that she has
the abilityto set offa revolutionarybandwagon. Even if she senses the
commonnessof preferencefalsification,
she simplycannotknow whether
the actual thresholdsequence is A or B. Social psychologistsuse the term
pluralisticignoranceto describe misperceptionsconcerningdistributions
In principle,pluralisticignorance can be
of individual characteristics.34
mitigatedthroughpolls thataccord individualsanonymity.But it is easier to offerpeople anonymitythan to convincethemthatthe preferences
theyreveal will remain anonymousand never be used against them. In
any case, an outwardlypopular governmentthat knows preferencefalsificationto be pervasivehas no interestin publicizing the implied fra33Lucid analysesof bandwagon processesinclude Mark Granovetter,"Threshold Models
of Collective Behavior,"AmericanJournalof Sociology83 (May 1978), 1420-43; and Thomas
and Macrobehavior
C. Schelling,Micromotives
(New York: W. W. Norton,1978).
34 Under the termimpression
the conceptwas introducedby Floyd H. Allof universality,
port,Social Psychology
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,1924),305-9. The termpluralisticignorancewas firstused by RichardL. Schanck,"A Studyof a Communityand Its Groups and
InstitutionsConceived of as Behaviorof Individuals,"Psychological
Monographs43-2 (1932),
101.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

21

gilityof its support,because this might inspire the disaffectedto bring

theirantigovernmentfeelingsinto the open. It has an incentiveto discourage independentpolling and discreditsurveysthat reveal unflattering information.
We have already seen that the thresholdsequence is not fixed. Anythingthataffectsthe distributionof privatepreferencesmay alter it, for
instance,an economic recession,contactswith other societies,or intergenerationalreplacement.But whateverthe underlyingreason, private
preferencesand, hence, the thresholdsequence can move dramatically
against the governmentwithouttriggeringa revolution.In the sequence
C = {0, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 60, 100}
the average thresholdis 30, possiblybecause most people sympathize
with the opposition. Yet S = 10 remains an equilibrium. It is true,of
course,thata revolutionis more likelyunder C than underA. C features
seven individuals with thresholdsof 20, A only one. A ten-unitfall in
any one of the seven thresholdswould triggera revolution.
The point remainsthatwidespread disapproval of the governmentis
not sufficientto mobilize large numbersfor revolutionaryaction. Antigovernmentfeelingscan certainlybringa revolutionwithinthe realm of
possibility,but otherconditionsmust come togetherto set it off.By the
same token,a revolutionmay break out in a societywhere privatepreferences,and thereforeindividual thresholds,tend to be relativelyunfavorable to theopposition.Reconsiderthe sequence A', where the average
thresholdis 46, as opposed to 30 in C. Under A' public oppositiondarts
from10 to 90, whereas under C it remainsstuckat 10. This simple comparison shows why the relative-deprivation
theoryof revolutionhas not
held up under empiricaltesting.By treatingthe likelihood of revolution
as the sum of the individual levels of discontent,the relative-deprivation
theoryoverlooksthe significanceof thedistributionof discontent.As our
disaffectedpercomparisonbetweenA' and C indicates,one sufficiently
son with a thresholdof 10 may do more for a revolutionthan seven
individuals with thresholdsof 20.
Imagine now thata superpowerlong committedto keeping the local
governmentin power suddenlyrescindsthiscommitment,declaringthat
it will cease meddling in the internalaffairsof other countries.This is
preciselythe type of change to which the structuralisttheoryaccords
revolutionarysignificance.In the presentframework,such a change will
not necessarilyignite a revolution.The outcome depends on both the
preexistingdistributionof thresholdsand theconsequentshifts.Since the
postulated change in internationalrelationsis likely to lower the ex-

22

WORLD POLITICS

pected cost of joining theopposition,people's thresholdsare likelyto fall.

Let us say that everythresholdbetween 10 and 90 drops by 10 units. If
the preexistingthresholdsequence were A, B, or C, the resultwould be
an explosion in S from10 to 90. But suppose thatit were
D = {0, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 100}.
The structuralshock turnsthissequence into
DI = {0, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 100}.
of the population is now willing to switch over to the
Fully four-fifths
oppositionbut onlyifsomeoneelsegoesfirst.No one does, leaving S at 10.
Structuralfactorsare thuspartof the story,yetby no means the whole
story.While theycertainlyaffectthe likelihood of revolution,theycannot possiblydeliver infalliblepredictions.A single person's reaction to
an event of global importancemay make all the differencebetween a
massive uprisingand a latentbandwagonthatnever takes off.So to sugdo, thatrevolutionsare broughtabout by deep
gest,as the structuralists
historical forces with individuals simply the passive bearers of these
forces is to overlook the potentiallycrucial importance of individual
characteristicsof littlesignificancein and of themselves.It is always a
unimportantand thus
conjunctionof factors,manyof them intrinsically
determines
the flow of events. A
if
that
not
unobservable,
unobserved,
major global event can produce drasticallydifferentoutcomes in two
settingsthatdiffertrivially.Structuralismand individualismare not rival
and mutually incompatible approaches to the study of revolution,as
Skocpol would have it. They are essentialcomponentsof a single story.
We can now turnto the question of why with hindsightan unanticipated revolutionmay appear as the inevitableconsequence of monumental forcesforchange. A successfulrevolutionbringsinto the open longrepressedgrievances.Moreover,people who were relativelycontentwith
the old regime embrace the new regime,and theyare apt to attribute
theirformerpublic preferencesto fearsof persecution.
Reconsider the thresholdsequence
A' = {0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100}.
The relativelyhigh thresholdsin A' are likelyto be associated with private preferencesmore favorableto the governmentthan to the opposition.35Person 9 (T9 = 80) is much more satisfiedwith the government
than,say,person3 (T3 = 20). As such she has littledesireto join a move35 Relativelyhigh thresholds
may also be associatedwith relativelygreat vulnerabilityto
social pressure.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

23

mentaimed at topplingit. Rememberthatpublic oppositionsettlesat 90,

she being the last to jump on the revolutionarybandwagon. The important point is this: person 9 changes her public preferenceonly afterthe
opposition snowballs into a crushingmajority,making it imprudentto
remain a governmentsupporter.
Having made the switch,she has everyreason to feigna long-standing
antipathyto the toppled government.She will not admit thatshe yearns
for the status quo ante, because this would contradicther new public
preference.Nor will she say thather change of heart followed the government'scollapse, because thismightrenderher declared sympathyfor
the revolutionunconvincing.She will claim thatshe has long had serious
misgivingsabout the old order and has sympathizedwith the objectives
of the opposition. An unintendedeffectof this distortionis to make it
seem as though the toppled governmentenjoyed even less genuine support than it actuallydid.
This illusionis rootedin theveryphenomenonresponsibleformaking
the revolutiona surprise:preferencefalsification.Having misled everyone into seeing a revolutionas highlyunlikely,preferencefalsification
now conceals the forcesthatwere workingagainst it. One of the conseis thusto make even
quences of postrevolutionary
preferencefalsification
less comprehensiblewhy the revolutionwas unforeseen.
The historiansof a revolutionmay appreciate the biases that afflict
people's postrevolutionaryaccounts of their prerevolutionarydispositionswithoutbeing able to measure the significanceof thesebiases. Consider the sequence

C' = {0, 10, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 60, 100}.
Like A', this sequence drivesS from10 to 90, implyingthatnine out of
ten individuals have an incentiveto say that theydespised the prerevolutionaryregime.If thresholdsbelow 50 reflectprivatesupportfora revolution,and thoseabove 50 privatesatisfactionwith the statusquo, eight
of the nine would be telling the truth,the one liar being person 9
(T9 = 60). It follows from the same assumption that four of the nine
would be lying if the thresholdsequence were A'. But once again, because thresholdsare not public knowledge,historiansmay have difficulty
determiningwhetherthe prerevolutionary
sequence was A or C-or for
thatmatter,whetherthe postrevolutionary
sequence is A' or C'.
Before moving to the East European Revolution,it may be useful to
commenton how the foregoingargumentrelatesto threesourcesof controversyin the literatureon revolutions:the continuityof social change,
the power of the individual,and the significanceof unorganized crowds.

24

WORLD POLITICS

The proposed theorytreatscontinuousand discontinuouschange as a

single,unifiedprocess.Privatepreferencesand the correspondingthresholds may change gradually over a long period during which public oppositionis more or less stable. If the cumulativemovementestablishesa
latent bandwagon, a minor event may then precipitatean abrupt and
sharp break in the size of the public opposition.This is not to say that
privatepreferenceschange onlyin small increments.A major blunderon
the part of the government may suddenly turn private preferences
against it.
Such a shiftcould also occur in responseto an initial,possiblymodest,
increase in public opposition.The underlyinglogic was expressedbeautifullyby Alexis de Tocqueville: "Patientlyendured so long as it seemed
beyond redress,a grievancecomes to appear intolerableonce the possibility of removing it crosses men's minds."36In terms of our model,
Tocqueville suggeststhat the thresholdsequence is itselfdependent on
the size of the public opposition.If so, a revolutionarybandwagon may
come about as the joint outcome of two mutuallyreinforcingtrends: a
fall in thresholdsand a rise in public opposition. Imagine that public
to convincethoseprivatelysympatheticto the
oppositionrisessufficiently
governmentthat a revolutionmightbe in the making. This realization
induces many of them to thinkabout possible alternativesto the status
quo. Their thinkingstartsa chain reactionthroughwhich privatepreferences shiftswiftlyand dramaticallyagainst the government.The consequent changes in the thresholdsequence cause the revolutionarybandwagon to accelerate.
The theorydepicts the individual as both powerless and potentially
verypowerful.The individual is powerlessbecause a revolutionrequires
the mobilization of large numbers,but he is also potentiallyvery powerfulbecause under the rightcircumstanceshe may set offa chain reaction that generates the necessarymobilization. Not that the individual
can know preciselywhen his own choice can make a difference.Althoughhe may sense thathis chancesof sparkinga wildfireare unusually
great,he can never be certainabout the consequences of his own opposition.What is certainis thatthe incumbentregimewill remain in place
unless someone takes the lead in moving into the opposition.
As we saw in the previous section,the standard theoryof rational
choice depictsthe potentialrevolutionaryas paralyzed by the realization
of his powerlessness.Many social thinkerswho, like the presentauthor,
accept the logic of collectiveaction have struggledwith the task of explaining how mass mobilizationsget started.One of the proposed expla36
Tocqueville, The Old Regimeand the FrenchRevolution(1856), trans. Stuart Gilbert
(Garden City,N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), 177.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

25

nationsrestson a cognitiveillusion: theindividual overestimateshis personal political influence.Another invokes an ethical commitment:the
individual feels compelled to do his fair share for the attainmentof a
jointlydesired outcome.37The approach used here, which is not incompatible with these explanations,places the burden of sparkingthe mobilization process on the individual's need to be true to himself.This approach is consistentwith the fact that revolutionaryleaders tend to be
surprisedwhen theirgoals materialize. The cognitive-illusionexplanation is not: people who challenge the governmentout of an overestimation of their personal abilityto direct the course of historywill not be
surprisedwhen theirwishes come true.The approach of thisessayis also
consistentwith the factthatsome people risk theirlives fora revolution
even as the vast majorityof the potentialbeneficiariesrefrainfromdoing
theirown fairshare.
Finally, the outlined theoryaccords organized pressuregroups and
unorganized crowds complementaryroles in the overthrowof the government.Organized oppositionsenhance the externalpayoffto dissent,
both by providingthe individual dissenterwith a supportnetworkand
by raisingthe likelihoodof a successfulrevolution.They also help shatter
the appearance of the invulnerabilityof the status quo, and through
propaganda, they shiftpeople's privatepreferencesin favorof change.
Charles Tilly is thereforerightto draw attentionto the structuraland
situational factorsthat govern a society'spatternof political organization.38But as Pamela Oliver warns,we must guard against overemphasizing the role of organization at the expense of the role of the unorganized crowd. A small differencein the resourcesat the disposal of an
organized oppositionmay have a tremendousimpact on the outcome of
This observationmakes perfectsense in the contextof the
its efforts.39
theorydeveloped here. Where a small pressure group fails to push a
bandwagon into motion a slightlybetterorganizedor slightlylargerone
might.

IV.EAST EUROPEANCOMMUNISM ANDTHE WELLSPRINGOF ITS STABILITY

Communistpartiescame to power in Russia,and thenin Eastern Europe
and elsewhere, with the promise that "scientificsocialism" would pio37 Each of these is developed by Steven E. Finkel, Edward N. Muller, and Karl-Dieter
and Mass PoliticalAction,"AmericanPolitOpp, "Personal Influence,CollectiveRationality,
ical ScienceReview 83 (September1989),885-903.
38 Tilly,FromMobilization
to Revolution(Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1978).
39 Oliver, "Bringing the Crowd Back In: The Nonorganizational Elements of Social
Movements," in Louis Kriesberg,ed., Researchin Social Movements,Conflictand Change
(Greenwich,Conn.: JAI Press,1989): 11:1-30.

26

WORLD POLITICS

neer new dimensions of freedom,eliminate exploitation,vest political

power in the masses,eradicatenationalism,and raise standardsof living
to unprecedentedheights-all this,while the statewas witheringaway.
They did not deliveron any of thesepromises.Under theirstewardship,
communism came to symbolize repression,censorship,ethnic chauvinism, militarism,red tape, and economic backwardness.
The failuresof communism prompteda tinynumber of Soviet and
East European citizens to criticizeofficialpolicies and establishedinstithroughclandestine
tutions.Such dissidentsexpressedtheirfrustrations
self-publications(samizdat)and writingspublished in the West (tamizdat). Given the chasm between the rhetoricof communism and its
achievements,the existenceof an opposition is easily understood. Less
comprehensibleis the rarityof public opposition-prior, thatis, to 1989.
The few uprisings that were crushed-notably, East Berlin in 1953,
Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968-are the exceptionsthat
prove the rule. For most of several decades, most East Europeans displayed a remarkable tolerance for tyrannyand inefficiency.They remained docile, submissive,and even outwardlysupportiveof the status
quo.
This subservienceis attributablepartlyto punishmentsmeted out by
the communistestablishmentto its actual and imagined opponents. In
the heydayof communisma person speaking out against the leadership
or in favor of some reformcould expect to sufferharassment,lose his
job, and face imprisonment-in short,he could expect to be denied the
opportunityto lead a decent life. Even worse horrorsbefellmillions of
suspected opponents.Justthinkof the forced-laborcamps of the Gulag
Archipelago and of the liquidationscarriedout under the pretextof historicalnecessity."We can only be rightwith and by the Party,"wrote a
leading theoreticianof communism,"for historyhas provided no other
Such thinkingcould, and did, serveto justify
way of being in the right."40
horriblecrimesagainst nonconformists.
Yet officialrepressionis only one factorin the endurance of communism. The systemwas sustainedby a general willingnessto supportit in
public: people routinelyapplauded speakers whose message they disliked, joined organizationswhose missiontheyopposed, and signed defamatorylettersagainst people theyadmired, among other manifestations of consent and accommodation. "The lie," wrote the Russian
novelistAlexander Solzhenitsynin the early 1970s, "has been incorporated into the statesystemas the vital link holding everythingtogether,
40

The words of Leon Trotsky,cited by Arendt(fn.2), 307.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

27

with billions of tinyfasteners,several dozen to each man."'41 If people

stopped lying,he asserted,communistrule would break down instantly.
He then asked rhetorically,"What does it mean, not to lie?" It means
"not sayingwhat you don't think,and that includes not whispering,not
opening your mouth, not raising your hand, not castingyour vote, not
feigninga smile, not lending your presence,not standing up, and not
"42
cheering.
In "The Power of the Powerless,"Havel speaks of a greengrocerwho
places in his window, among the onions and carrots,the slogan "Workers of the World, Unite!" Why does thegreengrocerdo this,Havel wonders.
Is he genuinelyenthusiastic
abouttheidea ofunityamongtheworkersof
so greatthathe feelsan irrepressible
theworld?Is hisenthusiasm
impulse
to acquaintthe publicwithhis ideals? Has he reallygivenmorethana
moment'sthoughtto how such a unification
mightoccur and what it
wouldmean?
Havel's answer is worthquoting at length:
ofshopkeepers
neverthinkabouttheslogans
The overwhelming
majority
theyputin theirwindows,nordo theyuse themtoexpresstheirrealopinfromthe enterprise
ions. That posterwas deliveredto our greengrocer
headquarters
alongwiththeonionsand carrots.He putthemall intothe
windowsimplybecauseithas beendonethatwayforyears,becauseeveryone does it,and becausethatis thewayit has to be. If he wereto refuse,
fornothavingtheproper
therecouldbe trouble.He couldbe reproached
"decoration"in hiswindow;someonemightevenaccusehimofdisloyalty.
He does it becausethesethingsmustbe doneifone is to getalongin life.
It is one ofthethousandsofdetailsthatguaranteehima relatively
tranquil
as theysay.43
lifein "harmonywithsociety,"
So our greengrocerputs up the assigned slogan to communicatenot a
social ideal but his preparednessto conform.And the reason the display
conveysa message of submissionis thateverysubmissivegreengrocerhas
exhibitedthe same slogan foryears.By removingthe poster-or worse,
replacingit with one thatreads "Workersof the World, Eat Onions and
Carrots!"-our greengrocerwould expose himselfto the charge of subversion. He thereforedisplays the required slogan faithfullyand fends
off trouble. In the process,he reinforcesthe perceptionthat societyis
solidlybehind the Party.His own prudencethus becomes a factorin the
willingnessof other greengrocersto promote the unity of the world's
41 Solzhenitsyn,
"The Smatterers"(1974),inSolzhenitsynetal.,FromundertheRubble,
trans.
A. M. Brock et al. (Boston: Little,Brown, 1975),275.
42 Ibid., 276; emphasisin original.
43 Havel (fn.9), 27-28.

28

WORLD POLITICS

workers. Moreover, it pressures farmers,miners, bus drivers,artists,

journalists,and bureaucratsto continuedoing and sayingthe thingsexpected of them.
Effortsto prove one's loyaltyto the political status quo often took
more tragic formsthan a greengrocer'sdisplay of a well-worn Marxist
slogan. People tattledon each other. And they ostracized and vilified
who were sayingor doing thingsthattheyadmired. The
nonconformists
Romanian dissidentNorman Manea writesof authorswho "persecuted
theircolleagues on the 'blacklist'withtireless,diabolical energy."44In the
same vein, the Polish dissidentPiotr Wierzbicki writesabout a famous
composer who went out of his way to alert the governmentto an antiSoviet insinuationon the sleeve of a recordby a Pole livingabroad. The
squealing composer knew that this informationwas likely to block the
local performanceof his fellow Pole's music. He did it to prove his loyaltyto the regime-to earn, as it were, a certificateof normalcy.45
In 1977 a group of Czechoslovak intellectualsestablisheda loose association,Charter 77, dedicated to the basic human rightsthatCzechoslovakia agreed to respectby signingthe Helsinki accords of 1975.46The
governmentresponded by detaining the spokesmen of Charter 77 and
In the course
launchinga nationwidecampaign againstthe association.47
of
citizens
their
millions
of thiscampaign
expressed
opposition
ordinary
to Charter 77 by signingstatementsof condemnation,sending hate lettersto newspapers,and ostracizingits signatories.Many an opponent of
Charter 77 did so in betrayalof his conscience.
It is true of course that some who participatedin this campaign saw
Charter 77 as a menacing organizationbent on tarnishingCzechoslovakia's image abroad. And the tale-bearingPolish composermay well have
had motivesother than a desire to please the regime,for instance,jealousy or professionalcompetition.But East Europeans turned against
each otherroutinelyeven in the absence of such motives.
Let us returnto the storyof the greengrocer.Havel asks us to "imagine thatone day somethingin our greengrocersnaps and he stopsputting
up the slogans." The greengroceralso "stops voting in elections he
knows are a farce"; he "begins to say what he reallythinksat political
meetings";and he "even findsthe strengthin himselfto expresssolidar44

327.

Manea, "Romania: Three Lines with Commentary,"in Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11),

45 Wierzbicki,"A Treatise on Ticks" (1979), in Abraham Brumberg,

ed., Poland: Genesis
ofa Revolution(New York: Random House, 1983),205.
46 The Charter77 declarationis reproducedin Havel et al. (fn.9), 217-21.
47 See Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity:
Essayson the Fate of CentralEurope
(1983-89) (New York: Random House, 1989),esp. 61-70.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

29

itywith thosewhom his consciencecommandshim to support."In short,

Here are the likelyconhe makes "an attemptto live withinthetruth."48
sequences of thisrevolt:
willbe relievedofhispostas managerof theshopand
[The greengrocer]
to the warehouse.His pay will be reduced.His hopes fora
transferred
holidayin Bulgariawill evaporate.His children'saccessto highereducawillharasshimand hisfellowworkHis superiors
tionwillbe threatened.
howerswillwonderabouthim.Mostofthosewhoapplythesesanctions,
innerconviction
butsimplyunder
ever,willnotdo so fromanyauthentic
pressurefromconditions,the same conditionsthatonce pressuredthe
to displaytheofficialslogans.They will persecutethegreengreengrocer
theirloyalty,
grocereitherbecauseitis expectedofthem,ortodemonstrate
or simplyas partofthegeneralpanorama,to whichbelongsan awareness
thatthisis how situationsof thissortare dealt with,thatthis,in fact,is
if one is not to becomesuspect
how thingsare alwaysdone,particularly
oneself.49
The brillianceof thisvignettelies in its insightsinto the pressuresthat
tyrannicalrekept East Europeans outwardlyloyal to theirinefficient,
of
citizensand
Official
met
with
the
ordinary
approval
repression
gimes.
theirpreferences
indeed was predicatedon theircomplicity.By falsifying
and helping to discipline dissenters,citizens jointlysustained a system
thatmany consideredabominable. Accordingto Havel, the crucial "line
of conflict"ran not between the Partyand the people but "througheach
person," for in one way or another everyonewas "both a victimand a
supporterof the system."50
The same idea found vivid expressionin a banner hung above the
altar in an East German church: "I am Cain and Abel.""5The implied
intrapersonalconflictis rooted of course in the clash between the individual's drive to exercise autonomyand his need for social acceptance.
Until 1989 most East Europeans tended to resolve this chronic clash in
favor of social acceptance. By thus avoiding an open battle with communism, theyacquiesced to battle silentlywith themselves.In the process,most achieved a measure of outer security,thoughat the expense of
inner peace.
Not that communist rule managed to do away altogetherwith the
human propensityto protest.As Wierzbicki pointsout, newspapers received lettersof complaintin abundance-about shabbyhousing,the neglected grave of some poet or other,and the sloppilypainted fenceof a
Havel (fn.9), 39; emphasisin original.
Ibid., 39.
50
Ibid., 37.
51 Timothy Garton Ash, "Eastern Europe: The Year of Truth," New York Review of
Books,February15, 1990,p. 18; emphasisin original.
48
49

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WORLD POLITICS

children's playground.Yet protesterstended to stay withina Party-definedzone of acceptability:theyrefrainedfromprobingtoo deeply into

issues and avoided challengingcommunismitself.A schoolteacherwriting furiouslettersabout a defectiveappliance would not bringherselfto
blame the systemthatproduces useless appliances. Nor would she sign a
letterexpressingsolidaritywith dissidentsor join a demonstrationfor
freedomof speech.52
The typicalEast European feignedopposition to the few dissidents,
though in private he applauded theirmission. Havel suggeststhat this
admirationwas coupled with a resentment:people who lacked the courage to be true to themselvesfeltthreatenedby displays of integrityon
the part of others.They thus treatedopen defiance"as an abnormality,
as arrogance,as an attack on themselves,as a formof dropping out of
society."53If it is true that the "iron in the soul" of anotherreminded a
conformistof the lack of iron in his own, this would have served as an
additional obstacle to overtopposition.54
Another such obstacle was pluralistic ignorance: people alienated
fromthe communistregime did not know how widely theiralienation
was shared. They could sense the represseddiscontentof theirconformist relativesand close friends;they could observe the hardships in the
lives of their fellow citizens; and theycould intuitthat past uprisings
would not have occurred in the absence of substantialdiscontent.Still,
theylacked reliable, currentinformationon how many of their fellow
citizens favored a change in regime. The government-controlled
press
exploited this ignorance by stressingthe "unityof socialistsociety"and
its "solidarityin supportingthe Party." Insofaras such propaganda led
potentialrevolutionariesto underestimatethe prevalenceof discontent,
it weakened theirincentivesto join the minusculeopposition.
Governmentsthroughouthistoryhave recognized the significanceof
preferencefalsificationand out of self-interest
have tried to keep themselves informedabout the privatepreferencesof theirconstituents.Louis
XIV told his heir that "the art of governing"consistsin "knowing the
real thoughtsof all the princesin Europe, knowing everythingthatpeople tryto conceal fromus, their secrets,and keeping close watch over
them."55So it is that the communistgovernmentsof Eastern Europe
conducted numerous surveysto findout the true thoughtsand feelings
Wierzbicki(fn.45), 206-7.
Havel (fn.9), 37.
54 The metaphorbelongsto Barrington
Moore, Jr.,Injustice:The Social Bases of Obedience
and Revolt(White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1978).
55 Cited by NorbertElias, Powerand Civility
(1939), trans.Edmund Jephcott(New York:
Pantheon,1982), 197.
52
53

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

31

of theirsubjects. If the factthat theykept the resultssecretis any indication,these were not entirelyflatteringto them or theirpolicies. Information for publication "was checked beforehandand given the appropriateinterpretation,"
to keep it fromemboldeningthe regime'sdeclared
and potentialopponents.56
It would be an exaggerationto suggest thatall East European supporters of communist rule were privatelyopposed to the status quo.
Some benefitedhandsomelyfromthe system,and othersfeltthreatened
by major reform.Nor did those who became consciousof the failuresof
communism necessarilylose faithin officialideals. Even leading dissidentsremainedsympatheticto centralplanningand collectiveownership
and ever suspiciousof the free-enterprise
system.57
By and large,theyfelt
that communism was betrayedby self-servingleaders, not that it was
inherentlyunworkable.
These observationsare consistentwith opinion polls of East Europeans travelingabroad conducted by Western organizationsin the 1970s
and early 1980s. With remarkableconsistencyand for each nation, the
data showed that in free elections offeringa full spectrumof choices,
including a Democratic Socialist Party and a Christian Democratic
Party,the Communist Party would receive at most a tenthof the vote,
and the socialistswould invariablybe the winners.58
Further systematicevidence is contained in surveysconducted from
1970 onward forthe benefitof the leadershipby the Central Institutefor
Youth Development in Leipzig. Now being declassified,these surveys
suggestthatuntilthe mid-1980smostEast Germans accepted the official
goals of socialism.In 1983,46 percentof a sample of tradeschool students
endorsed the statement"I am a devoted citizen of the German Democratic Republic," whereas 45 percentendorsed it with reservationsand
only 9 percentrejectedit. And in 1984,50 percentagreed that"socialism
will triumph throughoutthe world," whereas 42 percentagreed with
reservationsand 8 percentdisagreed. Between 1970 and 1985,the results
showed little variation.59They may, of course, have been based on a
56
Jifi Otava, "Public Opinion Research in Czechoslovakia,"Social Research55 (SpringSummer 1988),249. Everyissue of theCzechoslovak government'sofficialbulletinon public
opinion stated: "We remind all researchersthat this bulletinis not meant for the public,
which means not even foryourfriendsand acquaintances,but servesexclusivelyas internal
materialforpoll-takersand thosewho collaboratewithus" (p. 251 n. 2).
57 See Vladimir Tismaneanu, The CrisisofMarxist
Ideologyin EasternEurope: The Poverty
of Utopia(London: Routledge,1988),esp. chap. 4.
58 Henry 0. Hart, "The Tables Turned: If East Europeans Could Vote," Public Opinion
6 (October-November 1983), 53-57. The surveysreportedby Hart cover Czechoslovakia,
Hungary,Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
59 "Daten des Zentralinstituts
furJugendforshung
Leipzig" (Mimeograph),Tables 1 and
and distrib2. These tableswere compiled by WalterFriedrich,the directorof the institute,

32

WORLD POLITICS

flawed methodology,as was much public opinion researchdone in Eastern Europe. But, as we shall see later,it is highlysignificantthat after
1985 thissame methodologyregistereda sustaineddeteriorationboth in
the citizenry'sattachmentto the regimeand in its faithin socialism.
It thus appears that while the East Europeans overwhelminglydisliked the regimes under which theywere living, they were much less
troubledby the principlesof socialism-at least until the mid-1980s.To
make sense of this finding,we need to touch on the cognitiveimplicaDisaffectedcitizenschoosingto conform
tionsof preferencefalsification.
to the regime's demands typicallypaid lip serviceto officialgoals, used
Marxist jargon, and made excuses for communism's shortcomingsby
pointing to the ostensiblyworse failuresof capitalism. In the process,
they unavoidably kept theirfellow citizens uninformedabout those of
their private beliefs that were inimical to the status quo. Worse, they
knowinglyexposed one anotherto falsefactsand misleadingarguments.
In short,they distortedpublic discourse. Since public discourse influences what is noticedand how eventsare interpreted,thisdistortionundoubtedly affectedthe evolution of East European private preferences.
East Europeans subjectedfromearlychildhood to predictionsof the imminent demise of capitalismand to theoriesof the incontrovertiblesuperiorityof communismmust have become more or less conditionedto
think in Marxist terms,developing some mental resistanceto the fundamental flawsof theirsocial order.60
If this reasoningis correct,Marxistdiscoursewould also have blunted
the abilityof East Europeans to articulatean alternativeeconomic order.
Vladimir Shlapentokh points to a paradox here. The socialist worker
mistruststhe market order, even though he obtains his treasuredblue
jeans through the only free market to which he has access-the black
market. Likewise, the enterprisemanager who turns regularlyto the
undergroundeconomy for vital spare parts dreads economic liberalization. Shlapentokhascribessuch inconsistenciesto a disjunctionbetween
the "pragmatic" and "theoretical" layers of the individual mind.61
uted to the participantsat a conferenceheld in Ladenburg in February 1991, under the
auspices of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
broughtthe documentto myattention;JohnAhouse translatedit intoEnglish.
60 For a fullerargumenton how preference
falsification
distortspublicdiscourseand how,
in turn,thisdistortionwarps theevolutionof people's privatepreferences,
see Timur Kuran,
"The Role of Deception in PoliticalCompetition,"in AlbertBretonet al., eds., The CompetitiveState (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff,1990),71-95.
61 Though Shlapentokhdevelopstheargumentwithrespectto theSoviet Union, it applies
also to Eastern Europe. See Shlapentokh,SovietPublic Opinionand Ideology:Mythology
and
in Interaction
Pragmatism
(New York: Praeger,1986); and idem,Publicand PrivateLife ofthe
SovietPeople: ChangingValues in Post-StalinRussia (New York: Oxford UniversityPress,
1989).

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

33

thisphenomenon
Known in cognitivepsychologyas mentalpartitioning,
is an inevitableconsequence of the mind's limitationsin receiving,storing, retrieving,and processinginformation.People are simplyunable to
incorporateinto a single, comprehensivemodel the multitudesof variables and relationshipsthat bear on their happiness; they thus ignore
many interconnectionsand treat closely related phenomena as unrelated.62

For our purposes,the importantimplicationis this:an East European

confronteddaily with communism'sshortcomingswould not necessarily
have taken them as a sign of the unworkabilityof the system.He could
easily have turned against individual functionarieswithoutlosing faith
in the systemin which theyoperated.Some East Europeans did of course
recognize that specificshortcomingswere part of a general patternof
failure. Many were intellectualswith much time to think and thus to
make the mental connectionsnecessaryforidentifyingthe system'sfundamental flaws.But many othersdid not make theseconnections,partly
because the prevailingpublic discourseprovided no help.
So processesrooted in preferencefalsificationkept privateopposition
to communism far fromunanimous. This does not negate the factthat
vast numbersremainedoutwardlyloyal to communistrule primarilyout
the communistreof fear. But for widespread preferencefalsification,
gimes of Eastern Europe would have facedseverepublic opposition,very
possiblycollapsing before 1989. In view of its profoundimpact on both
privateand public sentiment,preferencefalsificationmay be characterized as the wellspringof the communistsystem'sstability.
V.

THE

REVOLUTION

The foregoingargumenthas two immediateimplications.First,the regimes of Eastern Europe were substantiallymore vulnerable than the
subservienceand quiescence of theirpopulationsmade them seem. Millions were prepared to stand up in defianceif ever theysensed that this
was sufficiently
safe. The people's solidaritywith their leaders would
then have been exposed as illusory,strippingthe veneer of legitimacy
fromthe communistmonopoly on power. Second, even the support of
those genuinelysympatheticto the statusquo was ratherthin. Though
many saw no alternativeto socialism,theirmanygrievancespredisposed
them to the promise of fundamentalchange. Were public discourse
62 See John H. Holland et al., Induction:Processes
of Inference,Learning,and Discovery
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986); and Amos Tverskyand Daniel Kahneman, "The Framing
of Decisions and the Rationalityof Choice," Science211 (January1981),453-58.

34

WORLD POLITICS

somehow to turnagainst socialism,theywould probablyawaken to the

possibilitythattheirlives could be improved.
But what would catalyze the process of revolutionarymobilization?
With hindsightit appears thatthe push came fromthe Soviet Union. In
the mid-1980s festeringeconomic problems,until then officiallydenied,
convinced the top Soviet leadershipto call forperestroika(restructuring)
and glasnost(public openness). Repressedgrievancesburstinto the open,
including dissatisfactionwith communistrule itself.And with Mikhail
Gorbachev's rise to the helm in 1985, the Soviet Union abandoned its
long-standingpolicyof confrontationwith the West, to seek accommoIn Eastern Europe thesechanges kindled hopes
dation and cooperation.63
of greaterindependenceand meaningfulsocial reform.
Lest it appear that these developmentsprovided a clear signal of the
coming revolution, remember that Havel dismissed a Czechoslovak
crowd's jubilation over Gorbachev as a sign of naivete. He was hardly
alone in his pessimism.Even if Gorbachev wanted to liberate Eastern
Europe, a popular argumentwent, it was anythingbut obvious that he
could. Surely,the militaryand hard-lineconservativeswould insiston
retainingthe Soviet Union's strategicbufferagainst an attack fromthe
West.
Nor was thisthe onlyobstacleto liberation.Economic and ethnictensions within the Soviet Union could provide the pretextfora conservative coup. There was always the precedentof Khrushchev,toppled in
1964. About the time that Havel was exuding pessimism,a joke was
making the rounds in Prague: "What is the differencebetween Gorbachev and Dubcek [the deposed leader of the 1968 Prague Spring]?"
The answer: "None--except Gorbachev doesn't know it yet."64Significantly,in the fallof 1989 Moscow was rifewith rumorsof an impending
coup.65Some observersexpected Gorbachev to survive but only by reversing course and becoming increasinglyrepressive.66An old Soviet
joke expresses the underlyingthinking.Stalin leaves his heirs in the
Party two envelopes. One is labeled, "In case of trouble, open this."
Trouble arises and the envelope is opened ceremoniously:"Blame me."
63 For details,see RobertC. Tucker, PoliticalCultureand Leadership
in SovietRussia:From
Lenin to Gorbachev(New York: W. W. Norton,1987),chap. 7.
64Economist,July18, 1987,p. 45.
65 Z [anonymous],"To the Stalin Mausoleum,"Daedalus 119 (Winter 1990),332.
66 With the revolution,the notionthatGorbachevwould turnto the armyand the KGB in
a bid to stayin power lostplausibility.It regainedplausibilityin late 1990withtheresignation
of his foreignminister,Eduard Shevardnadze,who publiclyaccused Gorbachev of plotting
withhard-linersto createa repressivedictatorship.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

35

The otherenvelope is labeled, "In case of more trouble,open this." More

troublecomes and the second envelope is opened: "Do as I did."67
In support of their predictionthat the conservativeelements in the
leadership would prevail sooner or later,pessimistsfrequentlyinvoked
the conservatismof the Soviet people. In a widely discussed 1988 article,
for instance,a Russian social scientistargued that seven decades of bureaucraticregimentationhad suppressedindividual creativity,reorientto
ing the "Soviet value systemaway fromrevolutionarytransformation
conservativeimmobility."Communism had quashed the very personal
qualities on which the reformistswere counting.68In June 1989 another
Soviet observerwould confess:"For threeyears I have tried to findout
and now I feel I can
whetheror not thereis mass supportforperestroika,
conclude that it does not exist." He blamed not only the individual citizen's fearof change but also the Soviet ethic thatidentifiessocial justice
with economic equality.69The upshotof such comments,to which scores
more from diverse sources could be added, was that Soviet citizens
tended to be deeply suspicious of Gorbachev's intentions.Many commentatorsinferredthat Gorbachev's reformswere doomed, reasoning
thathe could not relyon the masses forprotectionagainsta conservative
challenger.
the Soviet Union, Poland was
As Gorbachev was tryingto restructure
testingthe limitsof its freedomfromMoscow. The struggleto legalize
Solidarityhad already given the countrya taste of pluralism,and governmentcensorshipwas being relaxed in fitsand starts.Everyone recognized that this softeningenjoyed Gorbachev's approval. Yet few informed people put much faith in Gorbachev's ability to push the
liberationof Eastern Europe substantiallyforward,and once again it was
not clear thathe intendedto try."Dissidents throughoutEurope," wrote
the Economistin mid-1987,sound "sceptical" when talking about Gorbachev. "This is not because theyquestion [his] reformingzeal. It is simply that many thinkingpeople in Eastern Europe have come to believe
that real change in Communist countriescannot be imposed from the
top-or fromoutside-but mustemerge frombelow."70Plentyof events
lent credence to this reasoning.For instance,Gorbachev did not prevent
67
Recorded by Daniel Bell, "As We Go into the Nineties: Some Outlinesof the TwentyfirstCentury,"Dissent37 (Spring 1990), 173.
68 Igor Kon, "The Psychology
of Social Inertia"(1988),Social Sciences20, no. 1 (1989), 6074.
69 Gennadii Batyagin,TASS, June28, 1989,quoted byElizabeth Teague, "Perestroikaand
and Opposition25 (Spring 1990), 192.
the Soviet Worker,"Government
70
Economist,July18, 1987,p. 45.

36

WORLD POLITICS

the resultsof local electionsheld

the East German regimefromfalsifying
in the springof 1989 or fromendorsingChina's massacreat Tiananmen
Square that summer. Nor did he keep the East German regime from
using forceto dispersesmall demonstrationsagainst these two acts.7"
In sum, prior to the actual revolutionit was not at all clear that the
Soviet Union would sit back if its six Warsaw Pact allies tried to overthrow their communistregimes.Statements,events,and trendsthat in
retrospectappear as unmistakablesigns of an explosion in the making
coexisted with many signs that pointed in the directionof inertia and
continuedstability.Some of Gorbachev's actionsdid indeed suggestthat
he wanted to institutefundamentalreformsin manyareas, includingthe
Soviet Union's relationshipwith its East European satellites.But there
were many reasons to expect his effortsto end in failure.
Yet since the revolutionit has seemed as thoughGorbachevengineered
the liberationof Eastern Europe. In fact,he was a masterat puttingthe
best face on events that had pushed past him. In the fall of 1989 there
were many reportsthat events were going much furtherand/or faster
than Gorbachev wanted. He was reportedlywilling to permitmoves toward democracy, provided the communistswere not humiliated and
Eastern Europe's militaryties to the Soviet Union were preserved.And
like leaders in Washington,Paris, Bonn, and elsewhere,he was reluctant
to support anythingthat might disturbEurope's hard-won peace. But
when the peoples of Eastern Europe grabbed politicalpower,pushed the
communistsaside, and proclaimed theirintentionto leave the Warsaw
Pact, Gorbachev just accepted realityand gave his blessingto eventsgenerated by forcesbeyond his control.One is reminded of the horseman
who, thrown from his horse, explains with a smile that he has "dismounted."
The point remains that the Soviet reformmovementfueled expectationsof a freerEastern Europe, reducingforgrowingnumbersthe perceived riskof challengingthe statusquo. In termsof themodel described
in Section III, the movement lowered the revolutionarythresholdsof
East Europeans, making it increasinglyeasy to set in motion a revolutionarybandwagon. But no one could see that a revolutionwas in the
making, not even the Soviet leader whose moves were helping to establish the still-latentbandwagon.
Recall that revolutionarythresholdsare influencedalso by people's
privatepreferences.Since privatepreferencesare governed to a considerable extentby public discourse,thedissentgeneratedby Soviet glasnost
71
TimothyGarton Ash, "GermanyUnbound,"New YorkReviewofBooks,November 22,
1990,p. 12.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

37

probablypushed the privatepreferencesof East Europeans against communism and communistrule. The East German surveysdiscussed above
provide dramaticevidence to thiseffect.They show thatafter1985 East
German attachmentto socialism steadilydeteriorated.By October 1989
only 15 percentof the surveyedtrade school studentsendorsed the statement "I am a devoted citizen of the German Democratic Republic,"
down from46 percentin 1983. Fully 60 percentendorsed it with reservationsand 25 percentrejectedit. In the same monthas few as 3 percent
continuedto believe that"socialismwill triumphthroughoutthe world,"
down from50 percentin 1984. Just27 percentagreed with reservations
and a whopping 70 percentdisagreed.72The contrastbetweenthe figures
for 1989 and those for 1983-84 is striking.It points to a massive rise in
discontentin the second halfof the decade, a risethatmust have lowered
the revolutionarythresholdsof millionsof individual East Germans.
What specificeventsset the revolutionary
bandwagon in motion? One
must recognize thatattemptingto answer thisquestion is akin to trying
to identifythe spark that ignited a forestfireor the cough responsible
fora fluepidemic. There were manyturningpointsin theEast European
Revolution,any one of which mighthave derailed it.
One turningpointcame in earlyOctober,when East German officials
refusedto carryout Partyleader Honecker's order to open fireon street
demonstrators.On October 7 Gorbachev was in Berlin for celebrations
marking the fortiethanniversaryof the German Democratic Republic.
With scores of foreignreporterslooking on, crowds took to the streets,
chanting,"Gorby! Gorby!" And the police clubs went into action. West
German televisionimmediatelyplayed these events back to the rest of
East Germany.The scenes alerteddisgruntledcitizensin everycornerof
the countryto the pervasivenessof discontent,while the government's
weak responserevealed itsvulnerability.A peacefulprotestbroke out in
Leipzig on October 9. Honecker ordered the regional Partysecretaryto
block the demonstration,by force if necessary. But bloodshed was
averted when Egon Krenz, a Politburo member in charge of security,
flew to Leipzig and encouraged the securityforces to show restraint.
Local leaders-some of whom had already appealed for restraint-accepted this contraventionof Honecker's order, and tens of thousands
marched withoutinterference.
Sensing the shiftingpoliticalwinds, more
and more East Germans throughoutthe countrytook to the streets.The
East German uprisingwas now in fullswing.As the regimetriedto stem
the tide througha stringof concessions,the swelling crowds began to
72

"Daten des Zentralinstituts

fuirJugendforschung
Leipzig" (fn.59), Tables 1 and 2.

38

WORLD POLITICS

make increasinglybold demands. Within a month the Berlin Wall

would be breached,and in less than a year the German Democratic Republic would become part of a unified,democraticGermany.73
Anotherturningpoint came on October 25, during Gorbachev's state
visitto Finland. Two monthsearliera Solidarityofficalhad formedPoland's firstnoncommunistgovernmentsince the 1940s, following the
Communist Party's stunningdefeat at the polls. A legislativedeputy to
Gorbachev had declined detailed commenton the grounds that the developments were a domestic matter for the Poles.74The communists
were in retreatin Hungary, too. In meetingswith dissidentgroups the
Hungarian CommunistPartyhad endorsedfreeparliamentaryelections.
Then, in the belief that its candidates would do poorly runningunder
the banner of communism,it had transformeditselfinto the Hungarian
Socialist Party.75This was the firsttime that a ruling communistparty
had formally abandoned communism. With the world wondering
whetherthe Soviet Union had reached the limitsof its tolerance,Gorbachev declared in Finland that his countryhad no moral or political
rightto interferein the affairsof its East European neighbors.Defining
thispositionas "the Sinatra doctrine,"his spokesman jokinglyasked reporterswhethertheyknew the Frank Sinatra song "I Did It My Way."
He went on to say that "Hungary and Poland are doing it theirway."
Using the Western term for the previous Soviet policy of armed intervention to keep the governmentsof the Warsaw Pact in communist
hands, he added, "I thinkthe Brezhnev doctrineis dead."76Coming on
the heels of major communist retreatsin Poland and Hungary, these
commentsofferedyet anotherindicationthatGorbachev would not try
to silence East European dissent.
If one effectof thissignal was to embolden the oppositionmovements
of Eastern Europe, another must have been to discourage the governmentsof Eastern Europe fromresortingto violence unilaterally.This is
not to say thatGorbachev enunciatedhis Sinatradoctrinewith the intention of encouragingEast European oppositionsto grab for power. Nor
is it to say that the revolutionwould have peteredout in the absence of
thismove. By the timeGorbachev renouncedthe Soviet Union's rightto
intervene,opposition movementsin Poland, East Germany,and Hungary already commanded mass support,and it is unlikelythat anything
73 This account draws on Ash (fn. 19); Anderson(fn.26); and theNew YorkTimesreports
compiled in Gwertzmanand Kaufman (fn. 1), 158-60,166-84,216-22.
74 New YorkTimes,August 18, 1989,p. 1.
75 Ibid., October 8, 1989,p. 1. For a fulleraccountof the transformation,
see Abel (fn. 14),
chap. 2.
76
New YorkTimes,October26, 1989,p. 1.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

39

shortof massive brutalitywould have broken theirmomentumand restored the status quo ante. Nonetheless, some incumbent communist
leaders were seriouslyconsideringa militarysolution,and the proclamation of the Sinatra doctrinemay well have tipped the balance against
the use of force.Had even one East European governmentresortedto
forceat this stage, the resultmay well have been a seriesof bloody and
protractedcivil wars.
Justas we cannot be certainthata delay in announcingthenew Soviet
doctrinewould have altered the course of history,we will never know
whetherthe contraventionof Honecker's orderto shoothad a significant
impact on the subsequent flow of events.What can be said is this: had
Honecker's subordinatesenforcedhis order, the growth of the opposition would have slowed, and later demonstrationswould probablynot
have stayed peaceful. The same historicalsignificancecan be attributed
to the restraintshown by theindividualsoldierson dutyduringthe demonstrationand by the individual demonstrators.In the tenseatmosphere
of the demonstrationa shot firedin panic or a stone thrownin excitementcould have sparkeda violentconfrontation.
It was an extraordinary
conjunctionof individual decisions that kept the uprisingpeaceful and
preventedthe revolutionfrombeing sidetracked.
The success of antigovernmentdemonstrationsin one country inspired demonstrationselsewhere. In early November, Sofia was shaken
by its firstdemonstrationin fourdecades as severalthousand Bulgarians
marched on the National Assembly. Within a week, on the very day
throngsbroke throughthe BerlinWall, Todor Zhivkov's thirty-five-year
leadership came to an end, and his successor began talking of radical
reforms.
Up to thattimeCzechoslovakia's communistgovernmenthad yielded
littleto its own opposition.Conscious of developmentselsewhere,it had
simply promised economic reformsand made minor concessions on
travel and religion.77These retreatsencouraged the swelling crowds to
ask formore. On November 24, just hours afterAlexander Dubvek addressed a crowd of 350,000in his firstpublic speech since 1968,the CommunistPartydeclared a shake-up in the leadership,only to face a much
largerrallyof people shouting,"Shame! Shame! Shame!" The new governmenttriedto placate the demonstratorsby vowing to punish thecommandant of the paramilitaryforcesthat had roughed up protestorsa
week earlier.Unimpressed,theoppositionleaders labeled theannounced
changes "cosmetic"and promisedto redoubletheirpressure.The success
77

Ibid., November 16, 1989,p. 1.

40

WORLD POLITICS

of the general striketheycalled for November 27 led the Communist

Party to capitulate within a matterof hours to their major demands,
including an end to its monopoly on political power.78"Not since the
Paris crowd discoveredthatthe dreaded Bastille containedonly a handful of prisonersand a few terrifiedsoldiershas a citadel fallenwith such
ease," wrote theEconomista few days later."They just had to say boo."79
This bringsus back, forone last time,to Havel's brilliant1979 essay.
He predicted there that when the greengrocersdecided they had had
enough, communism would fall like a house of cards. So it turned out:
when the masses took to the streets,the support for the Czechoslovak
governmentjust vanished. The mobilization process followed the patternsof East Germany and Bulgaria. Emboldened by signals from the
Soviet Union and the successesof oppositionmovementsin neighboring
countries,a few thousand people stood up in defiance,joining the tiny
core of long-persecutedactivists.In so doing theyencouraged additional
citizens to drop their masks, which then impelled more onlookers to
jump in. Before long fear changed sides: where people had been afraid
to oppose the regime,theycame to fearbeing caught defendingit. Party
members rushed to burn theircards,assertingtheyhad always been reformistsat heart. Top officials,sensingthat theymightbe made to pay
for standing in the way of change and forany violence,hastened to accept the opposition's demands, only to be confrontedwith bolder ones
yet.
Had the civilian leadership or the top brass attemptedto resist the
opposition,the transferof power would not have been so swift,and certainlynot so peaceful. One of the most remarkableaspects of the East
European Revolutionis that,with the partialexceptionof Romania, the
securityforcesand the bureaucracyjust meltedaway in the faceof growing public opposition.Not only did stateofficialsshyaway fromputting
up a fight,but many crossedover to theoppositionas a transferof power
appeared increasinglylikely. This is highlysignificant,for a defection
fromthe inner establishmentis an unusuallygood indicatorof the prevailing politicalwinds. A Politburomemberdistancinghimselffromthe
Partyleader does more to expose the regime'svulnerabilitythan a greengrocer who stops displaying the obligatoryMarxist slogan. In turn, a
defiantgreengrocerdoes more harm to the regime'simage than does an
obstreperousprisonerin solitaryconfinement.
78
For an eyewitnessaccount of theseevents,see TimothyGarton Ash, "The Revolution
of the Magic Lantern,"New YorkReviewofBooks,January18, 1990,42-51. See also Abel (fn.
14),chap. 3.
79 Economist,December 2, 1989,p. 55.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

41

In the simple model of Section III the perceivedstrengthof the public

opposition is measured by S, the share of societypubliclyin opposition.
This variable treatsall individuals equally: with ten individuals, each
individual carriesa weightof 10 percent.But in reality,as I have argued,
membersof societydifferin theircontributionsto the perceivedstrength
of the opposition. So a more realistic measure of perceived strength
would be some unequallyweightedindicatorof public opposition,where
the weights correlatewith levels of relativeinfluence.Such a weighted
measure would assign a Politburo member more weight than a greengrocer,and the lattermore weightthana namelessprisoner.Were we to
introducethis refinementinto our model, the centralargument would
remain unaffected:with public preferencesstill interdependent,there
would remain the possibilityof a latent,unobserved bandwagon.80My
reason for abstractingfrom this refinementin Section III was to keep
the presentationsimple.
Some of the officialswho distancedthemselvesfromthe Partyor even
moved into the opposition as the uprisingstook offmay at heart have
disliked the communistsocial order.Many othersundoubtedlyacted for
opportunisticreasons ratherthan out of conviction.Sensing the imminent collapse of the old order, theyabandoned it in hopes of findinga
place in the order about to be born. A few chose to resist,but the speed
of the anticommunistmobilization leftmost of them with insufficient
time to plan and execute a coordinatedresponse.Had the mobilization
been slower, theymightwell have managed to mount a credible,effective response.8"
Timothy Garton Ash, an eyewitnessto the mobilizationsin Hungary,
Poland, East Germany,and Czechoslovakia, characterizes1989 as EastThis designationis accurate insofaras it
ern Europe's "year of truth."82
capturesthe end of feignedsupportforcommunism.But it conceals the
on the partof those
push the revolutiongot frompreferencefalsification
who sympathizedwiththe statusquo. As noncommuniststhrewofftheir
masks in joy and relief,many genuine communistsslipped on masks of
theirown-masks depictingthem as the helpless functionariesof a repressive system,as formerpreferencefalsifiersthrilledto be speaking
theirminds afteryearsof silentresentment.Yet Ash's label is meaningful
in another sense as well. The floweringof anticommunistdiscourse has
see Kuran (fn.31).
For a demonstration,
The pace of events was undoubtedlya key factoralso in the failureof conservative
groupsin the SovietUnion to block EasternEurope's liberation.Had eventsproceededmore
slowly,theymighthave had timeto oust Gorbachevand orderthe Red Armyintoaction.
82 Ash (fn.51).
80
81

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exposed the officialideology more clearlythan ever beforeas a heap of

sophistry,distortion,and myth. It has awakened millions of dormant
minds, confrontingcitizens resignedto the statusquo with the conflicts
between the pragmaticand theoreticallayersof theirbeliefs.This is to
say neitherthatthe thoughtsof everyEast European are now internally
consistentnor that Marxist thinkinghas ceased. Rather,it is to suggest
of public discoursehas opened many to new posthatthe transformation
sibilities.
In the days followingthe fall of Czechoslovakia's communistregime,
a banner in Prague read: "Poland-10 years,Hungary-10 months,East
Germany-10 weeks, Czechoslovakia-10 days."83The implied acceleration reflectsthe fact that each successfulchallenge to communism
lowered the perceived risk of dissent in the countriesstill under communistrule. In termsof our model, as revolutionarythresholdsin neighboringcountriesfell,the revolutionbecame increasinglycontagious.
Had thisbannerbeen prepareda fewweeks later,it mighthave added
"Romania-10 hours." As the Czechoslovak uprisingneared its climax,
the executive committeeof the Romanian Communist Party was busy
reelectingNicolae Ceauaescu as presidentand interruptinghis acceptance speech with standing ovations. Three weeks later protestsbroke
out in the western provinces,but theywere brutallyput down by the
securityforces.Confidentof his abilityto preventa replayof the events
that had broughtdown other communistregimes,Ceauaescu leftfor a
state visit to Iran, but the protestsintensified.Upon his returnhe orgabut when he
nized a rally to denounce the "counterrevolutionaries,"
startedto speak he was booed. Television broadcastthe look of shock on
his face, and the Romanian revolt was on. The consequent change of
regime turnedout to be bloodier than the previousfive,because the securityforcesresponsibleforthe earliermassacre resistedthe revolution.
They caused hundreds of deaths beforetheywere beaten by the army.
Ceauaescu triedto escape but he was caught and summarilyexecuted.84
Yet again, the world watched a nation jump with littlewarning from
quiescence and subservienceto turbulenceand defiance. As the year
went out, commentatorswere still marvelingat the speed with which
the politicallandscape of Eastern Europe had changed. Long-persecuted
dissidentsnow occupied high governmentpositions.In Czechoslovakia,
forinstance,Havel was president,Dubcek, chairmanof the Federal As83

1990),
"Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution,"UncaptiveMinds3 (January-February

84
For the New YorkTimesreportsof theseevents,see Gwertzman and Kaufman (fn. 1),
332-39.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

43

sembly,and JirvDienstbier(a Charter77 signatoryservingtime as a coal

stoker),foreignminister.All six countriesbegan planning freeelections
and committedthemselvesto economic liberalization.Some even moved
to withdrawfromthe Warsaw Pact.
VI.

THE

PREDICTABILITY

OF UNPREDICTABILITY

Unexpected as theywere, these developmentsnow seem as though they

could easily have been predicted.Was it not obvious that the economic
failuresof communism had sown the seeds of a massive revolt? Was it
not self-evidentthatthe East Europeans were just waitingforan opportunityto topple their despised dictators?Did not the severe domestic
problems of the Soviet Union necessitateits withdrawal from Eastern
Europe, to concentrateits resourceson economic reforms?Retrospective
accounts of 1989 offera panoplyof such reasonswhy the East European
Revolution was inevitable. "It is no accident that Mikhail Gorbachev
declined to intervene,"writes one commentator85-this,in a volume
peppered with commentson how 1989 surprisedone and all.
This essay has shown that the warning signs of the revolution remained cloudy until it was all over. Moreover, the unobservabilityof
private preferencesand revolutionarythresholdsconcealed the latent
bandwagons in formationand also made it difficultto appreciate the
significanceof events that were pushing these into motion. The explanation forthispredictivefailuretranscendsthe particularitiesof Eastern
Europe: this is afterall hardlythe firsttime a major social uprisinghas
come as a big surprise.
The French Revolutionof 1789 shocked not only Louis XVI and his
courtiersbut also outside observersand the rioterswho helped end his
reign. Yet it had many deep causes-all expounded at great length in
literallythousandsof volumes. This paradox is one of the centralthemes
of Tocqueville's Old Rigime and the FrenchRevolution."Chance played
no part whatever in the outbreak of the revolution," he observes.
"Though it took the world by surprise,it was the inevitableoutcome of
a long period of gestation,the abruptand violentconclusionof a process
in which six generationsplayed an intermittent
part."86
In this centurythe Nazi takeoverof Germany took place with astonishingspeed. Withina few monthsentrenchedpoliticalinstitutionswere
turned upside down, all democraticoppositionwas destroyed,and a la85 William M. Brinton,"Gorbachevand the Revolutionof 1989-90,"in Brintonand Rinzler (fn. 11),373.
86
Tocqueville (fn.36), 20.

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bor movement with millions of members was driven underground.87

Though it was not foreseen,thereis no shortageof explanationsforthe
rise of Nazism. The Iranian Revolution of 1979-80 offersyet another
example of an unanticipateduprising. There now exists a panoply of
competingexplanations,including ones that invoke class conflicts,failures of governance,foreignexploitation,economic reversals,the disaffectionsof bazaar merchants,and Islamic ideology.88Yet for all their
differences,studentsof this revolutionagree that it stunned almost everyone-the Shah and the Ayatollah Khomeini, the CIA and the KGB,
statesmen,diplomats,academics, and journalists.
The veryrevolutionthatpreparedthe ground forthe firstcommunist
regime in historywas an unforeseenevent. Weeks before the Russian
Revolutionof February 1917 Lenin told an audience in Switzerland that
Russia's greatexplosion lay in the distantfutureand thatolder men like
himselfwould not live to see it.89And with just days to go, foreignobserversin Petrogradwere advising theircapitals thatthe monarchywas
stable and secure.90But the tsar fell,and beforethe year was over the
communistshad gained fullcontrolof the government.It has since been
recognized that Marxist scholarshipdid not prepare us for the world's
firstsuccessfulcommunistrevolutionoccurringin, of all places, backward, semifeudalRussia.91
Nor did Marxist scholarship-or forthat matter,non-Marxistscholarship-anticipate the midcenturyuprisingsin the communiststatesof
Eastern Europe. "The Hungarian uprisingof October 1956 was a dramatic,sudden explosion,apparentlynot organized beforehandby a revolutionarycenter;neitheroutsidersnor the participantshad anticipated
anythinglike the irresistiblerevolutionarydynamismthatwould sweep
the country."Thus begins The UnexpectedRevolution,a monograph on
this failed attemptto overthrowcommunism that is replete with evi87
Detlev J.K. Peukert,InsideNazi Germany:Conformity,
and Racismin EveryOpposition,
day Life, trans.Richard Deveson (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1987),27-28 and passim.
88 For a sample of explanations,
see Hamid Algar,The IslamicRevolutionin Iran (London:
Muslim Institute,1980); Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolutionin Comparative
Perspective,"WorldPolitics38 (April 1986),383-414; Shaul Bakhash, The Stateand Revolutionin Iran (London: Croom Helm, 1984); Nikki R. Keddie, Rootsof Revolution(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1981); and RobertLooney,EconomicOriginsoftheIranian Revolution(Boulder, Colo.: WestviewPress, 1982).
89 Leonard Schapiro,The RussianRevolutions
of 1917: The OriginsofModernCommunism
(New York: Basic Books, 1984), 19.
90William H. Chamberlin,The RussianRevolution,1917-1921 (New York: Macmillan,
1935), 1:73-76.
91 Furtherevidenceconcerningtheelementof surprisein theFrench,Russian,and Iranian
revolutionsmay be foundin Kuran (fn.31), secs.2, 6-7.

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

45

dence of widespread preferencefalsificationrightup to the uprising.92

Prior to October 1956 writerswho were to play leading roles gave not
the slightestsign of opposition to the political status quo. For another
example, clerical employees remained docile and submissive until the
uprising in which theyparticipated,oftenhiding theirgrievanceseven
fromfamilymembers.93
The Prague Spring of 1968 offersanotherexample of an unforeseen
attempt to crack the wall of communism. In a retrospectiveaccount,
Havel writesthat in 1967 the entirenation was behaving like the Good
Soldier Svejk, accommodating itselfto the regime's demands. "Who
would have believed .

. that a year later this recently apathetic, skepti-

cal, and demoralized societywould stand up with such courage and intelligenceto a foreignpower!" "And," he continues,"who would have
suspectedthat,afterscarcelya yearhad gone by,thissame societywould,
as swiftlyas the wind blows, lapse back into a stateof deep demoralization far worse than its original one!"94

This tallyof unanticipateduprisingscould be expanded, but the point

has been made: the revolutionof 1989 was not the firstto surpriseus.
Time and again entrenchedauthorityhas vanishedsuddenly,leaving the
victorsastonishedat theirtriumphand the vanquished, at theirdefeat.
Should we conclude, along with JohnDunn, that revolutionsare ineluctable "factsof nature,"eventsthatfail "to suggestthe dominance of
human reason in any form"?95In other words, is the culprithuman irrationality?The argumentdeveloped in thispaper does not point in this
direction.It suggests,on the contrary,that predictivefailureis entirely
consistentwith calculated,purposefulhuman action. Underlyingan explosive shiftin public sentimentare multitudesof individual decisions to
switch political allegiance, each undertakenin responseto changing incentives.So just as a failureto predicta rainstormdoes not imply that
the clouds obey no physical laws, a failure to predict some revolution
does not implyindividual irrationality.
Dunn also suggeststhat revolutionshave too many determinantsto
make them amenable to a grand, comprehensivetheory.Shunning the
futileexercise of constructinga theorywith universal applicability,we
ought to focus,he says,on the particularitiesof each situation.Although
92 Paul Kecskemeti,The Unexpected
Revolution:Social Forcesin the Hungarian Uprising
(Stanford,Calif.: StanfordUniversityPress, 1961),1.
93 Ibid., 60, 84-85.
withKarel Hvz~dala (1986),trans.Paul Wil9Havel, DisturbingthePeace: A Conversation
son (New York: AlfredA. Knopf,1990), 109.
95 Dunn, ModernRevolutions:
An Introduction
to theAnalysisofa PoliticalPhenomenon,2d
ed. (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress,1989),2-3.

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I agree that revolutionsare complex events broughton by a symphony

of interactingvariables,I departfromDunn on the usefulnessof general
theorizing:obstaclesto forecastingparticularrevolutionsdo not preclude
useful insightsinto theprocessof revolution.Even if we cannot predict
the time and place of the next big uprising,we may prepare ourselves
mentallyforthe mass mobilizationthatwill bringit about. Equally important,we can understand why it may surprise us. There are other
spheresof knowledge where highlyusefultheoriespreclude reliablepredictions of specificoutcomes. The Darwinian theoryof biological evolution illuminates the process wherebyspecies evolve but without enabling us to predict the futureevolution of the gazelle. Sophisticated
theoriesof the weatherelucidate why it is in perpetualfluxbut without
making it possible to say with much confidencewhetherit will rain in
Rome a week fromnext Tuesday.
Such general theorieshave a common virtue:theyreveal the source of
theirpredictivelimitations.The reason theycannot predictinfalliblyis
not simplythat theycontain large numbersof variables. In each theory
variables are related to one anothernonlinearly;that is, a small perturbation in one variable,which normallyproducessmall changes in other
variables, may under the right set of circumstanceshave large consequences. Consider the theoryof climatic turbulencedeveloped by Edward Lorenz. It shows thata sparrowflappingitswings in Istanbul-an
event-can generatea hurricanein the Gulf of
intrinsicallyinsignificant
Mexico. This is because the weatherat any given locationis relatedto its
determinantsnonlinearly.In other words, its sensitivityto other variables, and theirsensitivitiesto one another,are themselvesvariable.Accordingly,variable x may be imperviousto a jump in y from20 to 200,
ify risesa bit higher,say,to 202. It may then
yetexhibithypersensitivity
startto grow explosively,effectively
feedingon itself.The notion that
small events may unleash huge forcesgoes against much of twentiethcenturysocial thought,with its emphasis on linearity,continuity,and
gradualism. But in contextsas differentas technologicaldiffusionand
cognitivedevelopmentit is the key to understandinga host of otherwise
inexplicablephenomena.
eventswith potentiallyexploWhat endows intrinsicallyinsignificant
in
the contextof political change is that public preferences
sive power
are interdependent.Because of this interdependence,the equilibrium
levels of the public opposition are related to the underlyingindividual
characteristics
nonlinearly.A massive change in privatepreferencesmay
leave the incumbentequilibrium undisturbed,only to be followed by a
tinychange that destroysthe status quo, settingoffa bandwagon that
will culminate in a verydifferentequilibrium.Partlybecause of prefer-

SURPRISE IN THE EAST EUROPEAN REVOLUTION

47

the natureof the interdependenceis imperfectly

ence falsification,
observable. This is why a massive rise in public oppositionmay catch everyone
by surprise.
Because preferencefalsificationafflictspoliticsin everysociety,major
revolutionsare likelyto come again and again as a surprise.This is not
to assert the impossibilityof accurate prediction.If we possessed a reliable technique for measuring people's revolutionarythresholds, we
would see what it would take to get a revolutionstarted.And if we
understoodthe determinantsof thesethresholds,we would know when
the required conditionswere about to be met. For all practicalpurposes,
however, such informationis available only in highlyincompleteform.
In any case, thereis an irremovablepoliticalobstacle to becoming sufficientlyknowledgeable: vulnerableregimescan block the productionand
disseminationof informationpotentiallyharmfulto theirown survival.
Censorship and the regulationof opinion surveys-both widely practiced in prerevolutionaryEastern Europe-are two of the policies that
serve theseobjectives.
I have deliberatelycharacterizedthe source of unpredictability
as imThe degree of imperas opposed to unobservability.
perfectobservability,
fectionobviously constitutesa continuum.Societies with strongdemocratic traditionsexhibitless imperfectionthan ones with nonexistentor
fragiledemocraticfreedoms.This is because thereis less preferencefalsificationin the formergroup,at least with respectto the politicalsystem
itself.Accordingly,one can track the course of antigovernmentor antiregime sentimentmore confidentlyforNorway, Switzerland,or France
than forPakistan, Brazil, or Ghana. This is why developmentsin Pakistan are more likelyto catch the world offguard than are developments
in Norway; by implication,Norway's political futurecan be predicted
with greaterconfidencethan can thatof Pakistan. Most countriesof the
world lie closer to Pakistan than to Norway as regards the significance
in sustainingtheirpoliticalregimes.
of preferencefalsification
should not be consideredoffensive
This emphasis on unpredictability
to the scientificspirit:accepting the limitsof what we can expect from
science is not an admission of defeat.On the contrary,establishingthese
limitsof knowledge is itselfa contributionto the pool of useful knowledge. It is also a necessary step toward charting a realistic scientific
agenda. "To act as if we possessed scientificknowledge enabling us to
transcend [the absolute obstacles to the predictionof specificevents],"
wrote Friedrich Hayek in his Nobel Memorial Lecture, "may itselfbecome a serious obstacleto the advance of the human intellect."96
96
Hayek, "The Pretenceof Knowledge" (1974),AmericanEconomicReview79 (December
1989),6.

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The predictionof unpredictability

is not to be confusedwith the unfalsifiability
of the underlyingtheory.The theorydeveloped in thisessay
is fullyfalsifiable.It implies that political revolutionswill continue to
surpriseus, so a stringof successfulpredictionswould renderit suspect.
Simply put, it can be falsifiedby developing some theoryof revolution
that forecastsaccurately.In principle,if not in practice,the presented
theorycan also be falsifiedby showing that preferencefalsificationwas
not a factorin unanticipatedrevolutionsof the past.