Chapter 28
Brave New World: Communism
The States of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union
1. Poland achieved stability in the l960s but by 1971 economic problems became unsettling. An effort in 1980 to pay off its foreign debt by increasing
food prices resulted in worker protests that gave birth to a labor movement called Solidarity. Concessions were wrung from the government until
December 1981 when leaders of Solidarity were arrested. The union was outlawed and the military assumed rule. In 1988 demonstrations broke out
and the regime had to concede free parliamentary elections. In April 1990 it was decided that a new president would be freely elected. In December
Lech Walesa was chosen president.
2. After the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian revolution in 1956, it imposed Janos Kadar on the nation. A reformist1 he maintained many of the
revolution's economic reforms. In the 1980s, he legalized small private enterprise and slowly moved Hungary away from strict Soviet dominance.
Multi-candidate elections were permitted in 1985. Nevertheless, economic difficulties led to Kadar's ouster in 1988. The communist government faced
growing dissatisfaction from the populace and began initiating reforms. In 1990 elections brought a coalition government to power which committed
Hungary to democracy and a free economy.
3. Although the Czechoslovakian Communist government repressed opposition after the 1968 revolution, dissident movements grew in the 1970s and
especially the 1980s. Attempts to suppress demonstrations in 1988 and 1989 led to more demonstrations. Continuing public pressure resulted in
the collapse of the Communist government in December 1989. The Czechs and Slovaks could not agree on the makeup of the new state and
therefore peacefully agreed to divide the country between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This was accomplished on January 1, 1993.
4. The iron grip of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania was broken in 1989 when his plan for rapid urbanization in conjunction with a poor economy and
food shortages led to the loss of support from the people and the army. He was executed on Christmas Day, 1989. The new government has
shown little commitment to democracy. In nearby Bulgaria the Communist party succumbed to anti-government demonstrations in 1989 and in
1990 free elections were held with the old Communist party under the name of the Bulgarian socialist won the election. Likewise, the movement to
democracy reached Albania in 1989 when reforms brought free elections in 1991. In Yugoslavia, the death of Josip Tito in 1980 left a vacuum and
when the people were caught up in the reform movements the government ended authoritarian socialism in 1990. Serbian (Yugoslavia) objectives
in forming a Greater Serbian state have led to war.
Question:
1. How did the democratic movements of the 1980's destroy communism?
The States of Eastern Europe and
the Former Soviet Union
 The Soviet Union and Its Eastern European Satellites,
1945-1970
 Economic recovery
New five year plan, 1946
 Paranoia of Stalin contributes to repression
 Stalin dies in 1953 and succeeded by Georgy Malenkov
who quickly fell to rival Nikita Khruschev (1894-1971)
 Economic reform
 De-Stalinization
 Greater freedom
 Anger of the party bureaucracy
 Foreign policy failures, Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
 Forced to retire due to “deteriorating health”, 1964
 The Brezhnev Years, 1964-1982
 Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)
Stability over reform
Revival of Stalin’s reputation
New state constitution, 1977
Stagnant industrial and agricultural economy
 Shortage of consumer goods
 Inadequate civilian technology
 Inefficient use of energy
 Inadequate leadership, 1982-1985
 Culture in the Soviet Bloc
 Followed the party line
 No criticism
 Eastern European states varied from country to country
Charter 77
Tourism
Sports
 Social changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
 Successful transition in most states from agriculture to
industry
 Changes in education
 Women
 Disintegration of the Soviet Union
 Gorbachev Era
Perestroika (restructuring)
Glasnost
Political reforms
Call for a new Soviet parliament, 1988
 Congress of People’s Deputies elected 1989
1988-1990 nationalist movements erupt
 Lithuania declares independence, 1990; rejected
by the Congress
Gorbachev arrested, August 19, 1991; coup fails
Ukraine votes for independence, December 1991,
others follow
 December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigns and turns
power over to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia
 Eastern Europe: From Soviet Satellites to Sovereign
Nations
 Poland
Solidarity
General Wojciech Jaruzelski outlaws Solidarity,
December 1981
Free parliamentary elections, 1988
President freely elected by the populace, April 1990
 Hungary
Elections, March 1990
 Czechoslovakia
Charter 77
Communist government collapses, December 1989
Czechoslovakia splits into the Czeh Republic and
Slovakia, January 1, 1993
 Unification of Germany
Economic problems and unrest
Communist government falls, November 1989
West and East German economies united, July 1,
1990
Politically unified, October 2, 1990
 Yugoslavia
Death of Tito in 1980
Non-communists win elections in Slovenia, Coatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia and call
for federalist structure, 1990
Slbodan Milosevic rejects these efforts without new
border arrangements to accommodate Serb
minorities
Slovenia and Croatia declare independence, 1991
Yugoslav army sent into Sovenia and Croatia
 Use of Serbian irregular forces
 Ethnic cleansing of Bosnia Muslims
 Dayton Accords, 1995
 Consequences of the fall of Communist governments
Ill prepared for democracy
Painful conversion to a market economy
Former communists often able to retain important
positions
The People’s Republic of China
1. By 1948 the demoralized Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek were disintegrating. In 1949 Chiang and one million mainland Chinese fled to
Taiwan. In victory, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. Within three years the Communists succeeded in consolidating their
rule. It was not accomplished without cost. In 1957 Mao admitted 800,000 "enemies' had been liquidated.
2. With a large army at its disposal, China sought to re-establish its jurisdiction over the important areas lost with the decline of the Manchus.
Mongolia became a separate republic with ties to the Soviet Union, but China retained Xinjiang. China also sent its forces into Tibet.
3. Mao and Joseph Stalin established a close relationship in the early 1950s and China followed Russia's lead in world affairs. In 1950 a thirty-year
treaty of friendship was signed. China began to go its own way, however, as it initiated the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to achieve accelerated
development. When Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union criticized Chinese policy, Mao reacted angrily in 1960 and relations between the two
states deteriorated. Russian economic aid was abruptly cut off and scientists helping to build a Chinese atomic bomb were withdrawn. In 1969
fighting between China and Russia occurred along the northern border of Xinjiang and over an island in the Ussuri River in the northeast. Both
deployed about a million troops along their 5000 mile mutual border.
4. Sino-Indian relations took a tumble when Chinese troops suppressed a revolt in Tibet in 1959 and India gave asylum to the Dalai Lama. When it
was learned the Chinese were building a road in a region of Tibet claimed by India, troops were sent to the area in the summer of 1962. A brief
border war was fought in which Indian troops were routed when Chinese forces crossed the border.
5. In 1975 a unified Vietnam became an ally of the Soviet Union and thus an enemy of China. The Soviets gave economic and military aid in return
for a naval base at Cam Ranh Bay. Relations with China deteriorated in the late 1970s in part due to ill treatment of ethnic Chinese in the country
and belief that Vietnam was not sufficiently grateful for the aid it had given during the war. In 1979 China sought to teach Vietnam a lesson by
invading its four northern provinces. Vietnam repulsed the invaders but with heavy losses for both sides.
6. In 1997 Hong Kong was returned to China.
Questions:
1. What problems existed between China and Russia?
2. What were the sources of conflict between China and India?
The People’s Republic of China
 China under Communist
 New Democracy
Patterned after Lenin’s New Economic Policy
Two-thirds of peasant households received land
 People’s tribunals against landlords and rich
farmers
 Collectivization initiated, 1955
 Commerce and industry nationalized
 Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960
Collectives combined to form people’s communes
A failure; 15 million died of starvation
 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976
Power struggle, Mao’s supporters now in power
Destroy all vestiges of traditional society
Red Guard, Mao’s Little Red Book
 Anarchy and uncertainty
 Death of Mao in September 1976 brought a
struggle for succession and the end of the Cultural
Revolution
 Leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997)
 Trial of the Gang of Four
 Four modernizations – industry, agriculture,
technology, defense
 Criticism of Fang Lizhi (Fang Li-chih)
 Tiananmen Square, 1989
 Chinese Society under Communism
 Use of mass organizations
 Alienation of the youth from job opportunities contributed
to the growth of the Red Guard and the Cultural
Revolution
Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
 Four Cardinal Principles
 Use of the army to protect against counterrevolutionary
elements
 Control of the economy
More control to local managers
Small private sector
Foreign investment and technology
Education
Agricultural reform
Inflation controlled and increased consumer goods
 Are Marxism and Affluence Compatible in Communist
China?
 Weakness of the 1950s policies
 Post-Maoism shift away from revolutionary utopianism
 Dress, religion, social change, socialist realism, literature,
and
 art