General Exam Info

Question 1

What are the external reasons for Communism?

Answer 1

Soviet presence and interference (esp in poland/hungary)

Question 2

Internal reasons for communism

Answer 2

1. destabilization and deconstruction of pre-war political, economic, and value systems
2. radicalization - general poverty, violence, migrations
3. propoganda, nationalism, campaigns
4. police, blackmail, violence, persecution

Question 3

How was communist propaganda one of the most developed propaganda systems?

Answer 3

Media, post, public opinion, ability to twist bad things into good

Question 4

Which was the most important country?

Answer 4

Poland

Question 5

Who is Stanislaw Mikolajczyk?

Answer 5

Former deputy prime minister of Poland from June 1945 – February 1947

Polish People’s Party

Question 6

What was the Lublin Committee

Answer 6

Provisional government

Question 7

What was the 1946 Referendum

Answer 7

3 questions asked
30%-60% falsifications
Communists take control

Question 8

When was the Guerrilla War?

Answer 8

1947/1948

Question 9

When were the Hungarian parliament elections?

Answer 9

January, 1947
40% - 80% falsifications

Question 10

What percent of people supported soviet interference in 1947?

Answer 10

23%

Question 11

Belá Kovács

Answer 11

Minister of Justice in Hungary from 1953-1954

Question 12

Zdenek Fierlinger

Answer 12

Former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1944-1946

Question 13

What and when was the first crisis?

Answer 13

1953-1956
Gottwald’s death in March 1953
party reformers, dissatisfaction, general disagreement

Question 14

When did Stalin die?

Answer 14

March 1953

Question 15

What happened in Czechoslovakia in 1953?

Answer 15

President: Zapotocky
Prime Minister: Novotny
Offer/Demand crisis
June 1953: Monetary reform
Currency devalued: 50:1
Wages by 5:1

Question 16

What happened in Hungary in 1953?

Answer 16

Imre Nagy replaces Rákosi

Question 17

What happened in Poland in 1956?
February, March, June, October

Answer 17

1. February: 20th CPSU Congress where Khrushchev gave secret speech
2. March: Boleslaw Bierut dies
3. June: Poznan Uprising
4. Polish October
5. Natolin (hardliner) vs Pulawa (Liberal)

Question 18

Czechoslovakia in 1956

Answer 18

Harsh consequences against underground/dissidents

Question 19

Post-1956 Development

Answer 19

-end of transformation
-compromise with the society
-status quo

Question 20

What is collectivization

Answer 20

Everything becomes owned by the government
Hungary and Poland mainly affected
Surplus kept by soviet gov’t
Confiscated goods redistributed

Question 21

What was the Iron Curtain?

Answer 21

Introduced by Churchill in Sinews of Peace Speech
Boundaries dividing Eastern and Western Bloc

Question 22

Hungary in 1956

Answer 22

János Kádár replaces Nagy
Armistice
Suez Conflict

Question 23

What is Goulash Communism?

Answer 23

Kádár wanted to create better standards of living
Parallels goulash to mixed ideology of communism

Question 24

Who was Milada Horáková

Answer 24

Famous Czech female political prisoner
Opposed communist ideals
June, 1950: hanged after show trial

Question 25

When and What was the Prague Spring?

Answer 25

Led by Dubček Jan 5, 1968 - August 21, 1968 Era of political liberalization and protest, end of censorship

Question 26

Who was Alexander Dubček?

Answer 26

First Secretary of the Presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1968-1969 (Slovak version of JFK)

Question 27

What and when was normalization?

Answer 27

August 1968 - November 1989 Restoration of conditions before the Prague Spring Gustav Husak replaces Dubček

Question 28

Samizdat

Answer 28

form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader

Question 29

Name of a communist car

Answer 29

Trabant

Question 30

What was the Charter 77

Answer 30

informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992 Listed complaints about communism Co-Founded by Václav Havel and Jan Patočka

Question 31

What was the year of Martial Law in Poland?

Answer 31

December 13th, 1981

Question 32

Who was the leader of Poland under martial law?

Answer 32

Wojciech Jaruzelski

Question 33

Leader during the Hungarian Civil War?

Answer 33

Mátyás Rákosi (uprising against his government)

Question 34

What is Solidarnosc / Solidarity

Answer 34

Self-Governing Trade Union founded in 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland

Question 35

Helsinki Final Act

Answer 35

- signed in August 1975 in Finland - rejected use of force or intervention in internal affairs and advocated for respect of human rights - US, Soviet Union, Canada, and all European nations (except Albania)

Question 36

Lech Walesa

Answer 36

Chair of trade union (Leader of Solidarity) First elected President of Poland after Communism

Question 37

Who was Karol Wojtyla

Answer 37

Polish Pope in 1978 (Pope John Paul II)

Question 38

KOR

Answer 38

Committee for the Defense of Workers Established in June, 1976 Anti-communist group

Question 39

Vaclav Havel

Answer 39

(1936 - 2011) Playwrite Dissident Political prisoner President - December 1989

Question 40

Velvet Revolution

Answer 40

November 17, 1989 - December 29. 1989 End of one-party power

Question 41

Split of Czechoslovakia

Answer 41

January 1993

Question 42

First Soviet Intervention in Hungary

Answer 42

October 23, 1956

Question 43

Władysław Gomułka

Answer 43

De Facto leader of Poland in 1947-1948, then after Polish October from 1956-1970 Polish style communism

Question 44

Second Soviet Intervention

Answer 44

November, 1956

Question 45

When was the Hungarian Uprising against the People's Republic

Answer 45

October - November 1956

Question 46

When and What was the Plžen Riot?

Answer 46

May - June 1953 3 days of violent protest against regime

Question 47

Nikita Khrushchev

Answer 47

Nikita Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1953 to 1964