Mikhail Gorbachez and the end of Communism

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev became the Communist Party General Secretary. He was elected by popular choice .The last three leaders before him were all elderly, sick, old-school communists. All three of them ruled to their deaths. Gorbachev, at the age of 54, was younger and fitter. He was more suitable for the job. He spoke about change for the Soviet Union.
He introduced two Russian words to the SU international vocabulary: "perestroika", meaning restructuring, and "glasnost", meaning openness. Both concepts were revolutionary in Soviet terms, until now the system has been at a standstill and closed. Gorbachev idea of glasnot ended the totalitarian government that was established by the past leaders and made the government open. People had the freedom to say what was on there mind to make the country better. This glasnost system allowed churches to become open again, libraries could print banned books, and reporters had the right to freedom of speech. They could publicly view there thoughts and critize the government. Under his policy of perestoika mangers were allowed to rein freely over their farms and factories. Civilians were able to open there own small businesses. Before perestokia people were demotivated because no matter how productive they were they still weren't making enough money. But this policy helped to make the country more efficient.

Collapse of Communism

Communism collapsed in the Eastern Europe and the USRR after the collapse of the Berlin wall. The Berlin wall was a wall set up in August 1961 to seperate Communist Germany and Democratic Germany. Noone was allowed to cross the lines. Not even doctors or scientists. Anyone who tried to cross the wall were shot mercilessy. The wall was torn down on November of 1989 after thousands of people came out and started to take peices of the grafitti wall for themselves as solvenir.They did this because they want to stop the seperation and become a united front. The collapse of the wall allowed Diplomats to enter the Soviet Union. Eastern and Western Germany were now reunited. They were now able to form social and economic ties. It wasnt all good before they had economic problems. People were not able to cross the borders to Communist Germany and Democratic Germany. The Soviet Union separated into fifteen different Republics, which were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Lativa, Lithuania, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. This led to the fall of the Soviet Union. The world now did not have to worry about nuclear attacks. People had to work extra hard to provide for themselves. Farming was not a major income now. They had to find higher paying jobs.

Creation of Israel

Zionism is The movement dedicated to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Many of the Jews began to feel the urge for their own country, a homeland for the Jews. The Jews finall got ther own homeland in Israel. There was only one problem they were surrounded by countries that hated them. The countries that surrounded the Jews did not want them to have a land of there own. Especially having it so close to them. Only one day after the Jews had settled into there homeland they were attacked by Arab and Palestine. This attack led to a Middle Eastern war between the Jews and the Paletinians. The Jews were all alone in their fight they had noone to help them. But on the Palestinian front they had Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Europe to back them up. Which was very unfair. After the war Israel had greatly incresed in size. It now had 8000 square miles. the Arab land was decreased by 50 percent. Jerusalem was divided, with Arabs on the east side of the Green Line and the Jews on the west.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is the seperation of blacks/indian nor mixed decent and whites. The blacks were not given the same rights as the whites. Nelson Mandela was a very influencial man in the world. He fought for unity and liberation of his South African people from racism and apartheid. he started out as a leader of and underground political movement called the African National Congress (ANC). With this movemnt strive to overthrow the white-ruled government of the country. His carrer in the ANC was not very long. He was sentenced to life in jail beacuse of a cruel plot by the white South Africans to keep him quiet. They knew he would start something up and they wanted to shut him up. But little did they know even in prison Mandela would still have an influence on the people. After 27 years in captivity Mandela was set free. His release was the beginning of the ending of aprtheid. In the next 5years Mandela received a Nobel Peace Prize and was elected president of South Africa. With Mandela's help Apartheid ended and the people of South Africa were given there equal rights.