The Patriots’ Revolution

"This was one of the first books on 1989 and was published soon after the revolutions, in 1992. As you can see from the title, Frankland’s point is that, whatever else they were, these were patriotic revolutions. The mistake of some journalists both then and now is to portray the revolutions as a simple victory of capitalism over communism . Economic freedom, the desire for goods that had been unavailable, was part of it, but only a part of what patriotism and democracy would bring. What Frankland looks at is what brings people out of their lethargy, out of their armchairs and on to the street. What he does very well is to explain how important patriotism was, not nationalism but patriotism, and how pride in one’s own country, in one’s own identity was central to the motivation of these revolutions. People in Eastern and Central Europe were rather well read about the history of their own nations. Although Communism stressed internationalism, the authorities didn’t dare to take down the monuments to the revolutionaries of 1848 [when liberal protesters rose up against the conservative establishment across Europe] and during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, a spontaneous revolt against Stalinism, people walked from statue to statue in remembrance of previous revolutionaries. They walked the same route in 1989. Frankland writes beautifully and is the kind of journalist who visits museums, talks to elderly historians and really explains what motivates people. If there had been more understanding of the patriotic element of 1989, I think more could have been done to prevent the disaster of Yugoslavia. One Croatian friend said to me in 1991: “We want to import Europe to Yugoslavia, but if you don’t let us then we’ll export Yugoslavia to Europe.” And in terms of the huge cost of NATO and UN operations and so on, that’s what happened."