1989 Year of Revolutions (mar 12, 1989 – mar 12, 1989)

Description:

April: China
- students occupy Tiananmen Square in Beijing demanding more political freedom to go with several years of more economic freedom
- several weeks of protests with international news media watching
- CCP sends troops to clear out students
**they were shooting at students!
**sends in tanks to clear square and arrest leaders
**kill their own people for political reasons


April: Hungary creates a coalition government including non-communists, takes down border walls in May
- wasn't the first revolution they tried to get freedom in 1956 but the USSR stopped it

June: Poland elections see Solidarity win PM role --> Soviets don't protest
- Solidarity is the party that opposed Communism in Poland

November: Huge protests in Czechoslovakia lead to the Velvet Revolution --> nonviolent

Summer: Eastern Germans begin fleeing to the West in mass

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