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A Crack In Communism: The Falling of the Soviet Union
Eastern Bloc
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
15 Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
7 SatelliteCountries:Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia
Soviet Decline
• USSR still remains a fascist state
• Freedoms in Eastern Europe are suppressed– De-stalinization under
Khrushchev– Rigid control under
Brezhnev– Prague Spring 1968
• Economy declines• Soviet War with
Afghanistan 1979
Soviet-Afghan War
Was The Collapse Of The Soviet Union Due To Force?
• The Cold War cost more than $11 trillion. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites was not a result of force.– No NATO tank fired a
shot.– No bomb fell on the
Kremlin.
Home-Grown Insurgency• A massive, home-
grown insurgency, led by a number of different participants contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse:– Workers– Dissident intellectuals– Advocates of national
self-determination– Reformers
Polish Trade Union:Solidarity
• The downfall began on August 14, 1980 when Lech Walesa led a workers’ strike at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk, Poland. The workers organized Solidarity, an independent trade union of nearly 10 million members.
Solidarity Grows• Solidarity Movement
starts to spread seeking workers’ rights to form unions and strike.
• Solidarity, which had strong support from the powerful Polish Catholic Church, demonstrated how a working-class movement could offer an entire nation moral and political leadership.
Solidarity’s Chairman:Lech Walesa
• The Polish military drove Solidarity underground in 1981. However, in 1983, Solidarity’s chairman, Lech Walesa, won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1990, he would be the first freely elected president of the Polish nation in more than 60 years.
Mikhail Gorbachev Emerges (1985)• General Secretary of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Mikhail Gorbachev recognizes that the Soviet Union could not remain politically and economically isolated and needs to change in order to survive.
Gorbachev’s Five Point Plan• Glasnost (openness) –
greater freedom of expression
• Perestroika (restructuring) – decentralization of the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms
• Renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine (armed intervention where socialism was threatened) and the pursuit of arms control agreements
• Reform of the KGB (secret police)
• Reform of the Communist Party
Insistent Calls For Change• The policy of glasnost
(openness) made it possible for people to more freely criticize the government’s policies. When people realized it was safe to speak out, the calls for change became more insistent.
Reforms Were Too Slow• The gradual market
reforms and decentralization of the economy (perestroika) were too slow and failed to keep pace with the crisis and the people’s demands.
• The Soviet Union was suffering a deterioration of economic and social conditions and a fall in the GNP.
Moscow’s Big Mac Attack
Over 20,000 served on its 1st day open on January 31, 1990
Tensions Ease Between East & West
“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!”
• “In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards … Even today, the Soviet Union cannot feed itself. The inescapable conclusion is that freedom is the victor. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Brandenburg Gate At The Berlin Wall,June 12, 1987
Release From Soviet Domination• The renunciation of the
Brezhnev Doctrine (armed intervention in support of socialism) released the Eastern European states from Soviet domination.
• The communist rulers of these states could not survive without the support of the Soviet Union.
Wave Of Demonstrations• Beginning in September
1989, a wave of huge demonstrations shook Communist regimes across Eastern Europe. A massive tide of East German emigrants surged through Czechoslovakia and Hungary to the West, undermining the authority of the Communist hard-liners who still clung to power in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
A tram is blocked by East German demonstrators in the center of the city in October 1989. Their banner reads: 'Legalization of opposition parties,
free democratic elections, free press and independent unions.'
Revolts Begin In Eastern Europe• Gorbachev renounces
Brezhnev doctrine• New nations emerge
– 1989 Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan
– 1991 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
– 1992 Czechoslovakia splits into Czech Republic and Slovakia
• Berlin Wall Falls (November 9, 1989)
• Germany is unified (October 3, 1990)
And The Wall Comes Crumbling Down
Rise Of Nationalism In Eastern Europe
With the iron grip of the centralized Soviet state relaxed & the growing failure of the state to adequately feed & clothe its people, nationalism in the republics surged & separatist movements threatened the USSR’s existence.
Radical Change• Radical change finally
reached the Soviet heartland in August 1991, when thousands of Russian citizens poured into the streets to defeat a reactionary coup d’etat.
Independent Republics• The Communist Party
quickly collapsed, and the Soviet Union began the painful and uncertain process of reorganizing itself as a loose confederation of independent republics.
Communism In Ruins
Boris Yeltsin & Mikhail Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin, who headed the Russian Republic, replaced Gorbachev as president of a much diminished state. Gorbachev found that there was no Soviet Union to lead & retired into private life.
Ronald Reagan’s Role• In the United States,
partisans of Ronald Reagan claimed much of the credit for ending the Cold War. Reagan’s frank denunciation of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” along with his administration’s military buildup, were said to have inspired Eastern bloc dissidents. At the same time, the arms race exhausted the productive capacity of the Soviet Union & other inefficient Communist regimes.
Star Wars
The National Debt
$10,530,386,093,589.13
US Pop: 304,998,272Share of Debt/Person: $34,526.04Daily Increase: $3.84 billion
$438 billion deficit
Another Side Of The Story• According to U.S.
diplomat George Kennan, author of The Sources of Soviet Conduct (1947) and architect of containment policy, the West’s military posture helped the Communists to rationalize their authoritarian rule. The more U.S. policies favored a hard line, the greater the tendency was in Moscow to tighten the controls and to discourage liberalizing tendencies.
At Its Peak, Communism Was Practiced In Dozens Of Countries
Soviet Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan
Asian Countries: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Yemen
Soviet Controlled Eastern bloc countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia.
The Balkans: Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
Africa: Angola, Benin, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Mozambique.
The End Of The Cold War• The Cold War ended,
brought to a close not by the missiles and tanks of the principal participants, but by the collective courage and willpower of ordinary men and women.
What Will Happen To The Communist World Now?
• China– Politically Communist: 1 Party
rule– Economically Capitalist:
leading world exporter• Cuba
– Castro steps down from power (February 19, 2008)
– Remain communist or become 51st American state?
• North Korea– Kim Jong Il / totalitarian
control• Vietnam
– Transitioning with coffee exports and tourism
North Korea’s Kim Jong Il
What will happen to Cuba now?
Tiananmen Square: China Will Remain Communist
• 1989 student protest in Beijing against government censorship
• Students rally around “The Goddess of Democracy”
• Chinese government sends tanks in to restore order
• Estimated 400-800 (NY Times) or 2000-3000 (Chinese Red Cross) are killed
The Government Clamps Down
One Lone Man’s Protest
Order Is Re-Established After Massacre
America: The Cold War’s Remaining Superpower
• What do we do with our nuclear weapons?
• Are we being too militaristic and / or too imperialistic in American foreign policy from Cold War ideologies?
• Should the United States be the “policeman to the world?”
• Is China the world’s next superpower?
