POST-WAR EUROPE

1. POST-WAR EUROPE • “What is Europe now? A rubble heap, a breeding ground for pestilence and hate” –Winston Churchill • Problems • Massive civilian and military casualties • Economic conditions worse than they had been during Great Depression • Millions of people who had lost everything • What to do with defeated Germany

2. POTSDAM CONFERENCE • (SUMMER 1945) • HELD IN GERMANY • Germany divided into four occupation zones • British • French • Soviet • American

3. DIVISION OF GERMANY • Each occupying power had to: • Clean out ex-Nazis • Rebuild economy • Re-educate Germans • Reunify into a cleansed Germany • Soviet Union would not cooperate • Resulted in three western zones uniting in 1949 to create West Germany • Soviet zone becomes East Germany

4. ECONOMIC RECOVERY • European Economic Recovery Plan (“The Marshall Plan”) 1948 • Massive amounts of American aid • No strings attached • European recipients encouraged to cooperate together George Marshall

5. THE COMMON MARKET • Creation of European Economic Community (“Common Market”) 1957 • Single free trade zone • Guided by common economic policies • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 1949 • Peacetime military alliance • Led by U.S. • Economic recovery of Western Europe reduced threat of Communism in the region

6. POST-WAR SOVIET UNION • Stalin re-imposes police state • Returned Soviet POWs sent to labor camps • Successful generals eliminated • Five-year plans restored • Soviet Union takes over “liberated” Eastern Europe • Despite earlier promises • Installs communist puppet regimes

7. THE COLD WAR • Cold War with U.S. • Launched by Soviet action in Eastern Europe • Fueled by ideological differences, mutual mistrust, and desire to impose their systems on world • Possession of nuclear weapons by both threatened entire world

8. RISE OF KHRUSHCHEV • Stalin dies in 1952 • Replaced by Valentii Molotov and Nikita Khrushchev • Both realized that changes had to be made • Molotov wanted slow and gradual change • Khrushchev wanted rapid and bold changes

9. KHRUSHCHEV WINS • Khrushchev wins power struggle and emerges as sole master of Soviet Union in 1955 • Delivers anti-Stalin speech in 1956 • Accused Stalin of crimes, incompetence, and “egomania” • Begins “DeStalinization” program

10. DESTALINIZATION • DeStalinization • Massive reform program • Removed most of Stalin’s worst henchmen from office • Gave higher priority to consumer production and housing in 5-Year Plans • Attempted to relax tensions with U.S.

11. HUNGARY 1956 • Imgre Nagy put in power by demonstration in Budapest • Begins reform program designed to improve conditions • Soviet Union responds with invasion • Nagy executed, thousands killed, thousands more forced to flee

12. FALL OF KHRUSHCHEV 1964 • REASONS • DeStalinization was stimulating criticism of the Communist regime within Russia– many feared this might get out of control • Serious foreign policy embarrassments at the hands of the U.S. • Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 • Publicly backed down before President John F. Kennedy U-2 photos of nuclear missile based in Cuba

13. LEONID BREZHNEV1964-1982 • Began “ReStalinization” • Talked about Stalin’s “good points” • Persecuted anti-Stalin artists and writers • Massive arms buildup

14. UNREST IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA • Led by new generation of tech experts and administrators who put Aton Dubcek in power (1968) • Initiates reforms designed to liberalize country • Soviet Union responds with military intervention and issue of the “Brezhnev Doctrine”

15. AFTER BREZHNEV • Brezhnev dies after long illness in 1982 • Replaced by Yuri Andropv • Dies in 1983 • Replaced by Konstantin Chernynencko • Dies in 1984 • Replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev • March 1985 • Relatively young (54) Yuri Andropv Mikhail Gorbachev

16. GORBACHEV • Inherits massive problems • Unproductive agriculture • Sluggish industrial plant • Huge and corrupt bureaucracy • Immense military budget • Legacy of repression • Unwinnable war in Afghanistan • Trick was how to transform Soviet economy and society without destroying the Soviet Union in the process

17. PERESTROIKA • “Restructuring” • Eliminated centralized planning of economy • Ended subsidies to unprofitable industries • Allowed market to determine prices • Turned over much industry and agriculture to private enterprise • Encouraged private investment • Incentives for improved quality and productivity

18. GLASNOST • “Openess” • Re-examine Soviet history • Free public discussion • Impact was enormous, people talked of: • Multi-party democracy • Opening Russia to missionaries • Right to emigrate • Criticized Marxism • Republics talked of independence

19. END OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE • To ease Cold War tensions with U.S., Gorbachev allows Eastern Europe to “choose its own path and forms of development • All Eastern European countries break completely free of Soviet control by 1990

20. BREAKUP Led by Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania Gorbachev initially attempts alternating concessions/repression to keep them in Soviet Union Ultimately forced to let them all go, one by one Non-Russian republics demand independence

21. END OF SOVIET UNION • Problems • Republics breaking away • Economy in disarray • Forces of repression discredited • Military paralyzed • Rise of opportunistic politicians to challenge Gorbachev • Boris Yeltsin

22. COUP • Coup of August 1991 • Organized by old Communist hardliners • Gorbachev put under house arrest • People of St. Petersburg and Boris Yeltsin save the day • Coup fails

23. Gorbachev resigns in December 1991 Boris Yeltsin becomes president of the Republic of Russia Soviet Union ceases to exist

24. POST-GORBACHEV • Explosion of criminal activity and the rise of vicious organized crime “families” • Prostitution, drugs, alcoholism, and vice run rampant • Racism and ethnic hatred also run rampant • Engineers and scientists are selling weapons to terrorists and dictators • Retirement of Yeltsin and electionofVladimir Putinas president has brought some improvement but Russia still has a long way to go