history classs

Glasnost

( Russian: "openness") Soviet policy of open discussion of political and social issues. It was instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s and began the democratization of the Soviet Union. Ultimately, fundamental changes to the political structure of the Soviet Union occurred: the power of the Communist Party was reduced, and multicandidate elections took place. Glasnost also permitted criticism of government officials and allowed the media freer dissemination of news and information.

Ronald Reagan

(1911-2004), a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. Raised in small-town Illinois, he became a Hollywood actor in his 20s and later served as the Republican governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Dubbed the Great Communicator, the affable Reagan became a popular two-term president. He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. Reagan, who survived a 1981 assassination attempt, died at age 93 after battling Alzheimer's disease.

László Tőkés

(Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈlaːsloː ˈtøːkeːʃ]; born 1 April 1952) is a Romanian-born Hungarian politician, currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament (since 2007) and Vice President of the European Parliament (2010-12). A bishop of the Királyhágómellék Reformed Church District of the Reformed Church in Romania, he is also a former honorary president of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania. He is the head of the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania, a civic organisation for Transylvanian Hungarians. Tőkés is closely associated with the Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania. An effort to transfer him from his post as an assistant pastor in Timișoara and to evict him from his church flat helped trigger the Romanian Revolution, which overthrew Nicolae Ceauşescu and spelled the end of the communist era in Romania.

Securitate

(pronounced [sekuriˈtate], Romanian for Security) was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului (Department of State Security), the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranța Statului. It was founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD. Following the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989, the DSS lived on until 1991, when Parliament approved a law reorganizing the DSS into various subdivisions.

Todor Hristov Zhivkov

- 5 August 1998), was the communist head of state of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989. He became First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 and remained on this position for 35 years, until 1989, thus becoming the longest-serving leader of any Eastern Bloc nation,[1] and one of the longest ruling non-royal leaders in history. His rule marked a period of unprecedented political and economic stability for Bulgaria, marked both by complete submission of Bulgaria to Soviet directives[2] and a desire for expanding ties with the West. His rule remained unchallenged until the deterioration of East-West relations in the 1980s, when a stagnating economic situation, a worsening international image and growing careerism and corruption in the BCP weakened his positions.[3] He resigned on November 10, 1989, under pressure by senior BCP members due to his refusal to recognize problems and deal with public protests.[4] Within a month of Zhivkov's ouster, Communist rule in Bulgaria had effectively ended, and within another month the People's Republic of Bulgaria had formally ceased to exist.

Jan Palach

11 August 1948 - 19 January 1969; Czech pronunciation: [jan ˈpalax]) was a Czech student of history and political economy at Charles University in Prague. He committed self-immolation as a political protest against the end of the Prague Spring resulting from the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies. (PUT HIMSELF ON FIRE)

Umbrella Movements?

?

Ethnic group

A social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race,language, nationality, or culture.

Cominform

Agency of internationalcommunism founded under Soviet auspices in 1947 and dissolved by Soviet initiative in 1956. The Communist Information Bureau was founded at Wilcza Góra, Pol., in September 1947, with nine members—the communist parties of the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy. The most vehement supporters of the Cominform were the Yugoslav communists under the leadership of Tito; therefore, Belgrade was selected as the seat of the organization. Mounting tension, however, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union led ultimately to the expulsion of Tito's party from the Cominform in June 1948, and the seat of the bureau was moved toBucharest, Rom.The Cominform's activities consisted mainly of publishing propaganda to encourage international communist solidarity. The French and Italian parties were ineffective in carrying out the chief task assigned to them by the Cominform—to obstruct the implementation of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. Like the Third International (Comintern) in its later phases, the Cominform served more as a tool of Soviet policy than as an agent of international revolution.On April 17, 1956, as part of a Soviet program of reconciliation with Yugoslavia, the Soviets disbanded the Cominform.

George Kennan

American diplomat and historian best known for his successful advocacy of a "containment policy" to oppose Soviet expansionism following World War II. t was from Moscow in February 1946 that Kennan sent a cablegram, known as the "Long Telegram," that enunciated the containmentpolicy. The telegram was widely read in Washington, D.C., and brought Kennan much recognition. Later that year he returned to the United States, and in 1947 he was named director of the State Department's policy-planning staff. He suggested that the Russians, while still fundamentally opposed to coexistence with the West and bent on worldwide extension of the Soviet system, were acutely sensitive to the logic of military force and would temporize or retreat in the face of skillful and determined Western opposition to their expansion. Kennan then advocated U.S. counterpressure wherever the Soviets threatened to expand and predicted that such counterpressure would lead either to Soviet willingness to cooperate with the United States or perhaps eventually to an internal collapse of the Soviet government. This view subsequently became the core of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union

Croats

Are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group at the crossroads of Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Croats mainly live in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but are an officially recognized minority in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have migrated throughout Europe (especially Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France andItaly) and the Americas (particularly the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Chile), establishing a diaspora.[1][2] Croats are noted for their cultural diversity,[clarification needed] which has been influenced by a number of other neighboring cultures through the ages. Croats are mostly Roman Catholics. The Croatian language is official in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in the European Union, and is a recognised minority language within Croatian autochthonous communities and minorities in Montenegro, Austria (Burgenland), Italy (Molise), Romania (Caraşova, Lupac) and Serbia (Vojvodina).

Berlin Wall

Barrier that surrounded West Berlinand prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans' access to West Berlin and henceWest Germany. The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the Cold War's division of East from West Germany and of eastern from western Europe. About 5,000 East Germans managed to cross the Berlin Wall (by various means) and reach West Berlin safely, while another 5,000 were captured by East German authorities in the attempt and 191 more were killed during the actual crossing of the wall. ast Germany's hard-line communist leadership was forced from power in October 1989 during the wave of democratization that swept through eastern Europe. On November 9 the East German government opened the country's borders with West Germany (including West Berlin), and openings were made in the Berlin Wall through which East Germans could travel freely to the West. The wall henceforth ceased to function as a political barrier between East and West Germany.

Dimitrov, Gheorgi

Bulgarian communist leader who became the post-World War II prime minister of Bulgaria. He also won worldwide fame for his defense against Nazi accusations during the German Reichstag Fire trialof 1933. At his trial Dimitrov thoroughly bested the Nazi prosecution and won acquittal. He settled in Moscow and, as secretary-general of the Comintern's executive committee (1935-43), encouraged the formation of popular-front movements against the Nazi menace, except when his patron, Joseph Stalin, and Hitler were cooperating. During 1944 he directed the resistance to Bulgaria's Axis satellite government, and in 1945 he returned to Bulgaria, where he was immediately appointed prime minister of a communist-dominated Fatherland Front government. Assuming dictatorial control of political affairs, he effected the communist consolidation of power that culminated in the formation of a Bulgarian People's Republic in 1946.

Comecom/CMEA

Byname of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), also called (from 1991) Organization for International Economic Cooperation, organization established in January 1949 to facilitate and coordinate the economic development of the eastern European countries belonging to the Soviet bloc. Comecon's original members were the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, andRomania. Albania joined in February 1949 but ceased taking an active part at the end of 1961. TheGerman Democratic Republic became a member in September 1950 and the Mongolian People's Republic in June 1962. In 1964 an agreement was concluded enabling Yugoslavia to participate on equal terms with Comecon members in the areas of trade, finance, currency, and industry. Cuba, in 1972, became the 9th full member and Vietnam, in 1978, became the 10th. Headquarters were established in Moscow. After the democratic revolutions in eastern Europe in 1989, the organization largely lost its purpose and power, and changes in policies and name in 1990-91 reflected the disintegration.

Bosnia

Country situated in the western Balkan Peninsula of Europe. The land has often felt the influences of stronger regional powers that have vied for control over it, and these influences have helped to create Bosnia and Herzegovina's characteristically rich ethnic and religious mix. Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism are all present, with the three faiths generally corresponding to three major ethnic groups: Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats, respectively. This multiethnic population, as well as the country's historical and geographic position between Serbia and Croatia, has long made Bosnia and Herzegovina vulnerable to nationalist territorial aspirations. Ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century, the region came under the control of Austria-Hungary in 1878 and subsequently played a key role in the outbreak of World War I. In 1918 it was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, where it had no formal status of its own. After World War II it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic ofYugoslavia. Following the disintegration of that state in 1991, the majority of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for independence in a 1992 referendum. Much of the country's Serb population, however, opposed independence and boycotted the referendum.

Franjo Tuđman

Croatian pronunciation: [frǎːɲo tûd͡ʑman] ( listen); 14 May 1922 - 10 December 1999) was a Croatian politician and historian. Following the country's independence from Yugoslavia he became the first President of Croatia and served as president from 1990 until his death.

Plzen 1953

During May 31-June 2, 1953 workers in the city of Plzeň, Czechoslovakia revolted in violent protest against currency reform and the politics of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The estimated number of casualties is around 220 injured, no-one was killed. News of the reform spread quickly among night shift workers in a plant of the Škoda Works in Plzeň, who then went on strike. The next day, in the morning, they decided to march to the city centre. Around noon the people attacked the city hall, and started to build barricades in the streets, and destroyed symbols of the communist party. Posters and slogans asking for the end of single party rule appeared. Some of the local communists and uniformed policemen had joined or were forced to join the rebellion,[citation needed] and 2,000 students had joined too[citation needed]. Nearby Bory Prison was attacked with intention of releasing the prisoners, but the attack failed.

Ukraine

Eastern slav ethnic group. Orthodox group

Central Europe

Elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Roman Catholicism and Latin. Eastern Europe, which remained Eastern Orthodox Christian, was the area of Byzantine cultural influence; after the schism (1054), it developed cultural unity and resistance to the Western world (Catholic and Protestant) within the framework of Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet.[18][19][20][21] According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in close connection with Western European development. He explained that between the 11th and 15th centuries not only Christianization and its cultural consequences were implemented, but well-defined social features emerged in Central Europe based on Western characteristics. The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe. These phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns, counties and parliaments.[22] In 1335 under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland,Bohemia and Hungary.[23] They agreed to cooperate closely in the field of politics and commerce, inspiring their late successors to launch a successful Central European initiative.[23]

Cheka, NKVD, KGB

Established in 1954, the KGB was the most durable of a series of security agencies starting with theCheka, which was established in December 1917 in the first days of the Bolshevik government. The Cheka (originally VCHEKA, an acronym derived from the Russian words for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage) was charged with the preliminary investigation of counterrevolution and sabotage, but it quickly assumed responsibility for arresting, imprisoning, and executing "enemies of the state," which included the former nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the clergy. The Cheka played a prominent role in the Russian Civil War (1918-20) and aided in crushing the anti-Soviet Kronshtadt and Antonov rebellions in 1921. People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs), which helped Stalin to consolidate his power by carrying out purges (see purge trials). More than 750,000 people were executed in 1937-38 alone, including tens of thousands of party officials and military and security officers. Among the victims were more than half the members of the ruling Central Committee(the Communist Party's highest organ) as well as the NKVD's first two chiefs, Genrikh Yagoda andNikolay Yezhov. Yezhov was succeeded as head of the NKVD by Lavrenty Beria, who served from 1938 to 1953. The KGB was created in 1954 to serve as the "sword and shield of the Communist Party." The new security service, which played a major role in the purge of Beria's supporters, was designed to be carefully controlled by senior Communist Party officials. It was divided into approximately 20 directorates, the most important of which were those responsible for foreign intelligence, domestic counterintelligence, technical intelligence, protection of the political leadership, and the security of the country's frontiers. In the late 1960s an additional directorate was created to conduct surveillance on suspected dissidents in the churches and among the intelligentsia. For the next 20 years the KGB became increasingly zealous in its pursuit of enemies, harassing, arresting, and sometimes exiling human rights advocates, Christian and Jewish activists, and intellectuals judged to be disloyal to the regime

Gomulka, Wladyslaw

First secretary of the Central Committeeof the Polish United Workers' Party, the ruling communist party of Poland, from 1956 to 1970. Polish communist activist and politician. He was the de facto leader of post-war Poland until 1948. Following the Polish October he became leader again from 1956 to 1970. Gomułka was initially very popular for his reforms; his seeking a "Polish way to socialism";[1] and giving rise to the period known as "Gomułka's thaw". During the 1960s, however, he became more conservative. Afraid of destabilizing the system, he was not inclined to introduce or permit changes. In the 1960s he supported the persecution of the Catholic Church and intellectuals (notably Leszek Kołakowski, who was forced into exile). In 1967-68 Gomułka allowed outbursts of "anti-Zionist" political propaganda,[2] which developed initially as a result of the Soviet bloc's frustration with the outcome of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War.[3] It turned out to be a thinly veiled anti-Semitic campaign, pursued primarily by others in the Party, but utilized by Gomułka to keep himself in power by shifting the attention of the populace from the stagnating economy and mismanagement. The result was that the majority of the remaining Polish citizens of Jewish origin left the country. At that time he was also responsible for persecuting protesting students and toughening censorship of the media. Gomułka was one of the key leaders of the Warsaw Pact and supported Poland's consequent participation in intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968. An undeniable achievement of Gomułka's politics was the negotiation of a treaty with West Germany, signed in December 1970. The German side recognized the post-World War II borders, which established a foundation for future peace, stability and cooperation inCentral Europe. In December 1970, economic difficulties led to price rises and subsequent bloody clashes with shipyard workers on the Baltic Coast, in which several dozen workers were fatally shot. The tragic events forced Gomułka's resignation and retirement. In a generational replacement of the ruling elite, Edward Gierek took over the Party leadership and tensions eased.

Cold War

Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe. The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons. The Cold War had solidified by 1947-48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe.

Treaty of Versailles

French: Traité de Versailles) was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties.[7] Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.

Danzig/Gdansk

From 1919 to 1939 it again had the status of a free city, under the Treaty of Versailles, with Poland having administrative governance over it. However, the Gdańsk legislative assembly, which was of German composition, tended to antagonize the Polish overseer whenever possible. Poland finally built another port on Polish territory at Gdynia, 10 miles (16 km) to the north. Gdynia grew rapidly, and Gdańsk also flourished. German control of Gdańsk increased as the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party won a majority of the assembly seats in the 1933 and 1935 elections. In 1938 Adolf Hitlerdemanded that the city be given to Germany. Poland's refusal was used by Germany as provocation for its attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, which precipitated World War II. Greatly damaged during the war, Gdańsk was returned to Poland in March 1945

Salami tactics

Hungarian: szalámitaktika) was coined in the late 1940s by the orthodox communist leader Mátyás Rákosi to describe the actions of the Hungarian Communist Party.[1][2] Rakosi claimed he destroyed the non-Communist parties by "cutting them off like slices of salami."[2] By portraying his opponents as fascists (or at the very least fascist sympathizers), he was able to get the opposition to slice off its right wing, then its centrists, then the more courageous left wingers, until only those fellow travelers willing to collaborate with the Communists remained in power.[2][3]

Masaryk, Jan

In September 1938 the Sudetenland was occupied by German forces and Masaryk resigned as ambassador in protest, although he remained in London. Other government members including Beneš also resigned. In March 1939 Germany occupied the remaining parts of the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, and a puppet Slovak state was established in Slovakia. When a Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile was established in Britain in 1940, Masaryk was appointed Foreign Minister During the war he regularly made broadcasts over the BBC to occupied Czechoslovakia. He had a flat at Westminster Gardens, Marsham Street in London but often stayed at the Czechoslovak Chancellery residence at Wingrave or with President Beneš at Aston Abbotts, both near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire In 1942 Masaryk received an LL.D. from Bates College Masaryk remained Foreign Minister following the liberation of Czechoslovakia as part of the multi-party, communist-dominated National Front government.[4] The Communists under Klement Gottwald saw their position strengthened after the 1946 elections but Masaryk stayed on as Foreign Minister.[4][5] He was concerned with retaining the friendship of the Soviet Union, but was dismayed by the veto they put on Czechoslovak participation in the Marshall Plan.[4][5]

Berlin Blockade

International crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union, in 1948-49, to force the Western Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) to abandon their post-World War II jurisdictions in West Berlin. In March 1948 the Allied powers decided to unite their different occupation zones ofGermany into a single economic unit. In protest, the Soviet representative withdrew from the Allied Control Council. Coincident with the introduction of a new deutsche mark in West Berlin (as throughout West Germany), which the Soviets regarded as a violation of agreements with the Allies, the Soviet occupation forces in eastern Germany began a blockade of all rail, road, and water communications between Berlin and the West. On June 24 the Soviets announced that the four-power administration of Berlin had ceased and that the Allies no longer had any rights there

"Imperial overstretch

Is a hypothesis which suggests that an empire can extend itself beyond its ability to maintain or expand its military andeconomic commitments. The idea was popularised by Yale University historian Paul Kennedy in his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.

Kosovo

Kosovo was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th to the early 20th century, a period when Islam grew in importance and the population of Albanian speakers in the region increased. In the early 20th century Kosovo was incorporated into Serbia (later part ofYugoslavia). By the second half of the century, the largely Muslim ethnic Albanians outnumbered the predominantly Eastern Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo, and interethnic tensions frequently roiled the province.

Bolsheviks

Majority", literally meaning "one of the majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction[b] at the Second Party Congress in 1903.[4] The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues, hence their name.[5] They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[c] The Bolsheviks or Reds came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of theRussian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). With the Reds defeating the Whites, opponents of the Reds, and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Unionin December 1922. The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism.

Katyn massacre

Mass execution of Polish military officers by the Soviet Union during World War II. The discovery of the massacre precipitated the severance of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish government-in-exile in London. Selected polish intellectuals and kill them so they didn't fight against them.

East Berlin, 1953

On June 16, 1953, workers in East Berlin rose in protest against government demands to increase productivity. Within days, nearly a million East Germans joined the protests and began rioting across hundreds of East German cities and towns. In order to prolong the uprising and win support for the West, the United States established an aid program to feed East Germans. The program, which continued until October 1953, proved very popular with East Germans and highlighted the repression and privations of life under communism.

Berlin Airlift

On June 26 the United States and Britain began to supply the city with food and other vital supplies by air. They also organized a similar "airlift" in the opposite direction of West Berlin's greatly reduced industrial exports. By mid-July the Soviet army of occupation in East Germany had increased to 40 divisions, against 8 in the Allied sectors. By the end of July three groups of U.S. strategic bombers had been sent as reinforcements to Britain. Tension remained high, but war did not break out. Despite dire shortages of fuel and electricity, the airlift kept life going in West Berlin for 11 months, until on May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the blockade. The airlift continued until September 30, at a total cost of $224 million and after delivery of 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel, machinery, and other supplies. The end to the blockade was brought about because of countermeasures imposed by the Allies on East German communications and, above all, because of the Western embargo placed on all strategic exports from the Eastern bloc. As a result of the blockade and airlift, Berlin became a symbol of the Allies' willingness to oppose further Soviet expansion in Europe.

East Europe

One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural (and econo-cultural) entity: the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox, and some Turco-Islamic influences.[2][3] Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe.[3] Historians and social scientists increasingly view such definitions as outdated or relegating,[4][5][6][7][8] but they are still heard in everyday speech and used for statistical purposes.[9][10][11] Geographical[edit]The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe. In the west, however, the cultural and religious boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to considerable overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which make a precise definition of the western boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult.

People's democracy

People's democracy was a theoretical concept within Marxism-Leninism (and a form of government in communist states) which developed after World War II,

Collectivization of Agriculture

Policy adopted by the Soviet government, pursued most intensively between 1929 and 1933, to transform traditional agriculture in the Soviet Union and to reduce the economic power of the kulaks (prosperous peasants). Under collectivization the peasantry were forced to give up their individual farms and join large collective farms (kolkhozy). The process was ultimately undertaken in conjunction with the campaign to industrialize the Soviet Union rapidly. But before the drive began, long and bitter debates over the nature and pace of collectivization went on among the Soviet leaders (especially between Stalin and Trotsky, 1925-27, and between Stalin and Nikolay Bukharin, 1927-29).

Jerzy Popiełuszko

Polish pronunciation: [ˈjɛʐɨ popʲɛˈwuʂkɔ]; 14 September 1947[1] - 19 October 1984) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who became associated with the opposition Solidarity trade union in communist Poland. He was murdered in 1984 by three agents of Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), who were shortly thereafter tried and convicted of the murder.

The Poznań 1956 protests

Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests against the government of the People's Republic of Poland. Demonstrations by workers demanding better conditions began on June 28, 1956 at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression. A crowd of approximately 100,000 gathered in the city center near the local Ministry of Public Security building. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of the People's Army of Poland and the Internal Security Corps under Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the pacification fired at the protesting civilians. The death toll was placed between 57[3] and over a hundred people,[2] including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Hundreds of people sustained injuries. The Poznań protests were an important milestone on the way to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government in Poland in October

Budapest, Hungary, 1956

Popular uprising in Hungary in 1956, following a speech by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in which he attacked the period of Joseph Stalin's rule. Encouraged by the new freedom of debate and criticism, a rising tide of unrest and discontent in Hungary broke out into active fighting in October 1956. Rebels won the first phase of the revolution, and Imre Nagy became premier, agreeing to establish a multiparty system. On Nov. 1, 1956, he declared Hungarian neutrality and appealed to the United Nations for support, but Western powers were reluctant to risk a global confrontation. On Nov. 4, 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to stop the revolution, and Nagy was executed for treason in 1958. Nevertheless, Stalinist-type domination and exploitation did not return, and Hungary thereafter experienced a slow evolution toward some internal autonomy.

Kádár, János

Premier of Hungary (1956-58, 1961-65) and first secretary (1956-88) of Hungary's Communist Party who played a key role in Hungary's transition from the 1956 anti-Soviet government of Imre Nagy to the pro-Soviet regime that followed. Kádár managed to convince the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops and allow Hungary a modicum of internal independence after quelling a popular revolt in his country. In 1950 he came into conflict with the Stalinists and consequently was expelled from the party, jailed (1951-53), and allegedly tortured.His rule was marked by what later became known as 'Goulash Communism' In foreign policy Kádár as party leader steered a course close to Moscow's, while trying to raise the Hungarians' standard of living and maintain more liberal internal policies. In contrast to such Stalinist predecessors as Mátyás Rákosi, Kádár minimized political surveillance in Hungary and eventually permitted limited freedoms of expression. Hungary's cultural life benefited from the greater political tolerance experienced under Kádár's pragmatic rule. To achieve faster economic growth, Kádár's government in the late 1960s adopted a new system of decentralized economic management in which plant managers and farmers were given greater freedom to make basic decisions in the operation and development of their enterprises. The profit motive was thus partially introduced into many sectors of the state-run economy, with the result that Hungary became the most prosperous nation in eastern Europe.

Dobrudja

Region of the Balkan Peninsula, situated between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea. The larger, northern part belongs to Romania, the smaller, southern part to Bulgaria. during the next 450 years significant demographic changes occurred through the large-scale settlement of Anatolian Turks and Crimean Tatars. The Treaty of Berlin (1878) brought Ottoman rule to an end by awarding Romania most of the Dobruja and attaching the southern portion (the so-called Quadrilateral) to the principality of Bulgaria. Romania obtained the Quadrilateral after the Second Balkan War in 1913, but in 1940 it was forced to return that portion to Bulgaria and to accept an exchange of population. A new frontier was established by the Peace Treaty of Paris (1947).

Antonescu, Ion :

Romanian marshal and statesman who became dictator of the pro-German government during World War II. After World War I, Antonescu served as military attaché in Paris and in Londonand, in 1934, as chief of the Romanian general staff. Named minister of defense in 1937, he retained office with the establishment of King Carol II's corporatistdictatorship (1938), only to be dismissed after a few weeks as a sympathizer of the principal Romanian fascist group, the Iron Guard. On the domestic front, he was an anticommunist and an anti-Semite, but he favoured France and Great Britain in international relations. Antonescu was appointed prime minister with absolute powers on Sept. 4, 1940, after Romania had one-third of its territory partitioned between Hungary,Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union (June-September 1940). He established a military dictatorship and openly embraced the Axis powers. His "National Legionary State" briefly brought the Iron Guard to power as his partner, but, after a period of Guardist revolutionary and criminal excesses, he suppressed the organization (1941). He at first secured widespread popular support for his domestic reform program and, as Germany's ally, for his declaration of war against the U.S.S.R. (1941) in pursuit of recovering Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. His administration also permitted a certain latitude to opposition critics, and some historians believe it may have been the least servile among the German satellite governments. His popular support gradually eroded, however, as manpower losses mounted on the Russian front. His regime was finally toppled by a coup d'etat in August 1944 led by King Michael; Antonescu subsequently was sentenced to death by the Romanian communist people's court and was executed as a war criminal in 1946.

Perestroika

Russian: перестро́йка; IPA: [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] ( listen))[1] was a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system.

Slovak

SLAVIC CATHOLIC ETHNIC GROUP

Samizdat

Samizdat (Russian: самизда́т; IPA: [səmɨzˈdat]) was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade official Soviet censorship was fraught with danger, as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.

Dulles, John Foster

Secretary of state (1953-59) under President Dwight D.Eisenhower. He was the architect of many major elements of U.S. foreign policyin the Cold War with the Soviet Union after World War II.Three factors determined Dulles' foreign policy: his profound detestation of Communism, which was in part based on his deep religious faith; his powerful personality, which often insisted on leading rather than following public opinion; and his strong belief, as an international lawyer, in the value of treaties. Of the three, passionate hostility to Communism was the leitmotiv of his policy.

Husak, Gustav

Slovak Communist who was Czechoslovakia's leader from 1969 to 1989. By 1967 he was attacking the party's neo-Stalinist leadership, and he became a deputy premier of Czechoslovakia in April 1968, during the period of liberalization under party leader Alexander Dubček. As the Soviet Union grew increasingly alarmed by Dubček's liberal reforms, Husak began calling for caution, and when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August, Husak became a leader of those party members calling for the reversal of Dubček's reforms. He was appointed leader of the Communist Party of Slovakia on August 28, 1968, and he succeeded Dubček as first secretary (title changed to general secretary in 1971) of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in April 1969.

Vladimír Mečiar

Slovak pronunciation: [ˈʋlaɟimiːr ˈmetʃiar]; born 26 July 1942) is a former Slovak politician who served three times as Prime Minister of Slovakia serving from 1990 to 1991, from 1992 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998. He is the leader of the People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (ĽS-HZDS). Mečiar led Slovakia to disengagement from the Czech Republic in January 1993 and was one of the leading presidential candidates in Slovakia in 1999 and 2004. He has been criticised by his opponents as well as by Western political organisations for having an autocratic style of administration and for his connections to organized crime.

Bierut, Boleslaw

Statesman and Communist Party official who came to be called the Stalin of Poland after playing a major role in his party's takeover of the Polish government after World War II. Influenced by leftist-socialist ideas, Bierut joined the Polish Communist Party in 1918 and spent the rest of his life organizing and publicizing communist ideas in Poland. After graduating from the Comintern school, he was active in Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia, and Austria in the early 1930s. Arrested and imprisoned several times for his activities, he went to Russia after his release in 1938 and remained there during most of World War II, returning to Poland at the end of 1943. With the backing of Stalin and the Soviet army, Bierut and his fellow Communists were able to dispose of all effective opposition by 1947, and he began his efforts to Sovietize all aspects of Polish life. Always a loyal follower of party directives from Moscow, Bierut, who was president of the Polish republic from 1947 to 1952, was instrumental in the 1948 deposition of Władysław Gomułka, the secretary of the Polish Workers' Party, who had attempted to bend the Soviet party line to Polish circumstances. Bierut replaced him and reorganized the party to form the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) in 1948. In 1952 he left the presidency to become premier, but he resigned that post also in 1954. He was attending the Soviet Communist Party's 20th Congress in Moscow, at which Nikita Khrushchev presented his famous "Crimes of the Stalin Era" report, when he died.

Benes, Eduard

Statesman, foreign minister, and president, a founder of modern Czechoslovakia who forged its Western-oriented foreign policybetween World Wars I and II but capitulated to Adolf Hitler's demands during the Czech crisis of 1938. Influenced by the nationalist ideas of Tomáš Masaryk, who wished to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks from Austrian rule, Beneš followed his mentor to Switzerland during World War I and then established himself in Paris. With Masaryk and the Slovak leader Milan Štefánik, Beneš formed a propaganda organization that eventually became a Czechoslovak provisional government on October 14, 1918. . Opposed to plans for union between Austria and Germany (after World War I and again in 1931), which he deemed a threat to Czechoslovakia's continued existence, he attempted to reestablish a balance of power in eastern Europe. To fill the partial power vacuum created by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Beneš negotiated the treaties with Romania and Yugoslavia (1921) that formed the Little Entente, originally aimed at revisionist Hungary. France joined in 1924, and thereafter the alliance became a bloc against Germany and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union. In 1935, however, he signed a mutual assistance pact between his country and the Soviet Union. acklash against the ethnic German and Hungarian populations in postwar Czechoslovakia was swift and brutal. Beginning in 1945, the so-called "Beneš decrees" (officially the Decrees of the President of the Republic) were enacted, stripping the citizenship of millions of Sudeten Germans and tens of thousands of Hungarians unless they could prove their wartime loyalty to the Czechoslovak state. Their property was confiscated without compensation, and as many as 19,000 "expellees" were killed during their forced expulsion from Czechoslovakia. The Beneš decrees continued to be a contentious point into the 21st century, but they remained in force, precluding any claim to reparations by those dispossessed in the 1940s. Beneš realized that Czechoslovakia had to cooperate closely with the Soviet Union. Increasingly ill, he suffered two strokes in 1947. When his communist prime minister, Klement Gottwald, demanded on February 25, 1948, that Beneš accept a communist-dominated cabinet, Beneš again had no choice but to capitulate. Refusing to sign the new constitution, he resigned on June 7, 1948.

Balkan Wars

The First Balkan War was fought between the members of the Balkan League—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro—and the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan League was formed under Russian auspices in the spring of 1912 to take Macedonia away from Turkey, which was already involved in a war with Italy. The league was able to field a combined force of 750,000 men. Montenegro opened hostilities by declaring war on Turkey on Oct. 8, 1912, and the other members of the league followed suit 10 days later. The Second Balkan War began when Serbia, Greece, and Romania quarreled with Bulgaria over the division of their joint conquests in Macedonia. On June 1, 1913, Serbia and Greece formed an alliance against Bulgaria, and the war began on the night of June 29/30, 1913, when King Ferdinand of Bulgaria ordered his troops to attack Serbian and Greek forces in Macedonia. The Bulgarians were defeated, however, and a peace treaty was signed between the combatants on Aug. 10, 1913. Under the terms of the treaty, Greece and Serbia divided up most of Macedonia between themselves, leaving Bulgaria with only a small part of the region. As a result of the Balkan Wars, Greece gained southern Macedonia as well as the island of Crete. Serbia gained the Kosovo region and extended into northern and central Macedonia. Albania was made an independent state under a German prince

German Empire

The German Empire was founded on January 18, 1871, in the aftermath of three successful wars by the North German state of Prussia. Within a seven-year period Denmark, the Habsburg monarchy, and France were vanquished in short, decisive conflicts. The empire was forged not as the result of the outpouring of nationalist feeling from the masses but through traditional cabinet diplomacy and agreement by the leaders of the states in the North German Confederation, led by Prussia, with the hereditary rulers of Bavaria,Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Württemberg. Prussia, occupying more than three-fifths of the area of Germany and having approximately three-fifths of thepopulation, remained the dominant force in the nation until the empire's demise at the end of another war in 1918.

Communist takeovers

The Hungarian Communist Rakosi described this process as 'slicing salami' - gradually getting rid of all opposition, bit-by-bit. In this way, Russia gained control of: Albania (1945) - the Communists took power after the war without opposition Bulgaria (1945) - a left-wing coalition gained power in 1945; the Communists then executed the leaders of all the other parties. Poland (1947) - a coalition government took power in 1945, but Stalin arrested all the non-Communist leaders in 1945, and the Communists forced the other non-Communists into exile. Romania (1945-1947) - a left-wing coalition was elected in 1945; the Communists gradually took over control. Hungary was invaded by the Russians, and in 1945 the allies agreed that Russian troops should stay there. Stalin allowed elections, in which the non-communists won a big majority. However, some communists were elected, led by a pro-Russian called Rakosi. Rakosi now started demanding that groups which opposed him should be banned. If not, he hinted, the Russians would take over the country. Then he got control of the police, and started to arrest his opponents. He set up a sinister and brutal secret police unit, the AVO. By 1947 Rakosi had complete control over Hungary. Czechoslovakia (1945-48) - a left-wing coalition was elected in 1945. In 1948, the Communists banned all other parties and killed their leaders. East Germany (1949) - the Russian turned their zone of Germany into the German Democratic Republic in 1949.

Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion[citation needed] (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of March 2016) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning April 8th 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous again, and prevent the spread of communism.[1] The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labour union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.[2]

Hoxha, Enver

The first communist chief of state of Albania. As that country's ruler for 40 years after World War II, he forced its transformation from a semifeudal relic of theOttoman Empire into an industrialized economy with the most tightly controlled society in Europe. Hoxha became first secretary of the party's Central Committee and political commissar of the communist-dominated Army of National Liberation. He was prime minister of Albania from its liberation in 1944 until 1954, simultaneously holding the ministry of foreign affairs from 1946 to 1953. As first secretary of the Party of Labour's Central Committee, he retained effective control of the government until his death. n order to enforce his radical program, however, Hoxha resorted to brutal Stalinist tactics. His government imprisoned, executed, or exiled thousands of landowners, rural clan leaders, Muslim and Christian clerics, peasants who resisted collectivization, and disloyal party officials. Private property was confiscated by the state; all churches, mosques, and other religious institutions were closed; and all cultural and intellectual endeavours were put at the service of socialism and the state. As ardent a nationalist as he was a communist, Hoxha excoriated any communist state that threatened his power or the sovereignty of Albania. In 1948 he broke relations with Yugoslavia and formed an alliance with the Soviet Union. After the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, for whom Hoxha held a lifelong admiration, his relations with Nikita Khrushchev deteriorated until Hoxha broke with him completely in 1961

Macedonia

The region of Macedonia owes its importance neither to its size nor to its population but rather to its location at a major junction of communication routes—in particular, the great north-south route from the Danube River to the Aegean formed by the valleys of the Morava and Vardar rivers and the ancient east-west trade routes connecting the Black Sea and Istanbul with the Adriatic Sea. Although the majority of the republic's inhabitants are of Slavic descent and heirs to the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity, 500 years of incorporation into the Ottoman Empire left substantial numbers of other ethnic groups, including Albanians, Turks, Vlachs(Aromani), and Roma (Gypsies). Consequently, Macedonia forms a complex border zone between the major cultural traditions of Europe and Asia. Ottoman control was brought to an end by the Balkan Wars (1912-13), after which Macedonia was divided among Greece, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Following World War I, the Serbian segment was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929). After World War II the Serbian part of Macedonia became a constituent republic within the Socialist Federal Republic ofYugoslavia. The collapse of Yugoslavia led the Republic of Macedonia to declare its independence on December 19, 1991. The two major problems facing the Republic of Macedonia since its independence have been ensuring that its large Albanianminority enjoys the rights of full citizenship and gaining international recognition under its constitutional name and membership in international organizations in the face of strong opposition from Greece, which claims a monopoly on the use of the term Macedonia

Dubcek, Alexander

Was a Slovak politician and, briefly, leader of Czechoslovakia (1968-1969). He attempted to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring but he was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Later, after the overthrow of the government in 1989, he was Chairman of the federal Czechoslovak parliament. Also in 1989, the European Parliament awarded Dubček the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.[1] The period following Novotný's downfall became known as the Prague Spring. During this time, Dubček and other reformers sought to liberalize the Communist government—creating "socialism with a human face". Though this loosened the party's influence on the country, Dubček remained a devoted Communist and intended to preserve the party's rule. However, during the Prague Spring, he and other reform-minded Communists sought to win popular support for the Communist government by eliminating its worst, most repressive features, allowing greater freedom of expression and tolerating political and social organizations not under Communist control. "Dubček! Svoboda!" became the popular refrain of student demonstrations during this period. Yet Dubček found himself in an increasingly untenable position. The program of reform gained momentum, leading to pressures for further liberalization and democratization. At the same time, hard-line Communists in Czechoslovakia and the leaders of other Warsaw Pact countries pressured Dubček to rein in the Prague Spring. Though Dubček wanted to oversee the reform movement, he refused to resort to any draconian measures to do so.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

Was a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 when the party was dissolved. He served 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 1989, as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and as President of the Soviet Unionfrom 1990 to 1991). He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October Revolution. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian-Russian family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters oncollective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief "interregna" of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachev's policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring") and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He removed the constitutional role of the Communist Party in governing the state, and inadvertently led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and the Harvey Prize in 1992, as well as honorary doctorates from various universities. In foreign affairs, Gorbachev from the beginning cultivated warmer relations and trade with the developed nations of both West and East. In December 1987 he signed an agreement with U.S. President Ronald Reagan for their two countries to destroy all existing stocks of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles. In 1988-89 he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after their nine-year occupation of that country. Gorbachev was the single most important initiator of a series of events in late 1989 and 1990 that transformed the political fabric of Europe and marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Throughout 1989 he had seized every opportunity to voice his support for reformist communists in the Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe, and, when communist regimes in those countries collapsed like dominoes late that year, Gorbachev tacitly acquiesced in their fall. As democratically elected, noncommunist governments came to power in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in late 1989-90, Gorbachev agreed to the phased withdrawal of Soviet troops from those countries. By the summer of 1990 he had agreed to the reunification of East with West Germany and even assented to the prospect of that reunified nation's becoming a member of the Soviet Union's longtime enemy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 1990 Gorbachev received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his striking achievements in international relations.

Khurschev, Nikita

Was a politician who led the Soviet Unionduring part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and asChairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev 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. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier. In the power struggle triggered by Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On February 25, 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", denouncing Stalin's purges and ushering in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union. His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

East Germany

Was a state in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period. From 1949 to 1990, it administered the region of Germany that was occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II—the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder-Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it; as a result, West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR. The German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. The East was often described as a satellite state of the Soviet Union.[3] Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, and the GDR began to function as a state on 7 October 1949. Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. The GDR established the Ministry for State Security, or "Stasi", which aided the Soviet Army in suppressing uprisings in 1953. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party (SED), though other parties nominally participated in its alliance organisation, the National Front of Democratic Germany.[4] (NOTES)30 thousand of Germans left east Germany through CZ and Hungary ( Sept Emigration) Leipzig demonstration. Gorbachov went to East Germany to help Honecker to introduce new reforms. E Krenz was responsible for using the Chinese situation in Germany. Honecker was arrested after fall of Berlin wall because he had private account in Swiss banks with a lot of money. H Koln became the leader of reunited Germany.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Was an American politician and general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO.[2] Eisenhower's main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. In the first year of his presidency, he threatened the use of nuclear weapons in an effort to conclude the Korean War; his New Look policy of nuclear deterrence prioritized inexpensive nuclear weapons while reducing funding for conventional military forces. He ordered coups in Iranand Guatemala. Eisenhower refused to give major aid to help France in Vietnam. He gave strong financial support to the new nation of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, which obliged the U.S. to militarily support the pro-Western Republic of China in Taiwan and continue the isolation of the People's Republic of China. After the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the space race. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt, and forced them to withdraw. He also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action

"Percentages" deal

Was an agreement between Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill during the Fourth Moscow Conference on October 1944, about how to divide various European countries into spheres of influence. The agreement was made public by Churchill. The US ambassador, who was supposed to represent Roosevelt in these meetings, was excluded from this particular discussion.[2][3] Roumania Russia ...90% The others ...10% Greece Great Britain ...90% (in accord with U.S.A.) Russia ...10% Yugoslavia ...50—50% Hungary ...50-50% Bulgaria Russia ...75% The others ...25%

Brezhnev, Leonid

Was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of theCommunist 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 Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic and social stagnation in the Soviet Union. A significant increase in military expenditure, which by the time of Brezhnev's death stood at approximately 12.5% of the country's GNP, and an aging and ineffective leadership set the stage for a dwindling GNP compared to Western nations. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. At the same time he presided over the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakiato stop the Prague Spring, and his last major decision in power was to send the Soviet military to Afghanistan in an attempt to save thefragile regime, which was fighting a war against the mujahideen.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk

[ˈtomaːʃ ˈɡarɪk ˈmasarɪk]), sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English (7 March 1850 - 14 September 1937), was a Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, therefore is he called "President liberator".[1] He originally wished to reform the Austro-Hungarian monarchy into a democratic federal state, but during the First World War he began to favour the abolition of the monarchy and, with the help of the Allied Powers, eventually succeeded. He was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seventeen times.[2]

Lech Wałęsa

] born 29 September 1943) is a retired Polish politician and labor activist.[3] He co-founded and headed 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.[4] Wałęsa was an electrician by trade. Soon after beginning work at Lenin Shipyard (now Gdańsk Shipyard), he became a trade union activist, for which he was persecuted by the Communist authorities, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade union movement. After martial law was imposed in Poland and Solidarity was outlawed, Wałęsa was arrested again. Upon his release from custody he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989, and to a Solidarity-led government.

Visegrad Group

also called the Visegrad Four, or V4 is an alliance of four Central European states - Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - for the purposes of furthering their European integration, as well as for advancing military, economic and energy cooperation with one another.[1] The group used to be occasionally referred to as the Visegrád Triangle, due to the fact that it was originally an alliance of three states - the term has not been valid since 1993, but does continue to appear sometimes.

Ustaše

also known as "Ustashe", "Ustashas", and "Ustashi", were members of the Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Croatian: Ustaša - Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret), a Croatian fascist,[2] ultranationalist and terrorist organization, active, in its original form, between 1929 and 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and anti-fascist or dissident Croats in Yugoslavia during World War II.[3][4][5]

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

also known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact), named after the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, officially the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,[a] was a non-aggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Moscow on 23 August 1939. Munich Conference, 1938

Nazi Germany

and the Third Reich (German: Drittes Reich) are common English names for Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist totalitarian state which controlled nearly all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich ("German Reich", "German Empire" or "German Realm") from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich) from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany ceased to exist after the Allied Forces defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe

Turkish Straits

are a series of internationally-significant waterways in northwest Turkey that connect the Aegean and Mediterranean seas to the Black Sea. They consist of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosphorus, all part of the sovereign sea territory of Turkey and subject to the regime of internal waters. They are conventionally considered the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia, as well as the dividing line between European Turkey and Asian Turkey.

1973 oil crisis

began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC, consisting of the Arab members of OPEC plus Egypt and Syria) proclaimed an oil embargo. By the end of the embargo in March 1974,[1] the price of oil had risen from US$3 per barrel to nearly $12 globally; US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an oil crisis, or "shock", with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the global economy.[2] It was later called the "first oil shock", followed by the 1979 oil crisis, termed the "second oil shock."

Curzon Line

demarcation line between Poland and Soviet Russia that was proposed during the Russo-Polish War of 1919-20 as a possible armistice line and became (with a few alterations) the Soviet-Polish border after World War II. Although the Curzon Line, which had never been proposed as a permanent boundary, lost significance after the Russo-Polish War, the Soviet Union later revived it, claiming all the territory east of the line and occupying that area (in accordance After World War I the Allied Supreme Council, which was determining the frontiers of the recently reestablished Polish state, created a temporary boundary marking the minimum eastern frontier of Poland and authorized a Polish administration to be formed on the lands west of it (Dec. 8, 1919). That line extended southward from Grodno, passed through Brest-Litovsk, and then followed the Bug River to its junction with the former frontier between the Austrian Empire and Russia. Whether easternGalicia, with Lvov, should be Polish or Ukrainian was not decided. with the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939) at the outbreak of World War II. Later, after Germany had invaded the Soviet Union, the Red Army pushed back the German troops and occupied all of the former state of Poland by the end of 1944; the United States and Great Britain then agreed to Soviet demands (Yalta Conference; Feb. 6, 1945) and recognized the Curzon Line as the Soviet-Polish border. On Aug. 16, 1945, a Soviet-Polish treaty officially designated a line almost equivalent to the Curzon Line as their mutual border; in 1951 some minor frontier adjustments were made.

Vojvodina

fficially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина / Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina, [ʋǒjʋodina] ( listen); see Names in other languages), is an autonomous province of Serbia, located in the northern part of the country, in the Pannonian Plain. Novi Sad is the largest city and administrative center of Vojvodina and the second-largest city in Serbia. Vojvodina has a population of approximately 2 million (approximately 26.88% of the Serbian population excluding Kosovo, and 21.56% including it). It has a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity;[5] there are more than 26 ethnic groups in the province,[6][7] which has six official languages.[8]

Solidatity

is a Polish trade union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa.[1] It was the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by a communist party. Its membership reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress (when it reached 10 million),[2][3] which constituted one third of the total working-age population of Poland.[4]

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

is a broadcasting organization that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed".[3] RFE/RL is a 501(c)(3) corporation that receives U.S. government funding and is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services.[4]

show trial

is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice and also conducted for propagandistic purposes. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.[1

Nationalism

is a shared group feeling in the significance of a geographical and sometimes demographic region seeking independence for its culture or ethnicity that holds that group together. This can be expressed as a belief or political ideology that involves an individual identifying with or becoming attached to one's nation. Nationalism involves national identity, by contrast with the related concept of patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviors that support a state's decisions and actions.[1] NATO

Stalinism

is the means of governing and related policies implemented by Joseph Stalin. Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included state terror, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, cult of personality in leadership, and subordination of interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—deemed by Stalinism to be the most forefront vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.[1]

Voice of America

is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. The VOA provides programming for broadcast on radio, TV, and the Internet outside of the U.S., in English and some foreign languages. A 1976 law signed by President Gerald Ford requires the VOA to "serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news."[1] The VOA Charter states: "VOA news will be accurate, objective and comprehensive."[1] The Voice of America headquarters is located at 330 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC, 20237, U.S. The Voice of America is fully funded by the U.S. government. The United States Congress appropriates funds for it annually under the same budget for embassies and consulates.

Slobodan Milošević

politician and administrator, who, as Serbia's party leader and president (1989-97), pursued Serbian nationalist policies that contributed to the breakup of the socialist Yugoslav federation. He subsequently embroiled Serbia in a series of conflicts with the successor Balkan states. From 1997 to 2000 he served as president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Yalta Conference

sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held from February 4 to 11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea.

Iron Curtain

the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by theSoviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. The term Iron Curtain had been in occasional and varied use as a metaphor since the 19th century, but it came to prominence only after it was used by the former British prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, U.S., on March 5, 1946, when he said of thecommunist states, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." The restrictions and the rigidity of the Iron Curtain were somewhat reduced in the years following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, although the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 restored them. During theCold War the Iron Curtain extended to the airwaves. The attempts by theCentral Intelligence Agency-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE) to provide listeners behind the Curtain with uncensored news were met with efforts by communist governments to jam RFE's signal. The Iron Curtain largely ceased to exist in 1989-90 with the communists' abandonment of one-party rule in eastern Europe.

Holocaust

the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by NaziGermany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this "the final solution to the Jewish question." The word Holocaust is derived from the Greek holokauston, a translation of the Hebrew word ʿolah, meaning a burnt sacrifice offered whole to God. This word was chosen because in the ultimate manifestation of the Nazi killing program—theextermination camps—the bodies of the victims were consumed whole in crematoria and open fires.

The Yugoslav Partisans[Note 1][6] or the National Liberation Army,[Note 2] officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavi

was Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II, often compared to the Polish resistance movement. The Yugoslav Resistance was led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia[8] during World War II. Its commander was Marshal Josip Broz Tito. OTHER PARTIZAN GROUPS OPERATED IN NAZI OCCCUPIED TERRITORY

Rudolf Slánský

was a Communist politician in Czechoslovakia. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading instigators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. As an orthodox Marxist-Stalinist, during his brief period in office subsequent to the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état he organised the thorough sovietization of society, state seizure of private property and repression of political opponents of the regime. In foreign affairs he played a major role in the establishment of the State of Israel supplying Czech arms to Zionists seeking to overthrow the British-mandate. After the split between Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, the latter instigated a wave of "purges" of the respective Communist Party leaderships,[1] to prevent more splits between the Soviet Union and its Central European[2] "satellite" countries. In Czechoslovakia, Slánský who was seen as vulnerable due to economic and industrial troubles, was one of 14 leaders arrested in 1952 and put on show trial en masse in November 1952. This was later to be known as the Slansky trial. The accused, all high-ranking functionaries of the Czech Communist party, were charged with high treason. After eight days and numerous accusations, 11 of the 14 were sentenced to death. Slánský's sentence was carried out five days later.

Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht

was a German Communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (after spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in France and the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic). As the first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.

Brezhnev Doctrine

was a Soviet foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968, Pravda article, entitled Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries. Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party on November 13, 1968, which stated: When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries. This doctrine was announced to retroactively justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 that ended the Prague Spring, along with earlierSoviet military interventions, such as the invasion of Hungary in 1956. These interventions were meant to put an end to liberalization efforts and uprisings that had the potential to compromise Soviet hegemony inside the Eastern Bloc, which was considered by the Soviets to be an essential defensive and strategic buffer in case hostilities with NATO were to break out. In practice, the policy meant that only limited independence of the satellite states' communist parties was allowed and that no country would be allowed to compromise the cohesiveness of the Eastern Bloc in any way. That is, no country could leave the Warsaw Pact or disturb a rulingcommunist party's monopoly on power. Implicit in this doctrine was that the leadership of the Soviet Union reserved, for itself, the right to define "socialism" and "capitalism". Following the announcement of the Brezhnev Doctrine, numerous treaties were signed between the Soviet Union and its satellite states to reassert these points and to further ensure inter-state cooperation. The principles of the doctrine were so broad that the Soviets even used it to justify their military intervention in the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979. The Brezhnev Doctrine stayed in effect until it was ended with the Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980-81.[1] Mikhail Gorbachev refused to use military force when Poland held free elections in 1989 and Solidarnosc defeated the Polish United Workers' Party.[2] It was superseded by the facetiously named Sinatra Doctrine in 1989, alluding to the Frank Sinatra song "My Way".[3]

Josip Broz

was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980.[1] During World War II he was the leader of the Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe.[2] While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian,[3][4] and concerns about the repression of political opponents have been raised, Tito was "seen by most as a benevolent dictator"[5] due to his economic and diplomatic policies. He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad.[6] Viewed as a unifying symbol,[7] his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. Titoism are characterized by policies and practices based on the principle that in each country, the means of attaining ultimate communist goals must be dictated by the conditions of that particular country, rather than by a pattern set in another country.

WarPac,

was a collective defense treaty among the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The Warsaw Pact 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. The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO[2][3][4][5] in 1955 per the Paris Pacts of 1954,[6][7][8][9][10] but it is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over military forces in Central and Eastern Europe.[11] While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power[12] or counterweight[13] to NATO, there was no direct confrontation between them. Instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs.[13] The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (with the participation of all Pact nations except Romania and Albania).[12] The Pact failed to function when the Revolutions of 1989 spread through Eastern Europe, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland[14] and its success in June 1989.

The Tito-Stalin Split, or Yugoslav-Soviet Split

was a conflict between the leaders of SFR Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, which resulted in Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) in 1948. This was the beginning of the Informbiro period, marked by poor relations with the USSR, that came to an end in 1955. It was said by the Soviets to be caused by Yugoslavia's disloyalty to the USSR, while in Yugoslavia and the West it was presented as Josip Broz Tito's national pride and refusal to submit to Joseph Stalin's will in making Yugoslavia a Soviet satellite state. Scholars now emphasize the cause was Stalin's rejection of Tito's plans to absorb Albania and Greece in cooperation with Bulgaria, thereby setting up a powerful Eastern European bloc outside Moscow's control.[1]

Prague Spring

was 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 (KSČ), and continued until 21 August when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.

Truman Doctrine

was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical hegemony during the Cold War. It was first[1] announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. American military force was usually not involved; instead Congress appropriated free gifts of financial aid to support the economies and the military of Greece and Turkey. More generally, the Truman doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy, and led, in 1949, to the formation of NATO: a full-fledged military alliance that is in effect to this day. Historians often use Truman's speech to date the start of the Cold War.

Public Against Violence (VPN)

was founded during the Velvet Revolution, which overthrew the Communist Party rule in Czechoslovakia.[1] After riot police cracked down on a student demonstration in Prague on the 17 November 1989 a growing series of demonstrations were held in Czechoslovakia.[1] On the 19 November Civic Forum was founded in Prague as a coalition of opposition groups demanding the removal of the Communist leadership.[1] The same evening a meeting was held in Bratislava, Slovakia attended by about 500 people where Public Against Violence was founded.[3] The following day a first meeting of the coordinating committee of Public Against Violence took place.[3]