Many city dwellers fled to the countryside, often to tend the land that the Bolshevik breakup of the landed estates had transferred to the peasants. Strong opposition soon developed. The peasants wanted cash payments for their products and resented having to surrender their surplus grain to the government as a part of its civil war policies. The peasants were freed from wholesale levies of grain and allowed to sell their surplus produce in the open market. Commerce was stimulated by permitting private retail trading.
The state continued to be responsible for banking, transportation, heavy industry, and public utilities. Although the left opposition among the Communists criticized the rich peasants, or kulaks, who benefited from the NEP, the program proved highly beneficial and the economy revived.
Lenin and Stalin : Toward the end of his life, Lenin became increasingly anxious about Stalin and began criticizing him and urging his removal as general secretary. Stalin reacted furiously and the Orgburo was retained, but Bukharin, Trotsky, and Zinoviev were added to the body. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmaneuvering his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union and, by the end of the s, established totalitarian rule.
The Central Committee decided not to publish the testament. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. Amidst quick, dramatic changes across the landscape of the Soviet Union, Bush administration officials prioritized the prevention of nuclear catastrophe, the curbing of ethnic violence, and the stable transition to new political orders.
The basic message was clear—if the new republics could follow these principles, they could expect cooperation and assistance from the United States. Baker met with Gorbachev and Yeltsin in an attempt to shore up the economic situation and develop some formula for economic cooperation between the republics and Russia, as well as to determine ways to allow political reforms to occur in a regulated and peaceful manner. On December 25, , the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor.
Earlier in the day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state. People all over the world watched in amazement at this relatively peaceful transition from former Communist monolith into multiple separate nations. With the dissolution of Soviet Union, the main goal of the Bush administration was economic and political stability and security for Russia, the Baltics, and the states of the former Soviet Union.
Bush recognized all 12 independent republics and established diplomatic relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. In February , Baker visited the remaining republics and diplomatic relations were established with Uzbekistan, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Civil war in Georgia prevented its recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States until May Leaders from Kazakhstan and Ukraine visited Washington in May Many early projects were tied to the Soviet military and kept secret, but by the s, space would become another dramatic arena for competition between dueling world superpowers.
The success of Sputnik made Americans fear that the U. President John F. The U. A longtime Communist Party politician, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in He inherited a stagnant economy and a crumbling political system. He introduced two sets of policies he hoped would reform the political system and help the USSR become a more prosperous, productive nation.
These policies were called glasnost and perestroika. It addressed personal restrictions of the Soviet people. Newspapers could criticize the government, and parties other than the Communist Party could participate in elections. Under perestroika, the Soviet Union began to move toward a hybrid communist-capitalist system, much like modern China.
The policy-making committee of the Communist Party, called the Politburo, would still control the direction of the economy. Yet the government would allow market forces to dictate some production and development decisions. During the s and s, the Communist Party elite rapidly gained wealth and power while millions of average Soviet citizens faced starvation. Bread lines were common throughout the s and s.
Soviet citizens often did not have access to basic needs, such as clothing or shoes. The divide between the extreme wealth of the Politburo and the poverty of Soviet citizens created a backlash from younger people who refused to adopt Communist Party ideology as their parents had.
In the s, the United States under President Ronald Reagan isolated the Soviet economy from the rest of the world and helped drive oil prices to their lowest levels in decades. A loosening of controls over the Soviet people emboldened independence movements in the Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe.
Political revolution in Poland in sparked other, mostly peaceful revolutions across Eastern European states and led to the toppling of the Berlin Wall. By the end of , the USSR had come apart at the seams.
Sometime over the course of the night and the early morning of December , , Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a self-proclaimed holy man, is murdered by Russian nobles eager to end his influence over the royal family. Rasputin, a Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who But on December 30, , the quartet of British rockers preparing for their fifth-ever gig in the United States were using propane heaters to keep themselves and Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.
A fire in the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois, kills more than people on December 30, It was the deadliest theater fire in U. Blocked fire exits and the lack of a fire-safety plan caused most of the deaths.
The Iroquois Theater, designed by Benjamin
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