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Maria Z

Country Guide: GERMANY (washingtonpost.com) - 0 views

    • Maria Z
       
      This must have had a serious effect on Germany in the 50s, especially in the East.
    • Maria Z
       
      It seems that this is one of the most important things to happen in the East during the 50s.
  • Mikhai
  • ...19 more annotations...
    • Maria Z
       
      A lot more was going on in the West, obviously as a result of the far more open political state.
  • What remained of Germany was divided into four zones, occupied separately by the armies of Great Britain, France, the United States, and the USSR.
  • During 1945–47 there was a serious shortage of food, caused by the crippled state of the German economy and by poor harvests; this situation was intensified in W Germany by the arrival of about 10 million ethnic German refugees from the Soviet zone and the former German territories of E central Europe. I
  • After the Western powers had planned steps toward establishing a West German constitution and had instituted a currency reform, the Soviet authorities unsuccessfully blockaded (1948–49) West Berlin as part of the cold war (see Berlin airlift).
  • In 1949, Germany was divided into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
  • The government was controlled by the SED and was much more centralized than that of West Germany.
  • Agitated by the forced changes in the country and by food shortages and other economic hardships, workers in East Berlin began on June 17, 1953, a rising that soon spread to much of the country; the revolt was suppressed only after the intervention of Soviet forces.
  • . Also in 1954, the USSR recognized the sovereignty of East Germany, which in 1955 became a charter member of the Warsaw Treaty Organization
  • During the 1950s, Ulbricht, who was first secretary of the SED from 1950, emerged as the leader of East Germany. Under Ulbricht, the country was closely aligned with the USSR, and the liberalizing policies introduced in some of the other East European Communist nations were avoided.
    • Maria Z
       
      I love this name. <3
  • West Germany, 95,742 sq mi (247,973 sq km), consisted of the ten states that had been included in the U.S., British, and French occupation zones after the war. Bonn was the seat of government. The country adopted a constitution in May, 1949, to establish the Federal Republic of Germany.
  • The occupying powers allowed West Germany considerable autonomy from the start, except in foreign affairs.
  • In 1952, West Germany, the United States, France, and Great Britain signed the Bonn Convention, in effect a peace treaty, which granted West Germany most of the attributes of national sovereignty.
  • The Paris agreements of 1954, which came into force in 1955, gave West Germany full independence, except that the former occupying powers reserved the right to negotiate with the USSR on matters relating to Berlin and to Germany as a whole
  • Also, the powers continued to maintain troops in the country. In 1955, West Germany was recognized as an independent country by numerous nations, including the USSR, and it became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, thus solidifying its ties with the West.
  • he country tried to make up in part for the Nazi atrocities by granting considerable aid to Israel and by paying reparations to individuals who suffered loss or injury at the hands of the Nazi regime.
  • During the 1950s, the West German economy grew dramatically; in 1958, the country became a charter member of the European Economic Community, or Common Market (now the European Union
  • ational politics in the 1950s and early 1960s were stable and were dominated by Adenauer. The CDU-CSU held firmly to the position that Germany should be reunited on the basis of democratic elections; it followed the Hallstein doctrine
  • Until the 1970s, East and West Germany had virtually no contact on an official level, but there was considerable trade between them.
Maria Z

Wirtschaftswunder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The Volkswagen Beetle was one of the icons for West German reconstruction. The term Wirtschaftswunder (help·info) (German for "economic miracle") describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II. The expression was used by The Times in 1950. Beginning with the replacement of the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender
  • a lasting period of low inflation and rapid industrial growth was overseen by the government led by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his minister of economics, Ludwig Erhard, who went down in history as the "father of the German economic miracle."
    • Maria Z
       
      Basic info
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • partly due to the economic aid provided by the United States and the Marshall Plan, but mainly due to the currency reform of 1948
  • The industrially important Saarland with its rich coal fields was not returned to West Germany until 1957.
  • This act to strengthen the German economy had been explicitly forbidden during the two years that the occupation directive JCS 1067 was in effect. JCS 1067 had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany"
  • The Allies confiscated intellectual property of great value, all German patents, both in Germany and abroad, and used them to strengthen their own industrial competitiveness by licensing them to Allied companies.[2] Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the U.S. pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany.
    • Maria Z
       
      That's so low!
  • The Korean war (1950-53) led to a worldwide increased demand for goods, and the resulting shortage helped overcome lingering resistance to the purchase of German products. At the time Germany had a large pool of skilled and cheap labour, partly as a result of the deportations and migrations which affected up to 16.5 million Germans. This helped Germany to more than double the value of its exports during and after the war. Apart from these factors, hard work and long hours at full capacity among the population in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s and extra labour supplied by thousands of Gastarbeiter ("guest workers") provided a vital base for the economic upturn. From the 1950s onwards, West Germany had one of the world's strongest economies. The East German economy also showed strong growth, but not as much as in West Germany, due to the bureaucratic system and continued reparations to the USSR in terms of resources.
    • Maria Z
       
      More reasons
  •  
    Good information on the Wirtschaftswunder.
Emily S

Russia - The Era of the New Economic Policy - 0 views

  • eath of Lenin and the sharply different approach to governance of his successor, Joseph Stalin.
    • Emily S
       
      further explore the impact of Lenin's death on the NEP.
  • Kronshtadt base rebelling against war communism
  • Lenin realized that the radical approach to communism (see Glossary) was unsuited to existing conditions and jeopardized the survival of his regime.
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  • convincing the congress to adopt a temporary compromise with capitalism under the NEP program
  • The NEP also denationalized service enterprises and much small-scale industry, leaving the "commanding heights" of the economy--large-scale industry, transportation, and foreign trade--under state control.
  • In general, standards of living improved during this time, and the "NEP man"--the independent private trader--became a symbol of the era.
  • it also approved a quasi-federal structure for the state.
    • Emily S
       
      what does this mean?
  • The period of war communism was followed in the 1920s by a partial retreat from Bolshevik principles.
  • recover from the ravages of the Civil War
Christy C

CNNSI.com - SI Online - When The Terror Began - Tuesday August 20, 2002 04:26 PM - 0 views

  • he 1936 Nazi Games in Berlin. The Munich Olympics were to be "the Carefree Games." There would be no place for barbed wire, troops or police bristling with sidearms. Why, at an Olympic test event at Munich's Dante Stadium in 1971, when police deployed nothing more menacing than German shepherds,
    • Christy C
       
      In a way, the lack of security allowed the events that followed to happen.
    • Christy C
       
      Eventhough Sieber had prepared a very similar situation, the security did not prepare a plan for if it happened, since Germany wanted to seem more forward thinking than they were the last time the Olympics were in Germany.
  • Security personnel, called Olys, were to be sparse and inconspicuous, prepared for little more than ticket fraud and drunkenness. They would wear&nbsp;turquoise blazers and, during the day, carry nothing but walkie-talkies.
  • &nbsp;With security tossed aside, the Olympics became one big party.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Early in the Games, when several hundred young Maoist demonstrators congregated on a hill in the Olympic Park, guards dispersed them by distributing candy.
  • police kept bouquets of flowers in case of another such incident.
  • even to the two Israelis killed in the first moments of the takeover -- played out with a spooky accuracy. By the early hours of the next day nine more Israelis were dead, along with five of the terrorists and a Munich policeman,
  • But on Sept. 5, 1972, at the Munich Olympics, history would not wait. It hastened to crib from one of Sieber's scenarios virtually horror for horror. The psychologist had submitted to organizers Situation 21, which comprised the following particulars: At 5:00 one morning, a dozen armed Palestinians would scale the perimeter fence of the Village. They would invade the building that housed the Israeli delegation, kill a hostage or two ("To enforce discipline," Sieber says today), then demand the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails and a plane to fly to some Arab capital. Even if the Palestinians failed to liberate their comrades, Sieber predicted, they would "turn the Games into a political demonstration" and would be "prepared to die.... On no account can they be expected to surrender."
    • Christy C
       
      see next highlighted section
  • , Dr. Georg Sieber had a remarkable knack for seeing the future. In the months leading up to the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West German organizers asked Sieber, then a 39-year-old police psychologist, to "tabletop" the event, as security experts call the exercise of sketching out worst-case scenarios.
  • The psychologist had submitted to organizers Situation 21, which comprised the following particulars: At 5:00 one morning, a dozen armed Palestinians would scale the perimeter fence of the Village. They would invade the building that housed the Israeli delegation, kill a hostage or two ("To enforce discipline," Sieber says today), then demand the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails and a plane to fly to some Arab capital. Even if the Palestinians failed to liberate their comrades, Sieber predicted, they would "turn the Games into a political demonstration" and would be "prepared to die.... On no account can they be expected to surrender."
  • t 2he 1936 Nazi Games in Berlin. The Munich Olympics were to be "the Carefree Games." There would be no place for barbed wire, troops or police bristling with sidearms. Why, at an Olympic test event at Munich's Dante Stadium in 1971, when police deployed nothing more menacing than German shepherds, foreign journalists had teed off on the organizers, accusing them of forgetting that Dachau lay only 12 miles away
  • Security personnel, called Olys, were to be sparse and inconspicuous, prepared for little more than ticket fraud and drunkenness. They would wear &nbsp; turquoise blazers and, during the day, carry nothing but walkie-talkies.
  • Nein, the organizers came to agree, where Berlin had been festooned with swastikas and totalitarian red, Munich would feature a one-worldish logo and pastel bunting. Where Hitler's Olympics had opened and closed with cannon salutes and der Führer himself presiding, these would showcase a new, forward-looking Germany, fired with the idealism pervading the world at the time.
  • Early in the Games, when several hundred young Maoist demonstrators congregated on a hill in the Olympic Park, guards dispersed them by distributing candy. Indeed, in a storeroom in the Olympic Stadium, police kept bouquets of flowers in case of another such incident.
  • The Munich organizers spent less than $2&nbsp;million to make their Games secure; in Athens two years from now the Olympic security bill will total at least $600&nbsp;million, none of which will go toward candy or flowers.
  • "I don't see how the Germans could have made any mistakes that they didn't make," says Michael Hershman, a senior executive at Decision Strategies, a Fairfax, Va.-based security consulting firm that has been involved in five Olympics. "Over the years Munich has served as a model of what not to do in every conceivable way."
  • For the most recent Summer Games, in Sydney, they tabletopped 800 scenarios, even as they girded for that unthinkable 801st. "You can't prepare for everything," says Alex Gilady, an Israeli member of the International Olympic Committee. "In Atlanta one of the scenarios was that a bomb would go off in Centennial Park. When you're at the barn, you don't believe the horse will run away until it runs away."
  •  
    how it still affects us
Hannah A

Imperialism in Africa: Britain - 0 views

  • to colonize, to search for new markets and materials, to attain revenge and world prestige, to convert natives to Christianity, and to spread the English style of orderly government, the main motives evident in many events of the period showed attempts to safeguard the country and protect former land holdings
    • Hannah A
       
      reasons Britian colonized Africa
  • showdown over the route to the east between Britain and France occurred in Egypt. French pride over a new Egyptian canal, built in 1869, was soaring. It was abruptly grounded in 1875, however, by a surreptitious British purchase of the majority share in the Suez Canal
  • Britain's action in South Africa helped to protect their connection to the Indian Empire.
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  • Britain's imperialist involvement in the scramble for Africa occurred in response to the actions of the French and even German. Britain had a history of African trade agreements and, compared to its European counterparts, the highest degree of control in Africa. France and Britain began an earnest race for the Niger in 1883, agreeing then to divide the territory--Lagos to Britain and Timbuktu for France.
  • Britain was not an instigator in the scramble for Africa, but rather a reactionary nation who responded to the actions of other forces. As French and German forces threatened loose trade deals, Britain set up protectorates and colonies. As British holdings in Egypt and in East Africa were threatened, Britain fought to maintain its power.
Christy C

Israeli 1972 Olympic Team Murdered in Munich - 0 views

  • At 9:30AM, the terrorists announced that they were Palestinian Arabs, and demanded that Israel release 234 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails and Germany release two German terrorist leaders imprisoned in Frankfurt. They also demanded their own safe passage out of Germany.
    • Christy C
       
      What the terrorists hoped to accomplished
  • The rescue plan failed and a bloody firefight between the Germans and Palestinians followed, ending at 3:00AM when the Palestinians set off a grenade in one helicopter, killing all aboard, and terrorists in the second helicopter shot to death the remaining, blindfolded Israeli hostages. Three of the Palestinian Arabs terrorists were captured alive and held in Germany.
  • The Munich operation was ordered by Yasser Arafat and carried out by Fatah, Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The Fatah terrorists called themselves Black September in order to safeguard Fatah’s international image and the PLO’s political interests.
  • Black September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the organization always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO. I myself am personally acquainted with many of them, and can state with conviction that most of them belong to various Fedayeen organizations.
  • Abu Iyad’s book, Stateless,
    • Christy C
       
      Find in Library
  • Abu Iyad frequently refers to his personal involvement in the organization and drops transparent hints to this effect:
  • The mastermind of the massacre, Abu Daoud, admitted his role in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist, published in 1999.
    • Christy C
       
      Find in Library
  • Following the Munich massacre, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir gave instructions for Israeli agents to hunt down and kill those behind it. She told the Knesset on September 12, 1972:
    • Christy C
       
      Wrath of God
  • At 4:30AM on September 5, 1972, five Arab terrorists wearing track suits climbed the six and 1/2 foot fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany. Once inside, they were met by three others who had gained entrance with credentials.
  • After hours of negotiations, a deal was struck with German authorities and a trip to the NATO air base at Firstenfeldbruck, by bus and then two helicopters was arranged, in order to board a plane for Cairo. German sharpshooters were standing by with orders to simultaneously kill all the terrorists without harming the hostages.
  • Abu Iyad’s book, Stateless, explains that Black September was closely tied to Fatah. Abu Iyad frequently refers to his personal involvement in the organization and drops transparent hints to this effect: Black September was not a terrorist organization, but was rather an auxiliary unit of the resistance movement, at a time when the latter was unable to fully realize its military and political potential. The members of the organization always denied any ties between their organization and Fatah or the PLO. I myself am personally acquainted with many of them, and can state with conviction that most of them belong to various Fedayeen organizations. 1The mastermind of the massacre, Abu Daoud, admitted his role in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist, published in 1999.
Allie W

Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The economy of the Soviet Union was the modern world's first centrally planned economy. It was based on a system of state ownership and managed through Gosplan (the State Planning Commission), Gosbank (the State Bank) and the Gossnab (State Commission for Materials and Equipment Supply).
  • As the Soviet economy grew more complex, it required more and more complex disaggregation of control figures (plan targets) and factory inputs. As it required more communication between the enterprises and the planning ministries, and as the number of enterprises, trusts, and ministries multiplied, the Soviet economy started stagnating.
  • 922 to 1991.
  •  
    This source provides background information on the soviet union and its government until the point of Boris Yeltsin.
Allie W

Soviet Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • 1922 to 1991
  • The economy of the Soviet Union was the modern world's first centrally planned economy. It was based on a system of state ownership and managed through Gosplan (the State Planning Commission), Gosbank (the State Bank) and the Gossnab (State Commission for Materials and Equipment Supply).
  • As the Soviet economy grew more complex, it required more and more complex disaggregation of control figures (plan targets) and factory inputs. As it required more communication between the enterprises and the planning ministries, and as the number of enterprises, trusts, and ministries multiplied, the Soviet economy started stagnating.
  •  
    This provides background on the Soviet Union.
Becky B

Student Resource Center College Edition Expanded Document - 0 views

  • Quick SearchFind: Related SubjectsBloody Sunday, 1972 (26) British History, 1945- (71) Civil Rights (11826) Civil War (8262) Irish History (214) Irish Republican Army (2032) Northern Irish History (36) Oppression (Politics) (166) Political Protest (2503) Religious Conflict (451) Terrorism (33269) Violence (5879) &nbsp;TabsMarkPreviousNext var selectedString=""; var scrollbar=false; var selectedItems = false; var selectAll = false; var keyReleased = false; var selectedString2 = ""; var exceedLimit = false; var ctrlPressed = false; var checkStatusFF = false; var maxSelectedTextSize = ""; function addInstructions() { instructions = "Instructions to be followed while playing the audio. "; instructions += "1. Do not double click the mouse button. "; instructions += "2. Do not select any part of the document again. "; instructions += "3. Refresh the page and click the play button if you want to listen to the full document. "; instructions += "End of Instructions. "; } function getSelectedText() { if (document.all ) { // MSIE 4+ selectedString = document.selection.createRange().text; if(selectedString != "" && selectedString != null) { selectedString = selectedString; } else selectedString = ""; } if (document.getSelection) { // older Mozilla versions selectedString2 = document.getSelection(); if(selectedString2 != "" && selectedString2 != null) { selectedString = selectedString2; } else { selectedString = ""; exceedLimit = false; } } else if (window.getSelection) { // recent Mozilla versions selectedString2 = window.getSelection(); if(selectedString2 != "" && selectedString2 != null) { selectedString = selectedString2; } else { selectedString = ""; exceedLimit = false; } } } function checkTextLimit() { if(selectedString.length > '1000' && exceedLimit == false) { alert("The audio player is limited to selecting " + '1000' + " characters. To listen please make a smaller selection and then click on the play button. If not using the listen feature please ignore this message."); exceedLimit = true; return ; } } function refreshPlayer() { if( scrollbar != true && selectedString !=null && selectedString != "" ) { showPlayer(); scrollbar = true; } } function showPlayer() { if(selectedString.length>0 && selectAll != true && selectedString.length );
  • On January 30, 1972, a protest rally organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to demand an end to the internment without trial of suspected terrorists resulted in a clash with British troops
    • Becky B
       
      On January 30, 1972, the Northern Civil Rights Association organized a rally in Londonderry, Northern Ireland to protest British imprisonment of suspected terrorists without trial.
  • Thirteen of the protestors, all Catholics, died
    • Becky B
       
      Of the thirteen civilians who died, all were Catholic.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • This movement took as its model the civil rights marches of the American South, and endorsed the nonviolent tactics of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • They argued that only violent resistance could protect the Catholic minority from the Protestant-leaning "B Special" police militia, and later, as they began to take form, from the various Protestant paramilitary groups.
  • This measure, permitted under the Special Powers Act of 1922, was declared necessary by Prime Minister Brian Faulkner to bring the increasingly militant I.R.A. under control.
  • The internments elicited responses from both foreign and domestic critics, and soon observers alleged that the internees were being kept under brutal conditions. Those charges provided the immediate occasion for the demonstration of January 30, 1972.
  • At about 3:30 P.M., however, a group of Derry youths broke away from the main column and confronted the three army barricades which had been erected to contain the march. British paratroopers were pelted with stones and bottles, and they responded with tear gas and fire hoses. Shortly thereafter at least one shot was fired in the direction of the troops. The paratroopers then crossed the barricades, in what had been intended as a move to arrest demonstrators, and began firing their weapons into the crowd.
  •  
    Description of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Derry.
Alise H

Jawaharlal Nehru - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • India's first Prime Minister,
  • After the British massacre of protesters in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar in 1919, an outraged Nehru devoted all his energies to the freedom movement.
    • Alise H
       
      what inspired him to become involved
  • opposition of the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who were demanding a separate Muslim state of Pakistan
    • Alise H
       
      conflict... remains today!
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Nehru envisaged a mixed economy in which the government would manage strategic industries such as mining, electricity and heavy industries, serving public interest and a check to private enterprise. Nehru pursued land redistribution and launched programmes to build irrigation canals, dams and spread the use of fertilizers to increase agricultural production. He also pioneered a series of community development programs aimed at spreading diverse cottage industries and increasing efficiency into rural India. While encouraging the construction of large dams (which Nehru called the 'new temples of India'), irrigation works and the generation of hydroelectricity, Nehru also launched India's programme to harness nuclear energy.
    • Alise H
       
      clearly saw internal development as important
  • Nehru reluctantly supported the partition of India,
  • establishment of many institutions of higher learnin
  • Nehru was a champion of pacifism and a strong supporter of the United Nations.
  • This policy of pacifism and appeasement with respect to China soon came unraveled when China annexed Aksai Chin, the region of Kashmir
    • Alise H
       
      China still claims this region today
  • Nehru would work with Maulana Azad and other Muslim leaders to safeguard and encourage Muslims to remain in India. The violence of the time deeply affected Nehru, who called for a ceasefire
  • Nehru is credited for establishing a widespread system of affirmative action to provide equal opportunities and rights for India's ethnic groups, minorities, women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes
  • though with limited success in his lifetime.
  • creating a system providing universal primary education,
  • "Integrate or perish."
  •  
    General information source
Louisa B

Lomé Peace Accord - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The Lomé Peace Accord was a peace agreement signed on 7 July 1999 between the warring parties in the civil war that gripped Sierra Leone for almost a decade. President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah signed with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader, Foday Sankoh, granting Sankoh a position in the transitional government as well as amnesty for him and all combatants. The accord is named for Lomé, the capital of Togo, where the negotiations took place and the agreement was signe
  • It included commitments to end hostilities, reestablish the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace, provide for demobilization and disarmament, and aid in the reintegration of combatants into civil society. It also granted amnesty to Sankoh and all rebel combatants (Article IX), and allowed for the RUF to become a political party. In order to achieve these goals, it called for the UN observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and ECOMOG to form a neutral peacekeeping force, and all mercenaries to leave the country, as well as a creation of a new Sierra Leone Army.
Ana E

Civil Disobedience Movement - 0 views

  • Formed under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Civil Disobedience Movement set a milestone in the history of India's freedom struggle. The Civil Disobedience Movement was formed in the year 1930 and is one of the most important phases in the Indian National Movement. The main ideology behind the Civil Disobedience Movement was to defy the laws made by the British.
    • Ana E
       
      Civil Disobedience Movement
  • When all their efforts went futile, the Congress launched the Civil Disobedience Movement.
  • Gandhi signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact with the then Viceroy Lord Irwin. The 2 important clauses of the pact were: Participation of Congress in the Round Table Conference Calling off the Civil Disobedience Movement
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • restart the Civil Disobedience Movement in Indian came from the Congress Working Committee and it was launched on January 1932
  •  
    What it is you learned how it'll help with research
Alise H

Gale Virtual Reference Library - Document - 0 views

  • I was perhaps more an Englishman than an Indian.
    • Alise H
       
      quote this
  • 1921 Nehru followed Gandhi in sympathy with the Khilafat cause of the Moslems. Nehru was drawn into the first civil disobedience campaign as general secretary of the United Provinces Congress Committee
  • It was an intellectual sojourn, highlighted by an antiimperialist conference in Brussels. Here Nehru first encountered Communists, Socialists, and radical nationalists from Asia and Africa. The goals of independence and social reform became firmly linked in Nehru's mind. Nehru spoke eloquently against imperialism and became convinced of the need for a socialist structure of society. He was impressed with the Soviet example during a visit to Moscow.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Back in India Nehru was immediately engrossed in party conferences and was elected president of the All-India Trades Union Congress. In speeches he linked the goals of independence and socialism. In 1928 he joined the radical opposition to proposals for dominion status by his father and Gandhi. In 1930 Gandhi threw his weight to Nehru as Congress president, attempting to divert radicalism from communism to the Congress.
    • Alise H
       
      maybe when he started leaning towards democracy
  • Nehru also established the precedent for economic planning in a suggestion that the Congress form a national planning committee.
  • Nehru refused to accept dominion status, as did the rest of Congress leadership. There followed the Congress "Quit India" resolution and the imprisonment of Nehru, Gandhi, and other Congress leaders until June 1945. There were nationwide protests, a mass demand for independence.
  • The Planning Commission was created in 1950 and launched the First Five-Year Plan in 1951, stressing an increase in agricultural output. Nehru also took pride in the Community Development Program, established to raise the standard of living in the villages. He Page&nbsp;334&nbsp; | &nbsp;Top of Article saw the Third Five-Year Plan operative before his death on May 27, 1964,
  • Some held that nonalignment was a strategy for deterrence and peace, a force for protecting Indian independence and preservation of the international community on ethical grounds.
  • Nehru's nonalignment policy was criticized by many Westerners and some Indians as giving preference to totalitarian countries rather than to democracies. Some critics believed that nonalignment left India no effective means to deal with China, national defense, the Great Powers, or the underdeveloped community.
  • Nehru did not prevent the government from resorting to force in Hyderabad, Kashmir, and Goa.
Louisa B

Sierra Leone Civil War - 0 views

  • The Sierra Leone Civil War began in 1991, by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh. Tens of thousands died and more than 2 million people (well over one-third of the population) were displaced because of the 11-year conflict. Neighbouring countries became host to significant numbers of refugees attempting to escape the civil war. It was officially declared over on 18 January 2002.
  • ontrol of Sierra Leone's diamond industry was a primary objective for the war. Although endowed with abundant natural resources, Sierra Leone was ranked as the poorest country in the world by 1998. With the breakdown of all state structures, wide corridors of Sierra Leonean society were opened up to the trafficking of arms and ammunition, and an illegal trade in recreational drugs from Liberia and Guinea.
  • Foday Sankoh was head of the military wing of the RUF. According to Sierra Leone and writer Abdul Koroma, the rebels were quick to demonstrate their brutality, decapitating community leaders and putting their heads on stakes.
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  • To rectify the situation, the NUYTR hired several thousand mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.
  • On 29 April 1992, a group of young military officers, led by Capt. Valentine Strasser, launched a military coup, which sent Momoh into exile in Guinea and established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, so that by 1995 they held much of the countryside and were on the doorstep of Freetown
  • s a result of popular demand and mounting international pressure, the NPRC agreed to hand over power to a civilian government via presidential and parliamentary elections, which were held in April 1996. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, a diplomat who had worked at the UN for more than 20 years, won the presidential election. Because of the prevailing war conditions, parliamentary elections were conducted, for the first time, under the system of proportional representation. Thirteen political parties participated, with the SLPP winning 27 seats, UNPP 17, PDP 12, APC 5 and DCP 3. Two months later, discussions began between the SLPP and the RUF in the town of Yamoussoukro, which led eventually to the signing of the Abidjan Peace Accord in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire on 30 November 1996. The agreement quickly broke down as the RUF could not agree on disarmament and the creation of a monitoring force. The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma, overthrew President Kabbah on 25 May 1997, and invited the RUF to join the government. After 10 months in office, the junta was ousted by the Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) forces, and the democratically elected government of President Kabbah was reinstated in March 1998. On 6 January 1999, the RUF launched another attempt to overthrow the government, beginning the Siege of Freetown. Fighting reached parts of Freetown, leaving thousands dead and wounded. ECOMOG forces drove back the RUF attack several weeks later. With the assistance of the international community, President Kabbah and RUF leader Sankoh negotiated the Lomé Peace Accord, which was signed on 7 July 1999
  • In May 2000, the situation in the country deteriorated to such an extent that British troops were deployed in Operation Palliser to evacuate foreign nationals and establish order. They stabilized the situation, and were the catalyst for a ceasefire and ending of the civil war.
  • Within a year of British intervention, UN forces were in full control of the country, and gradually began handing over control to the reconstituted and retrained Sierra Leone armed forces. The British looked to the Americans to similarly solve the Liberian problem in order to provide stability on Sierra Leone's borders and restore normal market forces to the diamond trade. The Liberian war ended in 2003 with ECOWAS and US intervention, followed in 2006 by the trial of its former President Charles Taylor for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the first such trial in Africa.
Mary P

ABC-CLIO: World History: Modern: Entry Display - 0 views

  • The 1979 victory of the Marxist guerrillas of the Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicaragua gave further hope and support to those who sought an armed revolution in El Salvador.
  • anticommunism became the focus of the United States' foreign policy
  • the Salvadoran government and armed forces relied heavily on the unconditional financial and military support of the United States
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  • The United States also began to withdraw unconditional support after the collapse of communism in Europe and publicity over the ongoing human rights violations of the Salvadoran security forces
  • he roots of the civil war can be found in a long-standing conflict between an oligarchy that dominated land and politics and a lower class of impoverished peasants who sought land for subsistence agriculture
Mary P

El Salvador :: Civil war --  Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition - 0 views

  • obvious was the military's loss of the monopoly it had held on the direct exercise of governmental authority for nearly 50 years
  • change in the relationship between the military and the country's propertied elite
  • he United States supplied El Salvador with financial aid amounting to $4 billion; assumed responsibility for the organization and training of elite military units; supported the war effort through the provision of sophisticated weaponry, particularly helicopters; and used its influence in a variety of ways to guide the political fortunes of the country.
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  • the guerrilla units had joined in a single organization, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional; FMLN), and announced the opening of a “final offensive” in January 1981.
  • Elections held in 1982 enabled the formation of a constituent assembly that organized a provisional government and drafted a new constitution
  • FMLN proposals for peace. In November 1989 the FMLN launched a major offensive on a number of urban centres in the country, including the capital city, San Salvador.
  • In the course of the battle for San Salvador, the U.S.-trained Rapid Response Atlacatl Battalion killed six Jesuit priests and two housekeepers at the Central American University of José Simeón Cañas on Nov. 16, 1989. Strong international pressure to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime and Cristiani's loss of faith in the army's capacity to defeat the FMLN strengthened the president's commitment to reaching a negotiated settlement
  • N-mediated peace negotiations began in the spring of 1990, and the two parties signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City on Feb. 16, 1992. By that time more than 75,000 people (mostly noncombatants) had lost their lives, the economy was in shambles, and massive damage to the infrastructure was evident everywhere.
Christina P

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • The protests were sparked by the death of a pro-democracy and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn
  • The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership;
  • many democratic reforms that were proposed during the 1980s were swept under the carpet.
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  • Despite early expectations in the West that PRC government would soon collapse and be replaced by the Chinese democracy movement, by the early 21st century the Communist Party of China remained in firm control of the People's Republic of China, and the student movement which started at Tiananmen was in complete disarray.
  • shift in the political conventions
  • After the Tiananmen Square protests, riot police in Chinese cities were equipped with non-lethal equipment for riot control.
  • tourism revenue decreased
  • relatively "well-off" sectors of society and were seen as out of touch with common people. A number of them were socialists.
  • rise in defence spending
  • foreign direct investment commitments were cancelled
  • attempted to curtail free market reforms
  • met with stiff resistance from provincial governors and broke down completely in the early 1990s
  • The protest leaders at Tiananmen were unable to produce a coherent movement or ideology that would last past the mid-1990s.
  • Foreign loans to China were suspended
  • Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
  •  
    After the protest, Chinese government did not become democratic and remained communist. Riot police were equipped with weapons. There was a negative foreign reaction to this, so loans were suspended, tourism revenue decreased, and foreign investment commitments were canceled.
Maria Z

Student Resource Center College Edition Expanded Document - 0 views

  • German Communist leader, who became the most prominent Marxist politician of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, and from 1949 to 1971 was the unchallenged leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
  • By April 1946, Ulbricht, Pieck, and other German Communists were able to bring about a fusion of the Communist and Social Democratic parties in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). The new party that resulted from this shotgun marriage, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), continued to insist that it desired democracy for Germany rather than the imposition of a totalitarian Marxist regime. From the very outset, however, it took advantage of the presence of Soviet troops in the SBZ to apply ever-increasing pressure to dissident Social Democrats and others unwilling to accept the veiled dictatorship of the renamed Communist Party.
  • Some of the changes that took place in the SBZ after 1945 were genuinely popular and were essential for the creation of a viable democratic system in Germany. These included a program of land reform that confiscated 13,700 estates of Junker landowners (Prussian aristocrats), turning the farmland over to formerly landless peasants. Other reforms opened up educational opportunities to workers and farmers, while a realistic and rapidly executed program of de-Nazification made it possible for most ex-Nazis to once again enter the public arena. But whatever chances there were for democratic evolution in the SBZ were dashed by the onset of Cold War tensions.
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  • Soviet policy in Germany vacillated between a desire to hold onto the SBZ and exploit it economically as reparations for the immense destruction caused by the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union and the hope that a neutralized united German state might yet be created that would be on friendly terms with its eastern neighbors. These contradictory goals were never resolved, and by 1949 it was clear that Germany would be divided into two states with vastly different political, social, and economic systems. Once Soviet policy was resigned to the creation of a separate eastern German state, the talents of Walter Ulbricht and other German Communists were very much in demand.
  • Walter Ulbricht responded to these challenges by imposing a harsh political and economic regime modeled after the Stalinist society he had lived in from 1938 to 1945. The results were predictable: a massive eruption of worker discontent on June 17, 1953, in East Berlin and other GDR cities brought the regime to the point of collapse. Only the intervention of Soviet troops saved the SED dictatorship from its angry citizens.
  • The proclamation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) on October 7, 1949, marked the start of four decades of a Marxist experiment on German soil. (The Federal Republic of Germany [or West Germany] had been created a few weeks earlier.) The conditions for East German success were extremely limited at this juncture, and not only because of the unpopularity of the Soviet occupation regime. With a territory roughly equal in size to that of Tennessee, the GDR lacked fuels and raw materials, and much of its industrial plant lay in ruins. Furthermore, it suffered from a brain-drain for the first dozen years of its existence because many of its youngest and most ambitious citizens fled to West Berlin and then went to a booming Western Germany that had been granted generous American aid as a result of the Marshall Plan.
  • Ulbricht concentrated on building up the weak GDR economy. This was a difficult task because the terms of Soviet-GDR trade agreements favored the Soviet Union, and because his struggling state almost completely lacked natural resources, being obliged to import more than 95% of its raw materials and more than a third of its grain supply. The harshly repressive nature of life in the GDR and the growing prosperity of West Germany led to a massive exodus of people, a permanent crisis that was only solved with a drastic measure.
    • Maria Z
       
      Political issues and positive changes before Potsdam.
    • Maria Z
       
      Basic problems in the East.
    • Maria Z
       
      MAJOR EVENT!
  • The split between the former Allies had repercussions for Germany. Each occupier drew up a temporary administration modeled on its own goals and precepts of government. In 1947, the Western allies—Great Britain, the United States, and France—relinquished their own authorities and united their sections into the new Federal Republic of Germany, with a capital at Bonn. The first elections resulted in the anti-Nazi conservative Konrad Adenauer becoming the first chancellor. Berlin remained legally distinct, but the three Western sections there were also united into a free city, West Berlin.
  • The Soviets followed suit. They declared East Germany as the German Democratic Republic (DDR), with East Berlin as its capital and Walter Ulbricht, a Communist leader loyal to Moscow, as its prime minister. In 1948, Moscow tried to restrict access to the city even though access was guaranteed by treaty. An air lift, sponsored chiefly by the United States, caused the plan of blocking the roads to backfire. The Kremlin lifted the blockade.
  • The new situation struck terror into the Germans in the East. While others in the Soviet Bloc had little chance of leaving their homelands, Germans who lived in Berlin, or who could get there, could make their way to West Berlin simply by taking a subway ride. Once in West Berlin, they could join relatives or simply move themselves into the Federal Republic. The total number of Germans who had left the East for the West exceeded 1.5 million by the end of 1951. The lure of the West, especially the benefits provided by the airlift and the Marshall Plan, provided the East Germans more than enough incentive to give up all of their possessions and take a chance in the West. The bleak future which the German Democratic Republic promised also provided an impulse. In addition, the new governments of Eastern Europe expelled almost eight million more Germans whose families had lived in their countries for generations. Most of these came from German territories received as compensation by Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union. These migrations further divided the two Germanies. This division, perhaps more than any other condition, symbolized the Cold War.
    • Maria Z
       
      Basic East vs. West
    • Maria Z
       
      My topic!
  • Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) never recognized the two-Germany policy. It even took measures against the policy, such as the 1955 Hallstein Doctrine, named after Walter Hallstein, a foreign office official. The Hallstein Doctrine stated that Bonn would not recognize any country with diplomatic relations with the DDR. Exceptions were granted to the Soviet Union and some Third World countries.
  • n contrast, the communist leaders of the DDR supported the two-Germany policy, since it served both Moscow's interest and their own. Only under this situation could they have an opportunity to govern, as it was clear that reunification would mean the end of communist power in Germany
  • Between 1949 and 1961, another 1.5 million or more East Germans migrated to the West. In the 1950's, Western aid rebuilt Western Europe, including West Germany and West Berlin. In
  • As West Berlin became a beacon of prosperity, more and more East Germans decided to forsake their homes and migrate to the West.
    • Maria Z
       
      Important doctrine; research it more.
    • Maria Z
       
      Dang. That's a lot.
  •  
    Brief bio of Ulbricht
Allie W

Academic OneFile  Document - 0 views

  • democratic government under the current President, Boris Yeltsin.
  • privatize state-owned enterprises and to require them to survive or fail based upon their own profits rather than on state subsidies funneled through the Central Bank. Simultaneously, the development of new private businesses was to be permitted and encouraged, as was the private ownership of property and the accumulation of wealth
  • Russia has succeeded in privatizing approximately 80 percent of its large and mid-size enterprises and many new businesses have emerged
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  • lacks a legal system which covers both business law and property law and a system of property rights, making it difficult or even impossible to define the ownership of assets or to transfer assets from one owner or set of owners to another
  • although Russia has legislation protecting intellectual property fights including copyrights and patents, there is no effective means of enforcement
  • 94 percent of the software available in Russia in 1994 was pirated
  • inability to define ownership rights also creates problems in instances of bankruptcy and attempts to use assets as collateral for a bank loan
  • Russia's capital markets are also largely undeveloped
  • does not have a well-developed banking system capable of channeling capital from those who save to those who require credit
  • In the absence of the legal and capital market systems required to support a free market, illegal systems have developed and flourished
  • potential to discourage private enterprise and distort the workings of a "free" market
  • number of reported crimes in Russia has doubled since 1985
  • 40 percent of the turnover of goods and services was controlled by the Russian mafiya
  • Criminal elements not only extort money from private enterprises and individuals, but they also act as a source of funding by providing capital to businesses which cannot get it from undercapitalized banks
  • One obvious problem is that criminals have the tendency to resort to illegal and violent means
  • 500 businessmen were murdered in Russia in 1994
  • organized crime and corruption discourage rather than encourage the development of free enterprise
  • less incentive to generate profits
  • hide or understate the profits they do generate and in doing so, to consume less
  • create monopolies because competitors are discouraged or eliminated
  • creating artificial barriers to entry and limiting the number of independent firms producing a product or service
  • the economy does not operate as efficiently as it would under competitive conditions.
  • bribes to corrupt government officials or payoffs to mafiya bosses who control a source of supply.
  • between 70 and 80 percent of private enterprises and commercial banks in Russia make payoffs to organized crime
  • Although Russia does have laws against payoffs to public officials, they are not enforced
  • Crime also discourages both foreign portfolio investment and foreign direct investment, both of which Russia desperately needs
  • In essence, the mafiya had assumed roles which would normally be assumed by legitimate institutions including the banking industry, the legal system, and law enforcement.
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    This source answers the question of my topic: how did corruption influence the change from communism to a free market economy?
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