LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Soviet Union: Eastern Europe
built 277 days ago
As for efforts to gain the release of the remaining political prisoners in the Soviet Union, the administration has fallen down on the job. This is particularly disappointing in view of the enormous successes of the past three years, during which the U.S. used various fora to gain the release of hundreds of political prisoners. In 1988, the U.S. delegation to the Vienna session of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe ("CSCE") worked hard to obtain release of remaining political prisoners and refuseniks before a concluding document was signed. But with the end of the Reagan administration, there was pressure to end the conference. It was feared that substantial Soviet concessions would evaporate if the conference was dragged on during a transition between U.S. administrations. As a result, the Vienna Concluding Document was signed in January 1989 -- timing that now seems premature.
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During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. The Soviet Union aided postwar reconstruction in Eastern Europe while turning them into Soviet satellite states, set up the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, supplied aid to the eventually victorious Communists in the People's Republic of China, and saw its influence grow elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, the rising tension of the Cold War turned the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, into foes.
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The OMRI Daily Digest offers the latest news from the former Soviet Union and East-Central and Southeastern Europe. It is published Monday through Friday by the Open Media Research Institute. The Daily Digest is distributed electronically via the OMRI-L list. To subscribe, send"SUBSCRIBE OMRI-L YourFirstName YourLastName" (without the quotation marks and inserting your name where shown) to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. No subject line or other text should be included. To receive the OMRI Daily Digest by mail or fax, please direct inquiries to OMRI Publications, Na Strzi 63, 140 62 Prague 4, Czech Republic; or electronically to omripub@omri.cz.
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Although Stalin tried to avert war with Germany by concluding the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939, in 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Red Army stopped the Nazi offensive at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945 (see Great Patriotic War). Although ravaged by the war, the Soviet Union emerged from the conflict as an acknowledged great power.
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Postwar American-Soviet relations saw the start of the cold war, as the Soviet Union extended its control over the Eastern Bloc. The Cuban missile crisis was provoked by the buildup of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
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"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
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