IN SEARCH OF EUROPE I - THE COLD WAR, 1945-1989 PL30294
Semester I, 2014-2015 seminar 4
Daria Iumaeva !! Why did the Cold War in Europe end largely without violence? ! Introduction In the late 1980s USSR faced with serious problems and could no longer support the "brothers" socialist countries. At the same time an example of restructuring ('perestroyka') intensified reformists in Eastern Europe. Their influence among the population grew and Gorbachev urged the Eastern European Communist reform and preserve the popularity. Some people followed this advice, someone not, but the ending was the same. The peoples of these countries sought to "live in the West," where the standard of living was much higher than in the socialist countries. The fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe was brewing for a long time and occurred quickly in the form of a chain reaction. There were number of revolutions in Eastern Europe which may be considered as one of the main causes of the Cold War end and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In most countries a transition to democracy took place peacefully and without violence. However, in Romania, the overthrow of the communist system was accompanied by violent and bloody action (Schöpflin, 1993). In order to answer the questions I will consider number of European revolutions which prove that Cold War in Europe ended peacefully because of consent of communist parties to have a transition to democracy due to lack of authority of communists among population. Therefore, USSR faced the inability to continue to support pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe and inability to solve a number of regional conflicts without end the confrontation between the USSR and the USA. Also I will explain number of factors which caused a violent revolution in Romania. ! Velvet Revolutions "Velvet revolution" is...