... World History II 9 March 2013 Collapse of Communist Regimes In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the great communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed. All across Europe, in countries such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, the people and their governments were in constant struggle. These struggles eventually lead to a falling out in the communist governments, and the citizens won their victory. Because the people's needs were not met by the government, corruption in government and poor leadership, and the views on countries' economies were different, the communist regimes in Eastern Europe eventually collapsed. Communism was first developed by Karl Marx in the 19th Century; it is the theory of a society in which people take only what they need and give only what they can. Communism started out as a decent cause, but it evolved into a violent revolution in which the government controlled the people only through force. Communism took away people’s freedom in their separate economies, which caused anger to ripple through the people. Strikes were led by angry mobs, and by 1991, all communist regimes had completely collapsed in Eastern Europe. After years of revolt and protest, the official communist government positions had lost all popular support by the people and the Iron Curtain was dismantled, allowing Eastern Europe to become communist-free. In many countries, the people’s needs were rarely met by the government. For example, the government in...
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...containment? The policy of containment was not a success, As after the war, The USA aimed to quarantine communism to the only place it existed, Russia. However soon despite this, communism spread and communist dictatorship controlled most of Eastern Europe, soon after this the most populated state on earth, China, fell to a communist regime, as well as the creation of communist states in Vietnam and Korea. This consistent creation of communist states and the failure of the USA to prevent this, shows how ultimately, despite apparent success in some of Europe and Asia, the Policy of Containment failed in its primary function, to contain and prevent the spread of communism and therefore it was not a success. However it is arguable that in some ways the USA’s Policy of Containment was a great success in preventing the spread of communism early on during the Cold War. One piece of evidence that supports the argument that the USA had early success with their policy of containment is The Greek Civil War. The USA’s decision to intervene due to the “strategic significance of Greece in the Balkans and the Mediterranean” arguably was successful. With this clear threat of communist expansion into Western Europe, Truman called for congress to uphold the Truman Doctrine and provide funding to aid the battle against the spread of communism that clearly threatened the USA’s interests in Europe. This resulted in $400 million dollars of funding being provided to support the Greek government, which...
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...Which did more to cause the collapse of the Soviet Communism by 1991, developments inside or outside the USSR? 1991 marks the end of Soviet Communism. Leading to 1991, USSR started to lose support from the Eastern European as USSR was in a situation that provided them with undesirable economic situations, low living standards, political instability and lack of freedom. As a whole, the cause for these situations, thereby leading to the fall of Soviet Communism, can be categorized in two main reasons – developments inside of USSR, and developments outside the USSR. While the external developments such as role of Ronald Reagan & his policies, the Pope’s involvement, rise of non communist movements in Eastern Europe and price of oil and effects on USSR did played a significant role in breaking the Soviet Communism, it is still undeniable that the internal developments, mainly the USSR leaders’ (Brezhnev and Gorbachev) policies, made larger and more tangible impacts that raises the resentment and opposition to Soviet domination, causing it to fall apart. The developments inside the USSR therefore did more to cause the collapse of the Soviet Communism. To begin with, one of the early causes of the fall of communism is due to the stagnation period under Brezhnev where economy did not improve, or rather, declined (which can be seen from USSR’s continuous importing of grain from US). This stagnation was due to expanded military and neglected domestic economy. As a whole, this period...
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...Collapse of Communism and the Demise of the Soviet Union Purnea Gillani Author Note This report was prepared for International Relations Practice, BS (Hons) Major in Political Science and Minor in Management, taught by Professor Sajaad Naseer ABSTRACT The collapse of the soviet empire is often heralded in the West as a triumph of capitalism and democracy, as though this event was a direct result of the policies of the Reagan and Thatcher governments. This analysis has little relation to measurable facts, circumstances and internal political dynamics that were the real historical causes of the deterioration of the Soviet empire. The key to understanding the reasons for the demise of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe is to be found not in the speeches or policies of Western politicians, but in internal Soviet history. Through our report we have attempted to discern the various complex factors that came together and led to the unraveling of the Soviet Union and the end of communism in Europe. This report contains an analysis of how social, political and economic factors culminated in the sudden and unprecedented collapse of the Soviet Union at the perceived height of its power. ACKNOWLEDGMENT We would like to thank … Contents ABSTRACT 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENT 3 INTRODUCTION 5 LITERATURE REVIEW 8 ROLE OF PUBLIC OPINION IN COMMUNISMS COLLAPSE...
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...Democracy Vs. Communism Following WWII Following World War II, the Western World was once again in disagreement. However, the disagreement following World War II was not based on countries, but instead on political ideologies. Democracy was supported by the West against communism which was supported by Russia and Eastern Europe. To determine the better of the two systems, the US and the USSR engaged in a 30 year, largely non-violent war to be the best. The winner would be the country to decide the political ideologies of the countries freed during World War II as well as throughout the rest of the world. The USSR emerged from World War II as a world power, and through the next three decades engaged in a battle with the Western World to spread communism, forcing eight Eastern European nations as well as other Asian and Middle-Eastern countries to remain communist until the end of the century. World War II left the USSR as a world power but in a state of complete disarray, leaving the USSR to rebuild and expand their own government beliefs. During the war, the USSR faced the most civilian and military casualties out of any other nation by far. Through the course of the war, 19 million soldiers were killed, with over 5 million civilian casualties, resulting in a total loss over almost 13% of the USSR's population. An additional 5 million prisoners of war, political enemies, and people that had committed crime were in forced labor camps. They were forced to harvest natural resources...
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...interests, it ended with the surrender of Germany, Japan and the liberation of Western Europe. The Yalta conference in February 1945 was attended by Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt. Apart from other settlements was a Memorandum of Understanding between the three allied powers to divide Germany into British, American and Russian zones in addition to further bifurcation of Berlin. The war struck European society’s agitation against the old order came in the shape of supporting ideologies having moderate, socialist, and communist views. Stalin being the staunch supporter of communism had by 1946 succeeded in establishing pro-communist coalition governments in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. The surge of communism in Eastern Europe was augmented by the fact that the local administrative setups of different governments were bent on cleansing their social lives from anarchic ideologies formed previously in the garb of patriotism. Non adherence to paying taxes was one of the practices prevalent in those times. Spread of communism in Eastern Europe began with taking control of the Police and using it for economic and social reforms. The pace of reform and development on the Eastern side was fast and visible. The logical and possible fallback of this advancement was to divert the fruitful outcomes to the benefit of Soviet needs. The other logical end was that the longer the each Europe administered its zone the more likely it became that each would try to mould that zone...
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...“Eastern Europe would have become communist in the post-war period even without Soviet Interference” – How far do you agree with this statement? Clearly, despite some regions of Eastern Europe having communist influence prior to the Second World War, such as Poland, Eastern Europe would not have become communist without the interference of the Soviet Union in the post-war years. This is inferred by the fact that following the War, Stalin was forced to install communists into the governments of the majority of Eastern-European states to ensure that only countries with communist governments bordered the USSR, imposing communism upon these states despite his promises of free elections. It can also be seen that in the post-war years soviet interference in elections was present, suggesting that perhaps without this interference results would have been different, and many states in Eastern Europe would not have become communist. This is clear in the case of Poland, which did actually have a communist party, however this was dissolved by Stalin in 1941 as it was a potential threat, and then reformed under Stalin’s watchful eye as he developed Polish communists in Moscow. Following the War, Stalin established a Soviet government in Poland as during the Nazi occupation the former government had been exiled to London. The events in Poland in the post-war years show clear Soviet interference as Stalin was quick to establish a communist government in order to protect the USSR. Gomulka...
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...How Did International Relations in Eastern Europe Serve to Cause the Soviet Union’s Collapse? The Soviet Union also known as the USSR was a major world power during its existence. Which began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 and went on until its collapse in 1991. The United States and the Soviet Union were ultimately large rivals since the commencement of World War 2, which created conflict known as the “Cold War”. While we are so grateful that a nuclear war did not break out, some believe that billions could have been killed if nuclear war broke out between the two countries. (“What is The Soviet Union”) The ultimate start of the Soviet Union was in 1917, with the frustration and annoyance from the Russians with the monarchy, which was presided by Czar Nicholas II. With this new idea of communism, it was surprisingly embraced by some of Russia’s top intellectuals. Communism, which is the socialist philosophy, which was encouraged and promoted by a philosopher by the name of Karl Marx in his 1848 political campaign. Communism was set in place to hopefully institute a classless, stateless society where, the people owned all means of production. With constant change and improvements, which can be ultimately argued, the intellectuals eventually got their way. While looking and reading about communism on paper alone seemed like a great idea on paper, unfortunately the implementation of communism in the USSR was profoundly corrupt and inevitably deadly to many. After...
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...and Soviet Union became involved in a war of ideologies, the cold war. The US saw communism as a threat to democracy and capitalism. Therefore the US set out a new foreign policy, the policy of containment, in the Truman doctrine. There were however other reasons for the USA’s involvement such as their military confidence, UN agreement, domestic pressure which called for Truman to be more tough on communism and their economic interest in Japan which led to the US government’s decision to intervene in the Korean War. One of the main reasons for the US’s involvement was due to the ‘Policy of Containment’. The aim was for the USA to work with its allies to contain the spread of communism in eastern Europe and Asia using political, economic and if necessary military pressure to prevent the spread of the every growing ideology of communism. The US’s main worry was the communism would spread as most of the eastern European countries were devastated by the war were weak and communism could easily spread through these weakened countries such as Hungary. Europe was divided by ‘an Iron curtain’, the west with capitalism views, and the east with growing communism views. Furthermore, China had fallen to Communism under Mao, which may have been a huge wake up call for President Truman. In addition, Mao had signed the treaty of friendship with Stalin; therefore the spread of communism in Asia and eastern Europe was almost inevitable. As a result of this threat, Marshall Aid and the Truman Doctrine...
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...Development of the Cold War, in the five years between 1945 and 1950, could be argued as taking place for a number of reasons and due to various individuals. It could be easy to simply site Stalin as the main reason responsible for it’s outbreak and growth, clear through his approach on communist expansion, use of Red Army and inability to uphold agreements. However for a war of any kind to develop there is always more than one party involved and the USA and it’s president Truman could also be said to have contributed to the developing of Cold War, arguably being equally aggressive as Stalin – taking an Iron fist on dealings with Russia through policies such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, as well as his direction over the US involvement in the Korean War. However issues such as Britain and Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, as well as the birth of McCarthyism in America, can also be seen as hindering relations between the two superpowers of the Cold War and therefore playing a role in it’s development. Whether Stalin was to blame for the Cold War can also be judged and evaluated through the use of sources, offering a number of interpretations, from extreme Orthodox and Revisionist views to the more diplomatic reasonings of the post revisionist stance. It is correct to say that development of the Cold War, between 1945 and 50, was definitely impacted and heightened through provocative, and at times, aggressive actions on foreign policy, taken by Stalin. An example...
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...Policy The United States was a phenomenal success at containing communism after 1945 as long as one considers not falling into communism itself. The United States may have dodged the mighty communist virus but that doesn’t mean they succeeded in stopping it from infecting other areas of the world. The U.S. failed to stop the expansion of communism to any efficiency. Not only did all of Eastern Europe fall to communism, but the most populous nation on Earth, China, also fell to communism as well (Indirectly taking with it north Korea and Vietnam). The United States didn’t fully eliminate communism either. The U.S. gained a communist satellite 90 miles out of its boundaries, Cuba. It is clear that American foreign policy lacked to tackle its target of containment. One big step in the U.S. containment foreign policies’ failure was the promoting of N.A.T.O. This contributed to the communist expansion in 1949. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as it stood for, was comprised of the major W. European powers and the United States. Although this organization’s intentions were good, it backfired. Instead of preventing communist expansion, the organization forced a paranoid Soviet Union to flex its muscles. In 1955, to counter the N.A.T.O. buildup, the U.S.S.R. created The Warsaw Pact. The U.S.S.R. formed an equal alliance with Eastern European nations. The Warsaw Pact shrouded virtually all of Eastern Europe in the Iron Curtain. This helped the Soviet Union to gain almost as...
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...regime established in Czechoslovakia (Feb) Berlin blockade begins (June) US relationship with Europe after WWII: * Truman was under pressure to adopt a more hard-line approach towards communism following Kennan’s Telegram and Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech and the threat of communist takeover in Greece. * No suggestion that the US envisaged any long-term military or political entanglement in Europe beyond the time it took to establish political and economic reconstruction there. * Each side regarded the other as a threat to national security and being expansionist and a global strategic threat. * By September 1946 the emergence of the Cold War was seemingly irreversible. Why Truman introduced his Doctrine (first step containment?) * Keep the SU from aiding the Greek communist movement * Protect democracy and freedom in response to Soviet aggression and ideological expansionism in Eastern Europe * Demonise SU and Communism * Threaten and provoke USSR * Truman wanted a Cold War because that would justify the US’s role as a defender of the freedom and function as world power * Develop the US’s global economic power – if the US is protector, other sates would be militarily and economically dependent of the US – close trade relations. Truman emphasised in his doctrine the differences between Capitalism and Communism. The US would support ‘freedom’ through economic and financial aid, which was essential to stable...
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...During the Second World War, the USSR and the USA, the two great nations in the 1940s united each other to defeat their common enemy, Nazi Germany. Their alliance was however ‘unnatural’ as both countries had conflicting ideologies, capitalism vs. communism and both wanted to spread their power and control in the world. Their incompatible ideologies from the start together with their troubled relationship since 1918 when the west intervened on the Russian civil war on behalf of the White Army, created an uneasy alliance in 1941 that that was most certainly ‘bound to fall apart’ when the common enemy was defeated in 1945. In order to come to a conclusion on the extent to which “An unnatural alliance that was bound to fall apart after the defeat of the common enemy” explains the origin of the cold war the essay will be divided into four parts: the opposed ideologies, events from 1919 to 1945, the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and events subsequent to the conferences until 1949. The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 leading to the establishment of the world’s first socialist state whose guiding ideas were those of communism. For the leaders of the western countries these ideas threatened the very basis of their societies, economically and politically, as they followed an ideology of Capitalism. For the USSR, capitalism which revolves around private enterprise was seen as creating divisions between rich and poor and thus the communists believed that all goods should be taken over...
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....How far do you agree with the view that the development of the Cold War in the period 1945-50 was the result of Stalin’s foreign policy? Development of the Cold War, in the five years between 1945 and 1950, could be argued as taking place for a number of reasons and due to various individuals. It could be easy to simply site Stalin as the main reason responsible for it’s outbreak and growth, clear through his approach on communist expansion, use of Red Army and inability to uphold agreements. However for a war of any kind to develop there is always more than one party involved and the USA and it’s president Truman could also be said to have contributed to the developing of Cold War, arguably being equally aggressive as Stalin – taking an Iron fist on dealings with Russia through policies such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, as well as his direction over the US involvement in the Korean War. However issues such as Britain and Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, as well as the birth of McCarthyism in America, can also be seen as hindering relations between the two superpowers of the Cold War and therefore playing a role in it’s development. Whether Stalin was to blame for the Cold War can also be judged and evaluated through the use of sources, offering a number of interpretations, from extreme Orthodox and Revisionist views to the more diplomatic reasonings of the post revisionist stance. It is correct to say that development of the Cold War, between 1945 and 50...
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...war was caused by Stalin’s aggression and expansionism? INTRODUCTION After the Second World War, there were two important countries which had the power: the USA and URSS. In the Yalta conference in 1945 Stalin had the support from the allies to set up pro-soviet governments in Eastern Europe. But then in the Potsdam conference, there were disagreements about what to do with Germany, about the reparations and about the soviet policy in Eastern Europe. Stalin achieved the domination of these countries (Eastern Europe). Churchill described the border between the soviet countries and the West, as the “iron curtain”. Stalin established a strict regime and imprisoned all the people who opposed the communist rule. I believe that this aggressive expansionism caused the cold war. MAIN BODY During the cold war, there was distrust between the USA and the URSS. There was a propaganda (political) war which created tension. This war would last for 30 years. The Western countries had accepted Stalin’s control over the Eastern countries but they never expected such a complete communist domination. While Stalin saw this domination as the only way to be secure, Truman saw it as the spread of communism. In 1948 Greece and Czechoslovakia were the only countries not controlled by Stalin. There were two groups in Greece, the monarchist and the communists. The communists supported Stalin, but the monarchists wanted the return of the king of Greece. Churchill send British troops to supervise...
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