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