In many non-Russian republics, such as Armenia, Georgia and the Ukraine, nationalist demands expressed earlier in forms of dissent that was often suppressed were strongly re-asserted For an analysis focusing on the growing pressure from below see:.
The growing momentum of movements for independence in the three Baltic republics posed a particular challenge to Gorbachev, uncertain how far to use force to prevent secession. The likelihood of nationalist secessions was one factor in the abortive coup attempt in August by hard line party officials and figures in the military and security services.
The defeat of the coup, which included popular resistance see references under A. In addition to the major uprisings in Eastern Europe, there was widespread unobtrusive, indirect, symbolic and in some periods open dissent and protest in both the USSR itself and Eastern Europe. Indeed opposition within the bloc provides a very wide range of tactics, for a variety of causes, used by very different types of people: disaffected youth, students, dissident intellectuals, artists and scientists, workers, farmers, oppressed nationalities, religious believers, reformist Communists, prisoners and families of the unjustly persecuted.
The rigorous censorship of news and communications sparked extensive use of samizdat underground news sheets, essays and artistic works, often typed and re-typed when passed around. Our earlier bibliography — People Power and Protest since — provided detailed references for each country.
Here we have restricted references to a revised list of comparative studies. Nonviolent Action and Social Movements , ch. Mostly about prospects for civil society in post-communist context, but drawing on theory and practice of s.
Includes a chapter on the movement in Slovenia that led to it breaking away from Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia Chapters on Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia. Includes surveys of human rights and political change, worker resistance and potential for peasant opposition, and essays on Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Hungary from The sit-in strike at the Gdansk shipyard in August launched Solidarity: as a mass movement and alternative trade union, which soon had branches in almost all sectors of society.
As a predominantly worker movement, demonstration of nonviolent power, and a challenge to the Soviet bloc, Solidarity stimulated a large literature from different ideological perspectives at the time and has been the focus of subsequent scholarship. The movement was the culmination of rising dissent among students and intellectuals, major worker strikes in and , and the creation of KOR the Workers Defence Committee which bridged the gap between workers and intellectuals.
A few titles covering earlier dissent as well accounts and assessments of Solidarity are listed below. Account up to mid by British journalist familiar with Eastern Europe, with text of Gdansk and Szeczecin Agreements between strikers and government and postscript on December Nonviolent Action and Social Movements. Highly regarded first hand analysis by scholar of Central Europe and commentator on other civil resistance struggles. Between arriving in Poland in and being expelled in , the author engaged in firsthand research and gathered relevant documents to question the emphasis on the role of intellectuals, and develop his thesis on the central role of working class activism and their talent for democratic organization.
Eye-witness account of early stages, combined with broader analysis. Includes notes on key individuals and organizations and a chronology. Leading theorist of social movements explores research into opinions of ordinary members of Solidarity, and examines strategic decisions.
The events of in East Europe encouraged participants, journalists and academic experts to produce many immediate accounts, and are the subject of continuing research. Youthful personal impressions combined with later historical research on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.
Especially strong on the playful resistance of groups such as the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw. Emphasises the importance of the nonviolent moral force versus a force that had the means of control and repression but lacked moral authority.
Galbraith on dangers of the triumph of a simplistic economic ideology, and a comparative chronology of Chapter 1 discusses the context of the revolutions, ch. Part II comprises interviews with key participants in , both about the revolutions and future possibilities.
Includes interviews on Romania and Slovenia. Highly-praised analysis challenging the inevitability of German reunification and the spread of NATO. Discusses role of political leaders and dissidents in , drawing on documents and interviews, and assesses the views from various world capitals.
An analytical account sketching in the historical background and tracing the growing opposition during the s. Excludes Poland see above and East Germany see below. Includes a survey of sources. Account by Reformed Church minister who resisted oppression of the Hungarian minority, and whose defiance sparked the December nonviolent protests in Timisoara.
The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the end to the division not only of Germany, but of Europe, into opposed ideological, political, economic and military blocs, and has prompted a large literature.
The titles below give weight to the role of civil resistance. Eye-witness stresses the role of civic groups and the increasing radicalisation of workers and technicians, and engages critically with other interpretations of the revolution. Much cited conceptual analysis contrasting the movement of emigration through Hungary to the West and the internal resistance. Drawing on newly released Party and Stasi archives, Maier analyses the 40 years of East German history, and charts both the growth of dissent for example the autonomous peace campaigns and youth culture in the s, and the systemic decline of the regime due to economic crisis and corruption at the top.
Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements , pp. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, despite distinct languages and cultural and religious differences, are closely linked not only by geography, but by common interests and historical experience.
All three were incorporated into the Tsarist Empire, all three enjoyed a period of independence after the First World War, and all three were annexed by the Soviet Union under the Nazi-Soviet Pact, then occupied by the Germans and returned again to Stalinist domination from Russian immigration and policies of Russification began after , and substantial Russian minorities complicated later moves towards national autonomy. There was a degree of continuing resistance to Moscow rule after , at first primarily through guerrilla warfare, and from the s taking the form of nonviolent dissent.
Covers the period from , including detailed discussion of moves towards independence chapters giving weight to role of nonviolent resistance. Mongolia, a client state of the Soviet Union until , is not well documented in the west. But a significant movement, sparked initially by young intellectuals demonstrating for perestroika on Human Rights Day in December , by January drew much larger crowds and other sectors of the population, and developed into successful demands for regime change.
The Communist Party did, however, win the first multi-party election. Journalist usually based in China gives his perspective on the movement and the broader context. Includes assessment of the post-Communist economy: the end of state assistance and role of international finance agencies, leading to growing inequalities.
Although the Communists came to power in after decades of guerrilla warfare in rural areas, there is also a significant tradition of nonviolent resistance in China. Merchants shutting down their businesses as a political protest dates back at least to the 18th century see Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action A. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements , vol. Students and workers demonstrated and went on strike to demand national independence from foreign colonial intervention in during the May the Fourth Movement and again in — see.
The period of Civil War from also saw protests by intellectuals, students and workers against the increasingly corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek. Since the Communist takeover of there have been three periods of significant dissent and protest followed by a Party crackdown on all opposition: ; ; and May-June A fourth period began in the s, when the increasing emphasis on the market combined with cautious steps towards political liberalization have allowed wider dissent, which is still continuing.
During , when mass unrest swept through parts of Eastern Europe, there were some reverberations in China, such as strikes and withdrawals from agricultural cooperatives. Perhaps to defuse unrest, or to engage intellectuals in the next stages of socialist development, the Party leadership, in particular Mao, encouraged intellectuals to speak out in this period, and many cautiously began to do so. This apparent sanctioning of dissent encouraged students also to protest and many workers to start asserting their demands through petitions, marches, hunger strikes, sit-ins and strikes.
Mao and the Party responded in mid by suppressing all dissent and hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were blacklisted, students expelled, and many sentenced to manual labour or exile.
Wu, a university teacher of English educated in the US, returned to China in This is a personal account of his experiences. The Hundred Flowers campaign is covered pp.
After Mao died in September there was a struggle at the top of the Party between ardent Maoists who had instigated the Cultural Revolution and officials anxious to promote stability. The emerging new leader Deng Xiaoping also sponsored economic market reforms. In this context there was a groundswell of political activity from below, first manifested in April in a popular ceremony of traditional mass mourning in Tiananmen Square for Prime Minister Zhou Enlai viewed as a moderate , which was seen as a pro-Deng demonstration.
This was the first expression of the Democracy Movement that blossomed in late Although students and intellectuals were predominant there were also peasant protests. The authorities started to arrest individual dissidents early in and closed down the Democracy Wall in December that year, but underground publishing continued.
Simmering unrest continued, encouraged by conflict at the top of the Party between hardliners and those more sympathetic to intellectuals. But the spark for the mass protests of April to June was the death of the former General Secretary Hu Yaobang, forced out of office by hardliners for alleged responsibility for the protests of December Students massed in Tiananmen Square in April to lay wreaths to Hu, and the protest rapidly developed through marches, occupation of the Square, boycott of classes and formation of autonomous student unions.
The demonstrations won support from workers and other Beijing residents and spread to other parts of the country. Some Party leaders tried to conciliate the students, but in May the rise of a more radical student leadership and the launching of a hunger strike, coinciding with the visit of President Gorbachev, led most of the Politburo to endorse the imposition of martial law.
This met widespread popular resistance. Numerous collections of documents and accounts of both protest and repression were compiled at the time.
The sources selected here seek to give an overall perspective on events. Secret Party papers leaked to the west provide details of the meetings, negotiations and communications between the top leaders about how to deal with the protests, and the triumph of the hardliners over Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Party, who wished to be conciliatory.
Western scholars generally accepted the papers as authentic. Fang Lizhi, a prominent astrophysicist, became an increasingly vocal critic of the regime in the s and was linked to the student protests.
Extensive bibliography. Seeks to explain why in there was a massacre in Beijing but not in Berlin or Prague. Strategic Theory, Dynamics, Methods and Movements.
There has been a gradual but unpredictable relaxation of controls over freedom of speech and publication and some evidence of a developing civil society. The abandonment of former socialist policies has increased the wealth of some but encouraged corruption, and left many workers, peasants and those dependent on state benefits economically insecure. As a result there has been a dramatic increase in worker unrest, public protests by pensioners, and some criticism of economic globalization.
There is in addition evidence of rising rural unrest over sale of land to developers, local corruption and destruction of the environment.
Campaigners are both putting up candidates in local elections and demonstrating. Nationalist dissent has not prompted the kind of problems experienced in the USSR because, in the China created in , over 90 per cent of the population were ethnic Chinese. But reports have emerged of significant dissent among the Muslim population of Xinjiang. Tibet is here treated as a separate country. Interview with a former railway worker involved in trade union activity at time of Tiananmen, who now directs the China Labour Bulletin and broadcasts from Hong Kong to promote independent union activity in China.
Based on fieldwork since on local instances of rights-based opposition. Analyses reactions to government reforms, including both covert and open resistance. Distinguishes between intellectual dissidents and popular rebellion.
Second edition has added chapters on Falun Gong, Christianity and land struggles. A critical assessment of Chinese society by a Chinese social scientist, widely discussed within China, indicating the context for unrest.
Inset is an article describing a pensioner campaign led by a former Party official pp. Discusses student demonstrations against the NATO bombing of Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, comparing them with earlier and June protests.
Argues that, despite official support and encouragement, the protests did reflect significant degree of student autonomy and included allusion to The rise to supreme power of Xi Jinping, who became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party CCP in and combined his party role with becoming state President in , has marked a new phase in Chinese politics.
Xi has consolidated his control over the party through an anti-corruption drive against many prominent as well as lower level officials, and also initiated greater suppression of political and social dissent.
He has also encouraged a mood of popular nationalistic pride at the same time as projecting China's growing global economic power for example through the 'Belt and Road' trade and infrastructure policy and pursuing a more politically and militarily assertive foreign policy. The Chinese government has now adopted an even more repressive policy in Tibet, launched an unprecedented crackdown in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and stepped up pressure on Hong Kong and Taiwan to accept greater control from Beijing.
Xi also annulled the two-term limit on holding the state presidency. Commentators have suggested that Xi's ambition is to emulate the ascendancy of Chairman Mao. Since ruthlessly repressing the Tienanmen Square movement in , the Chinese authorities have generally tried to suppress potentially threatening political and intellectual dissent. They have, however, tended to be rather more tolerant towards often localized protests on specific socio-economic grievances, as well as the quite widespread industrial unrest.
Despite the repressive approach since towards independent social organizations especially those suspected of foreign links , and towards the publicizing of protests, and despite more rigorous surveillance and control over the internet, socio-economic and worker dissent has been widespread.
The official media do not usually cover industrial action or other protests, such as resistance by farmers to local officials seizing their land.
But popular unrest has been recorded by researchers both inside and outside China. For example, Lu Yayu and his partner catalogued on his Blog spot over 70, protests from to June , when he was arrested and then sentenced to four years in prison. Foreign researchers have not found evidence of greater fear about taking to the streets over specific grievances. Indeed, some protests have had a national focus, for example demonstrations in Beijing by parents about the death of the only child allowed to them under the 'one child' population policy, or by ex-servicemen calling for higher benefits.
Protests are also coordinating online. For instance, over chat groups and 10, people were mobilized to oppose a waste incinerator in a city in Guandong province. Officially Chinese citizens are allowed to submit petitions to the authorities complaining about injustices, but in practice complainants may be arrested by police or assaulted by security guards.
Worker agitation has certainly not subsided. The regime seemed to have decided to try to suppress industrial protests, when several prominent labour activists, including Zeng Feijang, Zhu Xiaomei and He Xiaobo, were arrested in December and charged with disturbing social order and embezzlement.
But although strikers may be met by threats of fines or imprisonment, and strike pickets may be broken up by the police as happened at a Guangzhou steel plant in March , the state has also responded by trying to improve workers' conditions, or by encouraging courts, when there is litigation, to find in the workers' favour. Workers were, however, hit by the slowing down of China's economy in The incidence of strikes is monitored most closely by the Hong Kong based China Labour Bulletin which publishes a strike map , and it recorded over 2, strikes in more than double the number in It logged 1, strikes in , but many of these on a smaller scale than they had been in The Bulletin estimates, however, that it only has information about approximately one tenth of the total number of worker protests.
Factory workers in Shenzhen tried to set up an independent trade union in , and gained active support from university students. But most worker demonstrations have highlighted issues such as wage arrears, failure of employers to contribute to pensions, or pay cuts and redundancies.
There have also been protests about the often unsafe work conditions - China Labour Bulletin in March compared maps of strikes in the previous six months and recorded work accidents in the same period. The Bulletin also discerned by a decline in factory-based protest, but an increase in agitation in the expanding service and retail sector.
It also confirmed a trend for labour protests to take place in the private sector rather than in state-owned enterprises, but noted this might be due to stricter controls in the latter, making it harder to organize workers. High tech workers were laid off in large numbers in as many tech start-ups collapsed and even major companies shed staff and were angry about the way they were made redundant.
A former employee of Huawei, Li Honguan, who asked for severance pay and a bonus, was detained for eight months, apparently at the company's request. Although in theory the Communist revolution in China liberated women in the spheres of education, work, politics and society, and did mark a significant break with the extreme inequality embedded in earlier Chinese tradition symbolized by the binding of women's feet , in practice women still suffer various forms of discrimination.
The economic reforms promoted since the s, which have radically changed society and increased general prosperity, have had a mixed impact on women. Many women have migrated from rural areas to take up new jobs, and have therefore been partly freed from traditional expectations and family pressures and gained some financial independence — becoming less likely to accept arranged marriages for example. But many have had low paid and unregulated work in the domestic sector or become office cleaners.
Others got jobs in factories. Women migrants have often therefore become vulnerable to exploitation in their workplace.
The official Party line also promotes stereotyped views of women. So the impact of the economic reforms on most women has been mixed. Indeed, the posts transformation of society has encouraged an emerging feminism, which has since also been inspired by the international impact of the MeToo movement. MeToo in China began as a university-based protest in January , when students publicly alleged sexual misconduct by professors, but has gradually spread via the Internet to other parts of Chinese society.
Despite censorship, the Internet plays a central role in promoting and linking dissent, and also connects feminists in China with the active Chinese diaspora in other parts of the world. On International Women's Day, for instance, feminists joining in one of the marches outside China can broadcast videos to be watched inside the country. Active feminists risk being arrested and having their websites deleted.
But many women, who do not necessarily identify as feminists, have also complained online about the treatment of women, and have responded to how the Covid crisis dramatized some of the problems. Discriminatory treatment of women health workers having their heads shaved, although men did not, and receiving lower grade safety equipment was one example. The danger of increased domestic violence during the compulsory lockdown was another issue.
For details of Hong Fincher's publications, and other references on feminism in China and recent activism see: Volume Two, F. Traditional Chinese society was less homophobic than many other cultures, but under the Communist regime homosexuality was effectively banned gay men could be prosecuted under 'hooliganism' laws until , and classified as a mental illness until Social awareness inside China, especially among the young, of LGBTIQ movements, lifestyles and rights in other parts of the world has increased.
A dating app has, however, reportedly been tolerated, and the Economist 25 January recorded a lesbian wedding with guests in Kunming city, although same sex marriage is not recognized in law, and therefore adoption would be illegal and any children would have an uncertain status.
However, opinion polls in recent years, and citizen proposals to the National People's Congress on family law reform in , suggest some public support for same sex marriage.
This move did not, however, find the expected favour with the authorities; indeed, it was opposed by the Party Youth League and the official Party newspaper the People's Daily criticized it. Moreover, it was met by vigorous protests from the LGBT community online, and resistance included activists wearing appropriate tee shirts asking strangers on the streets to hug them and videoing the results.
Weibo rapidly reversed its policy. The hardening of the Party line on intellectual dissent was signalled by a directive in early which called for suppression of seven 'mistaken ways of thinking'. Sanctions against those who continued to discuss forbidden topics, such as judicial independence or multi-party democracy, also escalated: from deleting Internet posts, or closing down accounts, to prison sentences.
Some Chinese academics responded by going abroad; others had to leave their university positions. Law Professor Xu Zhangran escaped prison after publicly criticizing Xi's decision to end the limit on holding the state presidency, but lost his job in He has remained defiant, and published an essay online in early February highly critical of the authorities' handling of the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.
The regime is also nervous about students reading subversive ideas. Although Beijing still hails Marx as an inspiration, the Party has threatened to close down Marxist societies that actually read the original texts.
Indeed, some students embracing Marxist philosophy have shown active interest in workers' rights. During the government issued new rules for patriotic education, which extended to ordering both primary and secondary schools to remove 'improper books', and led to a county library reportedly burning books.
Since the press and official media are tightly controlled, dissenters and 'citizen journalists' resort to the Internet. Some of them operate from the safety of living outside China: for example Toronto-based Wen Zhao provides critical assessment of current affairs in a Mandarin language vlog he updates every few days.
He is widely followed by Chinese outside China, but believes he has an audience inside China among those technically able to circumnavigate official censorship. Other citizen journalists operate from inside the country. Amnesty International documented in the detention of editors of a website on labour rights in Guangzhou, and the sentencing of Huang Qi to 12 years in prison for 'leaking state secrets' because of his role in a website covering protests in the country.
The outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan in December prompted quite widespread criticism of the authorities, especially over eight doctors censored by the local authorities for 'spreading rumours' of a new virus, before it was officially recognized. The fact that one of the eight, the ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, then died of the virus on 6 February , strengthened public disquiet.
The doctors were not alone in being officially reprimanded. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders documented over cases of citizens being punished in January for 'spreading rumours'. A researcher and students in the Nanjing University School of Journalism and Communications issued a critical analysis of the initial official response.
A group of academics also sent an open letter addressed to the government, demanding an apology to Dr Li and urging that free speech guaranteed formally under the state constitution should be respected. Communicating and organizing via the Internet is central to most dissent, but apart from active intervention by the authorities to counter subversive material, it is also an arena in which many Chinese citizens engage.
Some act as allies of the Party, censoring 'undesirable' political, terrorist-inspired or pornographic materials. The Communist Youth League began recruiting university students to act as censors in After the crushing of the Tiananmen Square and related national protests in many prominent activists fled abroad. Those who remained in China and defied the regime in subsequent years have often faced imprisonment, more unofficial forms of detention and isolation for months at a time, or regular harassment by the authorities.
This policy has driven some prominent dissidents to leave the country, notably the political artist Ai Weiwei, who was charged with subversion in , and after serving four years under house arrest, left for Germany. But activists still defy the authorities from within. The best known outside China was Liu Xiaobo a Nobel Peace Prize winner , who had played a key role in Tiananmen Square and continued to resist the regime.
He joined with other intellectuals in to draw up Charter 08 manifesto, demanding multi-party democracy, an act that led to an year prison sentence in He died in custody of liver cancer in Another example is the rock singer Li Zhi, who was due to start a concert tour in February , who suddenly disappeared; his tour was cancelled and his social media accounts removed.
Li is known for his songs about social issues and has raised the dangerous topic of the Tiananmen protests. He was one of 13 people - including artists creating a National Conscience Exhibition, and also human rights defenders - reportedly detained months in advance of the 30th anniversary of the crushing of Tiananmen.
Less drastic action was taken by the regime before the two-week session of the National People's Congress in March , which led to increased security and the temporary rounding-up and removal from the capital of prominent dissidents.
These included the artist Hua Yong and environmental activist Hu Jia, who noted that this was an annual occurrence for him. Amnesty International reported in that an advocate for civil and political rights, Chen Jianfang, had been arrested in June for 'inciting subversion of state power'.
The same charge was used against Liu Feiyue, who founded the website 'Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch', and after detention in had been sentenced to five years imprisonment, and also against two NGO workers opposing discrimination, who had been detained since July The human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng from Beijing was arrested in February , also for inciting subversion, because he circulated an open letter, which called for changes to the Chinese Constitution.
Amnesty also noted the disappearance in August of the human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who had produced a memoir on his earlier experience of being 'disappeared' and tortured, and had not been heard of by the end of China is officially atheist, but also claims to respect religious freedom.
But in practice the CCP has always been hostile to religious beliefs and autonomous religious communities, and inclined to suppress adherents of Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam. Under Xi this policy has become harsher, with destruction of churches, temples, religious statues and mosques.
Religious leaders who are not authorised by the party are liable to imprisonment for subversion. Since Xi came to power there have been several crackdowns on Christians, apart from those belonging to the 'Three-Self Patriotic' churches, which have priests approved by the CCP and follow the party line.
Despite pressure to join these churches, among the estimated million Christians the numbers supporting unofficial Christian congregations has increased. The party launched an 'anti-church' campaign in ,which included removing crosses from hundreds of church buildings.
Another major crackdown in , after passage of legislation for stricter surveillance of churches and harsher penalties for recalcitrance, included raids on church services and bible classes. For example, the Guardian reported that the Guangzhou Bible Reformed Church was shut down for the second time in three months in November Widely reported was the detention of Pastor Wang Yi of the evangelical Early Rain Covenant Church and about members of his congregation, some of them held under house arrest.
Wang, who was an outspoken critic of CCP control over churches, was sentenced to nine years in jail in December The party also seized the opportunity of the lockdown during the coronavirus crisis early in to destroy crosses; and videos were shared of the destruction of Xiangbaishu Church in Yixing city in Jiangsu province.
Churches were, however, generally allowed to communicate online, although the Christian Post reported that state-supported religious bodies in Shandong Province advocated an end to online preaching. The challenge of religion becomes much more threatening, however, when it is linked to distinct cultures and ethnic groups, and may encourage desire for political autonomy or independence.
The CCP has therefore waged a sustained campaign to control and neutralise Tibetan Buddhism and dismiss memories of the past under the Dalai Lama, and promoted a large influx of people from other areas of China into Tibet as part of economic development. See C. This is home to Turkic speaking Uighurs. Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities, most of them Muslims.
Han Chinese, who constitute over 90 percent of China's total population, form a minority of about 10 million in Xinjiang. They are mostly clustered in nine cities, and control economic institutions, the media, hospitals, the police, and of course the government. They live apart from the rest of the population in a system of effective apartheid.
Xinjiang is an important region for the Chinese government also because it is central to the 'Belt and Road' policy of linking China to the wider world through trade and ambitious infrastructure projects.
Xinjiang produces much of China's gas and oil supplies, and is also a transit zone for imported fuel from Russia and Central Asia. The Muslim peoples of Xinjiang have long been perceived as a potential threat to China's stability and episodes of violent protest were periodically reported. Serious violence occurred in city of Urumqi in the far west of Xinjiang in July , when Uighur riots sparked by the killing of two Uighurs in another part of China led to hundreds of deaths, many of Han Chinese.
During several organized attacks occurred, including a knife attack at a railway station killing at least 30 people in March and the bombing of a market in May. Coordinated assaults in August, primarily on police stations and government offices, caused according to the official press about deaths.
The regime claims there have been numerous other terrorist incidents. This policy includes a systematic destruction of hundreds or even thousands of mosques as well as symbols of Uighur cultural heritage, such as significant tombs and shrines, and enforcing alterations in religious ritual.
The new policy also entails creating a 'gulag' of prison camps for about one million Uighurs. This draconian system of forcible 're-education' occurs in what the regime styles 'vocational training centres'. Soviet occupation of Eastern bloc states was viewed with suspicion by Western powers, as they saw this occupation as a sign of Soviet willingness to use aggression to spread the ideology of communism.
In early , Britain, France and the United States unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for a plan envisioning an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods, and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets. In June , in accordance with the Truman Doctrine, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union.
The plan also stated that European prosperity was contingent upon German economic recovery. These would become the main bureaucracies for U. Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan. He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet controlled nations on his Western border and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states and a weakened Germany under Soviet control. Fearing American political, cultural, and economic penetration, Stalin eventually forbade Soviet Eastern bloc countries from accepting Marshall Plan aid.
Stalin believed that economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet control, and that the U. As part of the economic rebuilding of Germany in early , representatives of a number of Western European governments and the United States announced an agreement for a merger of western German areas into a federal governmental system.
In addition, in accordance with the Marshall Plan, they began to re-industrialize and rebuild the German economy, including the introduction of a new Deutsche Mark currency to replace the old Reichsmark currency that the Soviets had debased. Shortly thereafter, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade June 24, — May 12, , one of the first major crises of the Cold War, preventing food, materials, and supplies from arriving in West Berlin.
The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin. The Soviets did not disrupt the airlift for fear this might lead to open conflict.
By the spring of , the airlift was clearly succeeding, and by April it was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe. Berlin Airlift : Berliners watch an aircraft take part in the Berlin Airlift, which was a successful attempt to circumvent the Soviet blockade of non-Soviet Berlin.
The Berlin Blockade and the tensions surrounding it marked the beginning of the Cold War. Containment was the Cold War policy of preventing the spread of Soviet communism while not confronting it where it already existed.
Containment was a U. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam.
The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a cable by U. Defense Secretary James Forrestal in , later used in a magazine article. According to Kennan, the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for long-term peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world. It was its ever-present aim to advance the socialist cause.
Capitalism was a menace to the ideals of socialism, and capitalists could not be trusted or allowed to influence the Soviet people.
George F. The word containment is associated most strongly with the policies of U. Although President Dwight Eisenhower —61 toyed with the rival doctrine of rollback, he refused to intervene in the Hungarian Uprising of President Lyndon Johnson —69 cited containment as a justification for his policies in Vietnam. Central programs begun under containment, including NATO and nuclear deterrence, remained in effect even after the end of the war.
Congress appropriated the money. Because containment required detailed information about Communist moves, the government relied increasingly on the Central Intelligence Agency CIA. Established by the National Security Act of , the CIA conducted espionage in foreign lands, some of it visible, most secret. Completed in April , it became known as NSC It concluded that a massive military buildup was necessary to the deal with the Soviet threat.
The Truman Doctrine was the start of the policy of containment, followed by economic restoration of Europe through the Marshall Plan. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, and further developed on July 12, when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey.
American military force was usually not involved, but Congress appropriated free gifts of financial aid to support the economies and the military of Greece and Turkey. More generally, the Truman Doctrine implied American support for nations threatened by Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy and led in to the formation of NATO, a military alliance that is still in effect.
Truman made the plea amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War — He argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they urgently needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region. Because Turkey and Greece were historic rivals, it was necessary to help both equally even though the threat to Greece was more immediate. The effect was to end the Communist threat, and in both countries Greece and Turkey joined NATO, a military alliance that guaranteed their protection.
The Truman Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world. It was distinguished from rollback by implicitly tolerating the previous Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe.
The Truman Doctrine underpinned American Cold War policy in Europe and around the world, and endured because it addressed a broader cultural insecurity regarding modern life in a globalized world. It dealt with U. It brought nation-building activities and modernization programs to the forefront of foreign policy. The Truman Doctrine became a metaphor for emergency aid to keep a nation from communist influence.
The initiative was named after Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan was established on June 5, , and was in operation for four years beginning in April Note the pivotal position of the American flag. The Marshall Plan sought to rebuild a war-devastated region, modernize industry, bolster European currency, and facilitate international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required Europe to become wealthy enough to import U.
One of the main goals, however, was to contain the growing Soviet influence in Europe and prevent the spread of communism. The Soviet Union had already developed a socialist system. Stalin, therefore, demanded that all the communist countries of Eastern Europe adopt the Soviet model.
The Stalinization of Eastern Europe began. The communist party in each country held a complete monopoly of political power.
This permitted no independent political parties, no meaningful elections, and no criticism of the ruling communist party. Ultimately, the lack of political accountability to the people led to communism's collapse in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself. Stalin imposed a socialist economic model. The government, in the name of the people, owned the factories, farms, mines, and other means of production.
People could no longer own their own profit-making businesses and farms, as in the capitalist system. Government economic planners decided what and how much should be produced each year, what the prices should be, and what wages should be paid to the workers. Following Stalin's model, planners emphasized heavy industry such as steel making and coal mining. Consumer goods like automobiles, clothing, and TVs became scarce and expensive. The government guaranteed everyone the "right to work," but this often meant a low wage doing a dirty job.
With the emphasis on industrial production, smoke billowed from factories and industrial waste flowed into rivers. Pollution became a major problem, but little was done about it. Factory managers were under pressure to meet production quotas.
Consumers demanded more goods. Planners mainly ignored environmental problems. In most countries, the government took over privately owned farms. It combined them into large, state-owned agricultural enterprises or cooperatives where farmers shared the land and equipment. Eastern European farmers often resisted this collectivization of agriculture, but the communist governments applied special taxes and denied health benefits to force them to comply.
A few years after Stalin's death in , the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact , a military defense alliance with most of the Eastern European communist countries. In , Hungarians revolted against their communist regime. The Soviet Union and several other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded Hungary and brutally put down the revolt. The Hungarian Revolt shocked Eastern European communist leaders, forcing most to enact economic reforms. The reforms placed more emphasis on producing consumer goods, eased up on farm collectivization, and even allowed some private free enterprise.
By , economic reforms had somewhat improved the standard of living in most countries in Eastern Europe. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany had the highest standard. But even these countries still fell way behind the West. A small minority of people were members of the Communist Party. They held almost every important government post. They also enjoyed many privileges such as better housing and special access to Western consumer goods.
Others "voted with their feet" and fled their homelands. Some risked open dissent. Most Eastern Europeans, however, conformed to life under communism. Shortages of goods constantly occurred. Even when in stock, there was little variety of goods. Often there was only one type of laundry soap, one flavor of ice cream, and one kind of coffee. But most families owned a television set and a washing machine.
Many owned cars. But cars and appliances required long waits. In fact, lines were a part of daily life. Shopping was an ordeal, especially in the Soviet Union. Every day, women would go from shop to shop to get items. It is estimated that a Soviet woman spent two hours in line every day, seven days a week. Shoppers paid in cash. People did not have credit cards, charge accounts, or checking accounts.
In the workplace, almost everyone had a job. Wages, however, lagged far behind those in the Western democracies. A common joke was, "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work. Most industrial workers belonged to labor unions. But the unions were run by the government mainly to help factory managers achieve their production goals.
Farmers resented having to give up their land and work for the government on collective farms. Many left to work in city factories for higher pay or better working conditions.
Housing, built mainly by the government or group cooperatives, was always in short supply. Often, two or three generations of a family lived in a three-room apartment. Newlyweds usually had to wait years for a small apartment of their own. But everyone had a home. Homelessness was not a problem. Public transportation was affordable and extensive. Most cities had a web of subway, streetcar, and bus lines that carried people everywhere in the city.
Railroad transportation between cities was also low priced.
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