Mikhail Gorbachev and The Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorachev was a young leader to the old and conservative Soviet Union. His new ideas and vision as opposed to the old views of Stalin were considered to be a way out of their situation. He introduced a policy of glasnost which was a policy of openness or freedom of speech. Under the old government there was no right to speak. With the thoughts of his people in his mind he had passed the policy of perestroika which gave people to own and open small private businesses. This was the plan of Econmical Reconstruction or like a communist industrial revolution. Gorachev unknowingly opened the door to the collapse of communism. With this policy Gorachev also was able to lossen the elections and lost many satellite states.

The Collapse of Communism

During the Cold War the USSR and the U.S. were the world's leading superpowers. After WW2 these two world powers were competing in a race. Both of them being world powers and armed with atomic weapons they did not get in to any actual fighting. The mere cost of keeping up with each other was high for both countries. For the USSR it was to much. Their economy soon collapsed at the high price of competing with the U.S. With the collapse of the USSR the communist countries that they supported soon also collapsed due to the fact that their main source of money came from Soviet Russia. The collapse of the USSR destroyed many economies around the world. The collapse of the USSR gave a response out to the world. The fall of the Berlin Wall raised the iron curtain that had fallen on Europe ever since WW2. Cuba which was one of Russia's allies due to it's location near Florida. The collapse made the U.S. the world's only leading superpower and reshaped Europe again.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

There is no place in the world today where segregation has not hit. In the Continent of Africa, segregation was a major issue. In South America the government there adapted a policy of apartheid. This was a policy of segregation which was similar to the Jim Crow Laws in the Southern U.S. after the civil war. This was in the common sense to stop the majority which were non-white from voting and having a say in their country. Southern Africa was lead by Nelson Mandela and others in their fight for a free and equal South Africa. Today Nelson Mandela is a symbol of hope like Dr.King and Gandhi who have become the peoples voice wherever there is apartheid or racial injustice. Nelson Mandela is considered a National Hero, not because he had freed his country of South Africa but rather because he did not give up. He and many others were the immovable objects that nothing as strong as European Imperialism could move. He was the cornerstone of the South African people and was elected President in South Africa's first free election in 1994.

African Independence

Africa was not always into the many countries that it is today. Before during the gold rush and European imperialism the European countries came to Africa and started making their colonies. This upset the African people because their borders were being defined by the will of those new to their countries. The African people also had no say in their government. This was one of the more critical parts that had affected the African people because they were supposed to abide by laws that they had no say in which were created by a government in which they had no voice in. Many new African nations were formed after WW2 mainly because of the fact that the European countries had no money left to control these countries.

Many African countries demanded thier independence. These countries had many fighting for their freedom. Some of who include Leopold Senghor, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mendela and mony more. All these leaders felt the need to free their country and to do it without the use of violence like Gandi. In the end many of their efforts had worked and their countries were free.

Flim Lesson:The Right Stuff

The U.S. and the USSR were competing in a space race. In this movie it shows the early days of the U.S. space program or NASA. This was made in response to the communist country Russia's launching of the first satellite, Sputnik. This was the first satellite launched to space. Seeing this the U.S. decided to send the first man to space. They began searching for the perfect candidates and found the test pilots. While they tried all of this the also tried to launch a rocket into space. The USSR had already launched a rocket and this meant that the U.S. were behind the Russians.

The test for the rockets took many months and each time the had failed. While doing all this NASA decided to send a chimp up to space. The first American up was a monkey while the first Russian up was a man. The U.S. and the astronauts felt threatened and felt like a joke that they were behind the Russians. The U.S. would then succeed in passing the USSR by sending the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong. This was part of the many Apollo Missions.

Film Lesson: Schindler's List

The Hollywood version of the Holocaust directed by a Jew Steven Spielberg. It tell the true story of the people saved by a member of the National Socialist party, the Nazis. The man was Oscar Schindler. He was a factory owner who made ammunition's for the German army. This was hugely profitable to him because he did not have to pay the people who worked for him because they were Jews. The most striking scene in the movie was the one with the girl in the red dress. This was the most striking because the entire movie was in black and white and through the confusion of the transportion from ghettos to the camps. A young girl gets lost looking for her mother. Later on she ends up in a wheelbarrow with other girls all of whom are dead. This was the most striking because it showed innocence being punished for doing nothing wrong other than being born in the wrong house. Oscar Schindler who saw the girls dead body felt a chill going through the course of his entire body. The scenes from the movie that were the disturbing were the killings in cold blood. Cold blood killings like that are the kind of killing that stay and change you forever. To kill someone like that with no emotion is savage. Oscar Schindler saw this and didn't want blood on his hands. The Hollywood version was the one that was more describing of the holocaust.

Film Lesson: Night and Fog

The documentary Night and Fog which was made by the French is a documentary on the Holocaust. The documentary showed the concentration and death camp know as Auschwitz. This camp was the mass murderer of millions of jews. The scenes of the camps buildings and the facilitys there were the most striking. The dormatories were one of the most shocking ones. The other scenes which showed the gas chambers in which millions of jews were killed. This documentary was more efffective at telling about the Holocaust rather than the hollywood version Shindler's List. This is because in hollywood everyone likes a happy ending. The truth is there was no happy ending.