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history due to be published this week, journalist and author Anne Applebaum draws on firsthand accounts and previously unpublished archival material to describe how the Kremlin established its hegemony over Eastern Europe at the end of World War II.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!
There are more than 300 million indigenous people, in virtually every region of the world, including the Sámi peoples of Scandinavia, the Maya of Guatemala, numerous tribal groups in the Amazonian rainforest, the Dalits in the mountains of Southern India, the San and Kwei of Southern Africa, Aboriginal people in Australia, and, of course the hundreds of Indigenous Peoples in Mexico, Central and South America, as well as here in what is now known as North America.
It says by reading the word of God one becomes stronger in spirit and grows...... The word of God is a double edged sword which can cut through anything.... It is so very important to read and meditate on it..... God reveals to us so many secrets of the heaven and of his heart..... We should be open to hear him..... Just like how we study from ABCD to sentences to answers to giving tests we need to read the word of God bit by bit...... We know giving tests will only make us stronger ... In the same way by reading the word and applying it in our life we get stronger spiritually.....!!!!!!
The answer is: no, because they were not democratic
The soviet union was notoriously known for adopting an authoritarian state as its form of government.
They put total control on the media, preventing anyone from voicing negative opinion about the government. They also utilize their military to execute activists who threaten government reputation. such actions heavily contradict the democratic value that held by members of European union.
