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Unit 6: How secure was the USSR's control over Eastern Europe? (Berlin…
Unit 6: How secure was the USSR's control over Eastern Europe?
Hungarian uprising
The USSR also banned the Catholic Church, used the secret police and controlled the education system in Hungary. The Hungarians protested by demanding many things like, a new leader, withdraw of the “Red Army”, and leaving the Warsaw Pact.
Nikita Khrushchev responded with bringing in the army and in two weeks 3,000 Hungarians were killed and 200,00 fled to Austria. The leaders of the uprising were imprisoned and the new president, Imre Nagy, was executed.
Hungary had been a “Satellite State” of the USSR since after WWII. The USSR was using Hungary for it’s own benefit and this made the Hungarian upset.
Prague spring
system. The Czech government allowed more political parties to exist and relaxed the ban on some freedoms like censorship of the press.
Even though Alexander Dubcek, promised to stay in the Warsaw Pact, the USSR invaded his country to avoid the spreading of these ideas into Eastern Europe. This in Czechoslovakia was called the Prague Spring. It showed the world that USSR was bound to use force to keep control of its satellite states in Eastern Europe.
USSR had taken control of Czechoslovakia. By 1968 the Czechs in the Capital, Prague, were tired of the lower standard of living, lack of Freedoms, and the One-Party system.
Berlin wall
Some of these Germans used the capitalist side of Berlin as an escape route. From the capitalis side of berlin they could fly away fro the country of Germany.
Leonid Brezhnev, decided to put a wall around the capitalist city of Berlin to stop the Germans from leaving, although he claimed it was to stop capitalist spies from entering his territory. The Wall remained in place for 28 years and did decrease the number of Germans fleeing the communist controlled country.
Many Germans were unhappy with the USSR running their country, due to the low standard of living and lack of basic freedoms.
The Berlin Wall also became a symbol for the Cold War but eventually it was made useless in 1989 when the Germans refused to be held back by it. When it was removed, people paint the splited parts of the wall. some of them were taken to museums around the world.
Poland solidarity
Solidarity became a legitimate political party and the holding os semi-free elections on 1989, in which the solidarity movement gained 99 out of 100 freely contested seats on the Polish senate.
solidarity was no the first non-communist trade union in the country. This solidarity was led by Lech walesa in responce to long-running concerns about low wages and food shortages that the polish communist government could not solve.
The 1989 electionds in Poland, in which anti-communist candidates won a striking victory, sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in East Gemany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria.
USSR's collapse
these things, Mikhail Gorbachev decided to make some changes to the Communist system. One of these changes was called Glasnost,or “Openness”, this allowed more freedom of speech for the press and transparency in government. Another change was called Perestroika, or “Restructuring”, this allowed some elements of Capitalism into the USSR’s economy. Gorbachev also decreased the amount of money the government was spending on the military.
During the 1980's the due to a lack of growth and over spending on the military and life for the average citizen in the USSR was decreasing in quality.
All the countries under control of the USSR eventually turned away from Communism. On Dec. 25th 1991, after the election of Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev declared the USSR to be dead.