Two years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union buckled. The Communist party was broken because the Russian Republic hindered to eject Gorbachev from office. In December 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) included Russian Republics. “The Russian Republic assumed leadership of the CIS, but the Soviet Union was no more.” The Cold War was a long drawn out battle between Democracy and Communism. The United States believed that a country should have the ability to choose its government; not be feared of it.
Assess the reasons for the overthrow of Soviet Power in Eastern Europe. The Cold War (1945-91) was mainly between some of the most influential countries, USSR, USA and western European countries. Soviet power had dominated Eastern Europe for the majority of the Cold War, however, around the early 1980s this power began to falter. There were many reason for the overthrow of the Soviet power, some of which were, the economic decline in the USSR, the power of the people, the introduction of Gorbachev and Western prosperity. So which of these reasons was the most important?
The change in Chinese policy was to shatter the perception of a bipolar world that existed since the beginning of the cold war. Superpower relations were now best described as a triangular process involving china, the USSR and the USA. Therefore, the deterioration in Sino-soviet relations in the years 1958-69 was due to a change in China’s foreign policy to protect Chinese national security, rather than simply being put down to personal rivalries. The communist takeover of China in 1949 was viewed by the US government as another victory for the forces of world communism. Mao was seen as an instrument of the Soviet Union’s bid to spread worldwide revolution.
The Berlin Wall During World War II, The success of West Berlin, “stuck like a bone in the soviet throat” as the soviet leader Nikita Khrushev put it. So the Russians knew that the allies in the west had to go, so they began their attempt to drive the United States, Great Britain, And France out of the western nation for good. In 1948, a Soviet blockade on West Berlin tried to starve them out of the City. But instead of complying and retreating from there, the strong allies supplied there stations from the air, which became known as the Berlin Airlift. The Berlin Airlift lasted more than a year and delivered more than 2.3 million tons of food, fuel, and other goods to West Berlin.
2. Why did the Leninist regimes in East-Central Europe collapse so suddenly in 1989? When looking at the collapse of Leninist Regimes in East Central Europe, it is important to distinguish between chronic, long term factors; such as the economic stagnation in comparison to the capitalist Western Europe, and the decrease in ideological passion of communism. These must be seen as setting the foundations for the events of the 1980s such as Gorbachev’s leadership and the round table talks in Poland, which acted as a catalyst for the collapse of Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. The economic problems of the Soviet Bloc were at the core of communisms downfall.
The second outcome of the revolutions was that the countries were dramatically changed, two great powers were stopped and communist leaders eventually took over in the two countries. Russia and China both shared similar goals in that they both wanted a new form of government and leadership. Russia’s ruler was Tsar Nicholas II which ruled Russia for more than three centuries. China’s ruling dynasty was the Qing Dynasty. Tsar Nicholas II wasn’t much of a good ruler for Russia; he ignored the fact that Russia wasn’t doing so good and overlooked the industrialization and nationalism that was occurring throughout Russia.
The Second Red Scare In1945 when world war two had ended due to Japan surrendering, the United States and soviets had become the two new superpowers. They were fighting so much that it created the cold war at the end of the war. During this war the soviets wanted to spread communism and the United States wanted to contain it. This time period was known as The Second Red Scare (ohiocentralhistory.org). Truman hastily enacted plans to contain communism in America after seeing that Communist in China had almost full control of country (slideshare.net).
The division of Germany into four regions of interest and also the division of Berlin resulted in an attempt by Stalin to make the Western Allies relinquish control of their sectors. This materialized in the form of the Berlin Blockade in 1848 that resulted in the Allied Berlin Airlift which supplied West Berlin for an amazing ten months solely by plane. Although Stalin relented, he felt resentment toward the Westerners. This accelerated the formation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1949 which resulted in a Soviet counterpart called the Warsaw Pact. The promises on the part of reunification of Germany and free elections in Poland had not materialized by the time of his death in
In 1930 President Roosevelt won election and started the New deal in hopes of turning American strife around. With millions unemployed nationally, it would be a tough job. The banks were dry, as well as, farmer’s lands across America. It seemed that trade had come to a dead end and that everything was going in circles, creating an echo effect internationally. It would be years before America was back on its feet economically, and another great war lied ahead, but somehow Americans were able to keep their hopes and dreams alive and come out on the other
In history, there is a disagreement between the historians that when the Cold War started. Some historians dated that it origins after the World War II others said against it that it began at the end of the World War, when tensions between the USSR, USA and European countries had already shown distrust between the western power and the Soviet Union due the result of 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. It is generally considered as the time period between 1945 and 1990 (McCauley, 2004). It was a diplomatic struggle and arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union, NATO and the Warsaw Pact (McCauley, 2004). The United States embarked on a famine relief program in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and American businessmen established commercial