1946-1991


 * 1949-1991 (Fall of The Soviet Bloc)

During the Cold War, many divisions between Western and Eastern Europe suddenly appeared, almost "overnight". These divisions were mainly between the USSR's Soviet Russia and the Great Western Powers (America, Great Britain, France). Territorial discussions between government leaders during the Yalta and Potsdam conferences lead to the harsh conclusionthat any governments that were on the Eastern side of the Berlin Wall were sympathetic to Stalin, and any on the West side of the wall were more westernized and democratic. While the Berlin Wall divide was designed to separate two opposing forms of government, it lead to the Western powers (mainly America), fearing that Communist sentiments would spread to North America, but also an urge to compete with the Soviet Nations, to show that a democratic way of life trumped the Communist regimes. Since during the Cold War, America and the USSR kept their fighting on non-American/Soviet soil, they decided to race to outer space, which was considered "the Final Frontier" back in the 50's and 60's. Space was the only place known to man that was not claimed by another country, and these two different forms of government wanted to show their dominance over the other. Furthermore, while the divisions of Europe lead to competition between cultures, it also lead to a significant contrast between the Western and Eastern parts of Germany. Western Germany, even though harsh at first, eventually let it citizens have many of the liberties Westerners took for granted. However, in Soviet East Germany, people were not allowed to have any type of communication whatsoever with the relations they had left behind on the other side of the wall. The atmosphere was depressed and hopeless, and any type of anti-Soviet or liberal opinions were immediately crushed. Freedom of Speech did not exist, nor did fair elections. "Show" elections were put on as a guise for a dictatorship. Right before the Berlin Wall fell in 1981, citizens of East Germany were starving and tired of their Soviet oppressors. This prompted NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to send them food and other necessities via airplane. NATO had been formed on the brink of the Cold War, as a response to the "Sovietization" of Eastern Europe and Asia. This pact between the powerful western countries was designed to be an anti-Soviet military alliance in case the Soviets tried to invade democratic territory.

Typical Anti-Communist propaganda The Berlin Wall

STALINIZATION AND THE FIVE-YEAR PLANS During the era of Stalinization in Russia, many common people believed that their lives were immensely better living under Stalin's ideological regime, when, in reality, the price of Soviet advancement was fatally high, and many citizens lost their lives trying to better the USSR. How did Stalin gain such power so rapidly, when he was only the Secretary General of the Communist Party when Lenin ruled Russia? Using his talent to cunningly manipulate high-positioned people to get what he wanted, and using his position to "win" Alliances, Stalin outsmarted his opponent Leon Trotsky, who was by far a better orator and the mastermind that brought Imperial Russia out of the Great War and to its knees. As was popular with his policy of exterminating all those that differed from his political and ideological views, Stalin had Trotsky assassinated. Under Stalin, a true totalitarian government was recognized, shown by his use of the Cheka to exterminate rivals and a complete overthrow of whatever freedom (i.e speech, press) the government possessed. He also tended to "rewrite" history, making himself seem more important in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 than he actually was. Stalin made Marxism/Leninism the new religion of "atheistic" Soviet Russia, and named himself as the High Priest. Stalin also used propaganda to get the common people attracted to his platforms, which included de-kulakization (elimination of the "capitalistic" land-owning peasants), and a heavier reliance on industrialization. Since Stalin goals were extremely lofty, he designed a system of 5-Year plans to strategically told the Soviet peasants/workers how much they were supposed to increase their production by, and what gains the Soviet economy should make by the end of five years. Stalin claimed to have followed a process called "collectivization" to spur the continuation of these 5-year plans. Collectivization was supposed to be a seizure of land and food from the few individual owned peasant farms, (therefore killing off the kulaks, who hindered the communist economy) which would make the peasants work collectively on government-owned farms, producing more food for the expanding economy. However, this process backfired, since Stalin took most of the grain from the peasants and used it to fuel the factory workers and his important Communist minions. Peasants that tried to spite Stalin by making less food ending up starving themselves. When American economists came to the new USSR, they remarked on how rapidly the "Red" economy had grown, and how prosperous the workers were, but what they saw was the guise of ideology, underneath that lurked the harsh reality of purges of potential enemies to the government, mass hunger, and citizens dying for the good of their country, not knowing it was their country that killed them in the first place.**


 * ======Krushchev======
 * ======"Peaceful Coexistence"======
 * ======De-Stalinization======
 * ======Brezhnev======
 * ======Re-Stalinization======
 * ======Brezhnev Doctrine======
 * ======Gorbachev======
 * ======Perestroika======
 * ======Glasnot======

The decline of the Soviet Union can be explained by the roller-coaster policies of three very important leaders. Krushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev all tried their own new and improved reforms to revitalize a Soviet Union which was left in shambles by the poor leadership of Stalin. After a very long and cruel period under Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev **came to power. Krushchev implemented his policy of "**De-Stalinization,**" a necessary reform because of the widespread fear and hatred of Stalin's political terrorism. He began enforcing "socialism with a face." This resulted in a more useful economy and the production of common household items such as toilet paper. Prior to Krushchev's reforms, the entire economy and industry had been dedicated towards weapons and items of war. By "spreading out" the economy to cover more staple goods. Krushchev also adopted a new foreign policy of "**peaceful coexistence**." Krushchev wanted to relax the high tensions of the Cold War, so he imposed national autonomy. After a period of "De-Stalinization" under the leadership of Khrushchev,** Lenoid Brezhnev **rose to power and brought the Soviet Union back under the policies of Stalin. Brezhnev's policy of "**Re-Stalinization**" then went into effect. Brezhnev and his supporters immediately began talking about Stalin's "good points" and ignored his crimes. By doing so, Brezhnev eliminated the idea of free expression in art and culture in order to eliminate any negative images of Stalin, and to express the strength of the government. Along with eliminating civil liberties, Brezhnev created the** Brezhnev Doctrine. **The doctrine declared that the Soviet Union and its allies had the right to intervene in any social country whenever they saw the need to, thus resulting in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The final blow to the Soviet Union was the leadership of** Mikhail Gorbachev**. Communism, which Gorbachev so desperately wanted to revitalize, was actually led to its demise by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. The new era of reform under Gorbachev sponsored political and cultural liberalization and allowed for self determination and democracy to have great success in the Soviet Union, none of which were among his initial intentions. In order to redesign and restructure the economy, Gorbachev implemented** perestroika. **This new reform was aimed at easing the governments price controls, to provide more independence for state enterprising, and the setting u p of profit seeking private cooperatives to provide personal services to consumers. This resulted in widespread consumer dissatisfaction and threats to Gorbachev's leadership. His next fatal mistake was his reform called** Glasnot. **Glasnot provided a new-found openness of the government and of the media. This in turn led to ability of the media to disagree and create support against the government. The decline of the Soviets is quite similar to the decline of the Ottomans. Both states had suffered from many wars and internal conflict, which led to an economy in shambles. Desperate attempts to save the government and state were overrun by outside conflict and internal chaos. The decline of the Soviets can be seen as the decline of a major super-power, and led to the United States being the only super-power left in the world.**


 * The Velvet Revolution[[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1e/EasternBloc_PostDissolution2008.svg/350px-EasternBloc_PostDissolution2008.svg.png width="245" height="361" align="right" caption="Map of Europe after 1989"]]
 * Vaclav Havel
 * Prague Spring
 * Alexander Dubcek
 * Solidarity Movement
 * Pope John Paul II
 * Gdansk Agreement
 * Lech Walesa
 * Shock Therapy

The Revolutions of 1989 were upheavals by the satellite states of the Soviet Union. New reforms and the concept of the national autonomy surfaced and began to cause serious problems for the Soviet leaders. This idea is displayed by the Solidarity Movement, **a free and democratic trade union, in Poland. The resentment of Soviet interference, the bureaucratic incompetence, and the first oil shock in 1973 put the economy and political well-being of Poland into a nosedive. Peoples of all classes became increasingly resistive to the Soviets. This was increased when Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (**Pope John Paul II**) was selected as the next Pope and supported the Solidarity Movement. To centralize the efforts of the Solidarity, a enormous strike of ship workers resulted in the** Gdansk Agreement **which gave strikers advanced revolutionary demands, including the right to form free trade unions, freedom of speech, release of political prisoners, and economic reform. The movement was forced "underground" when its leader,** Lech Walesa **was arrested. The movement survived and flourished until 1989 when Solidarity was legalized and succeeded in mobilizing the country and winning most of the contested seats in an overwhelming victory in the Polish Parliament, and finally ending with Lech Walesa as Poland's new noncommunist leader. Walesa led a radical government from the beginning and implemented** shock therapy**, which was designed to make a clean break with state planning and move quickly to market mechanisms and private property.**

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 * In Czechoslovakia, another revolution against Soviet communism was occuring.** Alexander Dubcek **started off the** Prague Spring**, a movement against the Soviets, when he gained a majority vote and edged out a long-time Stalinist leader in the Czech government. Dubcek believed in "socialism with a face," similarly to Khrushchev, and posed a threat to Soviet leaders. The result was the arrival of 500,000 Russia**======

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 * n and allied eastern troops that suddenly occupied Czechoslovakia. The reform was abandoned until the Czech movement was led now by** Vaclav Havel. **The result was** Velvet Revolution.** The Velvet Revolution was very similar to the Glorious revolution in England. They are similar[[image:http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:kqJCN5Xksab11M:http://info.biz.hr/matura/cmsmadesimple/uploads/images/00002dub.jpg width="124" height="93" align="left" caption="Alexander Dubcek"]] because they both involve a peaceful change of power. Prote[[image:http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:7LVc_Qgya8fSvM:http://hotwings.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/havel.jpg width="85" height="127" align="right" caption="Vaclav Havel"]]sters took control of the streets and forced the Communists into a power-sharing arrangement, which quickly resulted in the resignation of the Communist government and the selection of Havel as president.======