Download Modern Europe - Kentucky Department of Education

Modern Europe
• The Second World War cost Russia almost onethird of her wealth
• They launched a new Five-Year Plan
• Stalin died in 1953
• In 1955 by Nikita Khrushchev
• Khrushchev was ruthless but he was never able
to achieve the same success as Stalin
• He consolidated collective farms and increased
the amount of agricultural land
• 1957 Russia launched Sputnik and greatly
increased prestige, especially in the Third World
• “The Thaw” he tried to make amends for Stalin’s
atrocities
• Boris Pasternak wrote Dr. Zhivago – showed the
limits of the thaw – received the Nobel Prize
• He tried to ease the tension with the west – but
tension with China increased
• Opposition to Khrushchev increased and he was
replaced in 1964 by Alexei Kosygin
• 1977 Leonid Brezhnev assumed control
• 1982 Brezhnev died and was replaced with
Andropov and the Chernenko and finally
Gorbachev
• During the war Poland, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and
the Baltic States fell under soviet control
• The soviets controlled these countries by
Moscow-trained Communists
• 1948 communists had a coup in Czechoslovakia
• The countries were placed on Five-Year Plans
• The first major figure to declare independence
from Moscow was Tito of Yugoslavia
• 1953, after Stalin’s death, riots broke out in
Berlin – quickly suppressed
• 1956 revolts in Poland and Hungary
• In Hungary they were led by Imre Nagy
• The Russian put down the revolts with tanks
and showed the world the ruthlessness of the
soviet system
• “The Prague Spring” - The unsuccessful revolts
did change the culture of Hungary and led to a
loosening of soviet ties
• In 1968 the communists ended the “Prague
Spring” by brutally suppressing a revolution in
Czechoslovakia
• “Brezhnev Doctrine” allowed for Russian
intervention in Eastern European affairs
• However, Poland was economically successful as
was The German Democratic Republic
• 1989, perhaps as important as 1789
• Mikail Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet
Union
• Perestroika – the economic restructuring of the
country based on decentralization and selfmanagement
• He needed western help so implemented glasnost
(openness) which allowed for free speech
• Gorbachev even criticized Stalin but did not
challenge the power of the Communist party
• Once soviet control was released longstanding
ethnic hatred flared up in many places
• Gorbachev traveled a great deal promoting
peace and an end to the Cold War
• In 1980 shipyard workers at Gdansk, Poland
went on strike – against Communist laws – they
were led by Lech Walesa
• The union movement – Solidarity became so
popular in Poland and around the world the
Polish government was forced to back down
• As the unrest continued the Communists
arrested leaders, including Walesa
• Pope John Paul II, a Pole, urged the people to
protest
• Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983
• By 1985 the Brezhnev Doctrine was dead
• 1988 Hungary was seeking ways to get western
help for reform allowed vacationing East
Germans to enter Austria
• 1989 East German leader Erich Honecker also
gambled, but believed if Germans could travel
they would return
• The trickle became a flood 350,000 East Germans
left by 1990
• Gorbachev told Honecker that soviet troops
would not help him
• So in November 1989 the East Germans opened
the Berlin Wall
• Only in Romania did the government forces fight
back
• Ceausescu ordered his troops to open fire on
protestors
• 1991 the Soviet Union sent troops to Lithuania to
stop protestors
• Russian politician became alarmed – made
Yeltsin the new leader
• 1991 Yeltsin became the first Russian leader to be
elected by popular vote
• Leningrad became St. Petersburg
• Yeltsin wanted autonomy for the Baltic States
and self-government for the other provinces
• A small group of old hardliners staged a coup
• Gorbachev disavowed the rebels and Yeltsin
rallied the legislature
• Gorbachev returned to private life
• Yeltsin agreed to dissolution of the old USSR
European Union
• Churchill urged European cooperation – but
nothing happened
• 1947 Marshall Plan
a) very generous - $15b in aid
b) helped combat Communism
c) first step toward European cooperation
• 1948 10 countries met to create a Council of
Europe – the British refused to cooperate
• Also in 1948 three countries: Belgium,
Luxembourg and Holland created a customs
union called Benelux
• 1951: France, West Germany, Italy, and the
Benelux countries formed the European Coal and
Steel Community under the presidency of Jean
Monnet of France
• 1957 the same six signed the Treaty of Rome
creating a large trade free area called the
European Economic Community (EEC) or
Common Market headquartered in Brussels
• They wanted:
a) Elimination of internal tariffs
b) same social and economic policies
c) the movement of people
• The Treaty of Rome also created the European
Atomic Community (Euratom) to coordinate
non-military atomic research
• 1960 Britain created the European Free Trade
Association with Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Austria, Switzerland, and Portugal
• The two groups seemed like rivals but they
weren’t
• Britain started to fall behind other countries and
in 1963 they sought entry into the Common
Market (although they were twice vetoed by
French President Charles De Gaulle)
• 1967 the three organizations: Euratom, ECSC,
EEC formed the European Community
• 1968 the six countries negotiated the GATT
agreement
• 1969 Britain joined
• 1985 The Single European Act
• 1991 The Maastricht Treaty
a) common currency
b) common policies
• Today there are 12 countries
• The Balkans had been part of the Ottoman
Empire
• After 500 years Serbia freed from Muslim rule
• Shared Eastern Orthodox Christianity with
Russia
• 1914 the struggle independence led to the
assassination in Sarajevo of the heir to the
Austrian throne
• Independence came after World War I
• Serbia was Eastern Orthodox: Croatia, Slovenia,
Roman Catholic: many Bosnians were Muslims
• 1929 Yugoslavia was created - Yugoslavia means
South Slavs
• Yugoslavia was occupied by Germany in World
War II
• But there was a civil war with the Communists
led by Marshall Tito
• 1946 Yugoslavia was Communist with 6
republics
• Tito believed that only Communism could stop
the ethnic rivalries
• 1980 Tito died – separatist movements appeared
• 1987 Milosevic became the head of the Serbian
Communists
• 1990 Yugoslavia started to dissolve
• 1991 war broke out between Serbia and
Croatia
• NATO sanctioned air strikes against the Serbs
• 1995 Dayton Peace Accords – brought ‘peace’
to the region
• Serbs and Croats tried to create enclaves in
Bosnia-Herzegovina
• Ethnic cleansing