Communism and the Cold War

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1958-60 “Great Leap Forward”

Mao orders collectivization, backyard foundaries

20-30 million die through starvation

1962 break with Soviet Union obvious

1966-76 “Cultural Revolution”

universities close, Red Guards run amok, “counter-revolutionaries” killed

1978 period of (economic) liberalization begins under Deng Xiaoping

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Slide 13

Proxy wars

“minor conflicts” around the world

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Major troop deployments:

1950-53 Korea

1965-73 Vietnam

1979-89 Afghanistan

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Slide 14

Close call for World War III

Cuban missile crisis 1962

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Slide 15

The big surprise

The end of European communism

1970s and 80s religious and cultural dissent

failing economies

Reagan’s role?

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Slide 16

New blood at the Kremlin

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary

initiates reforms--glasnost and perestroika

1988 allows contested elections within the Communist Party

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Slide 17

Movement in Eastern Europe

1980s rise of “Solidarity”--suppressed

1988 illegal “Solidarity” shipworkers, with encouragement from the Pope, go on strike

1989 Polish Communist party (and Gorbachev) allows Solidarity to compete in national elections

Solidarity victory

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Slide 18

East Germany

Very little reform--the Stasi

Gorbachev calls for change in East Germany

East German tourists go through Hungary to Austria--at first a few, then 10,000s

Berlin Wall is torn down

1990 Germany reunified

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Slide 19

Back in USSR

1991 hardliners in the military wage a coup against Gorbachev, coup fails

Communist Party is abolished in Russia

Soviet Union is dissolved by decree

CIS is formed

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Slide 20

12 new nation states

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Slide 21

Russia--backsliding under Putin since 2000?

nostalgia for “good old days”, and Chinese model