1. Brave New World: Communism on Trial 26

2. Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

3. The Postwar Soviet Union  Economic recovery  New five-year plan, 1946- heavy industry development  Create a new industrial base- women 40% of workforce; consumer goods/housing were ignored  Goal of five-year plan was reached in less than 4 years  Stalin dies in 1953 and succeeded by Georgy Malenkov who quickly fell to rival Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971)  Reduced tensions with the West and tried to boost Russian standard of living  Agricultural reform- added “Virgin Lands” from Kazakhstan; earned him nickname “Cornman”  Problems- disappointing agriculture production, high military spending, decline in industry growth  De-Stalinization- he criticized Stalin’s shortcomings; encouraged more freedoms (intellectual and literacy)  Foreign policy failures- Cuban Missile failures led to his removal  Forced to retire due to “deteriorating health” in 1964

4. The Brezhnev Years, 1964-1982  Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)- Party Chief; Alexei Kosygin-Prime Minister  Stability over reform- sought stability domestically- gave factory managers responsibility at setting prices, wages, and production quos (had little effect)  A Controlled Society  Revival of Stalinism- Restrictive policy against Soviet Critics Physicist Andrei Sakharov arrested and famous writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn forced to leave the country  Free expression restricted Press was controlled- newspapers like Pravada (Truth) and Izvestia (News) were joked by cynics that neither had the truth nor news

5. A Stagnant Economy  Brezhnev’s problems- industrial growth decline to less than 4% in the 1970’s  Absence of incentives- no incentive for hard work or extraordinary achievement; however- everyone had opportunity to work  Athletic achievements were rewarded- Olympic athletes received great rewards in lifestyle and prestige  Senior officials did not receive awards, but had access to foreign goods, cars with chauffeurs, and their children could attend the best schools

6. An Aging Leadership  Brezhnev died in November of 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov (1914-1984)- he had the same approach to policies as Breznev.  Died just a few months in, so didn’t have much effect on the system  Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985)- the Soviet system was still in crisis, with little to no change from these leaders

7. Cultural and Society in the Soviet Bloc  Cultural Expression  Literary and scientific expression dependent on the state  Follow the party line  No criticism of existing social conditions  Soviet literature  Boris Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for his novel (1890-1960), Doctor Zhivago, but was condemned by government, and he was not allowed to receive prize  Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)- won Nobel Prize for novel One Day in Life of Ivan Denisovich was expelled from Soviet Union in 1973 for his novel The Gulag Archipelago

8. Cultural and Society in the Soviet Bloc cont’d  Eastern European states varied from country to country  Desire to create a classless society stripped the ruling class of their special status  Changes in education- access sometimes depended upon one’s social class  Emergence of a new elite- Communist members, state officials, high-ranking military officers, and secret police, some of the professions  Women  Not equal- comprised 50% of engineers, 80% of doctors, 75% of teachers, but were paid less for the same work  Traditional roles in the home remained- “double shift”

9. ©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning ™ is a trademark used herein under license. The States of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union

10. The Disintegration of the Soviet Union  Mikhail Gorbachev - advocated reform, not revolution  Gorbachev Era  Perestroika (restructuring)- called for market economy with limited free enterprise, and some private property  Glasnost (openness)- citizens and officials allowed to discuss strengths/weaknesses of Soviet Union (newspaper Pravada, ran articles of nuclear accident disaster at Chernobyl, and collisions of ships in Black Sea) Political reforms  Call for a new Soviet parliament, 1988- Congress of People’s Deputies elected 1989  Political parties authorized, 1990  Gorbachev become the first president of the Soviet Union, March 1990  1988-1991 nationalist movements erupt December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigns and turns power over to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia

11. The New Russia: From Empire to Nation  Russia under Boris Yeltsin  Committed to introducing a free market economy  Issued a decree dissolving the Congress of People’s Deputies, and scheduled new elections for December  New constitution, 1993 Hard-line resistance - Parliamentary minority resisted and took the offensive, urged supporters to take over government offices and the central television station. Yeltsin ordered military forces to storm the parliament building and arrest hard-line opponents  Problems Growing economic inequality, rampant corruption, and War with Chechnya  Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999; replaced by Vladimir Putin  Vowed to end corruption and strengthen the role of the government in managing the state  Chechnya War continued- Sought to bring it back  Centralized authority and silenced critics

12. Eastern Europe: From Soviet Satellites to Sovereign Nations  Poland  Solidarity – independent labor movement led by Lech Walesa  Free parliamentary elections, 1988  President freely elected by the populace, December, 1990 (Walesa)  Hungary  Attempts at economic reform in the 1980s  Elections, March 1990, non-Communist government came to power  Czechoslovakia  Charter 77- a dissident organization formed to protest violations against human rights  Communist government collapses, December, 1989  East Germany  Oppressive regime of Erich Honecker led to massive demonstrations  Government opened the border with the west; Berlin Wall torn down (1989)  Germany reunited 1990

13. ©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning ™ is a trademark used herein under license. The People’s Republic of China

14. The East is Red: China Under Communism  New Democracy  Patterned after Lenin’s New Economic Policy  Two-thirds of peasant households received land People’s tribunals against landlords and rich farmers  The Transition to Socialism  First Five-Year plan, 1953- called for increases in industrial labor  Collectivization initiated, 1955- all private farmland was collectivized; most businesses and industries were nationalized  Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960 Collectives combined to form people’s communes of 30,000 people Slogan: “Hard Work for a few years, happiness for a thousand” A failure; 15 million died of starvation- bad weather, peasant resistance to the new system (no work incentives, no basic Chinese traditional family unit)

15. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution  Red Guard- worked for Mao to cleanse society of “capitalist” ideals  Policy disagreements- Mao wanted to erase any capitalist values and the remnants of “feudalist” Confucian ideas  Eliminated any profit incentives  Established a new school system that stressed practical education at the expense of science and the humanities  Tried to destroy all traditional society  Destruction of temples, religious sculptures, even street names  Wanted a utopian communism

16. From Mao to Deng  Death of Mao in September 1976 brought a struggle for succession and the end of the Cultural Revolution  Leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997)- Party’s general secretary- seized power from the radicals and formally brought the Cultural Revolution to an end.  Four modernizations – industry, agriculture, technology, defense  Progress in ending problems of poverty and underdevelopment  Encouraged foreign investment  Did not include democracy

17. Incident at Tiananmen Square  Students criticized corruption, nepotism (people of power giving relatives/friends jobs), the favored treatment of senior officials, and inflation  May 1989 student protests- wanted democracy  Army crushes the movement and demonstrators harshly punished

18. ©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning ™ is a trademark used herein under license. Popular Demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, Spring 1989

19. From Marx to Confucius?  Jiang Zemin followed Deng Xiaoping  Consumer good made available, but mostly to urban middle-class  Rapid economic growth and control of dissent  New emphasis on Confucianism in order to put the Western influence to rest  Growing unrest among China’s national minorities

20. Economics in Command  Post-Mao leader have placed economic performance over ideological purity  Attempts to stimulate industrial sector  Tolerate emergence of a small private sector  Opened up the country to foreign investment and technology  Stress educational reform- western model of education adopted  Changes in agriculture- agricultural production went up  Standard of living improved  Problems (one child policy)  Increasingly affluent middle class  Closing of state-run factories has led to millions of workers being dismissed each year

21. Social Changes  Women permitted to vote and participate in the political process  Equal rights with men in marriage  Worked to destroy the influence of the traditional family system (too conservative)  Post-Maoism- shift away from revolutionary utopianism  Religion tolerated (Buddhism, Taoism, and Christianity)  Materialism and political cynicism existed among the youth

22. China’s Changing Culture  In 1949, culture was used for political-philosophical indoctrination (socialist realism)  Released from social realism by the death of Mao  In painting an interest in traditional and Western forms  Literature was to express views on the mistakes of the past  Bai Hua, Bitter Love, critical of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution

23. Discussion Questions  What kinds of reforms did Nikita Khrushchev advocate? What led to his fall from power?  What were the most important social changes in the postwar Soviet Union?  What challenges did Gorbachev face in his efforts to introduce reforms in the Soviet Union?  Why is Confucianism so appealing to China’s current leaders?