Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev had a very different thinking way of thinking than other leader of the USSR. He came up with new ideas that is a different belief than Stalin, and other former leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev was tired of communism, and followed his own ideas and demonstrated what a real government should be. Russia's was a country that was ran by totalitarian rulers. The Russian was tired of the corrupted government, and its leaders. They needed someone to start reforms to make the USSR capitalist, or at least show that capitalism was a good thing. Mikhail Gorbachev along with his partners, started these huge reforms called the "Glasnost" and "Perestrokia". In 1985 he announced a glasnost, this marked a turning point because churches were opened, books were published and freedom of the press rised. Perestokia was a policy that allowed people to own their own small businesses which weren't owned buy the government. This in a way marked the end of Communism, it proved that Communism wasn't affective and small businesses were needed for the success of the economy.

The Collapse of Communism

During the Cold War the USSR and the U.S. were the world's leading superpowers. After the war the power of the two country was in a race. The situation went from bad to worse. The Berlin Wall was the big gigantic wall that seperated East Germany from West Germany. It was a political boundry between USSR and US. East Germany was part of the Warsaw Pact, and West Germany was part of the NATO. Anyone who tried to cross the wall was shot and killed. At least one hundred people were mercilessly shot at the Berlin wall. In November, 1989, demolition work began. At first, the goal was to built a road designated for private trips between the two sections of Germany. Then they decided to make several border crossings so more people could travel across. Soon, they were cutting holes for pedestrians. Some people came at the wall with rock hammers to gather souvenirs of the wall.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

The people of South Africa was ruled under the policy called apartheid. Apartheid is a divide people based on race so it was basically segregation in Africa. Many of the people oppose this policy because not all race had the same rights the white had more and they weren't able to vote in parliamentary elections. When you were growing up in Africa during the apartheid times were hard but one man wanted freedom this man was Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela started off his political career by being apart of the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison but was freed in 1990 after spending 27 years in jail. Nelson Mandela was such a hero towards the people because he helped with the liberation of Africa and he helped end the Apartheid policy. He used civil disobedience, gained trust of his people and was elected to be the president of South Africa. South Africa had more population of African American people, and they supported Nelsons ideas. His ideas of "civil disobedience" were inspired by Ghandi and used by Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders such as AL Sharpton. His mission was to free the "oppressed and the oppressor". He didn’t give up serving for his country even after being punished for 27 years

African Independence

African Independence was when the African colonies gained its independence from the European countries. This was during the mid 1950's the Africa continent was being ruled by European countries, because the Europeans wanted the natural resources the African poses, for example the gold, diamonds and other raw material. It took Africa 20 years to recover, but know Africa is a whole different continent, because the colonies gained independence from the Europeans. That made them goes on to form their own country. It was easy for the African countries because the European countries were weakened after WWII. The Europeans could not manage to control the African because it was too expensive for them since they lost in WW2. They wanted to express their traditions; Europe was ready to let go of Africa after WWII. Many Africans became well educated. Creating a middle class and following the independence of many others

Some of the African leaders that helped give the African impendence were Kwame Nkumah. He used techniques such as Jazz and Negrative movement. The Negrative movement was a way to make the African people believe that they can be independent and also it gives them pride and sometimes it helped to raise there spirits.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The film "The Right Stuff" was two countries competing to build the first rocket and competing for other things too. The country included the United State and the USSR (Soviet Union); they were trying competing by seeing which of them had the best astronauts and rockets. They did everything they needed too, so they can get their best results. The USSR was the first one to send man in space and the United State send a monkey in space instead they did not want to send a man and the rocket blows up it will look bad because that’s taking the life of a human but if a monkey dies people wont make such a big deal about it. But even if the USSR (Soviet Union) were ahead of us we still got to win the competition because we had better technology that was expanding more and we had some of the best trained astronauts working for us which did a better job then them, plus we went even farther than them in space. That made our abilities greater then theirs.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949. It was created to prevent USSR to spread communism. It was inpact of communist countries, just like the NATO which was for the Democratic government. Countries that were in NATO were Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, & United States. These were the 26 countries that are currently in the NATO, and on the Warsaw pact the countries were Soviet Union, Albania (until 1968), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany (until 1990), Hungary, Poland, and Romania. These were the two groups created as a defensive system. If one group attacks another group all of the countries envolved in the groups would declare war on each other. It was like friends protecting their friends, or we can say gangs. Warsaw Pact was formed by these alliances because the communist military alliance wanted to maintain power over Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union gained both control over its neighboring European nations.

The film Schindler’s list

The film Schindler’s list was a very powerful illustration of the holocaust. When I looked at the movie what drowned my attention the most was the children and how they were killed. There were very adorable kids in the film. Take the little girl with the pink dress for instant that was wandering around. At the end, the little girl was wheeled in dead. It was horrible to see such innocent children get gassed. From stopping the Jewish race from growing they had to kill the children. The picture of the girl being wheeled in would stay with me forever in my head. The children were taken away when the women had a check up. When the children waved goodbye to their mothers, it was an upsetting scene because the children didn't know what is about to happen.