History Paper 2

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...

During the Communist control over Poland, there were regular protests about wages and food prices. During the first half of the 1970s Polish industry performed well. Polish citizens seemed happy about their communist state. However their economy hit a crisis, 1976 was a bad year and 1979 was the worst year for the industries. The government did not know how to solve it and they tried to hide the crisis. Trade unions were ineffective so Polish workers settled up small and independent trade unions. In 1980 strikes broke out all over the country and the new trade union, Solidarity, was getting stronger. In August 1980, Lech Walesa put forward 21 demands to the government and they started a free trade union called Solidarity. The 30th of August the government agreed to all 21 Solidarity's demands and Solidarity members continued growing. In February 1981 the Prime Minister resigned and was replaced by the leader of the army, Jaruzelski. In May “Rural Solidarity” was set u...

Lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. The mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the country's rural countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed by the United States and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power after a 1978 coup, installing Nur Mohammad Taraki as president. The government vigorously suppressed any opposition and arrested thousands, executing as many as 27,000 political prisoners. Anti-government armed groups were formed, and by April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion. The government itself was highly unstable with in-party rivalry, and in September 1979 Taraki was killed under orders of his rival H...

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

The Warsaw Pact, was a collective defence treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven Soviet satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. It was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, but it is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe. There was no direct confrontation between them. Instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland and its electoral success in June 1989. East Germany withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from the six...