What are the origins of this fun-filled festive custom?
On July 1, 1991, the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved. By December 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated and ceased to exist. The Cold War was over and with it, Communism in Europe.
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By May 1990, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had all declared independence from the Soviet Union. The USSR recognized their status as such by September 1991.
Romanian Communist Party leader Nicolae Ceaușescu was confident he could ride out the anti-Communist uprisings sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe. But he ultimately used his feared Securitate (secret police) to violently suppress anti-communist demonstrations.
Though not part of the Warsaw Pact, Yugoslavia saw a series of clashes between the emerging civil society and the Communist regime. The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, with escalating ethnic and national tensions stoked by the drive for independence leading to a series of brutal civil wars.
Czechoslovakia saw a non-violent transition of power from the Communist government to a parliamentary republic in what became known as the "Velvet Revolution." Writer and dissident Václav Havel was sworn in as president on December 29, 1989.
Albania under Ramiz Alia introduced some liberalization measures in 1990, such as allowing for freedom to travel abroad. Albania’s former Communists were defeated in elections held in March 1992. Pictured: a Marxism-Leninism flag poster from 1978.
By now, the whole world was watching the momentous events unfolding in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev met with East German leader Erich Honecker (pictured), who remained opposed to internal reform: Honecker was later deposed by Egon Krenz. The border to Czechoslovakia was opened again on November 1, 1989.
In October 1989, the Communist regime in Hungary was formally abolished; in March 1990, Hungary was transformed from a People’s Republic into the Republic of Hungary; and in 1991, the Soviet military occupation of Hungary ended.
Reformists in Hungary and Poland were emboldened by the wave of liberalization spreading from the east. (Throughout the mid-1980s, Poland’s Solidarity movement persisted solely as an underground organization, but another wave of nationwide strikes in 1988 forced the government to open dialogue with Lech Wałęsa).
After Poland, Hungary was next to switch to a non-Communist government.
For 28 years, the GDR’s heavily guarded western border and the Berlin Wall proved a significant deterrent to anyone wishing to flee communism.
With people now speaking out against the central government, Gorbachev’s policy aims found a wide audience. This put pressure on the bureaucrats to approve his intended economic reforms. In time, the policies had their intended effect. But things soon started to spiral out of control.
The Solidarity movement emerged as a reaction to policies introduced by the Polish Communist Party. A strike by shipyard workers demanding an increase in pay quickly spread across the country. Pictured: Lech Wałęsa during the strike at the Lenin shipyard, August 1980.
In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the USSR. Forward thinking and reform-minded, Gorbachev began to overhaul the Soviet system by allowing perestroika (economic restructuring, e.g. competition in business) and glasnost (openness).
As more and more Russians embraced Gorbachev’s idea of demokratizatsiya (democratization)—and realized he would not crack down on their newly won freedom of expression—the USSR's firebrand leader urged his Central and Southeast European counterparts to imitate perestroika and glasnost in their own countries.
The downfall of Communism actually began long before the events of 1989. Indeed, the first cracks in the wall appeared in November 1956 when Soviet forces invaded Hungary to crush what had become known as the Hungarian Revolution.
The following day, however, the Romanian military sided with the protesters to fight the Securitate. Eventually arrested and hastily tried, Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were executed on Christmas Day 1989. The Romanian Revolution was the bloodiest of the revolutions of 1989.
East German authorities eventually caved to public pressure by allowing East German citizens to enter West Berlin and West Germany directly. On November 9, 1989, new crossing points were forced open in the Berlin Wall. Eventually, people using hammers and chisels tore down entire sections of the wall.
Effectively a satellite state of the Soviet Union, East Germany became the most successful economy in the Eastern Bloc. However, emigration to the West was a significant problem. In order to plug the leak, the government fortified its western border and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall.
Browse this gallery and revisit the events that led to the anti-communist revolutions of the late '80s and early '90s.
Recalling the collapse of Communism in Europe
The anti-communist revolutions of the late 1980s and early 1990s
LIFESTYLE Politics
It's been over 30 years since the collapse of Communism in Europe. In 1989, the world looked on in astonishment as the Eastern Bloc buckled and eventually disintegrated: the dissolution of the USSR was declared two years later!
Browse this gallery and revisit the events that led to the anti-communist revolutions of the late '80s and early '90s.