Velvet Revolution
The Velvet Revolution () or Gentle Revolution () was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic. On 17 November 1989 (International Students' Day), riot police suppressed a Student activism, student demonstration in Prague. The event marked the 50th anniversary of a violently suppressed demonstration against the Nazi storming of Prague University in 1939 where 1,200 students were arrested and 9 killed (see International Students' Day#Origin, Origin of International Students' Day). The 1989 event sparked a series of demonstrations from 17 November to late December and turned ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Revolutions Of 1989
The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Communist state, Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. This revolutionary wave is sometimes referred to as the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations that is sometimes used to describe the revolutions of 1848 in Europe. The revolutions of 1989 were a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union—one of the two global superpowers—and in the abandonment of communist regimes in many parts of the world, some of which were violently overthrown. These events drastically altered the world's Balance of power (international relations), balance of power, marking the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Cold War era. The earliest recorded protests which led to the revolutions began in Polish People's Republic, Poland on 14 August 1980, the massive gener ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to First Vienna Award, Hungary and Trans-Olza, Poland (the territories of southern Slovakia with a predominantly Hungarian population to Hungary and Zaolzie with a predominantly Polish population to Poland). Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovak state, Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed Czechoslovak government-in-exile, a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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State-owned Company
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a business entity created or owned by a national or local government, either through an executive order or legislation. SOEs aim to generate profit for the government, prevent private sector monopolies, provide goods at lower prices, implement government policies, or serve remote areas where private businesses are scarce. The government typically holds full or majority ownership and oversees operations. SOEs have a distinct legal structure, with financial and developmental goals, like making services more accessible while earning profit (such as a state railway). They can be considered as government-affiliated entities designed to meet commercial and state capitalist objectives. Terminology The terminology around the term state-owned enterprise is murky. All three words in the term are challenged and subject to interpretation. First, it is debatable what the term "state" implies (e.g., it is unclear whether municipally owned corporations and ent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Privatization
Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when a heavily regulated private company or industry becomes less regulated. Government functions and services may also be privatised (which may also be known as "franchising" or "out-sourcing"); in this case, private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services that had previously been the purview of state-run agencies. Some examples include revenue collection, law enforcement, water supply, and prison management. Another definition is that privatization is the sale of a state-owned enterprise or municipally owned corporation to private investors; in this case shares may be traded in the public market for the first time, or for the first time since an enterprise's previous natio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Command Economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, participatory or Soviet-type forms of economic planning. The level of centralization or decentralization in decision-making and participation depends on the specific type of planning mechanism employed. Socialist states based on the Soviet model have used central planning, although a minority such as the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have adopted some degree of market socialism. Market abolitionist socialism replaces factor markets with direct calculation as the means to coordinate the activities of the various socially owned economic enterprises that make up the economy. More recent approaches to socialist planning and allocation have come from some economists and computer scientists proposing planning mechanisms ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dissolution (politics)
Dissolution in politics is when a state, institution, nation, or administrative region dissolves or ceases to exist, usually separating into two or more entities, or being annexed. This can be carried out through armed conflict, legal means, diplomacy, or a combination of any or all of the three. It is similar to dissolution in the legal sense. It is not to be confused with secession, where a state, institution, nation, or administrative region leaves; nor federalisation where the structure changes but is not dissolved. There have been several dissolutions in history, while others have been proposed or advanced as hypotheticals. Historical dissolutions Austria-Hungary In 1918, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary was a major geopolitical event that occurred as a result of the growth of internal social contradictions and the separation of different parts of Austria-Hungary. The reason for the collapse of the state was World War I, the 1918 crop failure and the economic crisi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dissolution Of Czechoslovakia
The dissolution of Czechoslovakia, which took effect on December 31, 1992, was the Self-determination, self-determined Partition (politics), partition of the federal republic of Fifth Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia into the independent countries of the Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) and Slovakia. Both mirrored the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic, which had been created in 1969 as the constituent states of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic until the end of 1989. It is sometimes known as the Velvet Divorce, a reference to the Nonviolent revolution, bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989, which had led to the end of the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Background Czechoslovakia was created with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I. In 1918, a meeting took place in the American city of Pittsburgh, at which the future Czechoslovak President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and other Czech and Slovak represent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hyphen War
The Hyphen War (; ) was the political conflict over geographical renaming, renaming the country of Czechoslovakia after the velvet Revolution, fall of the Communist government in 1989. Background The official name of the country during the last 30 years of State communism, Communist rule was "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic" (in Czech and in Slovak , or ''ČSSR''). In December 1989—a month after the Velvet Revolution—President Václav Havel announced that the word "Socialism, Socialist" would be dropped from the country's official name. Conventional wisdom suggested that it would be known as simply the "Czechoslovak Republic", which was its official name from 1920 to 1938 and again during the Third Czechoslovak Republic and the early years of Socialist Czechoslovakia (1948–1960). However, Slovak politicians felt this diminished Slovakia's equal stature, and demanded that the country's name be spelled with a hyphen, as it was spelled from independence in 1918 until 1920, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1990 Czechoslovak Parliamentary Election
Federal elections were held in Czechoslovakia on 8 and 9 June 1990,Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p471 alongside elections for the Czech and Slovak Assemblies.Nohlen & Stöver, p472 They were the first elections held in the country since the Velvet Revolution seven months earlier. Voter turnout was 96.2%. The movement led by President Václav Havel emerged as the largest bloc, with majorities in both houses of parliament, with 87 seats in the House of the People and 83 seats in the House of Nations, something no party or alliance had achieved in a free election. The Czech wing, Civic Forum (OF), won 68 of the 150 seats in the House of the People and 50 of the 150 seats in the House of Nations, whilst its Slovak counterpart, Public Against Violence (VPN), won 19 seats in the House of the People and 33 in the House of Nations.Kamm, HenryNow, the Czech Reality; Political 'Amateurs,' After Free Elections, Turn to Problems Left b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Parliamentary System
A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their Election, democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legislature, to which they are held accountable. This head of government is usually, but not always, distinct from a ceremonial head of state. This is in contrast to a presidential system, which features a president who is not fully accountable to the legislature, and cannot be replaced by a simple majority vote. Countries with parliamentary systems may be Constitutional monarchy, constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament, or Parliamentary republic, parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is from the legislature. In a few countries, the head of government is also head of state ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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President Of Czechoslovakia
The president of Czechoslovakia (, ) was the head of state of Czechoslovakia, from the Origins of Czechoslovakia, creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 until the Dissolution of Czechoslovakia, dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic on 1 January 1993. In periods when the presidency was vacant, most presidential duties were assumed by the List of prime ministers of Czechoslovakia, prime minister. The second section lists the leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) from 1948 to 1989. The post was titled as chairman from 1948 to 1953, first secretary from 1953 to 1971, and general secretary from 1971 to 1989. After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, 1948 coup d'état, the KSČ's leader held the real Executive (government), executive power in the country. However, three party leaders (Klement Gottwald, Antonín Novotný, and Gustáv Husák) also served as president at some point in their tenures. Presidents of Czechoslovakia (1918–1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the Revolutions of 1989, fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs. His educational opportunities having been limited by his bourgeois background, when freedoms were limited by the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Havel first rose to prominence as a playwright. In works such as ''The Garden Party (play), The Garden Party'' and ''The Memorandum'', Havel used an Theatre of the absurd, absurdist style to criticize the Communist system. After participating in the Prague Spring and being blacklisted a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |