Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev was the reason the USSR gave up communism. As i stated in my previous blog, he was elected president in 1985 and started to relax the ideas of commmunism. Gorbachev realized the the USSr could not change without free flow and things like that.

The Collapse of Communism

The collapse of Communism started ater a series of events that occured between the years on 1989 and 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. And he ultimately relaxed the influence of communism. As well as many countries from the warsaw pact started rejecting the idea of communism as well. This negativity towards communism is what lead democratic revolutions and outbreaks that lead to the breakdown of the Soviet Union. With this new tension going around, people forced the old sterlin government out and elected a president. In turn he ordered people to take down the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989.
inspired by people overthrowing their government and the demolition of the Berlin Wall, other countries startedm overthrowing their country, and finally on New years eve of 1991. The USSR collapsed itself. A man named Boris Yeltsin began overpowering communist leaders in the USSr and defeating them. But not wanting the USSR to fall completely he sent in troops to gain order and things and such.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is basically another word for segregation. In South Africa, under the Apartheid system, during the middle to late 1900's, Bantu, which were black people, mixed people, and indians, were not on the same level as whites. They could not vote or go to certain places because they were restricted. It was a very rigid system.
Now Nelson Mandela was South Aftricas first black president. He spent 27 years being locked up in a cell, behind bars, on a cold island, missing his family and friends. Mandela had become a leader of the African National congress in which they opposed the white minority and anyone of the white race. The government obviously didnt like that so That was the reason he was arrested. Mandela is recognized as the resistance to racism, he was a political prisoner. Mandela used his knowledge to help take down Apartheid and create a democracy. He was successful in creating a multi-racial democracy and recieved a Nobel Prize in 1993.

African Independence

Between the time of 1955 - 1975 Africa was gaining their own independence. The first country to gain it was Ghana. A man named Kwame Nkrumah played a big part in that. Nkrumah worked hard at liberating the Gold Coast from the British. Between going in and out of jail and traveling to the United States , Nkrumah wanted to create a United States of Africa and ultimately was declared prime minister of Ghana when it became its own country and then the president forever. He quickly started on expanding education and schools, fixing roads, creating or building new healthcare facilities, and much more. But he failed to realize that they werent economically stable enough to handle all these projects so many people critisized him for that. When he left to china in 1966, police and military gained control and ever since then Ghana has been going back and forth between having their own control and their military controling them.

Another great leader was Jomo Kenyatta. British settlers had very good farmland in Kenya. So when the Africans wanted their own country to control the british fought back and fought back rough! By the time Kenya gained their independence in 1963 more then 10,000 black Kenyans had been killed and over 100 white ones. All this because the British didnt want to give up good farmland.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The US and the USSR was in a space competition. This was a big part of the cold war. They both wanted to get to space first and do things like that. The USSR was the first to get a satellite into space. US came in second. The ussr was the first to get a man into space. The Us followed with a monkey. The movie portrayed them as being scared to send men into space because of all the mishaps with the rocket ships. They tried to send a rocket ship into space 3 or 4 times. Each time the rocket wouldnt leave the space station, it would go up maybe a few hundred feet and then come right back down and burst into flames. So you could imagine how long it took to re-think the plan, re-build the rocket, and then re-do the test. It took a very long time, which led the USSR to have the first russian man sent into space. So in reality, the USSR beat us into spac ebut we beat them in one thing. We were the first to have a man walk on the moon, basically the first to have any human being place a foot on another planet. The scenes that i will remember about the cold war is the rockets falling down and bursting into flames, the moneky going into space and then coming down in the parachute thing, the USSR arguing about beating us, and the fact that they used test pilots to go into space after rigorous testing. Overall, the USSR and the US were in competition to go into space, the USSR beat them in most tests but we were the first to be on another planet. And thats what makes the cold war.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

The Nato Pact, which stands for North Atlantic treaty Organization, was indeed a pact that consisted of countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, the Czech Republic, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, and etc. It contained a total of 28 countries. The Nato Pact was a military alliance created to defend the west side of Europe from a possible Soviet Union invasion. A foundation was created and commands were established.

Now, the Soviet Union saw that these countries were becoming allies and took it as a threat. And in turn created the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union was the dominant one of all countries involved. The SU had military bases and people set up in numerous amounts of them. It kept them running socialists governments and such. Aside all of that, it was undertaken by two men who received power in 1955. The Warsaw Pact was going strong for well over 20 years but political scenes weakened them and in March of 91, they both ultimately ended.

Film Lesson: "Schindler's List"

This was a great movie. It kept me interested and i would recommend it to anyone. This movie showed everything they went through. From before they were sent to Ghettos, to how they were liquidated, to where and how they hid, to what happened to them in the camps, and even how they were killed or what they were killed for. The images that stuck into my head were when they were liquidated form the Krakow ghetto. i clearly remember a little girl with a cute pink jacket on walking around by herself. She runs into a house and crawls under the bed. I dont know what happened to her but i can only imagine. I also remember a guy who was taped to the top of the bottom of his bed. They completely flipped over the bed and shot him over 100 times. That is unbelievable. I think that Schindlers list was way more powerful than Night and Fog. Although Night and Fog had some very grusome pictures, Schindler's List showed how those pictures came about. And while Night and Fog didnt talk about those who didnt die or those who never went to the camps, Schindlers list did. It over all gave me a better view of what happened.

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog

This film was a real eye opener. It clearly depicts what the jews and
many others who were apart of the holocaust had to go through. It
showed the train cars and how they were all stuffed inside, it showed
how people were burned and all the dead bodies. It gave detailed images
on what happened. I do believe it was not better then
"Schindlers list" mostly because it had a lot of images, not many reinactments
or any type of moving visual in which you cud picture in your mind how
it happened. Night and Fog was more factual when compared toSchindlers List which was more of a hollywood type movie. I also believe that it being a nice hollywood movie can make me relate to the people and the whole situation. Like i feel i am there, literally, watching the whole scenario.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WWI)

The Treaty of Versailles is what ended World War I. This treaty, in my opinion was basically against Germany. The treaty states that Germany is at fault for all losses, (death, buildings, etc) Germany's land that she owned was taken away from her and Germany had certain limits when dealing with their military and navy. Germany also had to pay for all damages. This put Germany in a economic depression. This treaty led to very very bad things.

Because Germany was in such a bad state, people yearned for someone to encourage them and give them hope. Adolf Hitler became that person.m And with his new-founded power, he ended up killing over 6 million. Getting back to the point, the treaty which was signed on June 28th, 1919, officially ended World War I. And by signing this, it took away all that Germany had worked so hard for. All in all, it made Germany do all that work for nothing.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the modernization of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal, also known as Ataturk, reformed Turkey in a series of cultural, social, economic, and political ways in order to transform Turkey into a modernized, democratic state. Ataturk was the person who founded the Turkish Republic. As well as becoming its first president. He wanted to end the power of the Ottoman empire. In order to do this, Turkey needed a strong leader. And Ataturk was that man. As a powerful leader he took out all those in his way, he fought for Turkey's independence and the right for them to be modern and different instead of following the old rules.

Ataturk, which means father Turk, started to transform Turkey after WWI. He wanted Turkish people to stop dressing with religious clothing and to start dressing more like those who lived in Europe or within the European nations. This was a secular change meaning less religious. The change i feel he is best known for is the Fez. He believed that men who wore this for religious purposes were uncivilized and should were the hats worn in Europe. For the women he believed they shouldn't wear the veils that cover their head and face. Ataturk's main purpose was to get rid of the ottoman empire that followed old traditional ways and focus on modernizing the country as well as changing other aspects.

Film Lesson: "Gandhi"

Gandhi was a very important man who leaded his country into gaining independence from Great Britain. But his way was different from many others. He did not believe in war nor did he believe in violence. He didn't believe in doing crazy things to get attention. His way of fighting was by using non violence so in turn it made Great Britain look bad. Gandhi also started creating his own products, i.e weaving his own cloth, creating his own salt, using food only made by them, etc. By doing this he was putting Great Britain into debt because his followers stopped buying their products. This was a very interesting way of protesting because Great Britain could do absolutely nothing about it. But not everything was always non violence. Some people felt as though they had a right to use violence if violence was used on them. But when this happened, Gandhi would fast. He would fast until all violence stopped. This man would literally lose his life to fight for the independence of him, his people, and his country. I honestly think that India would've gained their independence but not as quickly as they would've without Gandhi. He was a very big influence in that and this is why many people still honor and respect him today. While Gandhi was fighting for their independence, Great Britain had troubles of their own and I believe that with all the problems Gandhi caused them as well they ultimately gave up because they had to start focusing on their own country.