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The fall of communism in the ussr
The fall of communism in the ussr
Communism and its effects
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THESIS STATEMENT
Both the words and actions of Pope John Paul II were crucial to the downfall of communism in Germany as well as his native Poland.
PURPOSE STATEMENT
This paper will discuss Pope John Paul II’s role in the fall of communism in Germany and his native Poland through in depth research and an analysis of biographical research.
INTRODUCTION
Even as a child, people knew that Karol Wojtyla was destined for greatness. Even his mother bragged to all her neighbors that her newborn son would grow into a great man. And that he did.
He served as pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, a period of over twenty-six years. He was the youngest pope of the Twentieth Century as well, elected at the age of fifty-eight. However, the most striking aspect of his election was that he was Polish – the first non-Italian pope since the Fifteenth Century! He was a remarkable man, who “with bold religious zeal and diplomatic shrewdness…forced open doors” (Accattoli et al 45). He forced people to seriously think about their lives. About morality, conscience, religion. He attacked communism will every ounce of his will and helped to bring down the Berlin wall. He “demonstrated in action that Christian conviction can be the agent of human liberation” (Weigel 847). It’s almost impossible to believe that such a famous man had such humble beginnings.
Born in Wadowice, Poland on May 20th, 1920, Karol Wojtyla grew up in an environment of communism and depression. His mother was sickly and died at a young age, leaving him and his father alone, as his older brother Edmund was away at school. Many times Karol, or “Lolek,” as he was called by those dear to him, would enter his father’s bedroom late at night and see him knelt on the floor ...
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...e like Pope John Paul II in their lifetime. Someone intelligent, virtuous, courageous, and, for lack of better words, miraculous. A man who could look at the political situation with optimism and say “’Even Communists are people, and people change’” (Accattoli et al 52).
Undoubtedly, without the inspiring speeches, actions, and overall presence of Pope John Paul II, the communist regimes in Germany and Poland would have never met their downfall. “One of Communism’s basic tenets is that reality shapes one’s consciousness. But consciousness also shapes reality, and the pope’s visions electrified the consciousness of the masses” (Accattoli et al 49).
Both the actions and words of Pope John Paul II were crucial to the downfall of communism in Germany and his native Poland. Without his courage in the face of adversity, Europe today would be completely different.
Furthermore, the renewal and rejuvenation of the Catholic Church makes Pope John a major reformer of the 20th century and a significantly large influencer during his time. He made universal and worldwide impacts to religious adherents by reforming and revitalizing the Christian traditions through achieving ressourcement, aggiornamento. In addition, his passion for unity amongst Christian faiths and interfaith dialogue, world peace and economic justice also furthered his impact not only within the Catholic Church but also in other Christian denominations. Moreover, in the short time of Pope John’s authority and power within the Catholic Church, the contributions and achievements he made had a substantially large impact to the Christian traditions as he brought the Catholic Church into the modern era,
During the 20th century, the rise of communism sparked rage in people throughout the world. More towards the end of the 1900's the fall of communism and dictatorships was just the beginning of what would eventually be a large democratic change for several countries. 1989: Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War's End, speaks about the change brought to several different countries from the 1980's-1990's and plans to show "the global transformations that marked the end of the cold war and shaped the era in which we live"(Pg V). During the cold war, communist had power and control over a large area and spread communism throughout several continents. This book specifically hits on six different studies of where communism and dictatorship affected these areas and what they did to stop it. Poland, Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine, and China throughout the end of the 20th century created revolutionary movements which brought them all one step closer to freeing themselves and creating democratic change.
During World War I Avrom Sutzkever spent most of his early childhood in Siberia where he and his parents took refuge from German armies. His father died in Siberia and his mother then moved the family back to Avrom’s birthtown in nineteen twenty-one, three years after World War I had ended. Following the war Avrom attended a local Polish Jewish high school, attended university classes in Polish literature, and was...
He is exemplifying what it takes to be a virtuous person and if we follow these types of beliefs then the world we live in would be a much safer, and happier place. From this speech, I learned that when the Pope speaks about morality that his words are, in fact, infallible. Everything he said was unarguably the truth.
In the fall of 1989, people all around the world were watching unbelievable scenes on their televisions. Thousands of people in eastern Europe were meeting in the streets and squares and demanding the end of the communist rule. For the first time in history, opposition to communism was publicly voiced. Barbed wire border fences in Hungary are being torn down. East Germans fleeing to the West.
In Under a Cruel Star, Heda Margolious Kovaly details the attractiveness and terror of Communism brought to Czechoslovakia following WWII. Kovaly’s accounts of how communism impacted Czechoslovakia are fascinating because they are accounts of a woman who was skeptical, but also seemed hopeful for communism’s success. Kovaly was not entirely pro-communism, nor was she entirely anti-communism during the Party’s takeover. By telling her accounts of being trapped in the Lodz Ghetto and the torture she faced in Auschwitz, Kovaly displays her terror experienced with a fascist regime and her need for change. Kovaly said that the people of Czechoslovakia welcomed communism because it provided them with the chance to make up for the passivity they had let occur during the German occupation.
the pope was questionable and many times overlooked. But once he took on the title of
“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” Said by St. Pope John Paul II during one of his World Youth Day homilies this quote perfectly represents the man that St. Pope John Paul II was: a bold, forgiving, selfless, and loving man. Born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, John Paul II suffered a number of tragedies in the early years of his life. By the age of the twenty he lost all of his immediate family, and he credits the death of his father as the point in his life when he heard the call to live a life of religious vocation. In 1939, about one year after John Paul enrolled in The Krawkow Jaggelonian University, the Nazis closed the school and to avoid deportation to Germany all able men had to work.
to assume the role of dictator. This was a phenomenon which was to become a
This essay will concentrate on the comparison and analysis of two communist figures: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Party in China, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. The main focus of this paper will be to explore each figure’s world view in depth and then compare and contrast by showing their differences and similarities.
...sition to reform as Pope Paul III, but again the changes he wished to implement during his papal reign were not entirely popular. Pope Paul III and Pope Julius III had a less forceful nature then Caraffa, so when he was provided with the role of Pope, he did not hesitate to take action upon the issue of debasement and dissent which he had been intolerant of for so many years, but had not capabilities to act against.
There were many events that lead up to the Bolshevik Revolution. First off, in 1848, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels published a thought-provoking book. The Communist Manifesto expressed their support of a world in which there was no difference in class. A world in which the workers and commoners ran the show and there was no high and supreme ruler. Many intellectual Russians began to become aware of this pamphlet as well as the advanced state of the world compared to Russia. Other countries were going through an industrial revolution, while the Czars had made it clear that no industrial surge was about to happen in Russia. The popularity of the Czars further went down hill as Nicolas II’s poor military and political decisions caused mass losses in World War I. Eventually, the citizens could take no more and began a riot in St. Petersburg that led to the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
Pobóg-Malinowski Władysław, Najnowsza Historia Polityczna Polski Okres 1939-1945 [Recent Political History of Poland Period 1939-1945] Gdansk: Graf, 1990.
This book left me with a deeper sense of the horrors experienced by the Polish people, especially the Jews and the gypsies, at the hands of the Germans, while illustrating the combination of hope and incredible resilience that kept them going.
Janos, Andrew C. “What was Communism: A Retrospective in Comparative Analysis.” Communist and Post- Communist Studies Volume 29 (1996): 1-24. Print.