History core topic 6

• Secret speech (3)


  1. 1956

  2. Khrushchev makes a speech announcing Stalin's crimes and saying he was too harsh on the people

  3. This started Desalinisation
• Comecon (4)


  1. 1949

  2. Set up to co-ordinate trade and industries of Eastern European countries

  3. Members of Comecon traded mostly with each other rather than with the West

  4. Comecon favoured the USSR more than its other members providing it with a market to sell its good and a cheap supply of raw materials as countries had to sell their resources for much cheaper to the USSR than they would have gotten in an open market
• Destalinisation (4)


  1. 1956

  2. Change of communist influence from Stalin to Khrushchev

  3. Instigated by Khrushchev's secret speech

  4. One way it was implemented was releasing prisoners from the Gulag
• Communism's (Stalin) impact on ordinary people - Freedom (5)

  1. Countries that used to have free speech and democratic governments lost the right to criticise governments

  2. Newspapers were censored

  3. Anyone who spoke out about the government was put in prison

  4. People could not travel to countries in Western Europe

  5. Protests were crushed by security forces
• Communism's (Stalin) impact on ordinary people - Wealth (3)

  1. Wages fell behind those in Western Europe

  2. Clothes and shoes were expensive

  3. Coal to heat houses was shor
• Communism's (Stalin) impact on ordinary people - Consumer goods (3)

  1. People could not get consumer goods like radios, TVs and electric kettles which were becoming common in the West

  2. Eastern European economies were geared to help the USSR

  3. Factories produced machinery or cables to help the USSR not what ordinary people wanted
• Stalin -> Khrushchev (5)

  1. Thousands of political prisoners were freed

  2. Cominform was shut down

  3. Khrushchev denounced Stalin

  4. Khrushchev wanted peaceful co-existence with the West

  5. Khrushchev wanted to improve the lives of ordinary people
• Satellite states in Eastern Europe (4)

  1. Used as a buffer from the West for the USSR

  2. Former Nazi colonies then controlled by the soviets

  3. Tied together by Cominform and Comecon

  4. All ruled by leaders who answered and were loyal to Stalin
• Polish riots - Khrushchev (5)

  1. 1956

  2. Large demonstrations broke out in Poland due to the new approach by the new soviet leader

  3. Protestors demanded reforms and the appointment of Gomulka as the new leader

  4. Khrushchev would have preferred someone more loyal but compromised and allowed it

  5. However, he also lined Soviet tanks and troops onto the Polish border to make it clear he would only compromise to a certain point
• Hungary uprising - events (5)

  1. 1956

  2. There were protests and demonstrations in Hungary causing to Rakosi to ask Khrushchev for help who instead replace him with Gero

  3. The Hungarians didn't like Gero either and the protests didn't stop and a statue of Stalin was pulled down in Budapest

  4. The soviets allowed a new government to be formed under the well-respected Imre Nagy and pulled out their troops which reduced the protests

  5. Nagy implemented many reforms and civil liberties and announced that he wanted to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw pact and become neutral in the cold war
• Hungary uprising - causes (8)

  1. Hungary was a satellite state so the leaders were chosen and trained by the soviets

  2. Rakosi the Hungarian leader was vey unpopular in Hungary - was leader for 10 years

  3. Hungary had to trade on very unequal terms with the USSR making it a very poor country

  4. The Hungarians had to pay for the soviet troops to be in Hungary even though they resented their presence making them even poorer

  5. There was a very powerful brutal secret police who arrested and shot over 25,000 in 195

  6. There was also oppression of the Catholic church which was the majority's religion before Soviet control - catholics were sent to prison

  7. The Hungarians were inspired by the Polish protesters who got their way

  8. Wages were low and the working days were long
• Nagy's reforms (5)


  1. Hold free elections

  2. Create impartial courts

  3. Restore farmland to private ownership

  4. End persecution of the church

  5. Leave the Warsaw pact to become neutral in Europe
• Soviet Union response - Nagy (3)


  1. Khrushchev at first was ready to accept the reforms but could not accept Hungary leaving the Warsaw pact

  2. In November 1956 thousands of soviet tanks and troops moved into Budapest to take control of major places in the city (airstrips and factories) resulting in bitter fighting

  3. Western powers protested to the USSR but sent no help as they had their own crisis, the Suez crisis.
• Hungary uprising - outcome (3)

  1. Khrushchev made Kadar the new leader who crushed all resistance arresting 35,000 anticommunists

  2. Kadar slowly added some of the reforms the Hungarian people demanded

  3. Kadar never wavered on the issue of membership of the Warsaw pact
• Prague spring - causes

  1. Novotny was the previous Czechoslovak leader and was a Stalinist with a brutal secret police

  2. The USSR forced Czechoslovakia through Comecon to produce steel and trade it with the USSR on terms beneficial to the USSR even though they needed it for themselves

  3. The standard of living was low with low wages and long working days

  4. Novotny's economic policies led to a crisis in 1962 but he refused to add reforms until 1967 when the economy had gotten even worse

  5. Dubcek a Slovak replaced Novotny a Czech after challenging his lack of reform and discrimination against Slovaks
• Prague spring events (7)


  1. 1968

  2. Dubcek proposed the policy of 'socialism with a human face'

  3. As Dubcek was committed communist the USSR approved of him replacing Novotny

  4. New ideas started springing up as censorship was eased meaning people could expose corruption and criticise the failings of the communist rule and there was even talk of allowing other parties like the Social democratic party

  5. The USSR was under pressure from other East European leaders (Polish and East german) who did not want these radical ideas to spread to their country.

  6. The leaders of the USSR, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany sent Dubcek the Warsaw letter demanding that he stop the reforms to which Dubcek disagreed instead going on national television asking for support¥

  7. The USSR tried different ways to slow Dubcek down: Intimidating the Czechs by performing public troop training exercises on the Czech border, they didn't impose trade sanctions as they didn't want the Czechs to have to turn to the West, they held a conference with Dubcek who agreed to not allow a SDP but insisted on the other reforms easing the tension

  8. Soviet tanks moved into Czechslovakia in August 1968 and a coup was organised by the Czech communist party to remove Dubcek as leader
• Action plan - Dubcek reforms

  1. Decentralisation

  2. Less censorship

  3. More involvement of the youth

  4. More autonomy for companies

  5. More freedom of speech

  6. He made it clear to Brezhnev he had no plans to leave the Warsaw pact

  7. Reduction in the activities of the secret police
• Prague spring - aftermath (3)

  1. Jan Palach committed suicide in January 1969

  2. Others copied him

  3. Similar events occurred in other Warsaw pact countries
• Prague spring - outcomes (2)

  1. It became clear that reforming ideas were seen as a threat to communist rule by communist leaders

  2. The Brezhnev doctrine was issued
• Brezhnev doctrine (3)


  1. 1968

  2. All satellites states had to be a one-party system

  3. All satellite states had to remain a member of the Warsaw pact
• Solidarity - causes (2)

  1. 1979 had been the worst year in Polish economy since communist rule

  2. In this weak economy, the government raised meat prices
• Solidarity - what (2)


  1. August 1980

  2. Free trade union led by Lech Walesa
• Solidarity events - how it formed

  1. Series of strikes in Gdansk

  2. The workers presented 21 demands to the Polish government which the government agreed to

  3. Membership reached 9.4 million at the beginning of 1981 more than a third of the Polish workers
• Main demands - Solidarity (4)

  1. The right to strike

  2. Free trade unions

  3. More pay

  4. End to censorship
• Why did the government agree to the demands - solidarity (5)


  1. The union was strongest in the shipbuilding and heavy industry industries where a general strike would be devastating for the Polish economy

  2. Solidarity was not seen as an alternative to communism as over 1 million members of the communist party joined solidarity

  3. The union was popular and had the support of the Catholic church which was still important in Poland

  4. The government was playing for time hoping Solidarity would break up into smaller factions

  5. Solidarity had gained support from the West more than the Hungarian and Czechoslovak risings had so the Soviet Union needed to be careful when dealing with it
• Crushing of Solidarity in Poland (6)

  1. 1981

  2. The civilian prime minister was replaced by the leader of the army Jaruzelski making people think the soviets were going to send in the tanks soon

  3. Solidarity produced an 'open letter' campaigning for all workers in the communist bloc

  4. Jaruzelski and Walesa negotiated for 9 months before the communist government acted

  5. Brezhnev ordered the 'red army' to carry out training manoeuvres on the Polish border

  6. Jaruzelski introduced Martial law
• Crushing of Solidarity in Poland - reasons (3)

  1. Solidarity was starting to act like a political party separate to the communist party

  2. Poland was in chaos - Wages were increasing by less than inflation, Unemployment was rising, rationing had been introduced

  3. Solidarity was in chaos - Many different faction some of which thought the only way to make progress was to push the soviets further
• Martial law - Solidarity (3)

  1. Introduced by Jaruzelski in 1981

  2. Put Walesa and almost 10,000 other Solidarity leaders in prison

  3. Suspended Solidarity
• Solidarity - outcomes (4)

  1. Highlighted failure of communism to provide good living standards undermining communist claims to be a system benefiting ordinary people

  2. Showed there were organisations capable of resisting a communist government

  3. Showed the communist governments could be threatened by 'people power'

  4. Only thing keeping the communists in power was military force
• Migration crisis - Berlin wall (4)

  1. East and West Germany had been created and people could freely move between the two

  2. Many people wanted to leave East Berlin and go to West Berlin because people could see the Capitalist prizes of goods and great freedom

  3. From the beginning of 1961 20,000 people fled to the West through West Berlin per month many of whom were skilled

  4. This was very bad for communist propaganda as these Germans fleeing Communism for a Capitalist life undermined communism greatly
• U2 crisis - Berlin wall (4)

  1. 9 days before the Paris summit in 1960

  2. A US spy plane was shot down over Soviet airspace

  3. Soviets demanded an apology and all flights over Soviet airspace to be stopped

  4. Eisenhower agreed to stopping the flights but not to the apology and Khrushchev stormed out of the Paris summit
• Vienna summit - Berlin wall (3)

  1. Khrushchev thought he could bully the new young US president Kennedy in the summit in 1961

  2. Khrushchev demanded that Western forces leave Berlin

  3. Kennedy refused to withdraw the forces
• The Berlin wall (3)

  1. 1961

  2. A barbed wire wall was erected along the frontier between East and West Berlin which was quickly replaced by a concrete wall preventing movement from the East to the West

  3. US diplomats and troops regularly crossed into East Berlin to test the Soviets reactions
• Berlin wall - outcomes (6)

  1. Soviet tanks pulled up to checkpoint Charlie refusing to allow further Western access to the East

  2. US and Soviet tanks faced each other for a day in a tense stand-off

  3. Slowly the two sides retreated together resolving the crisis

  4. The Wall stayed as an alternative to war and became a symbol for the division between the East and the West, Communism vs Capitalism

  5. The West presented it as a prison wall

  6. The East presented it as a protective shell for East Berlin
• Berlin wall - causes (5)

  1. The migration crisis

  2. New weaker young US president Kennedy

  3. Vienna summit

  4. Western espionage centres in West Berlin - Khrushchev believed the West were spying on the communists through West Berlin

  5. The U2 crisis
• Gorbachev (2)


  1. Leader of the Soviet Union in 1985

  2. Communist but he wanted to make reforms
• Gorbachev reforms (4)


  1. Reduce the arms race and end the war in Afghanistan - Huge drain on the Soviet economy

  2. Glasnost

  3. Perestroika

  4. Improve international relations - Withdrew troops from Afghanistan and thought co-operation and trust was the way forward
• Glasnost - Gorbachev (3)


  1. Introduction of openness about the present and the past

  2. Honesty in facing problems

  3. Let the Russian people voice their concerns
• Perestroika - Gorbachev (2)


  1. Restructuring of the Soviet system

  2. Allowed market forces to be introduced to the Soviet economy
• Gobachev's reforms - outcome (5)

  1. Flourish in literary culture as people could speak out without punishment

  2. Gorbachev told the Eastern European leaders to also listen to their people and reform

  3. Gorbachev and Reagan got on well and agreed to reduce arms spending

  4. The USSR felt less threatened by the USA meaning less control was needed over Eastern Europe

  5. Gorbachev made a speech to Warsaw pact countries that he planned to withdraw troops, tanks and aircraft from Eastern European countries making it clear the 'red army' would not intervene to prop up communist regimes in Eastern Europe