The Fall of Communism^1191

(Left) Communist leaders meet shortly before the Russian invasion of Czechoslo­

vakia. Participants include Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker of East Germany

(first two on the left), and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev confer­

ring with Premier Alexei Kosygin (on the right). (Right) Soviet armies occupy

Prague, 1968.

failures of the Communist regimes grew ever more apparent. Television

and radio carried images of the consumer culture of the more prosperous

people in the West. In the meantime, Eastern European Communist states

continued to borrow massively from the West, which merely patched over

huge problems without bringing economic reform. Debt owed by Eastern

European countries in hard currency rose from 6 billion dollars in 1971 to

66 billion dollars in 1980 and more than 95 billion dollars in 1988. Well­

developed social services could not compensate for economic inefficiency

and massive demoralization. Membership in the Communist Party declined,

particularly among young people, while the age of the leadership increased

dramatically.

Within the Soviet Bloc, resistance was most developed in Poland. In 1976

a variety of opposition groups unified, publishing underground books and

newspapers and organizing strikes and demonstrations. Massive unrest led

to strikes in Poland in 1970 and the organization of a Committee for the

Defense of Workers. Edward Gierek (1913-2001), who had become head of

the Polish United Workers’ (Communist) Party in 1970, made some conces­

sions while attempting to stimulate economic growth. However, despite

massive foreign loans and credits, by 1976 Poland again had lapsed into eco­

nomic stagnation, and another wave of strikes followed. In the meantime,

the Catholic Church, which retained considerable influence (unlike in

Czechoslovakia) helped mobilize opposition to the Communist government,

particularly after the election in 1978 of Polish Pope John Paul II and his

visit to his homeland in 1979. Strikes began in July 1980, and the following

month Solidarity, a new illegal organization of trade unions, organized. Led