World History Chapter 35 Vocab

Tiananmen Square

Site in Beijing where Chinese students and workers gathered to demand greater political openness in 1989. The demonstration was crushed by Chinese military with great loss of life.

reunification

bring together parts of a country under one government (ex: Germany)

Martial law

rule by the army instead of the elected government

Dissident

someone who disagrees

CIS

to cut

Hong Kong

A British colony in China, received after the first Opium War and returned to China in 1997

Lech Walesa

A Polish politician, a former trade union and human rights activist, and also a former electrician. He co-founded Solidarity, 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.

Federal system

A government that divides the powers of government between the national government and state or provincial governments

perestroika

A policy initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev that involved restructuring of the social and economic status quo in communist Russia towards a market based economy and society

glasnost

A policy of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which called for more openness with the nations of West, and a relaxing of restraints on Soviet citizenry.

Zhou Enlai

A prominent and influential member of the Chinese Communist Party during the time of Mao. He played a large role in China's reestablishing ties with the West.

Politburo

A seven-member committee that became the leading policy-making body of the Communist Party in Russia

Recession

A slowdown in economic activity over a period of time. During one of these periods all of the following things decline: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employment, investment spending, capacity utilization, household incomes, business profits and inflation. Meanwhile bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise.

Apartheid

A social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against non-whites.

Nelson Mandela

ANC leader imprisoned by Afrikaner regime; released in 1990 and elected as president of South Africa in 1994.

Brasilia

Brazil

Land reform

Breakup of large agricultural holdings for redistribution among peasants

Deng Xiaoping

Communist Party leader who forced Chinese economic reforms after the death of Mao Zedong.

Four Modernizations

Deng Xiaoping's plan to change China after the disaster of Cultural Revolution. Improve- agriculture, science/technology, defense and industry

PRI

First or most significant

Mikhail Gorbachev

Head of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. His liberalization effort improved relations with the West, but he lost power after his reforms led to the collapse of Communist governments in eastern Europe.

Standard of living

Level of economic prosperity

"shock therapy"

Policies in formerly communist countries that envisage as rapid a shift to a market economy as possible.

Solidarity

Polish trade union created in 1980 to protest working conditions and political repression. It began the nationalist opposition to communist rule that led in 1989 to the fall of communism in eastern Europe.

Boris Yeltsin

President of the Russian Republic in 1991. Helped end the USSR and force Gorbachev to resign.

Ethnic cleansing

Process in which more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region