english / stasiland-history.mdon commit [spec] clean up (0db1737)
   1# Stasiland - History
   2
   3## Cold war
   4
   5- 1945 - 1991
   6- USA (cap) and USSR (com) dominated after WWII
   7
   8
   9### Communism
  10- German philosophers Marx & Engels ($\approx$ 1848)
  11- industrial revolution
  12- response to class struggles
  13
  14#### Key concets of Marxism
  15- determinism (belief that communism's domination is inevitable)
  16- stages of history:
  17- 1. **slave society**
  18- 2. **feudal**
  19- 3. **capitalist** - hierarchy
  20- 4. **socialist** - production is owned collectively
  21- 5. **communism** - classless utopia
  22- class consciousness
  23- dictatorship of the proletariat
  24
  25### Origins of the Cold War
  26
  27- defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 - Europe jointly occupied by Soviet Red Army (East), Americans and British (West)
  28- tension between Stalin (Soviet) and American/British
  29- 1945 - Winston Churchill warns of "iron curtain" on Europe
  30- Europe and Berlin split into two halves
  31
  32#### Iron curtain
  33- metaphor for blocks (East and West)
  34- Yalta conference - Germany divided into four zones
  35- US gained economic power (commodities of gold & USD)
  36- Truman Doctrine - US president, challenged communism
  37- Soviets blocked West Berlin
  38- 1949 - Federal Republic of Germany (GDR)
  39
  40### Berlin
  41
  42- East Berlin tightly controlled by state - deprivation of essential goods
  43- Ulbricht - erected Berlin Wall in $\approx$ 1953 to prevent mass exodus of E. Berlin
  44
  45### Fall of the Iron Curtain
  46- 1985 - Gorbachev's reformist policies - "openness" and "restructuring"
  47- some Communist ideals approached capitalism
  48- 1973 - East and West Germany joined UN
  49- 1990 - reunification