10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. All children will have a free education and will not be allowed to work in factories. As people are educated, they also how to make necessities. Education is free, and people learn how to meet everyone’s basic needs while in school. Which of these measures might have appealed to Eastern Europeans after World War II? Why? Answers will vary. Which of these measures might people have been unsure about? Why? Answers will vary. Source: Karl Marx, et. al. The Communist Manifesto. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1848. Understanding Communist Propaganda Context: Translation: What the October Revolution has given to women and working peasants. on the buildings: Library, worker’s club, a school for adults, and ‘a house for mother and child.’ The final stage of the Russian Revolution occurred in October of 1917, sometimes called “Red October.” The Bolsheviks (the communist party), led by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, and others, overthrew the provisional government of Russia. They established what would eventually become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union. As a communist state, the government of the Soviet Union expressed a commitment to workers’ rights, peace, and equality. Source: What the October Revolution has given – 1920. N.p., n.d. Gosizdat, Moscow. The Chairman Smiles Collection (Soviet Posters), International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam). DESCRIPTION OF SOURCE What do you see? MEANING What is the purpose of the images/text?
Regional Responses to Communism Wladyslaw Gomulka, a communist leader, speaks to the people of Warsaw, Poland in 1956. Source: Wieslaw Wladyka, Dzieje PRL. Pazdziernik 56, (Warsaw,1994), p. 73. A man spits on decapitated head of Stalin’s statue in Hungary, 1956. Source: "Hungary 1956 - Reading Guide." Hungary 1956 - Reading Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2015. A man protests in front of Soviet tank in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1968. Source: Ladislav Bielik, printed in Context: Polish October (1956) and Hungarian Uprising (1956). Both the Polish and Hungarian uprisings must be understood in relation to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” in 1956, which opened the gates for Eastern European countries to make reforms to communism. In 1956, workers in Poznan, a city in eastern Poland, protested shortages of food and consumer goods, bad housing, a decline in real income, trade relations with the Soviet Union and poor management of the economy. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 began as student protests against the leadership regime but ended in a nationwide actions calling for reforms of the system and a withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Hungarian Revolution (as opposed to the Polish October) ended violently with Soviet tanks in the streets, street fighting, and the execution of the Hungarian revolutionary leader, Imre Nagy. Context: Prague Spring (1968) The Prague Spring united students and workers in calling for reforms within the communist In early 1968, Alexander Dubcek assumed leadership of the communist party and pressed for specific reforms, such as ending censorship laws. Warsaw Pact forces invaded Prague in 1968 because the censorship reforms demanded too much change. The Brezhnev Doctrine, articulated by Soviet leaders, made it clear that the USSR would violently repress reforms in the Eastern Bloc if they strayed too far from Soviet doctrine.
Ideally, communism is a system where there is no private property, workers have rights and equality, and everyone works for the common good. Kovaly was attracted to communism because it offered hope and solutions to war-torn Czechoslovakia. Khrushchev argues that Stalin did not listen to the will of the people, and was only focused on his own power. This weakened the communist government in the Soviet Union. Eastern Europeans expressed their discontent with the communist system through the 1956 uprisings in Poland and Hungary, and the Prague Spring in 1968.