HST 112
1) Examining the period between 1917 (the year the Bolsheviks came to power) and 1989 (the year the Berlin Wall fell), answer the following question: Did the Soviet Communist regime (1917-1991) and the Communist regimes of the East Bloc (1945-1989) enjoy popular support? If so, how much and for how long? You must cover the whole period (1917-1989), spending at least half of your answer on the period after 1945. In your answer, be clear about the "when" and the "where" (i.e., in the Soviet Union during the 1930s; in Czechoslovakia during the Communist take-over, in Poland during the 1970s, etc.). Finally, you will want to explain why these regimes lost whatever support they had in the 1980s (which they clearly did). Why, in other words, did Communism fail? (note: the following guidelines will not appear on the exam): Essays that do not cover the period after 1945 extensively (we had several lectures and read a whole book on the period) will not receive higher than a C grade. Please do not ignore the Kovaly book, as well as the other sources on Communism and Stalinism. Events and themes you may want to discuss include: the Bolshevik Revolution, political repression and terror, Stalin, the Five Year Plans, the role of the USSR in defeating Hitler, the Communist takeovers in East Europe, Stalinization of the East Bloc, and, importantly, the reasons for the fall of Communism in the East Bloc. In particular, you will want to explore why people like Kovaly and her husband, victims of one form of barbarity (Nazism), supported another (Stalinism). Why did they not support liberal democracy, for example?
1917-1945 • Bolshevik Revolution (oct 1917) • Civil War (1918-1921) • Lenin gave peasants land, war ended • Needed popular support • NEP mix of capitalism and socialism, backs off from extreme communism to improve economy...introduced after civil war by lenin • Stalinism: Five year plan (millions being pulled out of poverty and millions going down), stalins terror (show trials, gualgs) • Speeches of people or of repression • Stalin won WW2 in Russia, seen in positive light, rallied Russian nationalism Satellites in Cold War • Local support for communists in Satellites.....use kovali • Stalinization and terror.....party purges...summary executions 1953-1989 • Building socialism (hungary revolution to make socialism and communism more free-gulash communism) • Socialism with a human face • Fall of Communism=Poland 1970s...solidarity repressed by military • Gorbachev intro glastnost and ^^ • 1989=fall of communism o bankruptcy of communist party in eastern europe o base on force and terror o obsolete nature of economic system o lack of consumer goods (primary source) o decline belief in socialism o Slovenka koolich reading 2) One of the major themes of the course has been the relationship between the individual and the state. How did this relationship change over the course of the twentieth century? You should begin with a short discussion (one or two paragraphs) on the relationship between the individual and the state in the period before 1789 (under feudalism) and after 1789, during the nineteenth century (classic liberal view). The body of your essay should then cover the entire period (WWI, interwar period— including Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism—and East and West Europe [Socialism and Social Democracy (Welfare State)] during the Cold War), not only up until 1989, but also even beyond (1990s/2000s). Finally, good essays will account for the fact that the relationship between the state and the individual was often very different depending on the race, sex, gender, ethnicity, or religion of a given individual. (note: the following guidelines will not appear on the exam): Things you will want to consider: What was the status of individual rights during each period? Was state-individual relationship becoming more "modern" (how do you define "modern"). What sorts of responsibilities did the individual have to the state? What responsibilities did the state have to the individual? Finally, how did the state-individual relationship change for women? Was it different than for men? Under Nazism? Fascism? Soviet Communism? Liberalism? Social Democracy? In terms of sources, you will certainly want to talk about Kovaly, but there is also Mussolini, Hitler, the Lenin, Stalin, Primo Levi, and so on. Additionally, you could refer to primary sources from earlier in the course, since a part of this question is cumulative, though the focus should be on the sources from the second half of the course (since the mid-term). -Early modern society=very little interaction between state and people (1 paragraph on early period) -born into social class, no legal equality, no legal system -obligations based on traditions....no uniform feudal system throughout Europe -no national identity -local identity, religious identity -french revolution-WW1 (paragraph too) • State and individual relationship improve • State protects individual rights through popular sovereignty legal equality, religious tolerance, liberties • Increasing state involvement, labor markets, taxes, military service, education, post office, public health, safety standards, registration of births/marriages (Ashley mines commission limit child labor) • Strong national identity forms WW1-WW2(1914-1945) Bulk of the essay** • Individual rights subjugated to the state • Moussilini primary source about fascism, lenin, hitler sources, 5 year plan • State organizes and channels society • Ideological program • Holocaust=inflicting death for good of the state/race 1945-1989 Other bulk of essay******** • Socialism in both sides of Europe=try provide basic standard of living for the individual guaranteed by the state • Liberalism discredited (great depression) • West Europe=social democracy, emphasis on human rights, cooperation (European coal community), rejection of extremes like fascism and communism and Nazism, for the larger social good • Wellfair state, economic miracle, European integration of economies • Goal is to provide stability and prosperity for the country and individual • East Europe- individual rights still subjugated to the state in the name of socialism • Destruction of individuals for good of socialism • Kovali 1989-Present • Transition period for Europe • Continue to provide minimum standard of living • Racial tensions building and economies slowing down • Avoid violence? Protect minorities? • Triumph of Liberalism, capitalism, still tempered by social democracy • Can European social model survive? Can it provide benefits and stability? • Period of great hope=European Union in 1992 o Period of war and genocide in Yugoslavia o Period of problems: unemployment, economic growth, immigration and racism
Beveridge report
1942 the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services, known commonly as the Beveridge Report was an influential document in the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom, published in December 1942
Slanksy Trial
1951-52 communist show trial. Reference Kovely
Nikita Khrushchev
1955-64. XX Party Congress, "secret speech". Leader of USSR from 1955 until his dismissal in 1964 known for his speech denouncing Stalin, creating of the "thaw" and participation in the Cuban missile crisis.
Show trails
Bolshevik leaders forced to confess and then found guilty. trumped-up charges fabricated evidence and coerced confessions Bolshevik leaders of those were tortured and forced to confess in court. most leaders accepted their fate seeing the purges as good for the future of socialism.
European Coal and Steel Community
France, Italy, Belgium, Netherland, Luxembourg, West Germany . organization to manage the joint production of basic resources. Importantly it arranged for West Germany's abundant output of coal and steel to benefit all of Western Europe
Einsatzgruppen
German Group who went and killed jews after the initial purge on the western front
Treaty Of Brest- Litovsk
Germans acquire Russian land, relocated capital to Moscow. placed vast regions of the old regions of the old Russian Empire under german occupation. because the loss of millions of square miles to the German put Petrograd at risk, the Bolsheviks reelected the capital to Moscow and formally adopted the name communist to distinguish themselves from the socialist/ social democrats who had voted for the disastrous war in the first place.
Glasnost & Perestroika
Gorbockis policies
Kristallnacht
Nov 9-10 1938 night of the broken glass. in 1938 a jewish teenager reacting to the harassment of his parents killed a german official. in retaliation Nazis and other germans attacked some two hundred synagogues smashed windows of Jewish owned stores ransacked apartments of known or suspected Jews , and threw more than twenty thousands Jews into prisons and camps.
Chernobyl
Nuke accident in Ukriane, covered up in USSR, known outside, destroyed environment near the site 1986
Munich Conference
Oct 1938. The Munich Conference was a conference that was held in the City of Munich when Hitler demanded part of the Czechoslovakia. In attendance during that meeting were the leaders of France Italy and the Great Britain. The conference was held in the year 1938 to try to make Hitler drop his stand on acquiring part of the Czechoslovakian republic.
March on Rome
Oct 28. 1922. was a march by which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, or PNF) came to power in the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia). The march took place from 22 to 29 October 1922.
Slobodan Milosevic
President of Serbia 1987-1997 who pushed for Serb control of post-communist Yugoslavia in 2002 he was tried for crimes against humanity in the ethnic cleansing that accompanied the dissolution of the Yugoslav state.
Five Year Plan
Stalin, Increase industry, gov run economy, more jobs 1928-32 forced industrialization, agricultural collectivization
Marshall Plan
US aid to Europe after the war. 15 billion over four years to European Countries. Strings attached 1. they wanted them to become more like the United States 2. Modernaization industry cooperation 3. politcal centraism, exlude socialist and communist
Berlin Blockade/ Airlift
USSR closes roads to berlin cause in soviet zone, planes kept on, deliver for the winter
Tito (Josip Broz)
Yugoslavia ruler, anti-nazi, mounted communist rev, yugo is culturally diverse. Led the powerful anti-nazi yugoslav partisans. after the war he drew on support from serbs, croats, and muslims to mount a communist revolution. his revolution however was explicitly meant to avoid soviet influence.
total war
a war built on the full mobilization of soldiers civilization, and technology of the nations involved. the term also refers to highly destructive war of ideologies.
Yalta
big 3 met, stated demands after war Dvision of Germany denzaifaction three wishes. FDR: United Nations USSR intervention against Japan Chruchill: Continued US involvement in Europe, suspiction of soviet intent in E. Europe Stalin: Sphere of influence and friendly states in E. Europe, agreed to hold free election
Nazi- Soviet Non- Aggression Pact
not to attack either and divide conquered territories. August 23,1939, Germany and the USSR signed a nonaggression agreement. provided that if one country became embroiled in war, the other country would remain neutral. moreover the two dictator secretly agreed to divide poland and the two baltic states- latvia, estonia, and lithuania at some further date. should war come the democracies would be fighting a germany that feared no attack on its eastern boarders. benefited the USSR.
Kulaks
opponents of stalins plan to end independent farming. negative term for prosperous peasants.
NEP New Economic Policy
parts of the economy to the free market, a temporary retreat to capitalist methods that allowed peasants to sell their grain and others to trade consumer goods freely.
volksegemeinschaft
peoples community like minded racially pure germans aryans the nazis named them.
warsaw pact
security alliance of the USSR & satellites
