Fall of Communism

Eastern Bloc

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics15 Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan

7 SatelliteCountries:Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia

Revolutions of 1989• From the “Spring of Nations” (1848) to the “Autumn of Nations” (1989)

• Peaceful revolutions throughout Eastern Europe– Altered world balance of

power– Ended era of

communism– “Great Danger and

Great Opportunity” co-exist

Causes: Revolutions of 1989

• Long-term economic decline

• Political stagnation

• Foreign Relations disasters

• Change in Soviet leadership: “Gorbachev Factor”

• Nationalism

• The power of the people

Was the Collapse Due to Force? No

• The Cold War cost more than $11 trillion. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites was not a result of force.

– No NATO tank fired a shot.

– No bomb fell on the Kremlin.

Hungary: Comrades, it’s over!Poland: High Noon, time for change

Polish Trade Union: Solidarity

The downfall began in 1980 when striking Polish workers organized Solidarity, an independent trade union of nearly 10 million members.

Background- Poland

• Long history of foreign domination – Partitions, bloody uprisings against Russian authority throughout c19.

• 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976 – series of challenges to the system, occasional short-term gains, eventual defeats.

• Horrors of WWII – 200,000 killed in Warsaw Uprising 1944.

Background (II)

• After 1976 strikes, formation of Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR).

• KSS-KOR leader Jacek Kuron stressed nonviolence – any social movement ‘must get rid of the use of force and compulsion’.

• The Church – move to favor alternative to violent insurrection. Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski “The art is not to die for the homeland; the art is to live well for it”.

Gdansk and Lech Wałęsa

• Price increases and widespread discontent among workers from July 1st 1980.

• Occupation of the Lenin Shipyard.

• For the first time an ‘overarching inter-enterprise organization’, the Strike Committee in Gdansk.

• Election of Lech Walesa

• Organization of striking factories – strict regulations for workers.

• Negotiations with government officials in the shipyard – open discussion for all workers to hear.

Twenty-one demands

• Despite the outbreak of the strikes in August 1980 as a direct response to price increases, economic demands did not occupy center stage in negotiations

• Key political demands;- the right to form independent trade unions- the right to strike- the right to freedom of speech- the release of political prisoners

• These fundamentally challenged the Party’s basis of power and their claim to be the representation of the working class.

Solidarity• By September 1981, Solidarity had a membership of 9.5-10 million,

1/3 of Polish total working age.

• Skirmishes followed a typical pattern – Party neglects some element of agreements, Solidarity counters with threat of nonviolent action, leading to negotiations and eventually compromise.

• Objectives focused on key interests, generated wide support.

• Fundamental challenge to Party legitimacy – form of societal organization running parallel to government.

• October 1981 – ‘Self-Governing Commonwealth’.

The Catholic Church

• Uncommon alliance between workers, the intelligentsia and the Church was a key strategy to power of Solidarity.

• ‘be not overcome by evil, be overcome by good’.

• December 1981 – primate urged an end to social conflict, Council of Bishops sent appeals to parliament.

State of war• Polish military forces introduced a ‘state of war’ in December 1981 –

censorship, curfews, raids, arrests, military courts.

• The first people to be killed in sixteen months since the ‘revolution’ began were workers shot by armed police in the first weeks of the ‘war’.

• Solidarity’s ‘very greatness undermined the possibility of equilibrium between the communist state and a society in search of liberty’ (Aleksander Smolar).

• People of Poland believed that the regime’s crushing of Solidarity saved them from more extreme Soviet military danger – ‘self-limiting counter regime’?

Solidarity’s Chairman: Lech Walesa

The Polish military drove Solidarity underground in 1981. However, in 1983, Solidarity’s chairman, Lech Walesa, won the Nobel peace prize. In 1990, he would be the first freely elected president of the Polish nation in more than sixty years.

East Germany

• “Revolution from Below” – Reform started by the people

• "Wir sind ein Volk" = "We [all Germans] are one people."

• East Germany not “modern”

West Germany vs. East Germany

• West Germany: “Economic Miracle”– Close ties to France, US; key role in NATO– Politics dominated by Socialist party (welfare state)

• East Germany: Stagnation– USSR used workers and industry for its benefit– All trade done with other Soviet Bloc countries– E. German Positives:

• Low unemployment• Workers: basic needs met• Minimal goods available

Fall of the Berlin Wall

• June 1987: Reagan and Gorbachev had begun peace talks

• “Mr. Gorbachev: Tear down this wall”

Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate SpeechPresident Ronald Reagan called upon Gorbachev to tear

down the Berlin Wall: "In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards... Even today, the Soviet Union cannot feed itself. The inescapable conclusion is that freedom is the victor. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace,if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Reunification•1989: Communism is failing

– Without Soviet support:

• Communist leaders ousted

• Economy suffers

•Wall is torn down in November 1989

•1990 German voters approved reunification

The Wall Came Down

• Finally, on the night of November 9, 1989, ordinary Germans poured through the Berlin Wall. The GDR quickly disintegrated, and by the end of 1990, all of East Germany had been incorporated into the wealthy, powerful Federal Republic of Germany.

Germany: Problems

• Prosperous W. Germans paid higher taxes to finance the rebuilding of the East

• Unemployment rose as out-of-date factories in the East were closed

• Global economic slowdown in the 1990s led to further economic trouble

• Increase in neo-Nazism: immigrants blamed for economic troubles

Background: The Soviet Union

• Nikita Khrushev: Stalin’s successor– De-Stalinization– “Peaceful Co-existence” with West– Intolerant of independence

movements• Hungary

– Increased Arms Race– Removed and under house arrest

from 1964-1971

Brezhnev Era• 1964 to 1982

• Suppressed dissidents

• Fully used Brezhnev Doctrine: promise of use of violence against fellow Warsaw Pact members

• Interesting in meeting with US, but not willing to negotiate away any stockpiles of weapons

The Soviet Invasion in Afghanistan (1979-1989) Overview

• The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a 10-year war which wreaked incredible destruction on Afghanistan.

• The war started officially started on December 24, 1979.

• Soviet troops ultimately withdrew from the area between May 15, 1988 and February 2, 1989. The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan on February 15.

World Reaction• The invasion was regarded by many as an

unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country by another.

• The United Nations General Assembly passed United Nations Resolution 37/37 on November 29, 1983, which stated that the Soviet Union forces should withdraw from Afghanistan.

• Others supported the Soviet Union, regarding it as coming to the rescue of an impoverished ally, or as a pre-emptive war against Islamist terrorists. The CIA invested US$2.1 billion over a 10-year period to create an anti-Soviet resistance.

Why was Afghanistan Important? • Some believed that the Soviet Union's presence in

Afghanistan was motivated by a desire to bring its forces closer to a strategic choke-point: the mouth of the Persian gulf, the route for most of the world's oil supertankers.

• Afghanistan is separated from the Arabian Sea by the sparsely populated Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Had there been a breakup of Pakistan or a favorable regime change, Soviet forces would have access to Baluchi or Pakistani ports.

It Did Not Work…

• Soviet troops were not able to gain access the the Persian Gulf.

• After a long and unsuccessful conflict with the CIA-backed Mujahedeen, Soviet troops ultimately withdrew from the area between May 15, 1988 and February 2, 1989. The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan on February 15.

The End of Brezhnev = New Generation of Leaders

Failure of the Planned Economy

• Soviet benefits: low rents, cheap staple food items, free health care/day care, very little unemployment

• Soviet Drawbacks– Collectivization unproductive – Command economy cannot produce enough consumer

goods• Long lines, few luxury items

– Central planning unaware of local problems– Lifetime security = little worker motivation

• 1953: European Common Market

• Soviets invited to join, declined

• Created long-lasting suspicion

• Fed Cold War fears

Detente

• Definition: Easing of tension between the USSR and US in the 1970s

• Ended in 1979 – Lack of trust– Neither nation willing to

give up nuclear weapons.

The Gorbachev Revolution

• Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), recognized that the Soviet Union could not remain politically and economically isolated and that the Soviet system had to be changed if it was to survive.

The Gorbachev Revolution• 1985: new generation• Renounced Brezhnev

Doctrine– Improve economy by

reducing military spending– Pulled troops out of

Afghanistan• Must make an agreement

with the United States about nuclear weapons

Gorbachev Reform• Glasnost: “openness”

– Ended censorship, encouraged discussion of problems• Perestroika

– Restructuring of the government and economy– Reduced size of bureaucracy– Backed free marked reform– “essence of communism”

• State still owns factories, but managers make decisions

• Land is still owned by state, but farmers can have more for personal profit

• Eliminates Soviet monopoly on political parties

Reforms Were Too Slow

• The gradual market reforms and decentralization of the economy (perestroika) were too slow and failed to keep pace with the crisis and his people's demands.

• The Soviet Union was suffering a deterioration of economic and social conditions and a fall in the GNP.

Party Reforms a FailureHis attempts to reform the

Communist Party were a failure. Change was too slow to keep pace with events and he was continually hampered by his need to give in to the hard-liners in order to retain power. As communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, reform of communism in the Soviet Union became unlikely.

Release from Soviet DominationThe renunciation of the

Brezhnev Doctrine (armed intervention in support of socialism) released the Eastern European states from Soviet domination.

The communist rulers of these states could not survive without the support of the Soviet Union.

The Brezhnev Doctrine was articulated in 1968 when the Soviet army occupied Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring, an attempt by Alexander Dubcek to build “socialism with a human face.”

Gorbachev Loses Power

• Reform = economic chaos. Problems are actually worse

• Without gov. help, factories closed, increasing unemployment

• Discontent spread

– Independence for many Bloc nations

• 1991: Gorbachev resigns.

• Communism dead after 74 years.

Communism fell, but so did Gorbachev.

Communist Party Voted Out

1991: Russia Under Yeltsin

• 1991: Boris Yeltsin– 1993: Crisis, Constitution adopted

• Privatization of state-run industries and farms

• High unemployment and prices– Led to organized crime, corruption

• 1998: economy collapsed• No one to give aid to Russia (unlike

E. Germany)

Problems in Russia: Minorities• 1994: Revolt in Chechnya. Want to secede

– Many ethnic groups, but mostly Muslim• 1999: Another revolt• 1999: Terrorist activity in Moscow by Chechen rebels• 2000: Revolts crushed by Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

• Member of Soviet secret police- KGB, reputation for ruthlessness. Not a strong supporter of Democracy.

• Acting president in 1999 when Yeltsin resigned, elected in 2000

• Unable to stop terrorist activity by Chechen rebels

• Corruption is still a problem

15 Republics = The CommonwealthEstablished 1991