Russia 900-1917
Soviet Union (USSR) 1917-1991
Russia 1991-present
True or False about Lech Walesa












T or F fought the Germans in WWII
T or F lost his job as a result of organizing ship workers to go on strike
T or F founded the anti-communist political group Solidarity
T or F Solidarity was a pretty small group of only about 1,000 workers
T or F Walesa organized strikes all over Poland
T or F was an Atheist because he was raised in a communist country
T or F a new general was made leader of Poland and arrested Walesa
T or F Walesa won the Nobel Peace prize for organizing non violent
protests
T or F seeing all the strikes Russian dictator Mikhail Gorbachev sent
Russian tanks in to stop the protests
T or F eventually Poland had democratic elections and Poland got rid of
communism
T or F in 1989 a KGB sniper assassinated Walesa while he was
campaigning in Poland
T or F Walesa was eventually elected president of Poland













Soviet Control over Eastern Europe
A Communist govt was forced on countries
NO free speech
Govt. controlled media
No foreign newspapers/tv
Govt take over of land and businesses
(collectivization)
Factories must produce what govt wants
(tanks not nice clothes)
Stores are empty
Govt waiting list to buy a car
Persecuted religion
Secret police arrest thousands(fear)
Barbed wire keeps people from leaving
Massive pollution, destroying rivers
because govt controls media
FEAR – that if you protest Russian troops
will invade

After WWII Stalin’s
armies stayed in the
countries of eastern
Europe and rigged
elections to make
sure that all of them
had Communist
governments
Poland
1980s
Prague, Czechoslovakia 1968
Hungary 1956
Warsaw Pact:

The USSR and
Countries of Eastern
Europe’s alliance
against NATO

Formed in 1955

Basically Stalin’s
response to NATO
Nikita Krushchev
3rd dictator of USSR
(after Lenin and Stalin
– died in 1953)
 Was leader for
Sputnik, 1st man in
space, built the Berlin
Wall
 Put Missiles in Cuba

WARSAW Pact:
 An alliance of
 Eastern European
 countries
 and USSR.
 To form
 strength
 against
 NATO

Hungary 1956
After losing the Cuban
Missile Crisis to JFK
Nikita Khrushchev fell
out of favor with the
USSR
 Leonid Breshnev then
became the next
dictator of USSR

Quote from Brezhnev Doctrine

“When internal and
external forces hostile to
socialism(communism)
attempt to turn the
development of any
socialist country in the
direction of
capitalism…..it becomes
a threat to all socialist
countries”
1.Lenin, 2.Stalin, 3.Krushchev, 4.Breshnev
5.Andropov, 6.Chernenko, 7.Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin
Russia not
USSR
LAST
Prague

(Czechoslovakia)
Spring 1968
Again, Russia rolls in
the tanks
Prague, Czech
Hungary?
both
1968

 Wanted to leave Warsaw Pact
 Demonstrated for democracy 
and free speech
 Krushchev had to deal with

 Alexander Dubcek

 Tanks rolled in and shot
people

 Breshznev dealt with

 1956
 72 people were killed

 Leader was just removed


Prague?
Thought America might get
involved
Said that they would stay
communist just wanted more
freedom
Imre Nagy
Said wouldn’t leave Warsaw
Pact
Over 4,000 killed
Less violent- protesters with
flowers
The movement was crushed
leader was executed
Similarities between Hungary and
Prague
And if you mess with Russia
Today
Stores

Capitalist country

Communist country
(Cuba)
Churchill’s reference to the “Iron Curtain”

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste
in the Adriatic an "iron
curtain" has descended across
the Continent.

Definition: a curtain or wall of
barbed wire and guards that
stop anyone in eastern Europe
from leaving and going to the
west
Russia/ SOVIET UNION
Factors that helped kill communism
and the Soviet Union

Russia had huge financial problems
US President Ronald Reagan was
massively building our military and
USSR couldn’t keep up
Afghanistan: The Soviets had been
fighting an expensive 10 year battle
to take Afghanistan
Alcoholism
Alcoholism was
affecting work
production and
 The quality of
 Russian goods

There was little demand for Russian goods
Mikhail Gorbachev: the last communist
dictator of the Soviet Union

To help his struggling
country Gorbachev
introduced some new
policies

Glasnost: open,
uncensored discussion
about problems in the
Soviet Union
Perestroika: a
restructuring of the soviet
economy that allows
some capitalism and local
control

INF Treaty (Intermediate –Range Nuclear
Forces)



The INF Treaty was a
treaty signed by
Gorbachev and Reagan in
1987
The Treaty eliminated all
ground-launched nuclear
missiles in Europe
Question: why was
Gorbachev looking for
arms reduction
agreements with the US?
1. Did it hurt the Soviet Union and its control
over Eastern Europe? Yes/No
2. Was Gorbachev Responsible? not at all – some- lots







Perestroika?
Arms treaty with the
US?
Glasnost?
Hollywood movies?
Russian war in
Afghanistan?
Secret police/
Censorship?
The arms race with
the US?
Communist party
officials getting better
homes and food than
non communist
members
 Free health care
 Gorbachev saying that
he would not get
involved in Eastern
European affairs?
 Vodka?

Leonid Brezhnev
USSR’s 4th dictator
after Khrushchev
 Served from 19641982
 Crushed rebellions in
Czechoslovakia
 Invaded Afghanistan

Prague

(Czechoslovakia)
Spring 1968
Again, Russia rolls in
the tanks
Prague, Czech
1.Lenin, 2.Stalin, 3.Krushchev, 4.Breshnev
5.Andropov, 6.Chernenko, 7.Gorbachev
SDI – Strategic Defense Initiative

SDI: “Star Wars”
In the 1980s Polish citizens
protested for Reform
 The Communist dictator
asked Russia for help
 But Gorbachev had already
explained in a speech,


“ there must be no interference
from the outside. Each society
(country) must choose its own
path”

Question: What message did
this speech send to all the
countries of Eastern Europe?
Directions for the activity:
 1.

respect the REGULATOR
Regulator’s job: keep on task – make sure everyone shares
 2.
Read the event aloud
 3. Discuss each reason –
(regulator make
sure each group member shares)
 4.
everyone must write his/her own
answer
 5. be prepared to answer my questions
at the end
(I’m going to call on random people to check
for understanding)
HEADPACKER Activity
(SUMMARY Question)

Complete the Following:
 1.
Detail 3 or more reasons
communism declined and Russian
control over Eastern Europe began
to collapse
Poland
Unions:



A labor union: large groups
of workers banding together to
create negotiating power
against the power that be.
Unions bargain for benefits like
more pay, or better working
conditions
They negotiate labor contracts
(Collective bargaining) with
employers. This may include
the negotiation of wages,
work rules, complaint
procedures, rules governing
hiring, firing and promotion of
workers, benefits,
workplace safety and policies.

in the summer of
1980 strikes broke
out all over Poland
with thousands of
people protesting
against the
communist
government
Solidarity
Many different unions
joined together to
form Solidarity:
 Solidarity was the
biggest and most
influential labor union
in the Polish
Revolution to get rid
of communism.

Lech Walesa
The man who broke the Iron Curtain

The Leader of
Solidarity was an
electrician named
Lech Walesa














Atheist: NO God materialisteverything is “matter” there’s no
soul –no heaven-no God
AGNOSTIC: Just don’t know
Karl Marx had written that
“religion is the opiate of the masses”
In other words; religion was a
drug to make people forget their
worldly problems.
People need to be stirred up, mad
want Revolution
Most communists were atheists
Believers were heavily persecuted
Closed and destroyed churches
Thousands of priests sent to
concentration camps or shot
Brainwashed kids
Against the law to teach kids
about God
Anti- religious posters
“Red” weddings/funerals
over 9 million people (1/3 of
Poland's population) joined this
union
 Because communism taught
atheism Poland held strongly
to their religion
 the union was allied with the
Catholic Church
 Their tactics were non
violent
 Polish Pope John Paul II
visited Poland many times to
support the movement









Frustrated, Communists put
General Jaruzelski in charge of
the country
The General put the country
under Martial Law (rule by the
military)
He banned Solidarity
He arrested Lech Walesa and
10,000 others
He had the Russian military do
training exercises on the Polish
border as a threat
He had his soldiers open fire
on protesters doing a non
violent demonstration
Secret police killed Poland’s
top priest
By the end of 1981 he had put
150,000 people in custody for
'revolutionary activities'





After years of protests
and negotiations with
communist officials
Solidarity negotiated the
right for free (not communist
controlled) elections
Many ‘Solidarity’
members were elected to
parliament
This Parliament voted
communism out and
passed laws like free
speech and freedom of
religion
It also Elected Walesa
president









Why do workers sometimes go on strike?
How do strikes hurt industry?
What would happen if only 25 people went on strike?
What would happen in over a million people went on
strike?
What was “Solidarity’?
Why do you think Pope John Paul was always going to
the rallies in Poland?
Why was a military general put in charge of Poland?
Why didn’t Gorbachev step in and stop the Polish
movements?
What eventually happened in Poland?

Following Poland's lead,
Their parliament adopted
legislation providing for
multi-party parliamentary
elections and a direct
presidential election.
Hungary also decides to
open its borders and let
people freely leave
(communist countries had
always kept people from
leaving with barbed wire
and machine guns)
Hungary
East Germany

After Hungary's reformist
government opened its
borders, a growing
number of East Germans
began emigrating to West
Germany via Hungary's
border with Austria. By
the end of September
1989, more than 30,000
East Germans had
escaped to the West.
Thousands of East
Germans also tried to
reach the West by
staging sit-ins at West
German diplomatic
facilities in other Eastern
Fall of the Berlin Wall


Under severe public
pressure and opened
parts of the Berlin Wall
and other parts of their
border with West
Germany.
On November 9th 1989
thousands had jammed
packed Berlin and were
taking hammers and
knocking down the wall.
East German officials did
nothing to stop them
1989
Czechoslovakia ‘Velvet Revolution’





After watching east Germany
Czechs rallied in the streets to
demand free elections. On
November 17, 1989, a peaceful
student demonstration in
Prague was severely beaten
back by the riot police.
By the end of November the
number of peaceful protesters
assembled in Prague had
swelled from 200,000.
The government eventually
resigned ending communist
rule.
Later, Czechs and Slovaks
decided to break their country
into two separate countries –
The Czech Republic and the
nation of Slovakia

Romania
Romania had been ruled by an iron-fisted dictator
named Nicolai Ceausescu. Seeing all these
reforms going on in other countries in Eastern
Europe Ceausescu ordered a mass rally to show
the strength of communism. However, to his
shock, the crowd booed as he spoke. At first his
security forces obeyed Ceausescu's orders to
shoot the protesters, but on the morning of
December 22nd, the Romanian military suddenly
changed sides. Army tanks began moving
towards the Central Committee building with
crowds swarming alongside them. The rioters
forced open the doors of the Communist offices
in an attempt to get Ceausescu. The protesters
eventually caught him. On Christmas Day,
Romanian television showed the Ceausescu's
facing a hasty trial, and then he and his wife
were executed. Pictures of their dead bodies
were broadcasted nation-wide. Communism was
no more in Romania
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China 1989

In April 1989, over a million
Chinese citizens gathered to
protest for democratic reforms.







For weeks they gave speeches
asking for democracy and free
speech –
They even built a huge
‘goddess of democracy’
In June the Chinese Army
moved in and killed thousands
China did NOT
Get rid of
Communism
The break-up of the Soviet Union
As mention before, when
all these independence
movements were going
on in Eastern Europe and
the Berlin Wall was
coming down Gorbachev,
the Soviet dictator,
decided to not intervene.
 Because of this many of
the Soviet republics
(Ukraine, Lithuania,
Kazakhstan, etc.)
thought they’d try their
chances at independence

Lithuania 1991

In March 1990 the Soviet
republic of Lithuania
declared its independence
from the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev ordered a
blockade of the region to
starve them into staying.
In January 1991 he
ordered the army into
Lithuania to put down pro
democracy
demonstrations. 14 were
killed and more than 100
were wounded and
Lithuania’s independence
movement was crushed.
Boris Yeltsin

After the Lithuania
incident Boris Yeltsin
a popular politician
from Moscow
denounced what
Gorbachev did. The
popular Yeltsin called
on the Soviet Union
to begin democratic
and economic reforms
The August ‘Coup’ attempt
Hard line communists
and military leaders
worried that Gorbachev
was trying to end
communist rule
 So in August 1991 a
group of military officers
kidnapped Gorbachev,
demanded his
resignation and said that
they were taking over
the government

The ‘Coup’ attempt fails



While Gorbachev was being
held, all over the USSR people
were in the streets protesting
and demanding independence
The hardline military officers
ordered the army to break up
the demonstrations and take
control
The army refused to shoot the
demonstrators and the coup
attempt failed because the
army wouldn’t follow the
orders of the hardline officers
Gorbachev resigns
Seeing the dissatisfaction
of the people, on
Christmas day 1991
Gorbachev resigned
 That same day the Soviet
parliament voted to end
the Soviet Union
 Within days all the soviet
republics had declared
their independence
 Boris Yeltsin was elected
President of Russia not
the Soviet Union


Who was the last dictator of the Soviet
Union?
Break up of Yugoslavia: Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia
Boris Yeltsin
Russia not
USSR
LAST