Brave New World: Communism on Trial

1
Brave New World Communism on Trial
26

2
Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
3
The Postwar Soviet Union

• Economic recovery
• New five-year plan, 1946
• Create a new industrial base
• Growth of heavy industry over consumer goods
• Paranoia of Stalin contributes to repression
• Stalin dies in 1953 and succeeded by Georgy
  Malenkov who quickly fell to rival Nikita
  Khrushchev (1894-1971)
• Political reform
• Agricultural reform
• Problems
• De-Stalinization
• Foreign policy failures
• Forced to retire due to deteriorating health in
  1964

4
The Brezhnev Years, 1964-1982

• Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)
• Stability over reform
• Cautious attempts at reform
• Stagnant industrial and agricultural economy
• A Controlled Society
• Revival of Stalinism
• Restrictive policy against Soviet Critics
• Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Free expression restricted
• Pravada (Truth) and Izvestia (News)

5
A Stagnant Economy

• Brezhnevs problems
• Absence of incentives
• Athletic achievement prized
• Senior officials get perquisites

6
An Aging Leadership

• Yuri Andopov (1914-1984)
• Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985)

7
Cultural and Society in the Soviet Bloc

• Cultural Expression
• Literary and scientific expression dependent on
  the state
• Follow the party line
• No criticism of existing social conditions
• Soviet literature
• Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), Doctor Zhivago
• Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
• Eastern European states varied from country to
  country
• Desire to create a classless society stripped the
  ruling class of their special status
• Changes in education
• Emergence of a new elite
• Women
• Not equal
• Make up half the workforce
• Traditional roles in the home remained

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The States of Eastern Europe and the Former
Soviet Union
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The Disintegration of the Soviet Union

• Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931)
• Gorbachev Era
• Perestroika (restructuring)
• Glasnost (openness)
• Political reforms
• Call for a new Soviet parliament, 1988
• Congress of Peoples Deputies elected 1989
• Political parties authorized, 1990
• Gorbachev become the first president of the
  Soviet Union, March 1990
• 1988-1991 nationalist movements erupt
• December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigns and turns
  power over to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia

10
The New Russia From Empire to Nation

• Russia under Boris Yeltsin
• Committed to introducing a free market economy
• New constitution, 1993
• Hard-line resistance
• Problems
• Growing economic inequality, rampant corruption,
  and Chechnya
• Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999 replaced by
  Vladimir Putin
• Vowed to end corruption and strengthen the role
  of the government in managing the state
• Sought to bring Chechnya back under Russian
  control
• Centralized authority and silenced critics

11
Eastern Europe From Soviet Satellites to
Sovereign Nations

• Poland
• Solidarity
• Free parliamentary elections, 1988
• President freely elected by the populace,
  December, 1990
• Hungary
• Attempts at economic reform in the 1980s
• Elections, March 1990
• Czechoslovakia
• Charter 77
• Communist government collapses, December, 1989
• East Germany
• Oppressive regime of Erich Honecker led to
  massive demonstrations
• Government opened the border with the west
  Berlin Wall torn down
• Germany reunited

12
The Peoples Republic of China
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The East is Red China Under Communism

• New Democracy
• Patterned after Lenins New Economic Policy
• Two-thirds of peasant households received land
• Peoples tribunals against landlords and rich
  farmers
• The Transition to Socialism
• First Five-Year plan, 1953
• Collectivization initiated, 1955
• Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960
• Collectives combined to form peoples communes
• A failure 15 million died of starvation

14
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

• Red Guard
• Policy disagreements
• Mao wanted to erase any capitalist values and the
  remnants of feudalist Confucian ideas
• Eliminated any profit incentives
• Established a new school system that stressed
  practical education at the expense of science and
  the humanities
• Tried to destroy all traditional society
• Destruction of temples, religious sculptures,
  even street names

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From Mao to Deng

• Death of Mao in September 1976 brought a struggle
  for succession and the end of the Cultural
  Revolution
• Leadership of Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997)
• Four modernizations industry, agriculture,
  technology, defense
• Progress in ending problems of poverty and
  underdevelopment
• Did not include democracy

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Incident at Tiananmen Square

• Increased criticism over corruption, nepotism,
  favored treatment of senior officials, and
  inflation
• May 1989 student protests
• Army crushes the movement and demonstrators
  harshly punished

17
From Marx to Confucius?

• Jiang Zemin followed Deng Xiaoping
• Rapid economic growth and control of dissent
• New emphasis on Confucianism
• Growing unrest among Chinas national minorities

18
Popular Demonstrations at Tiananmen Square,
Spring 1989
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Economics in Command

• Post-Mao leader have placed economic performance
  over ideological purity
• Attempts to stimulate industrial sector
• Tolerate emergence of a small private sector
• Opened up the country to foreign investment and
  technology
• Stress educational reform
• Changes in agriculture
• Standard of living improved
• Problems
• Increasingly affluent middle class
• Closing of state-run factories has led to
  millions of workers being dismissed each year
• Environmental impact

20
Social Changes

• Women permitted to vote and participate in the
  political process
• Equal rights with men in marriage
• Worked to destroy the influence of the
  traditional family system
• Great Leap Forward
• Post-Maoism shift away from revolutionary
  utopianism
• Dress, religion, social change, socialist
  realism, literature, and art
• Religious practices were allowed
• Problems that come with a more open society

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Chinas Changing Culture

• Emphasis on social realism but it did not
  extinguish the influence of traditional culture
• During Cultural Revolution
• Literature
• Released from social realism by the death of Mao
• In painting an interest in traditional and
  Western forms
• Literature was to express views on the mistakes
  of the past
• Bai Hua, Bitter Love, critical of the excesses of
  the Cultural Revolution

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Discussion Questions

• What kinds of reforms did Nikita Khrushchev
  advocate? What led to his fall from power?
• What were the most important social changes in
  the postwar Soviet Union?
• What challenges did Gorbachev face in his efforts
  to introduce reforms in the Soviet Union?
• Why is Confucianism so appealing to Chinas
  current leaders?