History Paper 2

Hungary was led by a Communist called Mátyás Rákosi. Hungarians hated him for this various reasons: >Losing freedom of speech >Living with the presence of Soviet troops at all times >The Russian language was imposed to them >They had to pay for Soviet forces to be in their country. >They lived in fear of the secret police. June 1956       A group inside the Communist party opposed him. He asked for help to Moscow but they didn't aid him and he was forced to retire. Ernö Gerö became the new leader, he had the same fate as Rákosi since he also had opposition. The communists allowed a new government to be formed with Imre Nagy as the leader. Soviet troops and tanks stationed in Hungary as the war began to withdraw. Hungarians created local councils to replace the Soviet power. Nagy´s government began to make changes: >They would hold free elections >Creation of  impartial courts >Private ownership to the Farmland >It wanted to withdraw from the

Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 when it was on a crisis and its economy was very weak. Gorbachev seemed to be different to other leaders. Citizens had no longer loyalty to the government or they did not even care. Gorbachev was very worried about alcoholism since life expectancy of Soviet men decreased from 67 in 1964 to 62 in 1980 and it also meant a decline in Soviet industry. Gorbachev knew that to solve the problems, Communist slogans were not enough. In 1987 his perestroika programme (restructuring programme) allowed markets forced to be introduced into the Soviet economy. For the first time in 60 years it was no longer illegal to buy and sell for profit. He began to cut spend on defense since it was an enormous drain on the Soviet economy. Two years later, the USA and the USSR signed a treaty to remove most of their missiles from Europe. Gorbachev also withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan. However all his policies were not successful. In 1990,

The Czechoslovakian people were not pleased with the Communist control happening in 1968. In 1967 Alexander Dubček became the new leader of the Czech Communist party. He proposed some changes such as more freedom of speech and reduction in the secret police activities. Although he reassured Brezhnev that Czechoslovakia had not plans of leaving the Warsaw Pact. As censorship had been eased, the opposition started to launch attacks on the Communist leadership pointing out how corrupt and useless they were. These attacks happened also in television and radio. This period was known as "Prague Spring". By the summer more radical ideas were emerging and there was the discussion of allowing a new Social Democratic Party. Since Czechoslovakia was one of the most important countries in the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union kept an eye on them and their changes and they were very worried that these changes spread to other Communist countries. In order to counteract, he USSR tried to s