Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev had become the youngest Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin at the age of 54. Mikhail Gorbachev can be considered an open-minded person in a few ways. I say this because he actually realized that silencing and not letting citizens of the nation let their ideas out into the open would not lead the nation to the change they needed. The Soviet Union needed economic and social reforms and Gorbachev wasn't going to let censorship get in the way. So, in the year 1985 he introduced a policy called glasnost, which meant openness. With this policy, Gorbachev encouraged people of the nation to let our their ideas about how to make their society better. This new policy lead to good things like the opening of churches and allowing the publication of books by authors who were banned before.

In that same year, Gorbachev introduced another great policy called perestroika, which means economic restructuring. Now that people could speak freely about what they thought about the economy. Party officials would tell farm and factory managers how much to produce and what wages to pay and what prices to charge. In the year 1986, Gorbachev took action. With his help, managers gained more authority over their farms and factories and people could open their own private businesses. Gorbachev introduced another policy called democratization since he knew that, for the economy to stay strong, thee Communist Party had to keep off the Soviet Union a bit. Voters could now vote for who they want to be elected. Because of Gorbachev's thoughtful and effective ideas, the Soviet Union found its way out of Communism. His policies also helped strengthen the economy and society a great deal.

The Collapse of Communism

The reason why Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the USSR was because a very large amount of people started to oppose communist governments and President Mikhail Gorbachev wouldn't send Soviet troops to help them out. The wave of reforms and democratic revolutions that took place during the end years of the 80s broke down the Soviet Union. After the old Stalinist government was forced to be taken down, a new president held free elections and gave orders to break down the Berlin Wall, which separated the East and West during the Cold War years, on November 9, 1989.

Due to the encouragement of the rejection of communism in Poland, countries on the Eastern bloc, such as Hungary and East Germany, overthrew their communist leaders. On New Year's Eve in the year of 1991, the USSR, or Soviet Union collapsed. Although the Soviet Union collapsed and countries in Europe overthrew their communist governments, there were still communist governments alive in other places of the world at that time. These places included China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. These countries allowed economic reforms but still didn't give in to the democratic movements.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid can simply be defined as segregation. Apartheid was a policy of South Africa during the years 1948 and 1994. Because of this policy, those who weren't white didn't have the same rights as white people. They couldn't vote in elections and, until 1990, they also couldn't do things like use the same bathroom or eat at the same places as white people. People of different races couldn't get married or have any sexual relations. Anyone who was against Apartheid was banned. Those who led campaigns to abolish Apartheid were either killed or harassed.

Nelson Mandela is an African man that was in prison for about 27 years. This still didn't stop him from helping his people get to their freedom. He disliked that Africans couldn't have the same rights as white people and he wanted to do something about it. His sentencing, Rivonia Trial, was seen by others as a cruel tactic by the white South African government to silence Nelson Mandela. Not even their cruel tactic stopped Nelson Mandela from achieving his goal. South Africa finally got their freedom and they couldn't thank Nelson Mandela enough. Nelson Mandela is a very admired man because of what he did for his people. He went through many struggles just to free his people and he never gave up. He never lost hope, not even while he was in prison. Nelson Mandela also became the first black president, which was something very memorable.

African Independence

The most significant reason for why Africa changed so much in the 20 year period between 1955 to 1975 was because most countries had gained independence. In the year 1955, the only African countries that had already gained their independence were Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt, and the Union of South Africa. African countries did not want to be under the colonization of Great Britain after World War II, but imperialists weren't making it easy for them since did things like divided up the continent and stolen their valuable resources. With the help of a few good leaders, many African countries finally became independent. After the year 1975, most African countries were independent.

One of the first countries to finally gain their independence from the British was Ghana. Their leader for independence was Kwame Nkrumah. After World War II, the British started allowing more Africans to be nominated to be on the Legislative Council. The thing was that Africans didn't only want to be nominated, but they wanted to be elected representatives. This was when Kwame Nkrumah came in and led the nonviolent protests against the British. He had many strikes and boycotts and even though he was imprisoned frequently by the British, he still led Ghana to their independence.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

Recently, our Global 4 class watched a movie called "The Right Stuff". In this movie, The U.S. and the USSR were competing to see who could build the better space program. The U.S. was very determined to have a better space program than the USSR because the USSR had their own successful space program running. After a brave man volunteered and successfully broke the sound barrier while on the X-1, the location where they accomplished this became the place where they tested and experimented with aircraft in the U.S. The U.S. heard that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, causing them to focus on beating the Soviets in the space race.

The U.S. wanted to find the first astronauts in America to go up into space so they performed all sorts of crazy tests on candidates and those who could endure these tests were chosen. That was the part of the movie that I will remember. I have never seen tests that crazy before. I also did not know that this is what candidates had to go through before fully being able to go into space. I will never forget how many times the U.S. attempted to successfully send of a rocketship. Unfortunately, for the U.S., the Soviet Union beat them in sending astronauts to space. So, the United States had lost the first race. But, soon after, they were competing to see who could be the first to send someone up to the moon. The U.S. had won this race.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

The North Atlantic Treaty Organizaition, NATO, was an organization that consisted of several countries in North America and Europe. It was formed by Europe and North America so that they would have a defense alliance. The reason why they wanted this defense alliance was so that if their opponents attacked any of the countries in their alliance all other countries would come and help them. This organization was especially helpful those countries in Western Europe, not only because they were closer to the USSR territory, but also because they were in bad condition after World War I.

The Warsaw Pact was consisdered a response to NATO. The Warsaw Pact was formed by the USSR and the Communist Easter European countries. Like NATO, it was a mutual defense alliance made to maintain power in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union ran the Warsaw Pact and they gained control of the nations beside them. They also made sure that other nations knew that they were a major political and military force. Unfortunately for them, the Warsaw Pact was labeled nonexistent in 1991 due to many democratic revolutions that occured over time.

Film Lesson: "Schindler's List"

In our Global 4 class, we watched the movie "Schindler's List". This movie illustrated the Holocaust in a less disturbing manner. The movie also threw in some romance to make the story a bit more interesting, I guess you could say. Although the movie included fictional scenes of the Jews being taken away to the concentration camps and being killed and tortured, it still was not as powerful as "Night and Fog". This does not mean that "Schindler's List" didn't leave me upset and bothered. Something that was powerful to me as a viewer was how the children were roughly taken away from their parents by the Nazis. They would be taken to work at the concentration camps and they were to be tortured if they didn't obey the Nazis that ran the camps.

Another thing in the movie that bothered me was how the children would have to view all this violence happening around them. They probably saw their own neighbors get violently beaten to death. That is something that can be very traumatizing for these children at such a young age. It's sad to know that some of these children didn't live long enough to finally be liberated. These children probably had goals they wanted to achieve in the future and their dreams were crushed just because of cruelty and prejudice. As I said in my previous blog, I believe "Night and Fog" was more powerful than "Schindler's List". Seeing the real stuff has a more powerful effect than a Hollywood version. Most of the scenes in "Schindler's List" will stay in my head for a minimal amount of time, but the many scenes in "Night and Fog" will definitely stay in my head for a larger amount of time, if not as long as I live. Again, I say that the Holocaust is an event in history that I will never forget reading and learning about.