the establishment of communism in eastern europe

Essay by Germanboy22University, Bachelor's March 2014

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The establishment of communism in Eastern Europe

In the outcome of the Second World War, Europe was demolished, especially Germany, both the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the embryonic superpowers. One of the superpowers, United States, concentrated on the rebuilding of Western Europe by setting up democratic governments while the Soviet Union proclaimed their authority over Eastern Europe. The development on both Western and Eastern Europe were growing at very different rates as the Americans rapidly developed in Western Europe whilst the Soviet Union took a longer time as there were frequent stops due to the formation of communism. This formation of communism was foundation of misery shown by the citizen of the Soviet Union. This was shown by the poor living condition and lack of legal trials. These two different democratic governments then came to a point of conflict which upraised the Cold War. The Cold War was classified as the rivalry between the Soviet Union and communism and the United States and capitalist democracy and their respective allies over economic, political and military issues.

Erika Reiman was a prisoner who received a ten year sentence at the age of fourteen (Molloy. P, 2009:65). The story behind the arrest was very irrational: She had stolen a lipstick from her refugee friend and drew graffiti on the portrait of Stalin. A fair government would have at least given Erika a trial to explain herself but since she was in Eastern Europe, communism democracy lacked in legal trials. This authenticity of this situation strongly proves Bessel's statement (2011:142) the citizens and youth of Eastern Europe, who were suspected to threaten the national security was being punished by doing labour. Bruce (2003:14) claimed that the 'senior officials in the Ministry for State Security (MFS) believed that the West...