so we've been talking about the cold war that decades-long standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II and so far we've been focusing on the tension between these two superpowers but in this video we're going to consider the political and economic ramifications of the Cold War so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to so as you'll no doubt remember if you've been with me in these last few unit 9 videos much of what was happening in Western Europe during the Cold War was intimately tied to the policies of the United States so essentially because the United States exerted a profound amount of military economic and political influence in the west it was the U.S calling many of the shots and one of the big moves the U.S made during this time was the establishment of NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization because the big bad Soviets were always threatening to expand into the West NATO was a military defense pact that many Western European nations signed with the United States the idea was if any one state was attacked then they were in essence all attacked and would therefore all respond now another big move was economic in nature and it included the establishment of two entities first was the World Bank which was established in 1944 in order to provide loans to countries that needed to rebuild after the war later in the century the World Bank shifted its focus to make loans to developing nations but regardless the goal of the World Bank was to make sure that a global economic catastrophe like the Great Depression didn't happen again and also in 1944 the international monetary fund was established which facilitated International currency exchange and encouraged global trade and speaking of global trade in 1995 the World Trade Organization was created and this entity was responsible for generating and enforcing a set of rules that govern International Trade the idea here is the same as the organization it replaced namely the Gat or the general agreement on tariffs and trade both organizations among other things aimed to reduce tariffs between member nations so that trade can flow as freely as possible between them okay so that's basically what was going on in the west during the 20th century though there was plenty to complain about with the organizations that I just mentioned politically and economically the West was doing pretty well but in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union it was a different story altogether countries east of the Iron Curtain known as the Soviet Bloc came under the military political and economic domination of the Soviet Union their answer to the IMF and the World Bank and the Marshall Plan was the council for Mutual economic assistance and the goal of this organization was to bind and Soviet States into a mutually reinforcing economic system which would make them all dependent on the Soviet Union their answer to Nato was the Warsaw Pact which was a military alliance with the satellite states of the Soviet Union which again would require dependence on the Soviet Union in those places now so far it just sounds like we have similar situations in the East and the West in the west the United States led to the creation of many of the organizations that I mentioned before and in a lot of ways membership in those organizations and treaties made Western Europe dependent on the United States and that's essentially what's happening in the east as well except with the Soviet Union but here's where the comparison starts to crumble Soviet black Nations did not I repeat did not flourish economically like Western Europe did and this was largely because of the Soviet economic model of planned economy now not every state in the Soviet Bloc was Communist but they all had planned economies and here's what that means the economic output of these satellite states were planned by a committee within the Soviet Union this meant that each state was told what to produce how much of it to produce and where they could sell so in that way states in the Soviet Bloc did not produce for their own benefit but rather for the overall benefit of the Soviet Union often to their own hurt solid era these planned economies had some disastrous effects he implemented a series of five-year plans whose goals were the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union and economic flourishing and while some of these plans might be considered successful they came at a heavy cost to Soviet citizens for example one of Stalin's five-year plans emphasized the collectivization of Agriculture and this was implemented in the Soviet black state in Ukraine many farmers rebelled against the collectivization and as a result they got blacklisted for Soviet food distribution as a result something like 5 million people died of starvation now in addition to planned economies the Soviet Union led by the dictates of Communism extended social welfare benefits to its citizens estate provided for many of the needs of the people including housing and health care but the state-run services were often poorly implemented state-sponsored housing for example included hastily built apartment complexes which were shodily constructed and at times required more than one family to live in a single small apartment the Soviets also provided Universal education to Children even if it did include a healthy dose of communist indoctrination now in order to achieve this level of centralization the Soviet Union systematically removed civil liberties and individual rights of the population that ends now John created huge networks of secret police both in the Soviet Union proper and in the Soviet block is how you're going to be a ruthless non-accommodating dictator without a robust secret police can't do it can't do it anyway they were responsible for rooting out those who dissented from the Communist party's agenda and in order to make those threats stick the secret police were authorized to use violence and subversion to keep the populations in check but hey you know if anyone got a little grumpy about living in a planned economy where their rights were systematically suppressed they could just get up and move to the West right new immigration from the Soviet Union was severely restrictive and it's not hard to understand why communism is supposed to be the Fulfillment of all of Humanity's dreams and so if everyone is miserable and fleeing to the West yeah it's not the best PR anyway one of the best illustrations of the restriction on immigration was the construction of the Berlin Wall so many Eastern berliners were fleeing to the Democratic West Berlin where the economy and individual liberties flirt so Stalin went ahead and built a massive wall to prevent East berliners from fleeing to that filthy Democratic way now most of the policies I just mentioned remained in place until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. however after Stalin died things did get a little better under his successor Nikita khrushche in 1956 when Khrushchev came to power he publicly denounced Stalin for the authoritarian turd that he was and began a process of destalinization in the Soviet Union under these policies more freedom was granted to artists who under Stalin were forced to produce art that only glorified the Soviet Union Khrushchev released many of Stalin's political prisoners and scaled back the secret police he also implemented some economic policies that helped average Soviet citizens like a 40-hour work week and allowing for more freedom for people to choose their career now part of this destalinization program was to ease the heavy Soviet influence in the Soviet black State Khrushchev made it clear that more civil liberties would be tolerated in these satellite States and that some limited free trade would also be implemented and when the people of those countries heard this they were like oh heck yeah but unfortunately for Cruz Jeff the Soviet economy entered a severe recession from 1953 to 1964 and that meant that none of khrushchev's promised economic reforms became much of a reality so in some of the Soviet black Nations who you know initially got excited at the prospect of retreating Soviet influence as the economy began to flag they found it more and more difficult to tolerate Soviet policies of Oppression in their country and that led to some significant Revolt in the Soviet Bloc and I'll tell you about two first was the Hungarian Revolution that occurred in 1956 a reform-minded leader named imray Naj demanded that hungry have free and open elections unhindered by Soviet influence and more to the point Hungarian Independence now it's important to remember that Naj was himself a communist and never abandoned his ideals but by this point Soviet oppression and Hungary was so profound and stifling that nods along with thousands of protesters believe that this was the best way forward for hungary's future and so upon announcing that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact and seek the protection of the United Nations the Soviets sent troops to Budapest killing almost 3 000 and crushing the revolution as a result the Soviet grip on Hungary grew Tighter and more oppressed the second was the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and here another reformed-minded leader was elected you're still a communist just a reform-minded communist and he enacted many liberal reforms that were way outside the bounds of Soviet policy so as a result Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia stopped the reforms and strengthened the more oppressive wing of the Communist party there there are also peaceful revolutions that mainly occurred in 1989. the impetus for these Revolution came as a result of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's announcement and that year that the Soviet Union would no longer intervene militarily in the Soviet Bloc to support the Communist governments there and with those strictures removed Hungary for example instituted the Western economic reforms that have been trying to put in place since the revolution of 1956. however this time those reforms went unopposed by the Soviet Union so in 1990 hungarians elected a government committed to democracy and free market economics by 1991 Gorbachev's policies of glass nose and perestroika which introduced more openness and some limited free market economics into the Soviet Union ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union with the earlier Soviet oppression lifted many of the Soviet black States experienced a surge in nationalism and broke free ultimately completing the process of dismantling the Soviet Union all right click here to keep reviewing for unit 9 of AP European History click here to grab my AP Euro review pack which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May I catch you on the flip-flop I'm around