Soviet-built tanks wheel into action in a smoke-filled Budapest street during Hungary's rebellion against communist satellite government in October of 1956. (AP) In a long-awaited history due to be published this week, journalist and author Anne Applebaum draws on firsthand accounts and previously unpublished archival material to describe how the Kremlin established its hegemony over Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. The book, titled Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-56, explores the gutting of local institutions and the murders, terror campaigns, and tactical maneuvering that allowed Moscow to establish a system of control that would last for decades to come. I spoke with, Applebaum, whose previous book, a history of the Soviet Gulag, won the Pulitzer Prize. Here is more information. because they are so different and they just had extremely different experiences of war. Germany obviously was Nazi Germany, Hungary had been a country somewhat in-between, a sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy ally of Hitler, and of course Poland was an ally and very actively [involved in the fight against Hitler.]
So therefore there were three countries with different recent histories and what interested me was the fact that despite those cultural differences, despite the linguistic differences, despite the recent political history, by about the year 1950 if you'd looked in at this region from the outside, they would have all appeared very similar.
In the preface, you state that one of the purposes of the book it is to study the history of totalitarian countries and the methods employed by dictators to suppress populations. What can be learned from the history of the Soviet influence in Eastern Europe?
What you learn from studying the period is several things. One is how well prepared Stalin was before he got there. He had for example prepared police forces, secret police forces for each of the countries before he arrived in those countries. Most notably in Poland he begins recruiting policemen from the year 1939. Of course we've always known that he prepared and recruited, and organized communist parties from the time of the Bolshevik Revolution onwards.
You also see which kind of institutions the Soviet Union was most interested in. For example, everywhere that the Red Army went, one of the first things they did was take over the radio station. They believed very much in propaganda, in the power of propaganda and they believed that if they just could reach the masses by what was then the most efficient means possible, namely the radio, then they would be able to convince them and then they would be able to take and hold power.
You also learn about some of their obsessions, some of the things they were concerned about. From the earliest days of the Soviet Union, Soviet representatives in the region were very interested in what we now call civil society. So they were very interested in self-organized groups. That means both political parties, it means soccer clubs, it means chess clubs. Self-organized groups of all kinds were a target of Soviet interest and in some cases repressed from the very beginning. Hope this helps!
Federalists believed that the national government should be strong and in charge. State governments should be beneath the national government. More power should be with the national government with all major decisions coming from it.
Gravity, or gravitation, is a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass or energy—including planets, stars, galaxies, and even light—are brought toward one another. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects, and the Moon's gravity causes the ocean tides. Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. Newton learned that set forth the idea that gravity was a predictable force. ... Newton publicized his Theory of Universal Gravitation in the 1680s. It basically set forth the idea that gravity was a predictable force that acts on all matter in the universe, and is a function of both mass and distance. Gravity is what holds the planets in orbit around the sun and what keeps the moon in orbit around Earth. The gravitational pull of the moon pulls the seas towards it, causing the ocean tides. Gravity creates stars and planets by pulling together the material from which they are made.
Lester Maddox came to power with the notion that the African Americans were inferior to the white Americans and he gave the whites greater privileges ahead of the Africa Americans. He violated a newly signed federal civil acts by refusing to serve 3 Georgia students at his restaurant.
The Republicans were very much in support of his views.
