The battle for 1989 was won by illiberal populism. That’s one thing we can say with certainty 30 years on from the fall of the iron curtain. In the narrative spun by Jarosław Kaczyński, Viktor Orbán and their supporters, democratic transformation turned out to be a fraud, liberal democracy an illusion, and integration with the EU an upmarket form of foreign occupation. The illiberal populists, under the cover of such rhetoric, simultaneously dismantle the rule of law and independent institutions. Meanwhile, liberals seem devoid of ideas or initiative, agreeing only that somehow, it all went wrong.

This is not just about melancholy and misunderstanding. In a sense, post-communist countries became a testing ground after 1989. Both our families came from Warsaw and they struggled not only to survive the upheavals of that era, but to create better lives, if not for themselves, at least for their children. Individually, some succeeded, but it came at a high price. The revolutions of 1989 meant the almost overnight disintegration of entire ways of life. That had an immense impact, even if most people would not have wanted to hang on to their experience of pure socialism.

Today’s populists tend to focus only on the downsides of what came after 1989. But how have they been so effective at imposing their interpretation of events, even now, 30 years on?

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In the last year of the cold war, the west of our collective imagination was a place of hope – Moscow we were more familiar with, and viewed with fear. Yet, contrary to the image often conveyed, the reaction in our countries to the end of communism was far from euphoric.

The promise of freedom and a better life lay on the distant horizon. Day to day, though, we experienced a poverty more humiliating than anything that had come before – especially after seeing the west with our own eyes. It is a common mistake to think that illiberal politicians in post-communist countries are popular despite these countries’ successes. The contrary seems more plausible: their popularity is a consequence of the success.

At a time when populist leaders are in power in other parts of the world, including the US, it may be instructive to look at the causes of illiberal populism generally.

Our focus is on an aspect of human nature that is underexplored in political analysis: namely political emotion, and in particular, the feeling of loss.

It is astonishing to us to hear people in the US, the UK, France or Italy express views so familiar to us: “Our jobs are being stolen”, “The world is changing too much”, “I don’t recognise my country”. This is where 1989 meets 2019 – at least in the populists’ narratives. Their pessimistic interpretation of the fall of communism is mirrored in the current over-simplifications.

The year 1989 was one of those breakthrough moments in human history whose impact is felt in contradictory ways. As Charles Dickens wrote about 1789 in A Tale of Two Cities, it was “the best of times and the worst of times”. It was “a spring of hope”, and “a winter of despair”, it was indeed the “age of wisdom” and the “age of foolishness”.

The same duality was felt elsewhere. As well as the fall of communism, 1989 marked the beginning of an era of global change and acceleration. Quality of life and longevity improved, as revolutions were occurring in technology, communication, and social mobility. There was simultaneous gain and loss.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Berliners chipping away at the Berlin Wall in 1989. Photograph: DPA/EPA

Central and eastern Europe has registered extraordinary economic growth on almost every parameter since the end of communism. But change, when it happens so swiftly and completely, can also involve great loss for the individual. We don’t just mean the disappearance of jobs or bankruptcies. We mean something much deeper. A loss that relates to the micro-world of secure long-term relationships, identity and feelings of security, so important in the classical liberalism of Adam Smith and JS Mill.

In German, there is a word that captures this disruption: schleudern, which means to spin round and round as in a washing machine. In the social sense, our world spun – repeatedly – as we strived for a better future. This is the context in which we can see that illiberal populists are effective not because they buy voters, or manipulate negative emotions, such as fear or rage. Their skill is to recognise and empathise with feelings of loss when liberals tactlessly disregard or ridicule them.

And it is how we can explain the reactionary aspect of populism in eastern Europe, and beyond. Brexiters won with the slogan “Take back control”, and Donald Trump cut through with “Make America great again”. Kaczyński in Poland, Björn Höcke in Germany and Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands all talk about protecting the traditional values of their societies (usually without being specific about what this would mean).

Liberals often feel overwhelmed by this kind of politics. A peculiar defeatism surrounds the failure of liberal democracy to deliver. Liberals also fear that pandering to emotion plays the same game as populists. They prefer to calm feelings down or just steer clear of them.

Enemies of democracy have, of course, always manipulated feelings. Yet we believe that there’s a key lesson from 1989 that liberalism can learn. We need a passionate defence of liberal democracy and the liberal order. We also need to embrace the feeling of loss and translate it into something positive and enriching, into a feeling about political community.

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How could this be done? The collective sense of loss we have been describing is akin to the grief that follows the death of a loved one. In bereavement our first reaction is to look back, to dwell on the loss. Reactionary populism’s concentration on the negative aspects of transformation might be compared with bereavement. As humans we know that after bereavement comes the recovery phase. And this means looking to the future and building networks of friends. It requires courage, hope and compassion – especially for those who think so differently that they vote for populists.

This is what the liberalism of the future could mean. It could retell the story of 1989, while doing justice to this great and complex moment. Central and eastern Europe still has an important message for the world. It is the knowledge that the greatest successes of liberal democracy, including 1989, were enabled by passionate hope.

• Karolina Wigura is a historian, political editor of the Polish weekly Kultural Liberalna and a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin

• Jarosław Kuisz is a historian, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin