• The Treaty on European Union initiated the road to political and economic and monetary union. It was drafted at a historic juncture in which the reunification of Germany and the fall of the Soviet block made necessary a re-thinking of the European project. Among several significant innovations, such as EU citizenship and the EMU, the Treaty of Maastricht created the so-called three pillar structure. It was signed on 7 February 1992 and came into force on 1 November 1993.

Recumbent Figure

Anadeo Modigliani, Head

Alberto Giacometti, Chariot

• Preface Tony Blair• New Labour’s 2005 manifesto applies• the unchanging values of our party to• the new priorities of the British people.• It is a plan to improve the lives of hardworking• families and prepare our• country for success in a fast-changing• world. Our case rests on one idea more• than any other – that it is the duty of• government to provide opportunity and• security for all in a changing world.• Every chapter relates back to that goal:• breaking down the barriers that stop• people fulfilling their talent, extending• opportunity to every corner of the• United Kingdom, building communities• strong and safe for those who play by• the rules. On the firm foundations we• have laid since 1997, our programme• will embed a new progressive• consensus in our country.• This preface is my personal message.

The Decline of Communism in Eastern Europe

• The Soviet Union to 1985– The 1968 invasion of CZSK showed Soviet

leaders were ready to use force to maintain the soviet Empire

– At the same time, rising living standards and low levels of outright terror kept Soviet domestic situation stable

– Russian nationalism was key stabilizing factor under Brezhnev

The Soviet Union to 1985

• Revolutionary social changes were underway in Russia– Urbanization continued– Number of highly trained scientists,

managers, and specialists increased four times between 1960 and 1985

– Education and freedom for experts to explore their specialization led to the growth of “public opinion” in Russia

Solidarity in Poland

• 1956: Soviets had to back off from collectivization in Poland after riots

• 1970: worker unrest led Polish communist eladers to borrow massively from West

• The “oil shock” of 1973 created severe recession in Poland

• 1978: Pole Karol Wojtyle elected Pope• 1980: massive strikes by Polish workers forced

Polish authorities to legalize noncommunist trade unions

Solidarity in Poland

• The new trade union, “Solidarity” became a nation-wide oganization

• In december 1981, communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law and arrested solidarity leaders

• Solidarity survived undergroud and the regime never imposed full-scale terror

Gorbachev’s Reforms in the SU

• When he became head of the Soviet Communist party in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev realized the USSR was falling behind Western capitalism and technology. He aimed to revitalize Soviet communism

• Gorbachev began his tenure with attacks on alcoholism and bureaucratic corruption

• He moved on to economic decentralization (lifting some price controls, legalizing cooperatives), encouragement of limited criticism of government, and free elections

Gorbachev’s Reforms in the SU

• Democratization produced demands for independence by non-Russian minorities

• In foreign affairs, Gorbachev withdrew troops from Afghanistan and aimed to end the arms race with the US

Revolutions of 1989

• The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe

• Disintegration of the Soviet Union

• German Unification and the End of the Cold War

The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe

• In 1989 Solidarity forced Polish leaders to run free elections to a plurality of the seats in the parliament

• In the subsequent election the Communists lost control of the parliament. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa became president of Poland

• The new government applied “shock therapy” to the economy, ending state planning and price controls

The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe

• Hungary, East Germany, and CZSK followed Poland out of the Communist orbit in late 1989

• In Romania, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu resisted revolution and was captured and executed

• Khrushchev

• Brezhnev

The Disintegration of SU

• In february 1990 the Communist party lost local elections all over the USSR

• In August 1991 hardline communist leaders opposed to change attempted a coup against Gorbachev. Russian Federation president Boris Yelstin rallied the Moscow populace and some of the armed forced successfully against the coup

• An anti-communist revolution swept the SU as the constituent republics, including Russia, declared independence. The SU ceased to exist on December 25, 1991.

German Unification and the End of the Cold War

• In the summer of 1990, German reunification was negotiated

• Arms cuts in Europe, the US and SU followed

• In 1991 Soviet loss of confidence and superpower status enabled the US to fight and defeat Iraq following the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait.

Building a New Europe in the 1990s

• Common Patterns and Problems

• Recasting Russia

• Progress and Tragedy in Eastern Europe

• Unity and Identity in Western Europe

Common Patterns and Problems

• Most European leaders in the 1990s accepted the neoliberal vision of capitalist development

• In doing so, Europeans followed the lead of the “victorious” US (victorious in the Cold War) and the new rules of the global economy

• The computer and elections revolution helped motivate the move to a global economy

Common Patterns and Problems

• Defenders of the achievements of Western welfare states resisted these changes, especially in France and Germany, where socialist parties and labor unions remained strong

• Nearly all European countries undertook truly competitive elections and guaranteed basic civil liberties

• American scholar Francis Fukuyama claimed that “the end of history” had arrived

• Nationalist resurgence led to tragedy and bloodshed, as in Yugoslavia

Recasting Europe

• In January 1992, the Yeltsin government followed Poland in undertaking “shock therapy” for the economy, ending price controls and rapidly privatizing industry

• Priced increased rapidly and production fell, up to 50%

• The existence of de facto (not official) monopolies, popular perceptions of business as crime, and the “mafia” culture of the managerial elite undermined the reforms

Recasting Europe

• Much of the old communist elite perpetuated its power as new business owners and organize crime thrived

• Ordinary people lost their savings and their life expectancy declined as living standards fell

• The new constitution approved in 1993 gave pres Yeltsin a great deal of power, but free elections took palce in 96, and 2000

• Russian military spending declined and Russia maintained good relations with foreign countries

• In 1994 Yeltsin tried to crush an independence movement in the autonomous republic of Chechnya and failed.

Progress and Tragedy in Eastern Europe

• In Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary economic and democratic reforms were relatively successful

• In 1993 Czechoslovakia split peacefully into CZ and Slovakia

• Tragedy struck in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

• After Tito’s death in 1980, power devolved into the constituent republics of Yugoslavia

• Economic decline and revived memory of WWII massacres inspired by ethnic hatred caused more ethnic division

• In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence and defended it from Serbia, led by President Slobodam Milosevic

Yugoslavia

• In 1992, civil war spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Serbs (30% of population) refused to live under Bosnian Muslim rule

• The ensuing civil war involved rape, murder of civilians, and widespread concentration campe

• 1995: NATO intervenes with Air forces against Bosnian Serbs, led to negotiated settlement dividing Bosnia between Serbs and Bosnians

Yugoslavia

• Ethnic conflict broke out in Kosovo as Albanians strove for independence and Serbs began a campaign of intimidating and ethnic cleansing

• In March 1999, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, forcing the serbs to withdraw from Kosovo (after expelling 750,000 Albanians)

• In July 2001 Serbs voted Milosevic out of office and the new Serb government turned him over to the War Crimes Tribunal in the Netherlands