Velvet Revolution(Violence Free Revolution)

By Héctor Naranjo, Sofía Victoria, Alexis Martínez, Núria Martín and

Aleix Lardín

Introduction

• Czechoslovakia before and after The World War II:

• After World War II, the USSR and the USA distributed their influence on the European countries.

• Czechoslovakia belonged to the URSS area so it was a communist country.

The Prague Spring

• On January 1968 , Alexander Dubcek was elected the First Secretary of Commnunist Party of Czechoslovakia.

• He tried to introduce some reforms but, the Soviet Union and members of the Warsaw Pact,invaded the country to halt the refoms

Charter 77 (Charta 77)

• In 1977 Václav Havel, Jan Patócka, Zdenék Mlynár, Jirí Hájek and Pavel Kohout wrote a document criticizing to the government

• Six leaders of this support group, including Václav Havel, were tried for subversion and sentenced to prison terms of up to five years.

• In the 1980s, people in Czechoslovakia knew on the fall of the Soviet socialism and the falls of diets in next countries through the radio

Velvet Revolution

• On November 17th 1989, the communist party intervened against the students which were demonstrating.

Velvet Revolution

• In protest of the brutal communist party behavoiur, people started more demonstrations.

Velvet Revolution

• From this demonstrations the communist party lost power.

Velvet Revolution

• The strike in 1989 made the communist party resign of his total power in Czechoslovakia.

Velvet Revolution

• The first elections were called in 1989.• Václav Havel won them

Velvet Revolution

• Later, in 1993, there was a nationalist movement .• It ended with the independence of the Czech

Republic and Slovakia.

Velvet Revolution

• Václav Havel became, the first president of the Czech Republic

• The Czech Republic is now a multiparty parliamentary democracy

• President Václav Klaus is the current head of state. • The Prime Minister (currently Jan Fischer) is the head

of government.• The Parliament has two chambers — the Chamber of

Deputies and the Senate.

The Czech Republic’s government

• The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.