The Collapse Of Communism

The collapse of Communism was a slow yet expected. It was expected to be known as the "perfect" government policy. As you can already tell, this was not the case. Communism collapsed because of many reasons. One of them was the president named Mikhail. (you can read about him in the blog before this one) He refused to send any of his troops to their rescue because of all the opposition. The government was also losing a ton of its money as well as its power. Not only that but organizations that had the help of the United States greatly discouraged communism. NATO especially was one of them. They helped the communist people see just how good capitalism was. They showed how we got all types of products in so much variety and things of the sort.
One thing that really got in the was of spreading capitalism was the Berlin Wall. It separated the communism countries from the capitalist countries. It was considered an iron curtain to ward off the opposition. Finally it went down and Eastern Europe was able to spread its capitalism influence elsewhere.
Once capitalism started spreading and communism collapsed, the Soviet Union was no more. Since communism was no longer there there was no need for the Soviet Union. It changed the world because as soon as it was gone more and more countries around the world that were communist changed to a capitalism system.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev was able to clear up a path to the end of communism. He was praised for his youth and his strong political experience. After a while, he was voted as the the political secretary. All pulitboro gave their support for mild reform in the Soviet Union. At age 54 he became voted as one of the youngest Soviet leaders. He lived during the time of Stalins harsh rule. When he became voted as the newest leader, he had no intention of continuing Stalin's "useless" way of rule. He decided to pursue new ideas. He wanted to encourage the citizens to give him new ways of improving their society. Because of this, many new changes were made. Churches were able to open, Dissidents were realeased from prison and books that were once banned were put in bookshelves. Many of the citizens were finally able to complain about all the economic problems. These were some of the different ways that Mikhail Gorbachev was able to pave the road to ending communism. Its about time that it happened as well. The government was very unfair to its people.

Glasnost was a policy created by Mikhail. It was another word for "openness". It was a way to get the citizens of the Soviet Union to tell them any ways they could try to improve their society. This is what brought a lot of change to society. Some good, some of it bad.

Peristrokia was the idea of economic reconstructing. Mikhail wanted to find new ways to revive the Soviet economy. Local managers finally gained greater authority over factories and farms. They were also able to open up their own small business .

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

The Apartheid is the racial segregation policy of South America. All people who were considered non-whites did not have the same rights as those who where "white". For example, African Americans were not allowed to vote in the parliament. Public bathrooms and certain places were also reserved for one race only. It literally meant "seperate development of races". Government prohibited mixed marriages. Many of those who opposed Apartheid were banned. It got so bad that even some of the opposition leaders were killed.

Nelson Mandela was one of those blessed people that opposed the horrible rule of the Apartheid. He grew up in the streets of South America, where drinking out of the wrong water fountain could get u in jail. He started out as a leader in the African National Congress. Unfortunately his work was cut short when he was sentenced to death. He continued to give his people hope. After 27 years, he was released from jail and the Apartheid was over. Nelson was awarded the nobel peace prize and voted as president of South America. He is admired greatly for the hope he gave his people while he was in jail. They were happy for the freedom they received from the Apartheid.

African Independence

According to the map that is shown, Africa has changed tremendously in only 20 years. In 1955, Africa was practically overthrown by the European nations. Almost all its countries were ruled by the European people. The only countries that were not under European rule were Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, as well as South Africa. By the time 1975 came rolling in, Almost all the countries that were ruled over, were free from European rule. Before all these countries gained their independence, Europeans marched in to take all the natural resources that Afreica was naturally known for. Many of the Africans were angry that their own homeland was taken over. They wanted to either chase all the Europeans away. If they had to, they also resorted to killing. A few of the Africans did not really mind the Europeans taking over because the Europeans gave them many new thing. They built hospitals, schools and other helpful places for the Africans. Eventually, the Africans grew tired and worked really hard to gain their independence. They succeeded very well too.

One of the most memorable leaders of African independence was Jomo Kenyatta. He grew up studying very hard and gaining a proper education. He eventually became a carpenter but continued studying politics. When the Europeans invaded his homeland, he realized how unfair they were treating his people. He also realized that they were trying to change their government into that of communism. He went to Europe to try to persuade them to give his people their well deserved freedom. He was put in jail for 7 years. When he got out of jail, Africa was soon freed from the European influence. He was voted as the president of Kenya.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

This was has to honestly be one of my favorite films i have watched. This was about the space race to space and into the moon. The United States and Russia were the two countries competing to get into space first. As i was watching this film, i realized that Russia was the one who initially won this space race.The first race was to get the first man into space. We succeeded with sending a monkey into space but a few weeks later (i think it was 2) Russia got the first man into space. It was then that we lost this first race. The second race was to get someone on the moon. This was where we claimed our first victory. We got the first man on the moon so we won right there!

This movie showed a lot of great scenes. One of my favorite scenes was when they broke the sound barrier. America accomplished such a feat that day. This goes to show how advanced our technology was. The other scenes were when both the United States and Russia tried to send different rockets into space. America really failed at sending those rockets up to space. Once Russia sent up their rocket, America tried so hard to send rockets up to space until they finally succeeded. Eventually they caught up and won the space race.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO stood for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This group included countries in both North America and Europe. The main reason for this group was defense. If one of the countries were to be attacked by a nation the other NATO countries could come to their aid. Europe still had many economic problems so the United States were able to help them out and give them supplies. This could help both countries, if their is good cooperation between the two, to rebuild ther cities faster. Many of them felt threatened by an attack from the Soviet so the importance of the NATO grew.

The Warsaw Pact included the Soviet Union and its satllite countries. It was supposed to be another defensive group but was created in response to NATO. Here, they dominated the alliance. They kept their military personnel and kept on running socialist governments. They renewed in 1985 for another 20 years. In the 1980's the organization weakened severely. Troops were being withdraw from countries.In 1991 the Pact decided to disperse.

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog"

"Night and Fog"was also another powerful movie about the holocaust. I found this film to be powerful when it came to describing what took place in the death camp of Auchwits.
It was very similar to the the other film called "Schindler's List". Both of these films are actually very similar. Some scenes are even almost actually alike. There was this one scene where the people were being loaded onto the train. Inboth films, we see the Jews slowly being loaded onto the train by the Nazi guards. Their faces are all filled with a sense of hopelessness. That alone was enough to simply bring tears to ones face.
As powerful as this film was, I must admit that the other film I watched was way more powerful. "Schindler's List" showed how the holocaust took place a lot more effectively. That filmed showed what happened to the Jews when they were being brutally tortured by th Nazis. Innocent people were being shot just for running away from them or disobeying a single stupid order. What really tugged at me the most was the children. They were being taken away from their mothers and families. These children didn't even know that they were being taken away to be killed. Their mother's knew this but not the children. Some children were smart enough to find a secure place to hide. Unfortunately many never made it out alive. I hope something like this will never happen again.