AP Euro Unit 12

Helsinki Agreements (Accords)

(think it's this) the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Finlandia Hall of Helsinki, Finland, during July and August 1, 1975. Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and most European states except Albania, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West.

INF Treaty

a 1987 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. Signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 8, 1987, it was ratified by the United States Senate on May 27, 1988 and came into force on June 1 of that year. The treaty eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges, defined as between 500-5,500 km (300-3,400 miles).

FDP

a liberal and classical liberal political party in Germany. The FDP is led by Christian Lindner and, until the 2013 federal election, served as the junior coalition partner to the Union (Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union) in the German federal government.

Slovenia

a nation state in southern Central Europe at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Croatia to the south and southeast, and Hungary to the northeast. It covers 20,273 square kilometers (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.05 million. It is a parliamentary republic and a member of the European Union and NATO. Its capital and largest city is Ljubljana.

Prague Spring

a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.

Glasnost

a policy that called for increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union.

SPD

In charge in Germany after the Emperor and his High Command of the Army bowed out. Marxist but revisionist (toned-down, pre-Leninist). Led by union officials and party managers. In 1912, SDs been largest group in the Reichstag. By 1918 they were prudent, cautious, conservative. Bolshevik Revolution had effect of making SDs seem moderate. Awkward spot to be in during hard times. They were between the pro-Bolshevik movt in Germany on their "left" and the junkers on their "right." Basically, more afraid of the left than the right since the latter largely discredited because of outcome of the war. The SDs formed a coalition with the Center Party(Catholic & conservative) and the Liberal Democrats in the new Constituent Assembly. oldest extant German political party (?)

Perestroika

a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s (1986), widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of __________ is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system.

Chernobyl

site of a terrible nuclear disaster in USSR a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the namesake Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then officially the Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe. This disaster is the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and resulting deaths, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011). The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself 31 people died, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.

COMECON

AKA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance an economic organization under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of socialist states elsewhere in the world. It was the Eastern Bloc's reply to the formation of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation in Western Europe. The descriptive term was often applied to all multilateral activities involving members of the organization, rather than being restricted to the direct functions of this entity and its organs. This usage was sometimes extended as well to bilateral relations among members, because in the system of socialist international economic relations, multilateral accords — typically of a general nature — tended to be implemented through a set of more detailed, bilateral agreements. (possibly in response to Marshall Plan)

German Democratic Republic

AKA East Germany refers to USSR-aligned part of Germany (vanished after reunification)

Federal Republic of Germany

AKA West Germany the name for non-USSR Germany in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.

Five-Year Plan of 1946

Stalin's 4th Five-Year plan; rebuilt devastated USSR from WWII(?)

Channel Tunnel ("Chunnel")

a 50.5-kilometre rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, the Eurotunnel Shuttle for automobiles and other road vehicles—the largest such transport in the world—and international rail freight trains. The tunnel connects end-to-end with the LGV Nord and High Speed 1 high-speed railway lines.

Clement Attlee

a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was the first person ever to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before going on to lead the Labour Party to a landslide election victory in 1945 and a narrow victory in 1950. He became the first Labour Prime Minister ever to serve a full five year term, as well as the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament, and remains to date the longest ever serving Leader of the Labour party. The government he led built the post-war consensus, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created - aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition to Keynesian fiscal policy, this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties for over three decades until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. His government also presided over the decolonisation of a large part of the British Empire, granting British India, Burma, and Ceylon independence, as well as ending the British Mandate of Palestine and the British Mandate of Jordan. When the budget crisis forced Britain out of Greece in 1947 he encouraged the United States to counter the Soviets with the Truman Doctrine. He avidly supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with American money, and the NATO military alliance against the Soviet bloc. After leading Labour to a narrow victory in 1950, he was narrowly defeated by Churchill in 1951; he retired from politics in 1955.

Winston Churchill

a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, he was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British Prime Minister to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States. coined phrase "The Iron Curtain"

CDU

a Christian democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Germany. It is the major catch-all party of the centre-right in German politics. Along with its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), it forms the CDU/CSU grouping, also known as the Union, in the Bundestag.

Jan Mazaryk

a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described him as "a brave, honest, turbulent, and impulsive man". On March 10, 1948 he was found dead, dressed only in his pajamas, in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry (the Černín Palace in Prague) below his bathroom window. The initial investigation by the Ministry of the Interior stated that he had committed suicide by jumping out of the window, although for a long time it has been believed by some that he was murdered by the nascent Communist government. (termed the "Third Defenestration of Prague", the first one happening during the 1400s and the second one giving way to the 30 Years War)

Vaclav Havel

a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. Havel was the ninth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). He wrote more than 20 plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally.

Albert Camus

a French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual and sexual freedom. He did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one (even during his own lifetime). In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..." got Nobel Prize in Literature The Stranger The Plague

Jacques Chirac

a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 (making him the only person to hold the position of Prime Minister twice under the Fifth Republic), and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. internal policies included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation. He also argued for more socially responsible economic policies, and was elected in 1995 after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (fracture sociale). After less statist policy when he was Prime Minister (1986-1988), he changed his method. Then, his economic policies, based on dirigisme, state-directed ideals, stood in opposition to the laissez-faire policies of the United Kingdom, which he famously described as "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism". He is the second-longest serving President of France (two full terms, the first of seven years and the second of five years), after François Mitterrand. As President, he also served as an ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d'honneur.

Erich Honecker

a German communist politician who, as the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, led East Germany from 1971 until the weeks preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. From 1976 onward he was also the country's official Head of State as Chairman of the State Council following Willi Stoph's relinquishment of the post. (gave order to fire at those trying to cross into West Germany?) As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s under the liberalising reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he refused all but cosmetic changes to the East German political system and was consequently forced to resign by his party in October 1989 as the Communist regime sought to retain its power.

Second World

refers to the former Socialist, industrial states (formally the Eastern Bloc), mostly the territory and the influence of the Soviet Union. referred to Communist and USSR-aligned countries during Cold War

Willy Brandt

a German statesman and politician, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1969 to 1974. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his efforts to achieve reconciliation between West Germany and the countries of the Soviet bloc. He was the first Social Democrat chancellor since 1930. Though controversial in West Germany, his policy of Ostpolitik can be considered his most significant legacy and it aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Of similar importance, the _______ Report became a recognised measure for describing the general North-South divide in world economics and politics between an affluent North and a poor South. He resigned as Chancellor in 1974, after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.

Konrad Adenauer

a German statesman. As the first post-war Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963, he led his country from the ruins of World War II to a productive and prosperous nation that forged close relations with old enemies France, the United Kingdom and the United States. During his years in power Germany achieved democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity ("Wirtschaftswunder", German for "economic miracle"). He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became, and has since usually been one of the most powerful parties in the country.

Janos Kadar

a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary covered most of the period the People's Republic of Hungary existed. (tried to push through reforms but eventually pressured to become puppet of Soviets after Hungarian revolution was crushed?)

Imre Nagy

a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions. His second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.

Lech Walesa

a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, philanthropist and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995.

Solidarity

a Polish trade union federation that emerged on 31 August 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first non-Communist Party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. It reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress (up to 10 million) that constituted one third of the total working age population of Poland. In its clandestine years, the United States provided significant financial support for this, estimated to be as much as 50 million US dollars. In the 1980s, it was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to negotiate with the union.

Nicolae Ceausescu

a Romanian communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader. He was also the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989. A member of the Romanian Communist youth movement, he rose up through the ranks of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's Socialist government and, upon the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in 1965, he succeeded to the leadership of Romania's Communist Party as General Secretary. After a brief period of relatively moderate rule, his regime became increasingly brutal and repressive. By some accounts, his rule was the most rigidly Stalinist in the Soviet bloc. He maintained controls over speech and the media that were very strict even by Soviet-bloc standards, and internal dissent was not tolerated. His secret police, the Securitate, was one of the most ubiquitous and brutal secret police forces in the world. In 1982, with the goal of paying off Romania's large foreign debt, he ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial production. The resulting extreme shortages of food, fuel, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drastically lowered living standards and intensified unrest. His regime was also marked by an extensive and ubiquitous cult of personality, nationalism, a continuing deterioration in foreign relations even with the Soviet Union, and nepotism. His regime collapsed after he ordered his security forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Timișoara on 17 December 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest and became known as the Romanian Revolution, which was the only violent removal of a Communist government during the revolutions of 1989.

MMM Invest

a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates from 5 to 40 thousand people lost up to $10 million. The exact figures are not known even to the founders. (led to increased regulation of Russian finances and stock market?)

Andrei Sakharov

a Russian nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident and human rights activist. He became renowned as the designer of the Soviet Union's Third Idea, a codename for Soviet development of thermonuclear weapons. He was an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

Boris Yeltsin

a Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, he emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union. Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, he remained in office as the President of the Russian Federation, the USSR's successor state. He was reelected in the 1996 election; in the second round he defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13%. However, he never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.

Baby Boom

refers to the increase in birth rate after WWII during the 1950s (?)

Slobodan Milosevic

a Serbian and Yugoslav politician who was the President of Serbia (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia) from 1989 to 1997 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He also led the Socialist Party of Serbia from its foundation in 1990. His presidency was marked by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent Yugoslav Wars. In the midst of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Milošević was charged with war crimes including genocide, and crimes against humanity in connection to the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Alexander Dubcek

a Slovak politician and, briefly, leader of Czechoslovakia (1968-1969). He attempted to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring. Later, after the overthrow of the government in 1989, he was Chairman of the federal Czecho-Slovak parliament. He was the recipient of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought of the European Parliament, in 1989.

Yuri Andropov

a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later. in between Brezhnev and Chernyenko was head of KGB and crushed Prague Spring insisted on invasion of Afghanistan and promoted Gorbachev

Konstantin Chernenko

a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985. USSR boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics in LA due to US boycott of 1980 Olympics in Moscow (called for renewed detente)

Containment

a United States policy to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. It represented a middle-ground position between appeasement and rollback. The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan. As a description of U.S. foreign policy, the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to U.S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, a report that was later used in a magazine article. It is a translation of the French cordon sanitaire, used to describe Western policy toward the Soviet Union in the 1920s. policy most strongly associated with actions of Truman

Marshall Josip Broz Tito

a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II he was the leader of the Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, he was "seen by most as a benevolent dictator" due to his successful economic and diplomatic policies and was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies successfully maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia.

Berlin Wall

a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that it was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, it served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

Birth Control Pill

a birth control method that includes a combination of an estrogen (estradiol) and a progestogen (progestin). When taken by mouth every day, these pills inhibit female fertility. They were first approved for contraceptive use in the United States in 1960, and are a very popular form of birth control. (came into existence after WWII?)

Conservative Party

a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that states that it espouses the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. As of 2013 it is the largest single party in the House of Commons with 303 MPs, governing in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, with David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, as Prime Minister. It is the largest party in local government with 8,534 councillors.

Warsaw Pact

a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. It was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the communist States of Central and Eastern Europe. It was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954 but was primarily motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe which in turn, to maintain peace in Europe, were guided by the objective points and principles of the Charter of the United Nations (1945) after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

a country in Southeastern Europe. Its capital and largest city is Sarajevo. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, it is almost landlocked, except for 20 kilometres (12 miles) of coastline on the Adriatic Sea surrounding the city of Neum.

(Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia (FYSM)

a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991. It became a member of the United Nations in 1993. A landlocked country, it is bordered by Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. The country's capital is Skopje

Mikahil Gorbachev

a former Soviet statesman. He was the seventh and last undisputed leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the country's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991 (titled as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1990 and President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991). He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October Revolution. Glasnost and Perestroika

Siege of the Duma, 1993

a political stand-off between the Russian president and the Russian parliament that was resolved by using military force. The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for some time. The constitutional crisis reached a tipping point on September 21, 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin aimed to dissolve the country's legislature (the Congress of People's Deputies and its Supreme Soviet), although the president did not have the power to dissolve the parliament according to the constitution. Yeltsin used the results of the referendum of April 1993 to justify his actions. In response, the parliament declared that the president's decision was null and void, impeached Yeltsin and proclaimed vice president Aleksandr Rutskoy to be acting president.

Nikita Khrushchev

a politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. He was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. His party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. (U-2 crisis, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Sputnik) saw "tensest years" of Cold War

Kosovo

a region in southeastern Europe. In antiquity, the Dardanian Kingdom, and later Roman province of Dardania was located in the region. It was part of Serbia in the Middle Ages, during which time many important Serbian Orthodox Christian monasteries, some of which are now UNESCO World Heritage sites, were built.

Denunciation of Stalin

a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev made to the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the reign of deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the brutal purges of the Soviet military and Communist Party cadres which had particularly marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership personality cult despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski

a retired Polish military officer and communist politician. He was the last communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's Army (LWP). He resigned from power after the Polish Round Table Agreement in 1989 that led to democratic elections in Poland.

Falklands War

a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday 2 April 1982 when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (and, the following day, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it has long claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel and 3 Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.

Existentialism

a term applied to the work of certain late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual. each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely ("authentically").

Domino Theory

a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow. This theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world. Eisenhower credited with coming up with it.

ABM Treaty

a treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the treaty, each party was limited to two ABM complexes, each of which were to be limited to 100 anti-ballistic missiles. Signed in 1972, it was in force for the next 30 years. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in 1997 the United States and four former Soviet republics agreed to succeed to the treaty. In June 2002 the United States withdrew from the treaty, leading to its termination.

Croatia

a unitary democratic parliamentary republic at the crossroads of Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb.

Algerian War

a war between France and the Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism, the use of torture by both sides, and counter-terrorism operations. The conflict was also a civil war between loyalist Algerians believing in a French Algeria and their insurrectionist Algerian Muslim counterparts. Effectively started by members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) on November 1, 1954, during the Toussaint Rouge ("Red All Saints' Day"), the conflict shook the foundations of the French Fourth Republic (1946-58) and led to its eventual collapse. In 1961, president Charles de Gaulle decided to give up Algeria—which was up to then regarded as an integral part of France—after conducting a referendum showing huge support for Algerian independence. The planned withdrawal led to a state crisis, to various assassination attempts on de Gaulle, and some attempts of military coups. Most of the former were carried out by the Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS), an underground organization formed mainly from French military personnel supporting a French Algeria, which committed a large number of bombings and murders in both Algeria and the homeland to stop the planned independence.

Coup Attempt (1991, USSR)

also known as the August Putsch or August Coup (Russian: Августовский путч Avgustovsky Putch), was a coup d'état attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union's government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup leaders were hard-line members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) who were opposed to Gorbachev's reform program and the new union treaty that he had negotiated which decentralised much of the central government's power to the republics. They were opposed, mainly in Moscow, by a short but effective campaign of civil resistance. Although the coup collapsed in only two days and Gorbachev returned to government, the event destabilised the Soviet Union and is widely considered to have contributed to both the demise of the CPSU and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After the capitulation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency—popularly referred to as the "Gang of Eight," the Supreme court of the RSFSR and the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev qualified their actions as a coup attempt.

Denazification

an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist (Nazi) ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with it.

European Union

an economic and political union of 28 member states that are primarily located in Europe. The EU operates through a system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmental negotiated decisions by the member states.

NATO

an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. (rivaled Warsaw Pact)(pretty much formed Western Bloc)

European Space Agency

an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space, with 20 member states. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, it has a staff of more than 2,000 with an annual budget of about €4.28 billion / US$5.51 billion (2013).

Treaty of Rome

an international agreement that led to the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 1 January 1958. It was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. The word Economic was deleted from the treaty's name by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, and the treaty was repackaged as the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union on the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. proposed the progressive reduction of customs duties and the establishment of a customs union. It proposed to create a common market of goods, workers, services and capital within the EEC's member states. It also proposed the creation of common transport and agriculture policies and a European social fund. It also established the European Commission.

European Coal and Steel Community

an international organisation serving to unify European countries after the Second World War. It was formally established by the Treaty of Paris (1951), which was signed by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It was the first international organisation to be based on the principles of supranationalism, and would ultimately lead the way to the founding of the European Union.

Truman Doctrine

an international relations policy set forth by the U.S. President Harry Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947, which stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from joining the Soviet sphere. Historians often consider it as the start of the Cold War, and the start of the containment policy to stop Soviet expansion. Truman pledged the US to contain in Europe and elsewhere and impelled the US to support any nation with both military and economic aid if its stability was threatened by communism or the Soviet Union.

Simone de Beauvoir

author of The Second Sex a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography and monographs on philosophy, politics and social issues. She is best known for her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, as well as her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.

Non-aligned countries

countries not aligned with either the Western or Eastern Blocs (?)

Third World

defines countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO (with the United States, Western European nations and their allies representing the First World), or the Communist Bloc (with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and their allies representing the Second World).

Greek Civil War

fought from 1946-49 between the Greek government army—backed by the United Kingdom and the United States—and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the military branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), backed by the USSR, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania. It was the result of a highly polarized struggle between leftists and rightists that started in 1943 and targeted the power vacuum that the German-Italian occupation during World War II had created. One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, according to some analysts it represents the first example of postwar North European and North American involvement in the internal politics of a foreign country. (eventually Greek government won out)(?)

CERN

helped create World Wide Web a European research organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory. manages LHC

Invasion of Afghanistan (Soviet)

lasted nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Part of the Cold War, it was fought between Soviet-led Afghan forces against multi-national insurgent groups called the Mujahideen, mostly composed of two alliances - the Peshawar Seven and the Tehran Eight. The Peshawar Seven insurgents received military training in neighboring Pakistan and China, as well as weapons and billions of dollars from the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. The Shia groups of the Tehran Eight alliance received support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Early in the rule of the PDPA government, the Maoist Afghanistan Liberation Organization also played a significant role in opposition, but its major force was defeated by late 1979, prior to the Soviet intervention. The decade-long war resulted in millions of Afghans fleeing their country, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians were killed in addition to the rebels in the war. The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979, under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989, under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Due to the interminable nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap".

Berlin Blockade

one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of ______ under allied control. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to start supplying ____ with food, fuel, and aid, thereby giving the Soviets practical control over the entire city. In response, the Western Allies organized the _____ airlift.

Christian Democrats

part of CDU?

Revolutions of 1989

part of a revolutionary wave that resulted in the fall of communism in the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. One feature common to most of these developments was the extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to the pressure for change. Romania was the only Eastern Bloc country whose people overthrew its Communist regime violently; however, in Romania itself and in some other places, there was some violence inflicted by the regime upon the population. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 failed to stimulate major political changes in China. However, powerful images of courageous defiance during that protest helped to spark a precipitation of events in other parts of the globe. Among the famous anti-Communist revolutions was the fall of the Berlin Wall, which served as the symbolic gateway to German reunification in 1990. led to fall of Soviet Union by 1991 (?)

Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars)

proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative. people derided it by likening it to George Lucas' films

First World

refers countries that were aligned with the United States during the Cold War. These countries were largely capitalistic and generally self-proclaimed democracies.

De-Stalinization

refers to a process of political reform in the Soviet Union that took place after the death of head of state Joseph Stalin in 1953. The reforms consisted of changing or removing key institutions that helped Stalin hold power: the cult of personality that surrounded him, the Stalinist political system and the Gulag labour-camp system, all of which had been created and dominated by him as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, among other titles, from 1922-52.

Polish Catholic Church

refers to the Church of the country that produced Pope John Paul II (???)

Invasion of Hungary (1956)

refers to the Soviet Invasion of the namesake country after it experienced a revolution against its Communist leaders (successfully crushed revolution)

Invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968)

refers to the Warsaw Pact-led invasion of the namesake place to stop Prague Spring reforms. The invasion successfully stopped the liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authority of the Communist Party of ___________. The foreign policy of the Soviet Union during this era was known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Iron Curtain

symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. On either side, states developed their own international economic and military alliances

Marshall Plan

the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and make Europe prosperous again.

Enver Hoxha

the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He was chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania and commander-in-chief of the armed forces from 1944 until his death. He served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times served as foreign minister and defence minister as well.

Srebrenica (massacre)

the July 1995 killing of more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of ______ during the Bosnian War. The killing was perpetrated by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The Secretary-General of the United Nations described the mass murder as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War. A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, participated in the massacre, along with several hundred Russian and Greek volunteers.

Sarajevo

the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with an estimated population of 369,534. (Franz Ferdinand was killed here)

Belgrade

the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. Its name translates to White city.

Euro

the currency of the EU

Detente

the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of the geo-political tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States which began in 1969, as a foreign policy of U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford called _______; a 'thawing out' or 'un-freezing' at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War.

Sputnik

the first artificial Earth satellite. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses were detectable. The surprise success precipitated the American _____ crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.

Congress of People's Deputies

the highest body of state authority of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991. created as part of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform agenda, and was enabled by Gorbachev's first constitutional change.

Berlin Crisis

the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post-World War II Germany. The U.S.S.R. provoked this with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin—culminating with the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall.

KGB

the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its collapse in 1991. Formed in 1954 as a direct successor of such preceding agencies as Cheka, NKGB, and MGB, the committee was attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", acting as internal security, intelligence, and secret police. Similar agencies were instated in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia and consisted of many ministries, state committees, and state commissions.

East German Stasi

the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic or GDR, colloquially known as East Germany. It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to ever have existed.It was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. Its motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield and Sword of the Party), that is the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). One of its main tasks was spying on the population, mainly through a vast network of citizens turned informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents (Zersetzung, literally meaning decomposition).

Dayton Accords

the peace agreement reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near the namesake town in Ohio, United States, in November 1995, and formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. These accords put an end to the three and a half-year long Bosnian War, one of the armed conflicts in the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.

Berlin Airlift

the supplying of the namesake city with food and supplies through the air after it was closed off by the USSR (?)

Decolonization

the undoing of colonialism, where a nation establishes and maintains dependent territory (courial governments). happened a lot after WWII

Charles de Gaulle

was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first president from 1959 to 1969. secured a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for France in 1945. After the war ended, he became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts. He founded his own political party, the Rally of the French People—Rassemblement du Peuple Francais, (RPF)—in 1947. When the Algerian war crisis was ripping apart the Fourth Republic, the Assembly brought him back to power as President of the Council of Ministers during the May 1958 crisis. He led the writing of a new constitution founding the Fifth Republic, and was elected President of France. Gaullism, his foreign policy strategy as president, asserted that France is a major power and should not rely on other countries, such as the United States, for its national security and prosperity. Often criticized for his "Politics of Grandeur", he oversaw the development of French atomic weapons and promoted a foreign policy independent of "Anglo Saxon" (American and British) influences. He withdrew France from NATO military command—although remaining a member of the Western alliance—and twice vetoed Britain's entry into the European Community.

Serbia-Montenegro

was a country in Southeast Europe, created from the two remaining republics of Yugoslavia after its breakup in 1991. The republics of ______ and _______ together established a federation in 1992 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). In 2003, it was reconstituted as a state union officially known as the State Union of _____ and ________. aspired to be a sole legal successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but those claims were opposed by other former republics. The United Nations also denied its request to automatically continue the membership of the former state. Eventually, after the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević from power as president of the federation in 2000, the country rescinded those aspirations and accepted the opinion of Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession, and reapplied for and gained UN membership on 2 November 2000.

Leonid Brezhnev

was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration. During his rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. However, his tenure as leader has often been criticized for marking the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation that eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. He presided over the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia to stop the Prague Spring, and his last major decision in power was to send the Soviet military to Afghanistan in an attempt to save the fragile regime, which was fighting a war against the mujahideen.