Communism and the Cold War

1. Communism and the Cold War

2. Early Soviet Union under communism • Lenin comes to power by means of a disciplined hierarchical party, soon including what would become the KGB. • First four years, civil war with Czar supporters, aided by U.S. • 1921 Introduced the New Economic Policy • 1924 Lenin dies

3. The General Secretary emerges • Lenin’s testament • By 1927 Stalin emerges as most powerful figure • 1929 rejects NEP, begins forced industrialization • in the countryside, collectivization • millions starve • 1930s, purges and show trials • 100,000s executed, maybe 5 million died in gulag

4. Trotsky and Kamenev disappear

5. Great Patriotic War • USSR was probably most responsible for Allied victory • also suffered the most--over 20 million died

6. (Relative) thaw • 1953 Stalin dies • 1956 Krushchev gives “secret speech” denouncing Stalin and the cult of personality • reorients economy more towards consumer goods, housing

7. COLD WAR

8. Post war period • expanded soviet sphere--in defiance of Yalta Accord • --buffer or expansionism?

9. iron curtain

10. US response • 1947 Truman announces that US will aid any country resisting “outside pressures” • lesson learned from appeasing Hitler • Marshall Plan • US provides 13 billion to western Europe (then Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) to rebuild

11. Cold War intensifies • 1948 Berlin blockade and airlift • 1949 Soviets test the atomic bomb • China “goes communist” • America “goes McCarthyite”

12. China--since 1949 • 1958-60 “Great Leap Forward” • Mao orders collectivization, backyard foundaries • 20-30 million die through starvation • 1962 break with Soviet Union obvious • 1966-76 “Cultural Revolution” • universities close, Red Guards run amok, “counter-revolutionaries” killed • 1978 period of (economic) liberalization begins under Deng Xiaoping

13. Proxy wars • “minor conflicts” around the world • http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/worldhistory/unit_video_22-2.html • Major troop deployments: • 1950-53 Korea • 1965-73 Vietnam • 1979-89 Afghanistan

14. Close call for World War III • Cuban missile crisis 1962

15. The big surprise • The end of European communism • 1970s and 80s religious and cultural dissent • failing economies • Reagan’s role?

16. New blood at the Kremlin • 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary • initiates reforms--glasnost and perestroika • 1988 allows contested elections within the Communist Party

17. Movement in Eastern Europe • 1980s rise of “Solidarity”--suppressed • 1988 illegal “Solidarity” shipworkers, with encouragement from the Pope, go on strike • 1989 Polish Communist party (and Gorbachev) allows Solidarity to compete in national elections • Solidarity victory

18. East Germany • Very little reform--the Stasi • Gorbachev calls for change in East Germany • East German tourists go through Hungary to Austria--at first a few, then 10,000s • Berlin Wall is torn down • 1990 Germany reunified

19. Back in USSR • 1991 hardliners in the military wage a coup against Gorbachev, coup fails • Communist Party is abolished in Russia • Soviet Union is dissolved by decree • CIS is formed

20. 12 new nation states

21. Russia--backsliding under Putin since 2000? • nostalgia for “good old days”, and Chinese model • increasing control over media--especially TV • arrest of oligarchs on trumped up charges--Khodorkovsky • using Chechen war to make governorships appointed, not elected

22. continuing revolutions • “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgistan • http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4459224.stm#

23. Who is left among Communists? • 5 countries: • China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, Cuba • And several post Communist societies have changed little

24. In China . . . • 1989--crackdown at Tiananmen Square • in 1990s, some signs of loosening up • local contested elections • more freedom to criticize local governments • 1000s of NGOs allowed to organize • on the other hand, since 1999 Falun Gong outlawed, etc.