AP World History Modern: Unit 8 Review

we are nearing the finish line my friends and we are entering lap number eight we have come a long way and your hard work is the major ingredient to your success i'm glad that i get to play this small role as you dig into test prep for unit eight my name is steph gergis and let us tackle the cold war and decolonization [Music] on today's video we are going to be talking about mutually assured destruction rivalries that are scarier than batman and superman or iron man and captain america no no we're talking about the cold war tensions between the united states and the soviet union i wonder who would be the united states and who would be the soviet union in those matchups i mean stalin's name literally translates to man of steel stila comes from iron so i guess the soviets would be superman and iron man and the us would be batman captain america which i guess makes sense either ways it feels wrong let's just drop that now it is truly impossible to understand what the cold war is without context by now you know that context is understanding how we got here and what events help us understand the backstory now typically we go back 50 to 100 years and that helps you gain that understanding now for you to understand the cold war you must understand the ending of world war ii world war ii ends in the european theater as the allied forces of the united states and great britain and france push from western europe towards berlin and the soviet union who is bearing much of the brunt of the nazi war machine pushed the nazis back towards berlin in what we call the race to berlin now it's important to note that joseph stalin was part of the allies even though earlier he had signed that non-aggression pact with hitler to not fight each other but then hitler expands into eastern europe and that brought them in now a little more context remember in world war one russia rushed in to back serbia and slavic nationalism after the ultimatum was sent from the austro-hungarian empire germany meanwhile gave the blank check to support austria-hungary so hitler making the non-aggression pact was really kind of this way to avoid a repeat of that story or at least buy hitler enough time to invade and take poland before turning his eyes on the soviet union so the allies are pushing towards berlin from two different fronts and the soviets arrived there first hitler commits suicide and his successor signed an unconditional surrender now this is known as the victory in europe day or ve day and the war comes to a close in europe but now comes the tricky work of establishing a peace settlement and truly preventing another war sorry treaty of versailles well the winners of world war ii are often referred to as the big three we had joseph stalin of the soviet union british prime minister winston churchill and fdr and after his death harry truman as they gathered in potsdam germany to negotiate the ends of world war ii stalin is kind of the third wheel as the friend that was very different from the others now there's so much more backstory to this drama we have to remember there's competing ideologies with the difference between capitalism and socialism and democracy versus communism now these were deep differences on which ideology was better plus there was some other drama and resentment going into the story the u.s had tried to stop the russian revolution which led to the communist nation and the soviet's willingness to sign the non-aggression pact was not cool to western powers plus it was during the potsdam conference that president truman had a conversation with stalin where he shared the news that they had just dropped the first atomic bomb on japan because the war was still going on there now many historians say truman's tough stance and toughness at the conference was shaped by the fact that he had a very large bomb and these nuclear weapons were kind of his bargaining chip to get what he wants now this situation made the negotiations challenging and tensions were high plus let's not forget colonized countries were still not happy about being colonized and we're going to see in this time period a push for more independence especially as hitler was like a mirror to european nation is that what we look like when we're taking people's stuff and land not a good look so let's dig into unite and the big ideas of the cold war and the movement towards decolonization now the cold war is the word that explains this tension simply put the cold war was an economic and political ideological rivalry between the united states and the soviet union where they were never directly involved in any warfare democracy of the united states and the authoritarian communist soviet union emerged as superpowers after world war ii which led to this ideological conflict that spread across the globe which team was everyone a part of was it team usa or team soviet union many countries picked aside plus the united states would support countries economically and militarily to prevent them from falling into the soviet sphere of influence since many european countries were in ruin from the war the united states was concerned that more countries would fall to communism as a solution to their problems so the united states supported a plan known as the marshall plan which gave economic resources to countries to prevent them from becoming communists this program gave 13 billion dollars in economic aid to european nations stalin kind of saw this as bribery but the reality is that many countries took the aid and the marshall plan did allow them to recover eastern european countries with the soviet sphere of influence were forbidden to take the money now it's important to remember that not everyone picked a team a new movement emerged known as the non-aligned movement and is essentially what it sounds like countries were determined to be independent from all the drama and not aligned with either the united states or the soviet union this movement was an organization of countries they became like a third team in the global political realm and mostly were made up of developing countries most prominent leaders in the non-aligned movement would be socarno in indonesia nehru and india and kwame nakarama in ghana in fact socano hosted many african and asian leaders at the bandung conference in 1955 to discuss their goals for the future remember so many of these countries had this common history of being impacted by western imperialism and the last thing they want to do is jump into this epic cold war standoff no they were more concerned about developing their own countries and throwing off the chains of colonization as they moved into the future kwami nakuma was the president of ghana who pushed not only for ghana's independence but also for all of africa to be decolonized and free in this pan-african movement now quick aside i think we often put so many of these historical people kind of in the distant distant past but here's the cool thing about these decolonization and civil rights movements some of the giants that we study about throughout our lives were actually in contact with each other gandhi's non-violence movement inspired nakrumah in ghana as well as the kings in the united states dr king attended ghana's independence ceremony at the invitation of nakrima they did dinner and hung out and talked about non-violence and civil disobedience can you just imagine being in the room with these greats now despite the non-aligned movement the soviet union and the united states were vying for people to be on their team and prevent the others ideology from spreading this caused some major impacts or effects on the world now the united states called this desire to prevent communism from spreading containment keep it all in it which fell in line with the truman doctrine and the marshall plan the soviets were also supporting countries economically and what is known as comic-con not to be confused with comic-con where like people dress up and look like superheroes and you get to see all the people that played in the adventure movies that'd be cool so people are supporting others economically to support their ideology but this wasn't simply economic support to prevent the spread of communism but also the creation of military alliances and military interventions western nations like great britain and france and belgium and canada and the us along with countries like turkey and greece formed a military alliance known as nato the north atlantic treaty organization the same is true the soviets who founded the warsaw pact which was made up of states of the soviet union along with some eastern european nations who fell within the soviet sphere of influence but the cold war did involve fighting just not directly between the united states and the soviet union these military interventions were known as proxy wars which is by far the biggest effect of for sure the cold war proxy wars seem like their own war independent of this global rivalry but that would be wrong typically the united states would support one side and the soviets or other communist nations would support the others and the first instance of this is in korea after world war ii korea was freed from japanese colonization and was divided at the 38th parallel creating a north and a south korea for the first time over the next three years from 1945 to 48 the soviet army and its proxies helped set up a regime a communist regime in the north south of that line a military government was formed supported directly by the united states however in 1950 north korea pushed to reunify as a single korea once again the united states saw this as communism expanding and wanted to uh contain that the united states gained the support of the newly created united nations and got involved militarily meanwhile the soviets supported north korea with weapons and money which is why we call this a proxy war the united states helped south korea push them back to the 38th parallel and they went by that line china also communists at this time under mao saw this as a threat and supported north korea to push them back to the line and a ceasefire or an armistice was called in 1953. no peace treaty was actually ever created and the peninsula is still divided much as it was before with a demilitarized zone the dmz running roughly at the same 30th parallel today now one of the most impacting wars in the united states history would be the vietnam war which was yet another instance of a proxy war this needs a little context as we recall that the french had colonized what was known as french indochina during the era of imperialism they lost some of the region to japanese imperialism during world war ii and when ho chi minh declared independence after the japanese surrender at the end of the war the french denied that assertion a war was then fought and eventually created a north and a south vietnam in 1954. however ho chi minh who was really inspired by the bolshevik revolution wanted to push to unify vietnam the united states wide-eyed as they felt as though they are seeing the domino theory in motion as yet again another nation is falling to communism soviet union china korea vietnam and so the united states supported the south vietnamese leader and then later escalated to sending our military after the gulf of tonkin incident the united states was involved in vietnam and the neighboring countries for roughly 20 years what you may not know is that the united states was also involved in covert operations in southeast asia specifically laos here in appleton wisconsin we have a large hmong population who resettled here after the vietnam war tens of thousands of hmong men were recruited by the cia in these secret operations among general veng pao of the royal lao army was then recruited and trained hmong soldiers to ally the cia and fight against the north vietnamese it was the largest para military operation ever undertaken by the cia once the united states left vietnam the lao people including a large number of hmong were who were involved in these operations fled into the jungles because they would have been sought out by the north vietnamese and laos government for their involvement and later were resettled to the united states under our refugee program but even after vietnam military interventions continued into the late 70s and 80s other proxy wars included the sandinista contrast conflict in nicaragua where the united states supported the contra fighters against the communist marxist sandonisa regime similar stories occurred in angola during their civil war but probably the one that's the most unique to those in the united states would be our role in afghanistan wait what afghanistan the soviets are in afghanistan yes the shocking story of afghanistan in 1978 the soviets supported a coup in afghanistan as the country established a new communist government known as the people's democratic party of afghanistan the pdpa did not have a lot of support in country so the soviet union invaded in 1979 to support this fledgling communist state against the insurgency in the context of the cold war this action again made the united states quite nervous about the spreading of communism but fresh off the vietnam war the us was not about to enter another military conflict so they did what the us does best we sent them weapons these weapons were funneled to the mujahideen an islamic freedom fighter group who fought against the soviets who supported the pdpa all this to say the enemy of my enemy is my friend and if those of you that do not know this one of the freedom fighters who were fighting against the communist regime was osama bin laden it's true we sent weapons to bin laden in the late 70s and 80s it's the cold war my friends and that's what we did at that time so let's take a quick roll call of who's all communists at this time and who is not obviously the party starts in the soviet union and then it spreads to eastern european countries at the end of world war ii china then becomes communist under mao zedong in 1949 and north korea was created as a communist state in 1950 vietnam is under ho chi minh and the united states is super concerned about all the dominoes falling like in afghanistan and cuba but first let's circle back to china let's recall that china is no longer under the diagnostic cycle that we've seen for so so long in this class the fall during qing dynasty ended in the republic was established under sun yat-sen that didn't last long or go well and the leading party was trying to reform china at this time was the guam dong and the chinese communist party they temporarily aligned with each other to fight the expanding japanese empire but after world war ii the civil war breaks out once again as they pick up where they left off between the nationalist party and the communist party the communists are successful under mao zedong and the people's republic of china was established in 1949. now the prc promises equal rights for women rent reduction land redistribution new heavy industries lots of freedom mao and the ccp set up to have china catch up industrially and follow the soviet model of the five year plans mao's most famous initiative was the great leap forward which was not great in order to really leap china forward at all essentially mao tried to increase agricultural production through the collectivization of farms in what we called comm units but there was a series of famines and production was severely behind but mao didn't want to look as though he was behind so he kept selling grain to other countries around the world the terrible part of this is that the chinese people starved not just a few like 20 million people died because of this mao also led the cultural revolution which indeed was revolutionary as it was pretty much opposite of everything else we learned about chinese culture so far this year we've talked filial piety respect for elders studying the confucian classics education instead mao tried to appeal to the younger generation and did basically the opposite of all of that he had his red guards with his red books which were students who would denounce their teachers and employers and parents to tear down tradition there were also these mass gatherings where older people were taunted and bullied as they represented the old way of life in china just makes you feel all kinds of yuck thinking about your grandma or your grandpa being bullied by young teenagers many adults were sent away to labor camps to be re-educated nothing like feeding into that teenage angst and using it so that mao would not be challenged after mao's death in 1976 deng xiaoping took control he was more moderate and brought china into the international trading system which normalized relationships with the united states in the 1970s but it's tricky when you have a communist state along with democratic ideals coming through those trade open doors this will lead to the uprising in tiananmen square where demonstrators called for democracy and free speech and were met with a government crackdown now as we glance around the world at the countries who have achieved independence from western imperialism we find countries in africa asia latin america struggling to find a middle ground to relocate land and resources so that the masses experience more equity in the wake of decolonization but this is going to be super tricky in a cold war era with everything going down between the united states and the soviet union so more on decolonization in a moment but we're going to see that other countries around the world are going to achieve it and these countries in africa and asia and latin america are struggling to find a middle ground so that they could relocate land and resources so that the masses of their populations were more equitable but this is super tricky as there is a cold war going on between the united states and the soviet union who want these new nations to align with them plus any country that mentions the dirty words of socialism or nationalization of anything smells a lot like communism to the united states and they got involved sometimes with the cia and mainly covertly for example during world war ii when the united states and the soviet union were besties fighting hitler they invaded iran because they were concerned that the shah was about to become besties with hitler so together they ensured that the shah's son muhammad reza palavi took the throne as the new shah in iran but when the war was over and the cold war began the iranian people didn't like how the united states had overthrown their past leader and put this guy in charge and basically forced the shah to leave iran two years later they elect mohammed mossadek as prime minister who pushed to nationalize the oil industry there's that dirty word nationalize nationalized oil of all things the british you know bp [Music] the gas station british petroleum disliked this plan as it would cost them a whole lot of money so the united states and great britain worked together to overthrow the democratically elected leader of iran and brought the shah back to iran anyway the shah did some progressive things he helped some land distribution um where they bought land from land owners and sold it cheaper to peasants landowners weren't huge fans of the shah and then there was you know this shia religious elite who were very opposed to the western-looking shah who was ruling the country because of the west who put him there this will lead to the iranian revolution 1979 with the ayatollah khomeini watch the movie argo to learn more but essentially the revolution breaks out and the iranians take 52 americans hostage for over 440 days which sets us up for a lot of our context with iran today watch the movie and learn how to place out or you know you could google it i guess because you're studying for the ap exam now venezuela also redistributes over five million acres of land and similar actions were done by ho chi minh in vietnam as few vietnamese even owned land they forcibly took these lands from these big large land owners and then gave it to the people now while the cold war is going on of all of unit 8 the other major component is decolonization which i alluded to decolonization involves so many nations that we would be here a very long time talking about them between 1945 and 1960 roughly 36 new states in asia and africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their european colonial rulers in fact i have a video wherever the i card is here i have a video that goes in depth on this and i highly recommend you check this out as this video will be kind of the broad overview of decolonization after the end of world war ii colonized people typically achieved independence in one of two ways some negotiated their independence while others achieved independence through armed struggle some of the most prominent places to remember that negotiated their independence would be for sure india french west africa ghana mohandas gandhi was a leader of the indian national congress who believed in a unified india with hindus and muslims living together in harmony and free from british rule now gandhi advocated for non-violence and civil disobedience two of his most notable acts with civil disobedience would be the homespun movement and the salt march that drew attention to british colonial rule and hit them in the pocketbook the homespun movement preached indian masses to spin and weave their own clothes at home instead of buying british textiles that were imported to india and making the british rich it was also illegal for indians to make their own salt something that was very important for preservation and for food in general instead they were forced to buy it from the british gandhi led the salt march which gained support and momentum as he walked 240 miles to the sea where he broke the law and made his own salt this sparked mass movement across india and as people gathered and made their own salt which again hurt the british pocketbook now gandhi was not alone in south asia leading this movement for independence from the british the second largest religious group in india was the sizable muslim population led by muhammad ali jinnah and the muslim league he advocated for an independent nation for muslims he believed the muslim population would not be represented in india and would always be dominated by hindus when independence was finally negotiated with britain in 1947 two new states were created india and pakistan though you could argue three because it was east and west pakistan with east pakistan becoming bangladesh but either way new states were created from the negotiations britain also negotiated with the gold coast for their independence which led to the creation of ghana which became the first independent african nation the first president was kwame nikuma who we discussed before as he was the first leader of the pan-african movement as well as involved in the non-aligned movement france also negotiated independence with much of west africa and the new countries of senegal and mali niger ivory coast courtois and many more now the second way people achieved independence was through armed struggle and resistance unfortunately the list of these places that fought bloody wars and used armed struggle is also extensive places like vietnam and algeria who fought against their french colonizers as well as zimbabwe and kenya mozambique just to name a few now my other video discusses vietnam more in depth but algeria was a bloody conflict when world war ii ended the algerian war for independence began unlike other regions of africa many french crossed the mediterranean and settled in algeria which caused the french to dig their heels when they wanted independence they did not want to grant independences they viewed it as part of france the algerians rose up and the french sent like half a million soldiers to fight back in algeria you know right after world war ii the french soldiers were incredibly brutal and often resorted to torturing the algerian people citizens of france were actually quite divided and when independence was given in 1962 more fighting broke out as pro-french algerians were forced to leave algeria but they also weren't welcomed with open arms in france either it was a mess the new algerian government faced unrest and led to a civil war that lasted until 2002 but then there are groups that kind of overlap with these two camps where you can kind of make an argument either way where it was both negotiated independence and armed struggle south africa and egypt are some of those examples that we will dig into today decolonization of south africa was complex as the transfer of power to an african majority was greatly complicated by the presence of entrenched white settlers all around south africa whether they were dutch or british politically the british and afrikaners were able to unite to form the union of south africa and negotiate their independence from great britain in 1910 then they remained part of the commonwealth yet black south africans were not independent nor free as the african national party known as the national party started a policy of apartheid in 1948 this was this legal segregation based on distinct racial classifications under the population registration act of 1950 where people were classified into one of four groups white black colored or other which was mostly asian populations of indians or chinese under apartheid black south africans were required to carry identification books with them at all times which they needed to enter areas that were designated for whites they were forced to live in all black zones and they weren't allowed to vote nelson mandela is a key leader in the african national congress and sought to end these discriminatory practices like gandhi mandela and his fellow members of the anc used non-violent tactics like strikes and boycotts and demonstration to protest apartheid there was even a movement called the defiance campaign which encouraged black participants to actively violate laws more than 8 000 people including mandela were jailed for violation of curfew or refusing to carry their past books or other offenses one major event that demonstrated these tactics would be the protests at sharpville that led to the sharp film massacre basically protesters burned their past books outside of a police station and then offered themselves up for arrest the police though later fired on the crowd and killed 69 people and wounded 180 more this then led the national party to outlaw the entire anc who had been organizing these events mandela believed that peaceful methods were not going to work and change to more violent means mandela believed that arm resistance would be the only way they could end a part-time he would later be jailed 27 years for his plans for this type of resistance more peaceful protests and boycotts continued while mandela was imprisoned on robben island most famously was the soweto uprising in 1976. it was a student protest that led to 176 people being killed many of them children and as we near the 1980s and these pictures of children being killed circulated global support came against apartheid as people began to boycott the country eventually in the 1990s apartheid was dismantled mandela was freed from prison and in the first free elections where all south africans can vote mandela was elected president now another complex story would be egypt now they were nominally independent under the ottomans but gained full independence after the end of world war one as an independent kingdom after world war ii the king was overthrown by general gamal abner nasser who later would become the president of the republic of egypt he was a key leader in pan-arabism which focused on the unifier of islam and arab culture in this region nasser combined islam and socialism he pushed for nationalization there's that word i don't know if the u.s is listening but nationalization of the suez canal controlling the canal was the gate to so much of world trade i mean you may recall in 2021 there was a giant ship stuck in the suez canal and caused a major disruption in global trade now european control of the canal felt a lot like colonization so nassar seized it from them this kicked off the suez crisis and israel invaded on behalf of the french and the british eventually the united nations got involved and brokered a deal to make the canal international waters under control of egypt luckily the united states of the soviet union did not get involved and the resolution was mostly peaceful old colonial habits die hard speaking of israel another part of this unit that you need to understand is the creation of new states i know there's a lot in here we've already discussed the creation of india and pakistan in 1947 and we know how the redrawing of political boundaries in some cases led to conflict as well as population displacement or resettlements as we saw in south asia now the redrawing of political lines as the state of israel was created in 1948 was also very complicated and is still very complicated and alive and well today so let's break this down as simply as i possibly can without angering anyone a little context is that judaism emerged a long long time ago in this galaxy and the hebrew people were living in modern day israel that land now they were pushed around by a lot of different people throughout history way before our course ever started in 1200 now their homeland had been controlled by the persian empire and then the roman empire and then the different islamic empires like the umayyad and abbasid later the ottomans after world war one they had a mandate system which was not colonization it totally was but various nations controlled the area in this case britain did it was during this time that the british government issued the balfour declaration which was a public statement that supported the establishment of a national home for the jewish people in palestine nothing really happened at that time but then world war ii happened sympathy for the jewish homeland increased significantly after the holocaust now britain tried to balance arab and palestinian interests along with the horrors that had just happened to the jewish people now the partition of pakistan and india seemed like a win-win situation and they hoped for a similar solution in the land of israel and palestine and how that could bring peace to the region and a homeland for the jews now the newly created united nations created two states israel for the jewish people and palestine as an arab country which consisted of two different states of west bank and the gaza strip sweden peace we got it it's not not what happened war broke out pretty much immediately israel was and is still today supported highly by the united states and palestine is supported by neighboring arab countries short version israel comes out strong and wins initially and hundreds of thousands of palestinians become refugees add in three other significant wars that i'm kind of skipping over between the years of 1956 and 73 and well the map that we see today and the regional un partition plan look very different we see how israel has increased inside significantly and well palestine isn't even technically a country today the issue has been even more complicated with various events like jewish occupiers moving into palestinian territory in the west bank as well as the plo the palestinian liberation fund wanting that occupied land back for palestine it's complex and it's not solved still today now you will notice that as new states are created and decolonization is in full swing countries are trying to develop and compete with these other countries around the world who are much stronger and much more developed let's not forget that they are developed because of their imperialist actions of the past and how they took resources from countries around the world for their own benefit new nations struggled to catch up and tried to jumpstart their fledgling economies but instability and the long-term effects of imperialism made this process difficult as a response many new states had governments that often took a lot stronger of a role in guiding the economic life of their country to promote development just like nassar did in egypt and indira gandhi did in india another major impact of decolonization was the migration of former colonial subjects to imperial metropoles meaning they moved from their colonized country to the country that colonized them typically people move to major cities and maintain their cultural and economic ties between the former colony and the metropole even after their independence for example people from india moved to great britain pro-french algerians migrated to france and many filipinos came to the united states we are on the homestretch friends i promise we are almost done i know that this is a lot and there's a good chance your teacher did not cover this in great depth as much as we all wanted to i know for me it's so very true as i'm running out of time so let's recap the recap we are in the mid 20th century the early part of it was filled with world war one the global depression and into world war ii now the cold war rivalry is shaping much of global politics but countries are achieving independence yay but they're behind because of imperialism and there are regions where things are not going well dictators who are oppressive and violent emerge i mean we have felt like we are reaching a time of de-escalation of conflict and then there's always that person that ramps everything back up i'm sure in your own life you've been around that person sometimes it's a teacher which is really annoying a boss which is really bad or some other adult in history we have some of those people who are intensifying conflicts when the rest of the world just wants to chill out for example in spain francisco franco overthrew the former ruler um but he was very anti-communist so the us was a fan but he was really brutal and executed dissenters in his country and send them to labor camps no bueno in uganda idi amin rose to power he had this lovely nickname the butcher of uganda not really someone who's standing up for people's rights but rather someone who escalates conflicts and this is what he did he ruled until 1979 then the former leader that he had overthrown came back to power then in 1986 yaori museveni took control and is still the president today so it's been a hot minute 35 years uganda is an example of how decolonization did not lead to quick development and stable leadership unfortunately oppression and imperialism has birthed other groups that have used violence against civilians in an effort to achieve their political aims al qaeda is an excellent example of this as it was created by osama bin laden now that might be a little confusing to be honest because last time we were talking about bin laden he was fighting alongside the mujahideen in afghanistan against the soviets now the united states funneled weapons to the mujahideen and so how did bin laden develop this hatred towards the united states well it links back to western imperialism in the arab world the united states aided his home country of saudi arabia when saddam hussein of iraq invaded oil rich kuwait and i'm sure the united states had totally pure motives for defending saudi arabian invasion bin laden did not really like the united states was in the holy land in fact he had pitched to the saudi government his own government that he could defend the border against saddam hussein they turned him down and went with the united states this led to him developing al-qaeda and then he attacked u.s embassies in tanzania and kenya simultaneously in 1998 and obviously most well-known would be the 9 11 tax on the united states terrorism is when groups deliberately disregard or even target civilians for their political gains and al qaeda is an example of doing this as well as more recently as the islamic state was on the rise and the different terrorist attacks that they've been involved in too but let's not get lost in extremism because there is more good in the world than we often realize there have been consistent and steady movements like we've already discussed who have pushed against these types of escalating leaders and terrorist groups who deny people their basic human rights we've seen how groups and individuals challenge the many wars of the century and some such as gandhi martin luther king jr nelson mandela promoted the practice of non-violence as a way to bring about political change this has been successful in india it's been successful in south africa and dr king's legacy in the united states continues yet to this day still today these movements continue to be successful as people collectively work to end justice and discrimination in secret forms using boycotts and protests and non-violence as we seek social justice you might have been involved in some of these movements yourself and for that i applaud you and if not there's still time may we all continue to live up to their legacies so how do we wrap up unit eight well obviously it's the close of the cold war we experience decades of military buildup from both the united states and the soviet union was significant nuclear proliferation it was expensive and frightening and we totally could have ended civilization as we know it now the beginning of the end started with public discontent in communist countries specifically in eastern europe we see people rise up in poland and seek better living conditions hungarians wanted the soviets to leave their country and they wanted to hold democratic elections however the soviets then invaded and took budapest and executed their leader [Music] most people remember the prog spring which demonstrators wanted more free speech and democratic reforms in czechoslovakia yeah the soviets invaded there too and crushed their movement the soviets also invaded afghanistan which we previously discussed which was not highly successful and was very costly causing more additional economic problems in the soviet union and this is where we arrive at the final leader of the soviet union mikhail gorbachev he starts two major reforms perestroika which was a restructuring of the soviet economy to allow for more aspects of a market economy as they were struggling along along with glasnost which was this transparency in fighting soviet corruption in the government his progressive reforms brought a lot of communist criticism and opposition gorbachev and president reagan met multiple times and disagreed a lot but also at the end of the day agreed on a nuclear arms treaty his democratic movements continued to spread across eastern europe countries declared independence from the soviet union the berlin wall came down in 1989 and germany reunified 1991 there was a russian coup to remove gorbachev from power but at the end of the day the goal to save the soviet union actually caused its fall the cold war had officially ended thanks again for joining me for unit 8 as we discuss the cold war and decolonization you are so close and i am so proud of you for all your reviewing efforts again thanks for coming along be sure to check the description below for resources and note sheets and quizlet decks i hope you check out all the test prep videos in this playlist subscribe hit the bell and stay tuned for future videos thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time

Channel: Stephanie Gorges

Views: 31,952

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Id: vL0TWrzFLvw

Length: 45min 26sec (2726 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021