Chapter 27
Brave New World: Communism on Trial
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The Postwar Soviet Union:
Focus Questions
How did Nikita Khrushchev change the system that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had put in place before his death in 1953?
To what degree did his successors adopt Khrushchev’s policies?
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2
The Postwar Soviet Union
(Part 1 )
From Stalin to Khrushchev
Stalinism in action
Exploitation of Soviet labor
Citizens asked to suffer for a better tomorrow
Secret police and Siberian concentration camps
The rise and fall of Khrushchev
An innovator – he had to overcome the conservative instincts of the Soviet bureaucracy and those of the majority of the peoples
De-Stalinization
Voted out of office because of “deteriorating health”
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3
The Postwar Soviet Union
(Part 2 )
The Brezhnev years (1964–1982)
A controlled society
Restrictive policy toward dissidents
Media controlled by the state
Conformity was the rule
A stagnant economy
The absence of incentives
An aging leadership
Moscow seemed stuck in a time warp
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4
The Postwar Soviet Union
(Part 3 )
Cultural expression in the Soviet Union
Expected to follow party line
No criticism of social conditions was permitted
In the satellites, cultural freedom varied from country to country
Social changes
Elite privileged class possessed political power – received special privileges
Women’s pay unequal – worked “double shift”
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5
The Disintegration of the Soviet Empire: Focus Questions
What were the key components of perestroika, which Mikhail Gorbachev espoused during the 1980s?
Why did it fail?
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6
The Disintegration of the Soviet Empire (Part 1)
The Gorbachev era
Perestroika or “restructuring” of economic policy; beginning of a market economy
Glasnost or “openness” encouraged discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet Union
Congress of People’s Deputies chosen in competitive elections
Gorbachev was the Soviet Union’s first president
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7
The Disintegration of the Soviet Empire (Part 2)
End of an empire
Ethnic groups call for sovereignty
Growing disorder within the country
A “commonwealth of independent states”
Eastern Europe: From satellites to sovereign nations
Elections in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia
East Germany’s political and economic reunification with West Germany
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8
Chronology – The Soviet Bloc and Its Demise Events of the Soviet Bloc and Its DemiseDatesDeath of Joseph Stalin1953Rise of Nikita Khrushchev1955Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization speech1956Removal of Khrushchev1964The Brezhnev era1964–1982Rule of Andropov and Chernenko1982–1985Gorbachev comes to p ...