The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989

World Politics

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 1991, Pages 7-48

  Kuran, Timur ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

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EID: 84959624625     PISSN: 00438871     EISSN: 10863338     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2010422     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. Bernard Gwertzman and Michael T. Kaufman, eds., The Collapse of Communism, by the Correspondents of “The New York Times” (New York: Times Books, 1990), vii.
2. For an early statement of this thesis, see Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2d ed. (1951; reprint, New York: World Publishing, 1958), pt. 3. Arendt suggested that communism weakens interpersonal bonds rooted in family, community, religion, and profession, a situation that makes individuals terribly dependent on the goodwill of the state and thus blocks the mobilization of an anticommunist revolt.
3. Richard Pipes, “Gorbachev's Russia: Breakdown or Crackdown?” Commentary, March 1990, p. 16.
4. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, The Withering Away of the Totalitarian State… And Other Surprises (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1990). A decade earlier Kirkpatrick had articulated a variant of Arendt's thesis, insisting that the communist system is incapable of self-propelled evolution. See Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships and Double Standards, ” Commentary, November 1979, pp. 34–45.
5. Graubard, “Preface to the Issue Eastern Europe… Central Europe… Europe, ” Daedalus 119 (Winter 1990), vi.
6. Ibid., ii.
7. Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (New York: Warner Books, 1982). The months following the East European Revolution saw the appearance of John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s (New York: William Morrow, 1990). This sequel characterizes the East European developments of the late 1980s as an unforeseen “political earthquake” and then predicts that the 1990s will witness the further erosion of communism (chap. 3).
8. Economist, November 18, 1989, p. 13.
9. Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (1979), in Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe, ed. John Keane and trans. Paul Wilson (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985), 42.
10. Ibid., 87, 89, 96.
11. Havel, “Meeting Gorbachev” (1987), in William M. Brinton and Alan Rinzler, eds., Without Force or Lies: Voices from the Revolution of Central Europe in 1989–90 (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990), 266.
12. Havel, “Cards on the Table” (1988), in Brinton and Rinzler (fn. 11), 270–71.
13. Sidney Tarrow, “ Aiming at a Moving Target: Social Science and the Recent Rebellions in Eastern Europe, ” PS: Political Science and Politics 24 (March 1991), 12.
14. On the elections and the reactions they generated, see the reports of John Taglibue, New York Times, June 3–6, 1989. The events leading up to the April accord have been chronicled and interpreted by Timothy Garton Ash, “Refolution: The Springtime of Two Nations, ” New York Review of Books, June 15, 1989, pp. 3–10. He observed: “Almost no one imagined that the great gulf between the power and the society, between Jaruzelski and Walesa, could be so swiftly bridged” (p. 6). For another informative account of Poland's political transformation, see Elie Abel, The Shattered Bloc: Behind the Upheaval in Eastern Europe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), chap. 4.
15. New York Times, November 12, 1989, p. 1.
16. Question 36 on the East German Survey of the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, February 17-March 15, 1990, Archive no. 4195 GEW. I am indebted to Elisabeth Noelle Neumann, director of the institute, for agreeing to insert this question into a broader survey on East German political opinions.
17. Baruch Fischhoff, “Hindsight≠ Foresight: The Effect of Outcome Knowledge on Judgment under Uncertainty, ” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 1 (August 1975), 288-99; and Baruch Fischhoff and Ruth Beyth, “ I Knew It Would Happen—Remembered Probabilities of Once-Future Things, ” organizational Behavior and Human Performance 13 (February 1975), 1–16.
18. Tdon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), chaps. 6–8.
19. For a compilation of pertinent reports from the New York Times, see Gwertzman and Kaufman (fn. 1), 153–84. Superb eyewitness accounts include Timothy Garton Ash, “The German Revolution, ” New York Review of Books, December 21, 1989, pp. 14-19; and George Paul Csicsery, “The Siege of Nògrádi Street, Budapest, 1989, ” in Brinton and Rinzler (fn. 11), 289–302
20. Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? (1969) (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), esp. 36–44.
21. Tismaneanu, “Personal Power and Political Crisis in Romania, ” Government and Opposition 24 (Spring 1989), 193–94.
22. Bertolt Brecht, “Lob der Dialectic” (In praise of dialectics, 1933), in Gedichte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1961), 3:73; poem translated by Edith Anderson.
23. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
24. The seminal contribution is Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965; rev. ed., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).
25. This point is developed by Michael Taylor, “Rationality and Revolutionary Action, ” in Taylor, ed., Rationality and Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 63–97. Taylor also offers an illuminating critique of structuralism.
26. Edith Anderson, “Town Mice and Country Mice: The East German Revolution, ” in Brinton and Rinzler (fn. 11), 170–92.
27. On the availability heuristic, see Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability, ” Cognitive Psychology 5 (September 1973), 207–32. The biases that this heuristic imparts to the use of historical knowledge are discussed by Shelley E. Taylor, “The Availability Bias in Social Perception and Interaction, ” in Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds., Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 190–200.
28. For two of the major contributions to this approach, see James C. Davies, “Toward a Theory of Revolution, ” American Sociological Review 27 (February 1962), 5-19; and Ted R. Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).
29. David Snyder and Charles Tilly, “Hardship and Collective Violence in France, 1830 to 1960, ” American Sociological Review 37 (October 1972), 520-32; and Charles Tilly, Louise Tilly, and Richard Tilly, The Rebellious Century: 1830–1930 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975). For much additional evidence against the theory of relative deprivation, sec Steven E. Finkel and James B. Rule, “Relative Deprivation and Related Psychological Theories of Civil Violence: A Critical Review, ” in Louis Kriesberg, ed., Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1986), 9:47-69.
30. For a detailed analysis of this trade-off, see Timur Kuran, “Private and Public Preferences, ” Economics and Philosophy 6 (April 1990), 1–26.
31. The theory outlined in this section is developed more fully in Timur Kuran, “Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution, ” Public Choice 61 (Apri: 1989), 41–74. A summary of the present formulation was delivered at the annual convention of the American Economic Association, Washington, D.C., December 28–30, 1990. This pre sentation appeared under the title “The East European Revolution of 1989: Is It Surprisin That We Were Surprised?” in the American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 81 (M 1991), 121–25.
32. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3d ed. (1950; reprint, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), chap. 13.
33. Lucid analyses of bandwagon processes include Mark Granovetter, “Threshold Models of Collective Behavior, ” American Journal of Sociology 83 (May 1978), 1420-43; and Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978).
34. Under the term impression of universality, the concept was introduced by Floyd H. All-port, Social Psychology (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1924), 305–9. The term pluralistic ignorance was first used by Richard L. Schanck, “A Study of a Community and Its Groups and Institutions Conceived of as Behavior of Individuals, ” Psychological Monographs 43–2 (1932), 101.
35. Relatively high thresholds may also be associated with relatively great vulnerability to social pressure.
36. Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (1856), trans. Stuart Gilbert (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), 177.
37. Each of these is developed by Steven E. Finkel, Edward N. Muller, and Karl-Dieter Opp, “Personal Influence, Collective Rationality, and Mass Political Action, ” American Political Science Review 83 (September 1989), 885–903.
38. Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978).
39. Oliver, “Bringing the Crowd Back In: The Nonorganizational Elements of Social Movements, ” in Louis Kriesberg, ed., Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1989): 11:1-30.
40. The words of Leon Trotsky, cited by Arendt (fn. 2), 307.
41. Solzhenitsyn, “The Smatterers” (1974), in Solzhenitsyn, From under the Rubble, trans. A. M. Brock. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), 275.
42. Ibid., 276; emphasis in original.
43. Havel (fn. 9), 27–28.
44. Manea, “Romania: Three Lines with Commentary, ” in Brinton and Rinzler (fn. 11), 327.
45. Wierzbicki, “A Treatise on Ticks” (1979), in Abraham Brumberg, ed., Poland: Genesis of a Revolution (New York: Random House, 1983), 205.
46. The Charter 77 declaration is reproduced in Havel (fn. 9), 217–21.
47. See Timothy Garton Ash, The Uses of Adversity: Essays on the Fate of Central Europe (1983–89) (New York: Random House, 1989), esp. 61–70.
48. Havel (fn. 9), 39; emphasis in original.
49. Ibid. 39.
50. Ibid. 37.
51. Timothy Garton Ash, “Eastern Europe: The Year of Truth, ” New York Review of Books, February 15, 1990, p. 18; emphasis in original.
52. Wierzbicki (fn. 45), 206–7.
53. Havel (fn. 9), 37.
54. The metaphor belongs to Barrington Moore, Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1978).
55. Cited by Norbert Elias, Power and Civility (1939), trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Pantheon, 1982), 197.
56. Jiîí Otava, “Public Opinion Research in Czechoslovakia, ” Social Research 55 (Spring-Summer 1988), 249. Every issue of the Czechoslovak government's official bulletin on public opinion stated: “We remind all researchers that this bulletin is not meant for the public, which means not even for your friends and acquaintances, but serves exclusively as internal material for poll-takers and those who collaborate with us” (p. 251 n. 2).
57. See Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Crisis of Marxist Ideology in Eastern Europe: The Poverty of Utopia (London: Routledge, 1988), esp. chap. 4.
58. Henry O. Hart, “The Tables Turned: If East Europeans Could Vote, ” Public Opinion 6 (October-November 1983), 53–57. The surveys reported by Hart cover Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.
59. “Daten des Zentralinstituts für Jugendforshung Leipzig” (Mimeograph), Tables 1 and 2. These tables were compiled by Walter Friedrich, the director of the institute, and distributed to the participants at a conference held in Ladenburg in February 1991, under the auspices of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann brought the document to my attention; John Ahouse translated it into English.
60. For a fuller argument on how preference falsification distorts public discourse and how, in turn, this distortion warps the evolution of people's private preferences, see Timur Kuran, “The Role of Deception in Political Competition, ” in Albert Breton, eds., The Competitive State (Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff, 1990), 71–95.
61. Though Shlapentokh develops the argument with respect to the Soviet Union, it applies also to Eastern Europe. See Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology: Mythology and Pragmatism in Interaction (New York: Praeger, 1986); and idem, Public and Private Life of the Soviet People: Changing Values in Post-Stalin Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
62. See John H. Holland et al., Induction: Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986); and Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “The Framing of Decisions and the Rationality of Choice, ” Science 211 (January 1981), 455–58.
63. For details, see Robert C. Tucker, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), chap. 7.
64. Economist, July 18, 1987, p. 45.
65. Z [anonymous], “To the Stalin Mausoleum, ” Daedalus 119 (Winter 1990), 332.
66. With the revolution, the notion that Gorbachev would turn to the army and the Kgb in a bid to stay in power lost plausibility. It regained plausibility in late 1990 with the resignation of his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, who publicly accused Gorbachev of plotting with hard-liners to create a repressive dictatorship.
67. Recorded by Daniel Bell, As We Go into the Nineties: Some Outlines of the Twenty-first Century, ” Dissent 37 (Spring 1990), 173.
68. Igor K. “The Psychology of Social Inertia” (1988), Social Sciences 20, no. 1 (1989), 60–74.
69. Gennadii Batyagin, TASS, June 28, 1989, quoted by Elizabeth Teague, “Perestroika and the Soviet Worker, ” Government and Opposition 25 (Spring 1990), 192.
70. Economist, July 18, 1987, p. 45.
71. Timothy Garton Ash, “Germany Unbound, ” New York Review of Books, November 22, 1990, p. 12.
72. “Daten des Zentralinstituts für Jugendforschung Leipzig” (fn. 59), Tables 1 and 2.
73. This account draws on Ash (fn. 19); Anderson (fn. 26); and the New York Times reports compiled in Gwertzman and Kaufman (fn. 1), 158–60, 166–84, 216–22.
74. New York Times, August 18, 1989, p. 1.
75. Ibid., October 8, 1989, p. 1. For a fuller account of the transformation, see Abel (fn. 14), chap. 2.
76. New York Times, October 26, 1989, p. 1.
77. Ibid., November 16, 1989, p. 1.
78. For an eyewitness account of these events, see Timothy Garton Ash, “The Revolution of the Magic Lantern, ” New York Review of Books, January 18, 1990, 42–51. See also Abel (fn. 14), chap. 3.
79. Economist, December 2, 1989, p. 55.
80. For a demonstration, see Kuran (fn. 31).
81. The pace of events was undoubtedly a key factor also in the failure of conservative groups in the Soviet Union to block Eastern Europe's liberation. Had events proceeded more slowly, they might have had time to oust Gorbachev and order the Red Army into action.
82. Ash (fn. 51).
83. “Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution, ” Uncaptive Minds 3 (January-February 1990), 11.
84. For the New York Times reports of these events, see Gwertzman and Kaufman (fn. 1), 332–39.
85. William M. Brinton, “Gorbachev and the Revolution of 1989-90, ” in Brinton and Rinzler (fn. 11), 373.
86. Tocqueville (fn. 36), 20.
87. Detlev J. K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, trans. Richard Deveson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 27–28 and passim.
88. For a sample of explanations, see Hamid Algar, The Islamic Revolution in Iran (London: Muslim Institute, 1980); Said Amir Arjomand, “Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective, ” World Politics 38 (April 1986), 383-414; Shaul Bakhash, The State and Revolution in Iran (London: Croom Helm, 1984); Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); and Robert Looney, Economic Origins of the Iranian Revolution (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982).
89. Leonard Schapiro, The Russian Revolutions of 1917: The Origins of Modern Communism (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 19.
90. William H. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917–1921 (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 1:73-76.
91. Further evidence concerning the element of surprise in the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions may be found in Kuran (fn. 31), secs. 2, 6–7.
92. Paul Kecskemeti, The Unexpected Revolution: Social Forces in the Hungarian Uprising (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961), 1.
93. Ibid., 60, 84–85.
94. Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvíždala (1986), trans. Paul Wilson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 109.
95. Dunn, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon, 2d ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 2–3.
96. Hayek, “The Pretence of Knowledge” (1974), American Economic Review 79 (December 1989), 6.