Monday demonstrations in East Germany in the context of "Revolutions of 1989"

A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, in order to hear speakers. It is different from mass meeting.

Demonstrations may include actions such as blockades and sit-ins. They can be either nonviolent or violent, with participants often referring to violent demonstrations as "militant." Depending on the circumstances, a demonstration may begin as nonviolent and escalate to violence. Law enforcement, such as riot police, may become involved in these situations. Police involvement at protests is ideally to protect the participants and their right to assemble. However, officers don't always fulfill this responsibility and it's well-documented that many cases of protest intervention result in power abuse. It may be to prevent clashes between rival groups, or to prevent a demonstration from spreading and turning into a riot.

A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, in order to hear speakers. It is different from mass meeting.

Demonstrations may include actions such as blockades and sit-ins. They can be either nonviolent or violent, with participants often referring to violent demonstrations as "militant." Depending on the circumstances, a demonstration may begin as nonviolent and escalate to violence. Law enforcement, such as riot police, may become involved in these situations. Police involvement at protests is ideally to protect the participants and their right to assemble. However, officers do not always fulfill this responsibility and it is well-documented that many cases of protest intervention result in power abuse. It may be to prevent clashes between rival groups, or to prevent a demonstration from spreading and turning into a riot.

Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. Leipzig is located about 150 km (90 mi) southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe.

Leipzig has been a trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Via Regia and the Via Imperii, two important medieval trade routes, intersected here, marking the city's economic importance. The Leipzig Trade Fair dates back to 1190. Between 1764 and 1945, the city was a centre of publishing. After the Second World War, Leipzig remained a major urban centre in East Germany. But overall, because of isolation behind the Iron Curtain, its cultural and economic importance declined. Events in Leipzig in 1989 played a significant role in precipitating the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly through demonstrations starting from St. Nicholas Church. Since the early 2000s, Leipzig has experienced substantial transformation, marked by urban and economic revitalisation as well as the modernisation of its transport infrastructure.

The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a wave of liberal democratic movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world (this wave is sometimes referred to as the "Autumn of Nations", in reference to the Revolutions of 1848 as the "Spring of Nations"). The revolutions of 1989 were a key factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union—one of the two superpowers—and 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, marking the end of the Cold War and beginning of the post-Cold War era.

The earliest recorded protests, which led to the revolutions, began in Poland on 14 August 1980, the massive general strike which led to the August Agreements and establishment of Solidarity, the first and only independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc, whose peak membership reached 10 million. The main region of the 1989 revolutions was Central Europe, starting in Poland with the 1988 Polish strikes, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. On 4 June 1989, Poland conducted the first elections that led to the dissolution of the communist government, with Solidarity winning an overwhelming victory, leading to the peaceful fall of communism in Poland. Influenced by Poland, Hungary organised round table-format talks and began dismantling its section of the Iron Curtain. In August 1989, over a quarter of the Baltic states population physically chained for 675 kilometres (419 mi) in the Baltic Way protesting the occupation by the Soviet Union, while the opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, in which the Eastern Bloc disintegrated. This led to mass demonstrations in cities of East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990. A feature common to these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance, demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to pressure for change. Romania was the only country in which citizens and opposition forces used violence to overthrow its communist regime, although Romania was politically isolated from the rest of the Eastern Bloc.