The Rusty Curtain

Over the past two Saturdays, I've rehashed some of my thirty-year-old cartoons about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, abortion, and gun control. What 1989 will chiefly be remembered for, however, are the stunning changes in world politics.

UW-Milwaukee Post, March 28, 1989

Scarcely three months into George H.W. Bush's presidency, George Will used his back-page column in Newsweek to complain that "Bush seems to be a bystander watching to see who Bush turns out to be." Compared to his predecessor, who came in vowing to slash government down to size, stand up to the Soviets — and, oh, by the way, getting to announce minutes after his inauguration that the American hostages in Iran were coming home — Bush settled into the White House with no grand plan other than to avoid any new taxes.

But behind the Iron Curtain, great changes were brewing.

UW-Parkside Ranger, April 20, 1989

After nearly a decade trying to suppress the Solidarity movement led by Lech Wałęsa, Poland's communist government agreed on April 4, 1989 to allow Solidarność candidates to run in June 4 elections for the Sejm and a newly recreated Senate. 299 of the 460 seats in the Sejm were reserved for the Communist Party and its affiliates; Solidarność ended up winning all but one of the remaining Sejm and Senate seats.

UW-Milwaukee Post, May 2, 1989

Perhaps inspired by the Polish model, and taking advantage of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, citizens of the USSR's constituent republics began demanding independence. 150 people launched a hunger strike in Tblisi, Georgia; protesters forced the resignation of Uzbekistan's official Muslim leader; Lithuania's Sąjūdis movement declared the nation's independence in May; the Estonian Supreme Soviet had proclaimed the supremacy of Estonian laws over Moscow's the previous November. Border fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Protesters in what is now Moldova pushed to get Moldavian recognized as their official language.

Sparked by the sudden death of retired Chinese General Secretary Hu Yaobang on April 15, students occupied Tienanmen Square in Beijing to demand democratic reforms, freedom of the press, and a crackdown on corruption. Some one million protesters occupied the square for weeks on end, staging a hunger strike and erecting their own statue of liberty. In one famous photograph, a lone protester stood against a line of Chinese army tanks. Protests spread to 400 cities around the country.

We know how well that worked for the Chinese protesters, however.

UW-Milwaukee Post, June 27, 1989