Mikhail Bakhtin

Ronald Reagan has been known for ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Cold War was still going since WWII. Reagan wanted to reverse the policy of detente and finally stand up against the Soviet Union. Giving aid to the rebellions, he was hoping to quickly reverse what the Soviet Union was doing. Ronald Reagan wanted to give aid and make a legacy for himself. However, he did not believe in military force. He, in fact, wanted to deal with the Soviet Union peacefully. With many options…

The Soviet-Afghan War began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 24, 1979, and ended with the withdrawal of Soviet forces on February 15, 1989. It was a war that had a global impact and indirectly led to the fall of the USSR. Afghanistan in the 50s and 60s, was a country that was beginning to modernize and industrialize with the help of both the Soviet Union and the United States. As animosity grew between the two world superpowers, the U.S. quickly created military ties with the…

the desire to humiliate and hurt Grushnitsky seemed to be his only motive throughout the entire chapter. He thinks of himself as a fatalist and views hope as an unnecessary part of life. As before, fate has “chosen” Pechorin to be the way he is. Mikhail Lermontov often alludes to the fact that society has molded Pechorin’s behavior; that the vices of Pechorin are the vices of the society. While that may have some merit in explaining how his behavior continues for so long, Pechorin takes…

program was being funded and developed. Though many of the components of the initiative were too advanced for the time, Gorbachev was still nervously skeptical of the program’s unreliability saying, “What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars” (Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes). Gorbachev’s political democratization efforts coupled with his fear of the United States’ capabilities, defensively and otherwise, ultimately precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. After the end of the Cold…

Stubborn, headstrong, adamant and rigid, all synonyms for one term: Wooden- headedness. This phenomenon shows up multiple times throughout human history and has single handedly changed the world in many ways. Wooden-headedness is something that affects all factors of life, and in historian Barbara Tuchman’s piece March of Folly she correctly identifies its prevalence in human actions and decisions. America during the 50s was an era of wooden-headedness. This was a time when communists were…

Caleb Gonzales Professor Marks US Government 2305 8 December 2015 Strategic Defense Initiative Long time ago in a galaxy not to far away, President Ronald Reagan initiated the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, as coined by critics. The initiative was formed on the 23rd of March in the year of 1983. The initiative was proposed at the time as a U.S. strategic defense system against Soviet Union Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, by intercepting the missiles or warheads at…

towards the progression of freedom was given. It took place in west Berlin when former president Ronald Reagan made his famous “Tear Down This Wall” speech. The speech, though not hostile, was a speech directed towards the leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. Reagan wanted freedom and good to prosper in a country in which it was not allowed. Thus the message of his speech was that even in the worst of situations freedom and equality will continue to push through until they prosper. This…

When the Soviet Union officially dissolved in December, 1991, many Westerners, Soviet dissidents, and Russian citizens believed that the feared Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB) would be dismantled forever. Russian and Western observers viewed the toppling of the “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky statue in August 1991 as the symbolic end of the era of Soviet political police repression. Subsequently, Gorbachev appointed Vadim Bakatin to reform the KGB. But what constituted reform? In December…

Reagan, Bush and Gorbachev Gorbachev’s new thinking and desire to reform the international perception of the Soviet Union, saw the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States hold the first summit conference in six years in the summer of 1985. Signalling Gorbachev’s desire to ease relations and in turn reduce the economic burden of the longstanding arms race, President Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva. Although the meeting was not fruitful it saw the leaders agree to meet again in the…

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the 80’s he made sweeping reforms in the KGB. As a result the KGB became less aggressive towards political dissidents and curtailed its struggle against foreign countries. In august 1991, KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov led a failed coup against the government. It was the beginning of the end for KGB. This event and revelations about other activities, including the infiltration of Russian Orthodox Church, created popular demand for the reformation of KGB.…