Forasmuch as we recently referred to the “velvet revolution”, let me remind you the initial significance of that expression. We speak of the incidents taken place in Czechoslovakia, in 1989, when in the result of a peaceful (let me repeat – peaceful) rebellion, dismantling of the socialist system was implemented. Under the pressure of the students’, then the workers’ demonstrations and strikes commenced on November 17, the Communist President of Czechoslovakia Gustáv Husák had to form a non-communist government on December 10 and on December 29, the Parliament elected Václav Havel as the president. The historical moment contributed to similar rapid developments – the Soviet Union was at the edge of collapse, Berlin Wall had already fallen.
That, in the initial sense, “Velvet Revolution” is somehow similar to Karabakh movement of 1988-90. We should simply bear in mind that the Movement won during the regular elections of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union taken place in May-June of 1990. After that in Armenia, unlike Czechoslovakia and Eastern Europe, certain steps to reject Stalinism, “KGB” and communist past overall were not undertaken and the war and the dependence on Russia (two interconnected factors) put us on a completely different path. (Well, assuredly, a lot of people will add also the subjective factors – Pan-Armenian National Movement members were bad people, etc., but let us leave suchlike conversations to Facebook discussions.)
Is something like “Velvet Revolution” possible in Armenia? I think it is theoretically possible. But for that we need to first and foremost decisively demarcate from “non-velvet” revolutions, the ones who want to conduct an armed revolution by pouring blood, neglecting the law.
But that, surely, is not enough: there is a more principal question which seems to me unsolvable at the moment. To realize a “velvet revolution” in our and in our “fate mates’” case means to get out of the “post-Soviet” situation (together with its all vices, let me not name them) and to become a part of Eastern Europe.
Why did “velvet” revolutions take place in Georgia and Ukraine (still by not apparent consequences)? Because the majority of the societies of those countries was for paying a high, a very high price – to distort the relations with Russia and, as its consequence, to lose territories. Are we ready to pay such price? Honestly, I am not.
No one has convinced me yet, that it is possible to depend on Russia to this degree and not to be a “post-Soviet” country, as well as to implement a “velvet revolution” and not to lose territories.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
