Why did popular discontent grow in Eastern Europe in the 1980s? Flashcards
What encouraged many East Europeans to take an interest in capitalist methods and the free market?
Growing trade links with the West during the detente period of the 1970s
What did growing trade links with the West also make citizens of the satellite states aware of?
Higher Western living standards
Why did East European living standards decline in the 1980s?
Due to mounting economic problems
What increased in EE and what was in short supply?
Increased - prices and unemployment
Short supply - food and consumer goods
What did the USSR cut back on?
Subsided oil and natural gas supplies to the satellite states as world prices fell
What did the USSR ow to the West?
Large debts
What was to be disappointed in the USSR?
Popular expectations raised by the USSR signing the Helsinki Accords (1975)
What did the communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc continue to rely on?
Political repression, censorship and other human rights abuses to keep themselves in power
What was there resentment at?
Continued religious persecution
What mobilised Polish Catholics and boosted support for Solidarity?
The galvanising impact of the appointment of Pope John Paul II
What was the result of the growth of nationalism in EE (particularly East Germany)?
It challenged the satellite states official loyalty to the international concept of communism and the USSR (as the birthplace of socialist revolution)
