57 pages • 1 hour read
The Magic Lantern
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Witness and History”
The work opens with Garton Ash in a coal mine in Poland in the spring of 1989. He attends a meeting for the labor union and social movement, Solidarity, as they prepare to participate in elections. Adam Michnik, a longtime dissident, historian, and Solidarity member is in attendance. Garton Ash is surprised to be invited to speak, and he assures all present that Solidarity and its leadership are well known in the West. He speaks in favor of the elections and Solidarity’s success. Such an action could potentially have led him to serious legal trouble, but by the end of the year the communist government, a “People’s Republic” no longer existed, as “the people had deleted the People” (8).
That same spring, Garton Ash attends political meetings in Hungary, where the reform efforts are led not by a labor union, but by various political parties, including the Communists. Viktor Orbán, now Hungary’s president, participated then as a member of the Alliance for Young Democrats. Garton Ash notes that such reform efforts were largely confined to Poland and Hungary—East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia progressed on distinct timetables. Poland and Hungary engaged in a series of elite negotiations for a transfer of power. Garton Ash calls these processes “refolution” since the existing system was not wholly overthrown and reform was a key agenda item for Communist Party elites (10).
These turning points were preceded but reform and social movements, especially in 1988 and as early as Solidarity’s birth in 1980. In Hungary, the Communist Party shepherded the reform process, with some pressure from opposition parties, while Poland’s was driven more by Solidarity’s use of labor strikes as a political tool. Garton Ash recalls meeting workers complaining about shortages of basic commodities, including toilet paper. These labor strikes forced the communist government, led by General Jaruzelski, to a series of negotiations known as the Round Table The main result of these talks was that Solidarity could contest for seats in both houses of Parliament. As preparation for the elections, all of Solidarity’s candidates were photographed with its leader, Lech Wałęsa. Garton Ash recalls, with wonder, that most of those present did not expect fully free elections for several years.
Events turned out to develop much faster, as Solidarity experienced resounding success in the elections of June 1989, and further unrest broke out in Hungary that same summer. By the end of 1989, even Romania had had a revolution, with a violent overthrow of its dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Garton Ash argues that the peaceful transitions in other countries were still radical, as “prisoners became prime ministers and prime ministers became prisoners” (16).
Garton Ash notes that from the vantage point of 1990, his work concentrates on the events for which he was personally present, especially his close ties to Václav Havel in Prague. He notes that he lacks the benefit of historical distance or any claim to objectivity, calling himself a “witness” instead of a “camera” (17), as the writer Christopher Isherwood once did. He freely admits that his allegiance belongs to the new systems in Eastern Europe, not its communist regimes. He notes that the immediacy of his perspective allows him to acknowledge how contingent and unpredictable events truly were. His analysis includes both immediate accounts of the summer and fall of 1989 with some reflections from the more distant vantage point of 1990, the work’s original publication date. He notes that however naive or optimistic he appears in this narrative compared to the time period of future readers, the impressions conveyed are sincere.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The First Election”
Garton Ash stresses that none of Solidarity’s leadership predicted resounding electoral success when the polls closed in June of 1989. Part of its success was that the communist candidates campaigned against other, while Solidarity had only a single candidate contest each seat.
Garton Ash accompanies his publisher to vote, noting the celebratory atmosphere and children accompanying their parents. Everyone he speaks to crosses out the names of People’s Party candidates, signifying support for the new opposition movements and political reform. He pays a brief visit to the Party newspaper office as he seeks to publish a cartoon. This requires meeting the newspaper’s official censor, which already feels like partaking in an arcane “rite of some endangered tribe” (23).
Solidarity not only “swept” the elections, outcompeting other non-Communist parties, but the Communist government accepted the results (24). Though Solidarity had some cultural and political advantages, such as the support of the Polish pope, John Paul II, and Wałęsa’s status as a Nobel Laureate, the elections demonstrated it truly enjoyed national popularity. Even Jaruzelski accepted the election as a rejection of the existing system. Solidarity’s leaders experienced real anxiety at this time, as China’s student movement at Tiananmen Square had just been violently crushed. Former radicals now had to engage in practical day to day governance and politicking.
Summer 1989 was also a moment of reckoning for Solidarity itself. While it had begun as a labor movement, it was now led by a Nobel Prize winner and was in the process of becoming a parliamentary party. It was also made up of local committees which had spearheaded its electoral success. Most of the party’s voters did not belong to its original labor constituency. And, while he supported democracy for Poland, within Solidarity itself Wałęsa might have preferred more personal authority for himself, similar to Poland’s 1930s government. But, in the end, he became one voice among many. Solidarity’s leaders envisioned a slow democratic transition, involving gradual democratization in mass media and law, followed by local elections (30). To assure Soviet acquiescence, Solidarity accepted that Jaruzelski would need to remain in a leadership role as president.
This goal, however, was complicated by the party’s own electoral success, as its supporters would not acquiesce to such a plan, though it was essential to avoid Soviet political or military interference. The need for economic modernization added to the overall atmosphere of political instability. Western support for reform, including economic loans, depended on a political transition away from a Communist power monopoly. This was challenging as the Party still held all access to economic institutions.
In the end, however, Solidarity assured Jaruzelski’s election through various electoral strategies, including simply abstaining from votes. It thus formed a parliamentary majority by partnering with the smaller parties that used to be key to the Communist coalition. Solidarity now held major government ministries, though the Communists retained control of the military and the interior ministry (responsible for internal security). Massive inflation created increasing pressure to transition to a market economy. Former Party officials and Solidarity members worked collaboratively together, for all their prior history of persecution and rancor. Solidarity’s credibility as a workers’ movement helped convince the populace of the need for economic change, however painful. Garton Ash notes that it is now obvious to him that the June elections were a pivotal moment in Poland’s transition away from democracy.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Last Funeral”
Hungary’s political transition was intimately tied to the memory of its past, specifically, the Soviet repression of the 1956 revolution and the execution of its leader, former Prime Minister Imre Nagy. Hungary’s leader, János Kádár, had been key to ousting Nagy and quelling the revolution, and he held on to power until his death. Garton Ash casts the national struggle in Shakespearean terms, comparing Kádár’s hatred of Nagy to Macbeth’s hatred for his murdered rival Banquo.
In the 1980s, one of Nagy’s former associates, Miklos Vásárhelyi remained close to both liberal reformers and the Party leadership, and lead efforts to rehabilitate his friend. A civil society group called the Committee for Historical Justice was dedicated to Nagy’s rehabilitation. The group led a reburial attempt in 1988, which was broken up by force. The Party soon accepted that a reckoning with 1956 was key to its ongoing survival. A reburial was held on June 16, 1989, with coffins for Nagy, his associates, and an “unknown Insurgent” (42).
In contrast to more conciliatory speakers, a young Viktor Orbán called for the end of Communist role and Soviet military occupation. Garton Ash describes the funeral as solemn but notably secular. Garton Ash speaks with Vásárhelyi about various legends concerning Nagy’s last hours, including his possible belief he would be vindicated by future generations—Garton Ash sees the funeral as just such a vindication, declaring, “this is not the funeral of Imre Nagy. It is his resurrection, and the funeral of János Kádár” (45). Kádár actually died three weeks later, the same day Nagy was formally declared innocent of all previous charges against him.
Garton Ash recalls mixed assessments of the event depending on the views of the observer. Radicals were unhappy that Communists participated, while Nagy’s surviving associates felt vindicated and celebratory. Others reflected cynically on the event, noting that it merely reflected the political exigencies of the moment and not a moral reckoning. While some hoped it would lead to a social upheaval like that in Poland, the results were more subdued, if consequential. The Party leadership was replaced by reformers willing to negotiate with the opposition. The opposition parties began debating each other, with some insisting on parliamentary elections before presidential ones. By October, the existing parliament had declared Hungary a democracy and amended its constitution accordingly. Political parties and competition among them were more significant in Poland than Hungary. Garton Ash notes that both countries experienced significant economic upheaval that contributed to the “refolution,” and that the Nagy funeral was a watershed moment comparable to Solidarity’s electoral success (52).
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Garton Ash’s introduction establishes that writers can be part of the historical process, not merely passive recorders. His opening anecdote in the coal mine suggests he was literally willing to get his hands dirty to record events around him. In dropping all pretense to objectivity, he establishes himself as a kind of character in his own narrative, however minor. This introduces the theme of Contingency and Personality in History: Garton Ash writes about where he happened to be, due to the relationships and professional ties he enjoyed, making no claims to comprehensiveness. Garton Ash’s own subjects share his awareness of historical contingency, as they could not predict the success of labor strikes in 1988 leading to competitive elections the following year. Solidarity’s increasing international legitimacy also depended on the outcome of other political contests: the movement’s profile was raised by the election of the first Polish pope, Karol Wojtyła, former Archbishop of Krakow, who took the papal name John Paul II.
Garton Ash’s allusion to Christopher Isherwood is particularly evocative, given that Isherwood’s Berlin stories, based on his time in Germany of the 1930s, depict life in that city during the Nazi rise to power. While Isherwood depicted the years of democracy’s downfall, Garton Ash chronicles its re-emergence. And, in later chapters, Garton Ash, too, will visit Berlin, as he had in previous years of study and work. He, unlike his compatriot, does not pretend to the role of “camera,” choosing instead the role of “witness,” a word choice that evokes a reckoning, perhaps even the assignment of innocence of guilt (17). Garton Ash acknowledges this normative dimension of his stance, admitting that he will take no pains to conceal his liberalism and sympathy for the cause of reform.
Given his transparency about his political commitments, it is unsurprising at Garton Ash emphasizes democracy as a kind of celebration, and Poland’s elections as a sort of public ritual that brought a community together. He contrasts this to his less meaningful visit to the censor, implying that socialist ritual is dry and barren, with no power beyond the satisfaction of his personal curiosity about the process.
Garton Ash’s Hungary case study is less an overt celebration of democracy than an establishment of his belief in The Power of Historical Memory. From his 1990 vantage point, he assumes most readers are familiar not only with the establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late 1940s, but also with the Hungarian uprising of 1956. These events will be recounted further in the Contextual Analysis section of this guide.
Imre Nagy’s efforts to reform the Hungarian system were not anti-communist, but they were interpreted as anti-Soviet and were crushed through military intervention. Nagy and his memory were associated with criminality and counterrevolution, and his supporters were largely repressed, with many serving prison sentences. But this official stance, Garton Ash notes, could not diminish the power of those events, and their political value. Kádár’s regime had lost credibility by the 1980s, while Nagy represented a more usable and valued past. Viktor Orbán’s impassioned speech against the Warsaw Pact and the presence of Soviet troops in Hungary is its own lesson in historical contingency. Orbán is now Hungary’s president in a one-party system, and a strong critic of democracy, including opposition to LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality.
Garton Ash’s Shakespeare allusions reinforce that 1956 was a national tragedy, with Kádár as its central cause. The use of Macbeth specifically suggests that the nation is haunted by 1956, with the funeral as a kind of reckoning or exorcism. Garton Ash claims that the funeral is actually Kádár’s. The use of the phrase “resurrection” for Nagy presents him as a kind of Christ figure who will spiritually lead Hungary into its future, while Kádár is the corrupt and illegitimate ruler.
The thematic overlap between Hungary and Poland is brought home by Garton Ash’s presentation of Economics as a Driver of Political Change. Poland’s government cannot provide citizens with the basics of toilet paper, and both Hungary and Poland were experiencing inflation and economic pressure to reform throughout the 1980s. Solidarity’s very existence was a rebuke to official ideology, as communist states were ideologically founded on the primacy of the working class and the protection of dignified work. The need for independent labor unions outside the state was thus its own form of rebuke. Though Garton Ash acknowledges that the transition to a market economy would also be accompanied by deprivation, he presents capitalism as the only path forward for both nations. He suggests that the intellectual and spiritual poverty of socialism is compounded by its material failures.
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