Deng and Fall of Communism Questions

1. Describe the struggle for power following Mao, the emergence of Deng Xiaoping and the defeat of the Gang of Four

After Diang Xiopang died there was a major power vacuum in China, and nobody knew who would be next in power for there was no clear successor. Two main groups that emerged and struggled for power were: The Maoists, which were the Gang of Four, and Deng (along with other moderates). A few months after Mao died, the Gang of Four was arrested and tried for their various crimes.

2. Describe some of the economic policies and Four Modernizations for China under Deng

The Four Modernizations was a program of rigorous economic reform. This programs was including: agriculture, industry, science and technology.Under Deng and these policies, the economy in China made major gains mainly because of the economy being tied to agriculture. Deng got rid of the previously utilized communes and introduced some level of capitalism into Chinese society. Three themes (Dengs changes): weakening central planning, the introduction of material incentives, and the use of market-related pricing policies.

3. What were the political changes and limits under Deng and how did these culminate in the Tiananmen Square conflict in 1989?

In 1989 thousands of Chinese went into Tiananmen Square in support of democracy and also to mourn the death of a leader very beloved to them. When the demonstrators refused leave, the military took action and used martial law wrongfully against the citizens of China. On June 3rd the army stormed the square while demonstrators were there and again refused to leave. Chaos ensued and the peoples failure to comply with the wishes of the military.

Chapter 4 Gadds Notes/ The Emergence of Autonomy

• Krushchev was accused of many things


• He was then allowed a smooth transistion to retirement


• Downfall of European colonialism


• 1905=Japanese win against Russia


• One of Wilson's 14 points was to undercut the appeal of the Bolsheviks


• Collapse of colonialism coincided with the beginning of the Cold War


• By the end of 1949, the Soviet-American contest for Europe had become a stalemate


• 1954/ Eisenhower's speech (Domino Theory)
• "Non-alignment"- Commit to neither side of the Cold War but to leave open the possibility of commitment/ Smaller superpowers could threaten with other ones
• 1956 Hungarian Crisis
• Tito aligned himself with two other leaders: Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Zhou Enlai of China
• Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
• Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO)
• The First Conference of "Non-aligned" nations was held at Bandung in Indonesia, in April 1955; its purpose was to encourage neutrality in the Cold War. Nehru, Tito, and Enlai were there, Nasser was invited too
• Anglo-French-Israeli invasion took place at the end of October 1956
• Eisenhower in January 1957 announced that the U.S. would work with the states of the region to help keep it free of communism
• Landing of Marines in Lebanon in July 1958=FAIL
• Many tools that small powers could use in order to gain autonomy: including non-alignment and collapse
• Kim Il-Sung building a cult of personality around himself, just as Stalin did
• Mao began shelling off-shore islands in Setember 1954
• Chiang got a mutual defense treaty that bound the U.S. to defending Taiwan
• Quemoy and Matsu
• South Viatnamese president was murdered in early November 1963. Kennedy was assassinated three weeks later
• Early attempts to solve Cold War tensions failed because smaller powers actions locked the larger powers into confrontation
• Krushchev issued an ultimatum on Berlin in November 1958
• De Gaulle
• De Gaulle recognized China in 1964
• North Atlantic Treaty of 1949
• Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1950

MORE annotations in book :)

Harry S. Truman (Cold War)

Harry S. Truman during the Cold War:

• Came into the presidency on April 12th, 1945
• Canned MacArthur after he wanted to use atomic bomb technology in an immoral way
• Truman Doctrine (seeked to contain communism from spreading)
• Wanted to have technology/weaponry (ex. the atomic bomb) but not necessarily use it
• He did however decide to use nuclear weapons against Japan in an attempt to end the war
• MUCH MUCH MORE TO HIS PRESIDENCY :)

Afghanistan's Cold War Involvement

Afghanistan during the Cold War:

• Soviets fighting the mujahideen in Afghanistan
• This detracted from being involved at all times during the Cold War
• S.U. was supporting the Marxist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, opposing the Islamic Mujahideen Resistance
• Stinger Missles were involved, led to "easier" combat
• During the Cold War, the mujahideen in Afghanistan found support from various places such as: U.S, U.K, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt etc.

Chapter 2 Gaddis/ Deathboats and Lifeboats

• Dec. 2nd, MacArthur ordered the United States Airforce to drop 5 Hiroshima sized atomic bombs
• April 1951- MacArthur and Truman not seeing eye to eye, MacArthur FIRED
• Spring of 1951 transferring of weapons to western Pacific bases
• Idea that weapons could be developed and not used
• Truman left office in Jan. 1953, and Stalin died two months later
• 1957-1961 Khrushchev openly threatened the West with nuclear annihilation
• Stalin's 1948 blockade
• July 4th, 1956, a new American spy plane, the U2 made its first flight over Leningrad and Moscow

More....

Chapter One Gaddis/ The Return of Fear

• April 25th, 1945/ first meeting of the armies that cut the Nazi Army is half
• Tehran in Nov. 1943
• Yalta in Feb. 1945
• Victory would require the victors to not be who they are, or to give up much of what they hoped to attain by fighting in the war
• U.S. and Soviet Union= born out of revolution. Leaders assumed that the tactics used at home would work anywhere. NOT ALWAYS!!
• Also both had entered the war as results of surprise attacks. German invasion of the Soviet Union which began on June 22nd, 1941 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
• Roosevelt promised Stalin (at Tehran) that two years after the end of the war, the U.S. troops would return home
• Stalin's post-war goals were security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology
• Great Depression=very destructive
• Stalin doesnt want to restore balance of power in Europe but to dominate it
• Germanys defeat was the first priority
• United States maintained a large sphere of influence
• U.S. to serve as an example
• American practices were isolationists
• Roosevelt had 4 great wartime priorities: Sustain allies, secure allied cooperation in shaping the post-war settlement, nature of the settlement, the settlement would have to be sellable to the American people
• British priorities (according to Churchill): to survive at all costs
• Spheres of influence
• 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact: extinguished Polish independence
• Germany would be jointly occupied
• France would have 2/3 of Germany
• United States successfully tested its first atomic bomb in July 1945
• The atomic bomb was creating more Soviet-American distrust
• Manhattan Project
• Potsdam Conference
• Everyone saw the bomb as a means to end the war quickly
• Long Telegram- Feb. 22nd, 1946

Chapter 3 Gaddis/ Command versus Spontaneity

• The Cold War was a attempt to answer allthe worlds problems with eachother



• 1971= The Soviet Union and satillite countries were doing poorly from and economic standpoint



• By 1981 life expectancy in Soviet Union was down



• End of 1991, the Soviet Union (a perfect model of communism) ceased to exist



• 1961 Vienna Summit



• Warning: State who's economic progress depended exploiting some of its citizens at the expense of others will not succeed



• Social welfare state



• Overthrow of Czar Nicholas II in early 1917



• Woodrow Wilson brought U.S. into the war in April 1917. Such a world would not be safe for proletariat revolution



• Wilsons Fourteen Points Speech/ January 1918



• A dictatorship of the proletariat would free the proletariat



• Lenin= successful realist



• End of the 1930's USSR= most powerful proletarian state

• Attack on Pearl Harbor shattered the image that distance ensured safety for the U.S.

• To prevent a third world war (according to Roosevelt admin.) is to prevent capitalism from its own self-destructive tendencies through international order

• 3 new international organizations: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the United Nations

• 3 BIG speeches:

- #1: Stalin in Moscow on February 9th, 1946/ Restated Marx's claims

- #2: Churchill in Fulton, Missouri on March 5th, 1946/ Russians didn't want to go to war, among other things

- #3: Truman on March 12th, 1947/ Asked Congress to help aid Greece and Turkey and announced the Truman Doctrine

• 2 ways of life: Democracy vs. authoritarianism

• End of 1930 Stalins agents had arrested or killed 63,000 of his adversaries

• 1932 deported over 1.2 million wealthy peasants to remote areas of the U.S.S.R

• Poland, Czecholovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany after 1949 would be independent states

• Conflicting objectives at the end of World War II/ punishing the defeated, cooperating with the Soviet Union, reviving democracy and capitalism, and strengthening the United Nations

• Truman Doctrine, and Marshall Plan

• German Communist Walter Ulbrich- says like Stalin that all problems could be solved through HARD WORK

• Mao another post-Stalin communist leader with ideas on how to salvage the ideology

• Stalin useful to Mao in that he showed how to consolidate a communist revolution

• Cult of personality very important part of Mao's regime

• West and East Berlin complications

• Capitalism was largely reformed