ABSTRACT
Timothy Garton Ash's glib aside to Vac1av Havel during the November revolution of 1989 may have seemed nothing more than a throwaway comment at the time, but it turned out to be remarkably prescient.2 Within two weeks of the onset of negotiations, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia had resigned; a month later, Havel was proc1aimed the first non-communist President of Czechoslovakia in over forty years; six months on, free elections resulted in a crushing victory for the opposition over the old guard and the start of far-reaching political, economic and social changes. As Garton Ash writes, 'by a mixture of popular protest and elite negotiation, prisoners became prime-ministers and prime-ministers became prisoners. ,3
The causes, events and outcomes that lie behind the events of 1989 are masked by two prominent myths. The first seeks to deny the significance of 1989 and the changes that have taken place since then. Deputy Chairman of the Czech Communist Party Miroslav Ransdorf outlined the basis for just such an assessment
I Garton Ash (1990: 80). 2 As the title makes clear, the focus of this chapter is the revolution and subsequent transfonnation of the Czech Republic since 1989. When appropriate, I refer to Czechoslovakia, the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Occasionally, Czech is used as an abbreviation for both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. 3 Garton Ash (1990: 20). 4 See Kundera (1982).
