From the Reagan Revolution to the

Collapse of Communism

Reagan Revolution• Reagan played on America’s sense of defeat.• Reagan led the reaction against “Liberalism”• Objective:

– Deconstruct the “welfare state”– Lead America back to “greatness”

• One of our most effective Presidents• The “Great Communicator”• A period of excess ?• The Soviet Union

collapses

The collapse of the USSR

• Hungarian uprising, 1956• “Prague Spring” 1968

• “Solidarity” in Poland – Begins in the late 1970’s– Dissent movement supported by Catholic Church

• Solidarity was a labor union led by Walesa, an electrician at a Gdansk shipyard.– protested lack of consumer goods and

unemployment.– expands to call for economic freedom and alternative

political parties.

• Government tries to enforce martial law, but Solidarity spreads across Poland.

General strike halts economy Walesa wins Nobel Peace Prize, 1983.

Karol Wojtyla Pope John Paul II, 1979 – 2005

• Leonid Brezhnev 1964-1982– Invades Afghanistan, 1979– Forces Polish government

to declare martial law, 1981

Soviet Losses in Afghanistan

• 14,453 Killed (total)– 9,500 killed in combat– 4,000 died from wounds– 1,000 died from disease and accidents

• 53,753 Wounded

• 312 Missing

US Losses in Vietnam 58,209 deaths - 47,424 KIA - 10,785 Non-combat

153,303 WIA 2,489 MIA

• Mikhail Gorbachev 1985-1991– glasnost – perestroika

• 1986, Chernobyl

• 1989, withdrawal from Afghanistan

Radius of 19 miles around the reactor contaminated for the next 20,000 years.

Fall of Communism Timeline

• 1989– Poland August– Hungary October– Czechoslovakia November– Romania December

• 1990– East Germany March

• Germany reunited in October

Fall of Communism Timeline

• 1990– Yugoslavia

• Slovenia• Croatia Declare

independence

• Bosnia-Herzegovina• Macedonia

– Only Serbia and Montenegro remain in “Yugoslavia”

• 1992 – 1995 – UN Protection Force for the Former Yugoslavia

• NATO– IFOR, 1995 – 1996 – SFOR, 1996 – 2004

• “Kosovo War” 1998 – 1999