Methods used to maintain power and control
(Green USA, Purple USSR)

Laws and policy changes

Charismatic Leadership

Propaganda

Force and Terror

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USSR:
Stasi.
The Stasi evolved into a highly effective secret police force tasked with ensuring that people followed the rules. East Germany was accustomed to having access to all aspects of society and daily life, including personal and familial connections. How did it achieve this goal using its official network? (which was the secret police officer employees who could use surveillance equipment to follow and spy on people). There was no regard for privacy as they spied on family members, friends, employees, and workers. This worried and alarmed the people since they had to be cautious about what they did because they were being followed.

USSR:
The Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall was completed in 1961 to keep the people of East Berlin from fleeing the Soviets. It was constructed with concrete walls and barbed wire, and it was guarded by watchtowers, attack dogs, and mines. Over 100,000 people attempted to jump the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1988. Over 600 people have been shot, murdered by border guards, or died.

USA: Kent State Massacre. The Kent State Massacre occurred in the United States. On Monday, May 4th, 1970, 28 guards turned and fired into a mass of students in the parking lot about 100 yards distant for unknown reasons.
Eleven pupils were injured, with four of them dying: Sandra Lee Scheuer, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Allison Krause, and William K. Schroeder. These students were protesting the bombing of Cambodia.

USA: President Lyndon B. Johnson's speech. President Lyndon B. Johnson tries to please the people of America by saying that he is trying his best help everyone, end the war and return soldiers, but as long as people are challenging America's security and testing them by fighting in battle he will not let the war end.

USA: The Red Scare (Anti Communist propaganda). During the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Red Scare was anxiety about the perceived threat presented by Communists in the United States. The Red Scare prompted a slew of activities that had far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for the US government and society. Employees of the federal government were evaluated to see if they were sufficiently loyal to the government.

USA: Nixon Vietnamisation. Nixon tried the policy 'Vietnamisation' to pull US troops out of Vietnam while giving the ARVN more money and weapons. Vietnamization was a waste of resources, and failed because it did not allow for the increase of troops and materials on the ARVN's side to fight the NVA's buildup of troops and materials.

USA: Vietnam draft. Following the campus teach-ins, the National Teach-in, and the March on Washington, young anti-war activists realized why the Vietnam Conflict was illogical and ineffectual, and began to protest the immorality of being forced to fight in a war they despised. This was also the first draft since World War II, and this incited vast amounts of controversy as well as causing young men to flee to Canada to avoid conscription.

USA: Unfairly drafting Ali.
During the Vietnam War, boxer Muhammad Ali was one of the notable Americans who refused to be drafted. Ali, the world heavyweight champion at the time, declared himself a "conscientious objector," earning him a three-year ban from boxing and a prison sentence.

USSR: Khrushchev. Khrushchev tried to expose Stalin for his horrible leadership, and even had his body taken out of the Lenin Mausoleum in Red Square. Khrushchev's secret speech openly denounces Stalin. Although it has been alleged that Khrushchev's principal motivation for giving the speech was to solidify his political leadership position by connecting himself with reform initiatives while damaging his opponents in the Presidium by blaming them in Stalin's misdeeds. Khrushchev tried to make the communist regime much less repressive. Khrushchev also introduced destalinization to the regime.

USSR: The government trying their hardest to make people feel good. The East German government began constructing new towns in the 1950s and 1960s. Eisenhuttenstadt was one such example. This town integrated heavy industrial factories with homes, as well as all of the cultural amenities, schools, hospitals, and shops necessary to create the "ideal" socialist society.


Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, many inhabitants praised the town's sense of community, healthcare, daycare, and law and order.

USSR: Healthcare. (This is one paragraph)

In terms of quantity, East Germany had an identical number of hospitals and beds as Western capitalist countries.

The quality of healthcare, on the other hand, was not as good. Most new equipment (such as ultrasonography and computerized machines) had to be imported from the West and was prohibitively expensive. Only about a third of the equipment required for cardiac surgery and transplants was available in the 1980s. There was never a complete spectrum of pharmaceuticals and remedies available.

Many doctors and nurses expressed their dissatisfaction with the shortage of supplies, which included gloves, syringes, and even toilet paper.

Some people complained of botched operations and late diagnoses of diseases like cancer because political elites were able to receive better healthcare than 'ordinary' people.

USA: President Nixon's speech. President Nixon says what the president before him spoke upon. Nixon believed that if they were to withdraw from the war, it would promote recklessness in countries of great power who had not yet forgotten their world conquest efforts. He also had said that it would have been a catastrophic failure to withdraw, a nation that can not continue to be great if it betrays its allies and friends.

During World War II, the USSR conducted espionage operations inside America with the help of American individuals. As fears of Soviet influence intensified as the Cold War progressed, American officials determined to act. President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9835, popularly known as the Loyalty Order, on March 21, 1947, requiring all federal employees to be assessed to see if they were sufficiently loyal to the government. This was just one of many dubious operations that took place during the Red Scare, a time of anticommunist hysteria.

USA: The Domino Theory (Anti Communist propaganda). The domino hypothesis was a Cold War concept that predicted that a communist administration in one country would swiftly lead to communist takeovers in adjacent countries, with each domino falling in a perfectly lined row. The now-discredited domino theory was employed by the US administration in Southeast Asia to justify its engagement in the Vietnam War and support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam.

By 1950, US foreign policymakers were convinced that the fall of Indochina to communism would quickly lead to the collapse of other Southeast Asian countries. The notion was included in a 1952 study on Indochina by the National Security Council, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower articulated it as the "falling domino" principle in April 1954 during the climactic fight between Viet Minh and French forces at Dien Bien Phu.

USSR: Propaganda by humor. During the 1950's, the GDR had a weekly humor magazine. It was riddled with many humorous illustrations, but some of them proposed something close to propaganda. For example, there is an image titled "American Propaganda". On the image, signs read "Chew gum and keep healthy," "Milk and honey flow here," and "Self-service" cover an American tank, which is purportedly the truth of American intentions. Coca-Cola and corned beef tins are present. Flowers have been strategically planted to hide the tanks' weapons. "Closed to East-West commerce," the sign reads. The idea is that the US hides its aggressive ambitions under consumer-oriented advertising.

USSR: State controlled television. In East Germany, the purpose of television transmission was to advance the socialist cause. As the chairman of the State Radio Committee put it in 1960: “By means of ideological and educational broadcasts from the main centres of the republic, radio and television aid the building-up and victory of socialism” (quoted in Paulu 1974: 229). This points to a heavily instrumented television system that prioritized agitation over all else. East German television, on the other hand, was tasked with informing, educating, and entertaining viewers, which it did to different degrees of success.