The Collapse of Communism The Eastern Bloc

Cold War Conflicts HIST 1301 | History The Collapse of Communism: The Eastern Bloc Notably, the Cold War had started in Greece. Its fatal shot was likewise fired in an odd location: Afghanistan, the theatre of the last proxy conflict between the US and Soviet allies. After overthrowing the country's king in 1973, nationalist Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan— who had served as Afghanistan's prime minister from 1953 to 1963—regained control of the nation. The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a communist organisation supported by the Soviet Union, initially endorsed him. However, not every PDPA section backed Daoud. He looked to the United States for assistance after failing to bring the factions together and seeing he was losing the PDPA members who had aided in his ascent to power. He believed that the United States would assist, and he wanted to liberate Afghanistan from reliance on the Soviet Union, which had previously provided aid to the nation. Along with seeking tighter ties with Saudi Arabia and Iran, he drove out Soviet military and business advisors from Iran. One of the PDPA groups assassinated and toppled Daoud in 1978. A faction of Islamic fundamentalists resisted government attempts to introduce communism into tribal regions and supported strict norms of behaviour, opposing secular and Western influences on Islamic cultures while the victors attempted to eradicate their opponents. In December 1979, the Soviet Union dispatched ground forces into Afghanistan as it became evident that the pro-US opponent was gaining popularity and that the Moscow-favored head of the PDPA could not hold onto power. In response to the Soviet invasion, President Jimmy Carter implemented economic sanctions. Additionally, the US kept up a long-standing strategy of aiding the Islamist opponents of the pro-Soviet Afghan administration. These Islamist rebels, known as the mujahideen (Arabic for Muslims who fight against non-Muslims on behalf of Islam), fought a guerilla war against the Soviet Union and the Afghan government because they saw them as enemies of religion. For fifteen years, the Soviet Union battled the numerous mujahideen organisations without coming close to winning. It lost almost fifteen thousand soldiers and incurred costs in the billions of dollars. There were almost two million Afghan deaths. Pakistani Islamic religious institutions educated young men from the Pashtun tribe were among the factions of mujahideen that battled the Soviets. Called the Taliban (meaning "student" in the Pashtun tribal language of Pashto), they received help from the CIA as well as its counterpart in Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. After the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, several mujahideen factions fought one other for dominance, with the Taliban ultimately winning out. After many years of upheaval, many Afghans embraced the stability and order they brought to their reign. Even though it provided the mujahideen with assistance to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the United States soon discovered that it was facing up against another faction of Islamic extremists, this time in Iran. The United States has been arming and financing Iran's president, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, since the 1950s. The Shah had established SAVAK, one of the most dreaded secret police units, and one of the biggest armies in the Middle East with assistance from the United States. He did not tolerate opposition, and those who were thought to be against him were detained, tortured, and spied on by the secret police. Many conservative Muslim religious leaders were incensed by the Shah's attempts to modernise and Westernise Iran by allowing women to vote, banning the wearing of headscarves, and giving them equal access to education. They didn't like the messages in the Western films and music that the Shah had let to enter Iran either. Liberal Iranians, on the other hand, disapproved of the lack of political freedom even if they supported these efforts. The Shah and his closest allies had accumulated immense fortune thanks to U.S. help, which nearly all Iranians loathed. There weren't many people who supported the Shah. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the head of the Shiite Islamic movement, was among his most vocal detractors. Khomeini persisted in criticising the Shah and the US government, the latter of which was his supporter, despite being detained several times. Khomeini was driven out of Iran in 1964. His influence persisted, nevertheless, and taped messages endorsing resistance to the Shah were smuggled into the nation. Khomeini encouraged Iranians to go on strike and stop paying their taxes starting in 1977. Government troops attacked protestors and oil sector workers during waves of demonstrations and strikes in 1978. With each came a bigger wave of outrage. After leaving the nation with his family on January 16, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned two weeks later. The great majority of Iranians welcomed him with open arms, and in midFebruary 1979, Khomeini's choice, Mehdi Bazargan, took the prime ministership from Shapur Bakhtiar, who had been nominated by the Shah. The Iranian people voted in December 1979 to establish an Islamic republican constitution. Islam was made the official religion of the country, and the constitution stipulated that any legislation enacted had to follow Islamic law. The Shah arrived in the US on October 22, 1979, to receive medical attention. Many Iranians were afraid that this indicated Washington was going to take action to put him back in charge. Iranian students demanded that the Shah be sent back to Iran for trial and execution when they overran the American embassy in Tehran on November 4 and kidnapped staff members and Marine guards. The moderate prime minister resigned as a result of Khomeini's widespread support for their activities in Iran. While African American and female hostages were freed in a matter of days, the remaining hostages were detained for 444 days until being released on January 20, 1981, the day President Carter resigned from office. The socialist Ba'ath Party-led government in Iraq, which was dominated by Sunnis, dispatched soldiers into Iran out of concern that events there might radicalise Iraqi Shiites. In addition, Iraq sought to end long-standing border issues with Iran and usurp its position as the leading country in the region—something that had not been feasible while Iran was enjoying financial and military backing from the United States. Iraq received financial and technological assistance from the United States. With a UN-arranged cease-fire and no significant progress made by either side, the Iran-Iraq conflict came to an end in August 1988. The US was more concerned in the 1980s with the fall of communism than with violence in the Middle East, even if it supported Iraq in its war against Iran. Ronald Reagan, who saw the Soviet Union as a "evil empire" and promised to eradicate communism, succeeded Jimmy Carter in power. In order to maintain international peace, he thought that the US should engage in negotiations with the USSR, but it should do so from a strong position. He gave the command to increase the nation's capacity to wage both conventional and nuclear warfare in order to achieve this goal. George H.W. Bush, his successor in office, carried on such initiatives. Discontent was seething throughout the Soviet Union and the Eastern European nations when Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the country in 1985. People were getting upset over food and other good shortages. Under the guidance of labour activist Lech Wałęsa, shipyard workers in Poland went on strike in 1980 to protest government policies and establish a trade union. A third of Poles had enrolled in the Solidarity union in less than a year. Despite the union's ten million members, the Polish government's attempts to stifle the movement and outlaw it failed. As a Pole who opposed communism, Pope John Paul II urged the Polish church to stand with the labourers. Gorbachev saw that the Soviet Union needed reform. The nation just could not afford to give its people the necessities for a respectable life while still competing militarily with the United States. Gorbachev therefore voluntarily engaged Reagan in discussions over armaments control. He also started the perestroika programme, which involved "restructuring" the Soviet economy and government. He reduced military spending while promoting the early stages of private industry. Gorbachev promoted glasnost, or transparency, as part of his reform initiatives, enabling those who were incensed to voice their criticism of the regime. The Soviet Union's transformation reflected developments occurring throughout the Eastern Bloc. Poland had another round of demonstrations and strikes in 1988. Free elections for some government posts were among the concessions that the Polish government was compelled to negotiate and grant to the leaders of the Solidarity. Hungary and East Germany opened their borders to free movement of their nationals in 1989. Berliners scaled the wall dividing their city and started to demolish it. People in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria also demanded changes to their governments. No Soviet tanks were seen rolling through the streets, and demonstrators were not fired upon or arrested by the military. Gorbachev communicated to other Soviet officials his intention to refrain from using force to keep control of Eastern Europe. Berlin was given back its capital status after Germany was reunited in 1990. But in the end, Gorbachev's reforms—which he started in an attempt to rescue the Soviet Union—tore it apart. The former Soviet nations want freedom as well. More change was advocated for by reform and democratic advocates. However, not all Soviet citizens approved of the reforms that were being implemented. The acts of Russian republican president Boris Yeltsin prevented conservative members of the Communist Party from overthrowing Gorbachev in August 1991. In December 1991, Yeltsin, together with the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine, took a joint decision to dissolve the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War was near. Paradoxically, Yugoslavia, which had made such a valiant effort to distance itself from the bloc, perished together with the fall of the Eastern Bloc. The several diverse ethnic groups and republics that made up Yugoslavia had been firmly linked by the necessity of putting up a unified front for the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. The nation may have stayed together for a little bit longer if Tito had survived, but he passed away in May 1980. The republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Croatia proclaimed their independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Violence erupted when Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Serbian minority in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia tried to declare their independence from these bigger governments. Former president of both Serbia and Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević led a genocidal assault against the Albanians of Kosovo and provided funding to Serb fighters in Bosnia. The UN brought a war crimes indictment against him in 2001, and he passed away in jail in 2006.