Democracy in Europe is facing a crisis that is unrivaled since the interwar period. Like 90 years ago, no part of the continent is immune to the challenge. In seeking ways forward, an excellent though perhaps forgotten source is the wisdom of the communist dissidents of Eastern and Central Europe. Many of these activists were inspired by the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, signed in the summer of 1975. After two years of negotiations, this agreement committed states on both sides of the East–West divide to take steps to enhance security, improve economic ties, and promote human rights.

When the Helsinki Accords (as they have come to be called) were signed, many critics of détente insisted the Soviets had once again hoodwinked naive Western leaders. The naysayers claimed that Helsinki allowed the Soviets and their satellites to make empty promises about upholding political and civil rights while achieving valuable strategic goals. Neither the accords’ opponents nor the communist governments expected, however, that brave and principled people within these states would use this international agreement, as well as state laws, to pressure their governments to abide by the promises made in that third Helsinki “basket” and that their efforts would help bring about communism's collapse (Thomas 2001).

For more than a decade, activists all over Eastern and Central Europe and the Soviet Union, who pushed for Helsinki to be honored, suffered enormously. They were denounced by colleagues and even friends, prevented from doing the work they loved, arrested, and subjected to various forms of abuse. Still, communist officials could not stamp out the relevance of legal promises and dissidents’ commitments to holding the regimes to account.

Lessons from Prague

The story of the Helsinki Watch groups, as many were called, and particularly Charter 77, the one that emerged in Czechoslovakia in the year of its name, may seem outdated today. Contemporary autocrats and populists appear to have found ways to both depoliticize the majority of citizens and allow most to exercise the civil rights that individuals deem important.