41+B.+Explain+the+role+of+various+leaders+in+transforming+the+Soviet+Union+and+Eastern+Europe.+B.++Vaclav+Havel

Editor: Peter Breitwieser


 * 41 Explain the role of various leaders in transforming the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. B. Vaclav Havel**

Vaclav was the tenth and last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. Vaclav Havel was a playwright, essayist, dissident and politician. In 1955 he started publishing articles in literary and theatrical magazines. He served in the Czechoslovak Army from 1957-1959. Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. Vaclav Havel was an activist in anti-communism, and he wanted to see the downfall of the USSR. Havel attempted to lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons and release those who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era.During the 1970s and 1980s Havel was repeatedly arrested, and he served several years in prison for his dissident activities. In 1977, Havel became a co founder of the Czech civil rights movement. After an ironic turn of events he was voted to president even after he said he wanted no part in politics.

In 1989 he became president by a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly. In 1997, Havel was awarded the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, his nomination cited his activities that "unleashed the momentum of democracy to improve the well-being of the Czech Republic and its citizens, defending human rights, strengthening the economy, and most recently, promoting NATO expansion to include the Czech Republic." He has received numerous prizes for his political and philosophical contributions from agencies in many nations.he spent a lot of time and money trying to make the union better and succied and was a really good leader and people looked up 2 him.

His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the European Union, which was attained in 2004. After withdrawing from politics, Vaclac Haval still supported the nonviolent movement against the totalitarian regimes of countries like Cuba and China. Vaclav Havel was a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European conscience and communism and felt his most important accomplishment as president was the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

He started the transformation of the economy from communism to capitalism. The Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies view the movement with increasing alarm. Czechoslovakia is occupied by Warsaw Pact armed forces. Leading reformers are forced to travel to the Soviet Union where they are compelled to sign a treaty allowing the stationing of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia, although it is initially agreed that Dubcek will remain in office and that a program of moderate reform will continue.