Post-War Russia

Joseph Stalin
  • Took credit for leading the Revolution
  • Purged anyone who helped Lenin
  • Took pictures with Lenin and Trotsky, and removed Trotsky, then later it contains Lenin and Stalin
  • Everyone believed it
  • Collectivization: 
    • Lenin's policies made the Rich Kuluks ( the most hard working peasants )
    • Ukraine had to be removed from the picture since they opposed Collectivization
    • 6 million Ukrainians were killed by starvation since Stalin took every bit of grain from them
    • Kills his wife for mentioning Ukraine
    • To make sure his military does not over throw him he kills off every officer on the brink of WWII
  • Potsdam:
    • First accords to end the war
    • Churchill, Stalin and FDR meet to decide who takes what territory
    • Churchill warned against giving Russia Eastern Europe
    • FDR wanted to let Stalin do that
    • They agreed to let Stalin liberate Yugoslavia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc.
    • The US Swung across the West of Europe Liberating most of the countries
    • The US Army stopped at East Germany, but could have easily liberated East Germany and most of Eastern Europe, but stopped at East Germany
  • Right after winning the war, the people expected all the bad to 
  • Dies right on the precipice of another purge

Nikita Khrushchev
  • Lightens up Stalin's regulations, and starts to bring in foreign aspects of life
  • Brings in Food, Cars, etc.
  • International:
    • Establishes the Warsaw Pact
      • Soviet Russia
      • Poland
      • Albania
      • Bulgaria
      • Czechoslovakia
      • East Germany
      • Hungary
      • Romania
    • Takes a more aggressive plan of action against the West
    • In his speech he says that he will bury the US
  • Denounces Stalin, and starts the progress of Destalinization
    • The Bolsheviks that Stalin purged were innocents
    • Says that Stalin was tricked by Hitler
    • Stalin and his Gulags were cruel
    • Lightening of Soviet Policy
  • Hungarian Uprising: 1954
    • Imre Nagy, Hungarian Prime Minister
    • Decided to test Khrushchev
    • Created free elections
    • Arrested and Hung by Khrushchev
  • Arms Race:
    • After Sputnik is launched the colleges and schools in America changes to become extremely Science and Engineering heavy
    • Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate:
      • A discussion of which country provides a better life.
      • Khrushchev says that no one lives below the poverty level, and the 
  • Berlin
    • Split down the center
    • The US Begins Brain Drain, taking the smart people and evacuating them out of the USSR
    • Khrushchev speaks with Kennedy in Paris, then goes back then starts the building of the Berlin Wall
    • The East is filled with Barracks, and cheap housing, but provides the people with all the needs
    • The West has a European look, with large avenues and fancy looking city
    • Kennedy makes a speech in Berlin
  • Cuba
    • Cuban Missile Crisis: a major failure of Khrushchev where he was unable to safely defuse a situation with the US.
    • Plan to remove Castro by Eisenhower
  • Kennedy stood up to Khrushchev at last minute, and Khrushchev backed down.
    • Claimed to be the reason for Khrushchev having to sit down

Brezhnev:
  • Is more close to the Communist Ideals of Stalin
  • Starts Re-Stalinization
  • Does not start up purges or anything that is severe
  • Prague Spring:
    • The people decide to try to get a few more things in Communism
    • Brezhnev brings in tanks to prevent the revolution
    • They do not fire on the protests, but dissapate it instead
  • Brezhnev Doctrine:
    • The Iron Curtain is solid
    • No country is allowed to break away from the curtain
    • If a country breaks away then the rest of the CCCP will go to war with them
  • Eastern Europe is stuck under the regime
  • The people in the Soviet Union get the Soap Opera Dallas, and they 

Gorbachev:
  • Solidarity:
    • Workers organized Solidarity, an independent trade union
    • Received support from Catholic Church
        • Communism did not have a religion
  • Five Point Plan:
    • Key pieces of Gorbachev plan for the survival of the Soviet Union were a series of reforms
    1. Glasnost ( openness ) - greater freedom of expression, letting the people talk
    2. Perestroika ( restructuring ) - decentralization of the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms
    3. Renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine ( armed intervention where socialism was threatened ) and the pursuit of arms control arguments.
    4. Reform of the KGB
    5. Reform of the Communist Party
  • Poland overthrows the government, and places Lek Walesa in charge
  • Spread to Hungary which opened its borders.
  • Spread to Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania.
  • An official tells someone on a Talk show that the East German Berlin Wall will open up that night, and the guards hear it and open up the gates. 
  • That night the wall is torn down
  • He tells Eastern Europe that he will not stop them, but they will not have military support
  • Most of Eastern Europe leaves peacefully, except for Romania where the government fires against the protestors
  • Shock Therapy: 
    • The government owned all business
    • The people were not used to a Free Market Economy
    • The government offered vouchers to purchase parts of companies
  • The Baltic States:
    • Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia
    • They wanted to be independent
    • Gorbachev was not okay with the Baltic States leaving
    • Gorbachev's job would not exist without the Baltic States, since the Soviet Union wouldn't exist
    • He sets on an embargo for food, but does not do anything
  • Ukraine starts to want to leave
    • Gorbachev does nothing to prevent them from leaving
    • He does not acknowledge that they are independent
  • Russia wants to leave the Soviet Union
    • Boris Yeltsin denounces Communism
    • Gorbachev goes away on vacation
    • He gets kidnapped, and taken back to Moscow
    • The Hardliners surround the Kremlin with Tanks