1. Global Connections Unit 12 Stalin’s USSR Eastern and Western Europe The United States

2. The Reign of Stalin Post WW II the # 1 problem facing the USSR was the lack of an industrial base Solution: Soviet workers were asked to work with very little return for themselves ◦Mostly heavy industry ◦Profit used to purchase machinery and Western technology ◦Result: 40% increase in production from Pre-war levels  Problem: Soviet people shortchanged (conditions, consumer goods)

3. The Khrushchev Era March 5 th 1953 Stalin dies After a scramble for power the General Secretary of the Com. Party Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the leader 1956: Mr. K condemns Stalin and began a policy of De-Stalinization ◦Consumer goods, agricultural reform, more military spending ◦Result: Industrial production fell All of this combined with foreign policy failures led to Mr. K’s retirement in 1964

4. Behind the Iron Curtain By 1947 USSR dominated E. Germ, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia ◦These countries all had Soviet troops and only one political party (“Satellites”) ◦Economies and societies modeled on the USSR Albania and Yugoslavia : both had strong independent communist parties during the war and resisted Soviet domination  Yugoslavia and Marshall Tito (Josef Broz) in power until his death in 1980 Marshall Tito

5. Revolts against Communism Problems with Communism in Eastern Europe ◦Many countries began to pursue different socialist paths (late 1950’s)  1956 Poland: Reforms of Wladyslaw Gomulka cut short by the USSR

6. Hungary  1956 Hungary: Imre Nagy declared Hungary a free nation ◦ Krushshev rolled tanks into Budapest ◦ Nagy was arrested and later executed

7. Czechoslovakia  1968 Czechoslovakia: After the resignation of Antonin Novotny (little Stalin) Alexander Dubcek was elected to run the Communist Party ◦ Reforms (speech, press, democracy, independence) led to the “Prague Spring” ◦ August 1968 the Soviets crushed the reforms and removed Dubcek

8. The end of the Cold War By the 1970’s US Soviet relations had reached a new phase called Détente ◦Relaxation of tensions and improved relations However, in 1979 this was broken by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Brezhnev Doctrine) ◦To restore a soviet regime ◦US President Jimmy Carter boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow ◦Ronald Reagan refers to them as the “Evil Empire”  Aid to Afghan rebels  New arms race

9. JFK and LBJ Truman and MacArthur

10. Leonid Brezhnev Nikita Kruschev

11. Mikhail Gorbachev Began a new era in Soviet politics by instituting radical reforms ◦Glasnost: Openness in discussing problems ◦Perestroika: Restructuring (economic and political)  Began with limited free enterprise and a market driven economy  Discovered that none of this would work without political reform ◦ 1988: The congress of the peoples deputies ◦ 1990: allowed non-communist parties to organize ◦ Separated the party and the government by creating a new position of President of the USSR