Cold War 4

1. The 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia was the crucial event of the Brezhnev era, as it demon-strated the deep conservatism of the Soviet Union’s ruling elite and its determination to maintain the status quo in the Soviet bloc. It also brought on a re-Stalinization of the Soviet Union that was collective rather than personal. There was a slowly rising standard of living for ordinary people, although the economic crisis of the 1970s slowed the rate of improve-ment. There were also long line and constant shortages. The upper-class model influenced citizens to work hard. The enduring nationalism of ordinary Great Russians ensured stability. Party leaders were able to identify themselves with Russian patriotism. Because the Great Russians were politically dominant but represented only half of the total Soviet population, they feared greater freedom and open political competition because it may result in de-mands for autonomy and independence. The strength of the government was expressed in culture and art, as free expression and open protest disappeared. The government purged dissidents by blacklisting them, imprisoning them in jails or mental institutions, and perma-nently expelled them from the country. Jews often had similar fates. By eliminating all op-position, the Communist party elite controlled the Soviet Union through the 1970s and early 1980s. However, the Soviet Union was experiencing changes in three ways. First, the growth of the urban population continued rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, causing two-thirds of all Soviet citizens to live in cities and one-quarter in the big cities in 1985. The urban popula-tion lost its old peasant ways in exchange for more education, better job skills, and greater sophistication. Second, the number of highly trained scientists, managers, and specialists expanded fourfold between 1960 and 1985. Leading Soviet scientists and technologists sought the intellectual freedom necessary to do significant work, obtaining it because their research had practical value. Third, education and freedom for experts in their special areas helped foster the growth of Soviet public opinion. Educated people read, discussed, and formed definite ideas about social questions and cautiously debated conventional ideas. Educated urban people increasingly saw themselves as worthy of having a voice in society’s decisions.

2. Because Polish Communists dropped their efforts to impose Soviet-style collectivization on the peasants and break the Roman Catholic church in 1956, most agricultural land remained in private hands and the Catholic church thrived. When the government suddenly announced large price increases right before Christmas in 1970, Poland’s working class rose in angry protest, occupying factories, and being shot at. A new Communist leader came to power and believed that he could use Western capital and technology to win popular sup-port for the regime. However, the economic crisis put the economy into a dive, causing workers, intellectuals, and the church to become restive. After Cardinal Karol Wojtyla be-came Pope John Paul II in 1978, he electrified the Polish nation. Among other strikes to pro-test higher meat prices was the Lenin Shipyard Strike in Gdansk with sixteen thousand workers. The strikers occupied the plant and established the right to form trade unions, the right to strike, freedom of speech, release of political prisoners, and economic reforms. Af-ter eighteen days, the government accepted the workers’ demands in the Gdansk Agree-ment. Led by Lenin Shipyards Lech Walesa, the workers organized their free and democratic trade union, Solidarity. Joined by intellectuals and supported by the Catholic church, Soli-darity had 9.5 million members by March 1981 out of a theoretical 12.5 million. The 40,000-man staff published its own newspapers, causing cultural and intellectual freedom. Because of its support and the threat of a nationwide strike, Solidarity had real power with the Communist bosses. However, it was immobilized due to history, the Brezhnev Doctrine, and attacks from communist neighbors. Thus, Solidarity aimed at defending the cultural and trade-union freedoms won in the Gdansk Agreement. The Soviet Union was forced to play a waiting game of threats and pressure. After the police beat Solidarity activists in March 1981, Walesa settled for only minor government concessions, causing criticism of Walesa’s moderate leadership and calls for local self-government in unions and factories. As economic conditions worsened, the Polish Communist leadership denounced Solidarity for promoting economic collapse and provoking Soviet invasion. In December 1981, Communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski suddenly proclaimed marital law, cut of all communications, and arrested Solidarity’s leaders. Solidarity was thus outlawed and driven underground, but it continued to maintain its organization and voice the aspirations of the Polish masses. This was because the government was unwilling and couldn’t impose full-scale terror. There was also a general belief that everyone was free.

3. Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in 1985 brought political and cultural liberalization to the So-viet Union, as well as democracy and national self-determination. This contrasted against the other times of change in Russia, such as the period of Peter the Great, the mid-nineteenth century reforms, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and Stalin’s five-year plans. The Soviet Communist party was secure and had great control over Soviet life. Organized opposition was impossible, and average people left politics to the bosses. However, the elite promoted apathy in the masses and was unable to cooperate with the growing class of well-educated urban experts. When Brezhnev died in 1982, his successor Yuri Andropov in-troduced modest reforms to improve economic performance as well as campaigned against worker absenteeism and high-level corruption. When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he wanted to save the Soviet system by revitalizing it with fundamental reforms. He also wanted to improve conditions for ordinary citizens. In his first year, he attacked corruption and incompetence in the bureaucracy, and he consolidated his power by putting his suppor-ters on the top level of the party. He attacked alcoholism and drunkenness, as well as re-structured the economy in perestroika. He permitted an easing of government price con-trols on some goods, more independence for state enterprises, and the setting up of profit-seeking private cooperatives to provide personal services for consumers. These reforms had little success by late 1988. Gorbachev also wanted to tell it like it is by establishing a new-found openness, or glasnost, of the government and the media. Banned books sold millions of copies while denunciations of Stalin and his terror were common in plays and movies. In April 1989, there were free elections in the Soviet Union, despite Gorbachev and the party remaining in control. Many top-ranking Communists who ran unopposed were defeated by a majority of angry voters not voting at all. Millions of Soviets saw the new congress on tel-evision as Gorbachev and his ministers debated and sometimes lost their proposal, influen-cing the Soviets to openly discuss, critically think, and demand representative government. When Georgian separatists killed twenty people, Gorbachev did not repress the country. He withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan and sought to reduce East-West tensions. He also wanted to stop the arms race with the United States and reached an agreement with Presi-dent Reagan in December 1987. He encouraged reform movements in Poland and Hungary and pledged to respect the political choices of eastern Europe.

1. Solidarity and the Polish people led the revolutions in eastern Europe, as in 1988, Solidarity took advantage of Gorbachev’s tolerant attitude and its own successfully mobilizing forces and pressured Poland’s Communist leaders into another round of negotiations to resolve the political stalemate and the economic crisis. In early 1989, Solidarity was legalized and a large minority of representatives to the Polish parliament would be chosen by free elections in June 1989. The Communist party was still guaranteed a majority, and General Jaruzelski would be president for four years. Solidarity then mobilized the country and won most of the contested seats. Many angry voters also crossed off the names of unopposed party can-didates so that the Communist party failed to win the majority they had anticipated. Lech Walesa then obtained a majority in the Polish parliament by securing the allegiance of two minor procommunist parties. Gorbachev again stated that he would not intervene to save the Polish Communists. In its first year and a half, the Solidarity government eliminated the secret police, the Communist ministers in the government, and Jaruzelski, but all gradually. The new government applied shock therapy to make a clean break with state planning and ownership and to move quickly to market mechanisms and private property. It abolished controls on many prices and reformed the monetary system on January 1, 1990. Hungary followed Poland; its Communist leader, János Kádár, had permitted liberalization of the planned economy after the 1956 uprising in exchange for political obedience and continued Communist control. In May 1988, the party replaced him with a reform communist, but op-position groups rejected slow progress. In the summer of 1989, the Hungarian Communist party gambled on holding free elections in early 1990. They now had great popular support and, wanting more, they opened their border to East Germans and tore down the barbed-wire border with Austria. Hungary thus allowed East Germans to vacation in Hungary, cross into Austria as refugees, and resettle in West Germany. This caused protest movements in East Germany, as intellectuals, environmentalists, and Protestant ministers organized dem-onstrations and argued that a truly democratic, independent, but still socialist East Germany was possible and desirable. The East German government then opened the Berlin Wall in November 1989, its old Communist leaders were replaced, and a reform government took power and called for political dialogue and general elections for March 1990. In Czechoslo-vakia, communism ended in December 1989 when Communist bosses were kicked out in ten days. This Velvet Revolution grew out of popular demonstrations led by students, intel-lectuals, and Václav Havel. The protestors took control of the streets and forced the Com-munists into an agreement to share power, which caused the Communist government to resign. In 1990, Havel was elected president. In Romania, revolution was violent and bloody. The tough Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu ordered his security forces to slaughter thousands of protestors. This created an armed uprising where Ceauşescu and his forces were defeated and executed. A coalition government then emerged.

a. Havel opposed Communist rule because the Soviets used force to maintain the status quo, as well as purged and blacklisted him. The Czechoslovakian government then violated the Helsinki Accord on human rights. His goals differed from those of other advocates of reform communism by presenting his argument logical and with evidence, as well as providing a plan.

b. Havel can be called a moralist in politics because he was sensible and was not quick to ex-cite. He responded logically as well as took in all sides of the debate. Perhaps Gandhi can be a better moralist because he did not fight back at all.

a. Michnik believes that force can turn liberty into its opposite. Also, his opponent, the Soviet Union, had a far superior military and thus any Polish force would be futile. His arguments are convincing because he used historical evidence as well as logical reasoning.

b. Michnik’s study of history affected his thinking by relating his current struggles with Na-poleon and the French Revolution. He suggests that force is only able to have military victo-ries and not build democratic, pluralistic societies.