However, the advantages clearly outweigh the criticisms. Under the EU: war is less likely because the countries are tied economically; EU restrictions benefit all the EU, not a single country; the EU currency is more stable, and favors trade; as a whole, the EU is a stronger economy than individual European countries; European can now move freely around the EU for jobs, tourism, or entertainment -- one community, one goal (McCormick, 2007)
This has resulted in a great deal of broad-based economic growth for some, and the creation of a wealthy upper class reminiscent of the old nomenkaltura elite of the Soviet Union. Thus, they haves have a lot -- the have nots very lettle, and, as some scholars comment, "if current trends continue, full-blown dictratorship in Russia is a very real possibility" (McFaul, 2004)
R., who had years of infighting, corrupt and inept governments, until finally many of the former republics were granted independence and Perestroika (Restructuring) finally realized (Media, 2007)
It did not matter that the device did nothing but emit a pulse and lasted less than a few weeks in space. The perception was that the Soviets had led the race into space, and were close to adding military capability to their satellites (Mitchell)
Despite some internal grumbling, this system was stable until 1998 when, in August, there was a collapse in confidence regarding the only partially reformed economic system. Ironically, this resulted in the Duma and majority giving power to former leading communists, Yevgeny Primakov and Yuri Maslyikov, a softer, but still dogmatic, form of communism (Ware, 1998)
push to establish democracy in Eastern Europe, where [it] never existed, seem[d] to be an attempt to reestablish the encirclement of unfriendly neighbors which was created after the last war and which might serve as a springboard of still another effort to destroy her (Iakolev). Add to this Truman's Secretary of State, Dean Acheson's view that Russia's motivation was continually aggressive (Whitman)
Case study: Katya As reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, the former republics of the Soviet Union and much of Eastern Europe are fertile sites of trafficking into EU nations. While still a young teenager, a Moldavian girl named 'Katya' and her friend were assaulted by an older man, "knocked unconscious, driven to Romania, blindfolded, taken across a river in an inflatable dinghy to somewhere in Hungary, dressed in dark clothes and made to walk through the forest across the border during the night, passing through Slovenia and arriving eventually in Italy" (Gentleman 2011)
3 million victims of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation worldwide at any given time. Forty-three percent are trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation," the majority of which are women and children (Hepburn & Simon 2010:2)
The fact that Katya came from Moldova is not entirely a surprise, given that it is one of the most fertile sources of sex workers of the republics of the former Soviet Union. In Moldova alone "since the fall of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution -- perhaps up to 10% of the female population" (Mendenhal 2013)
Trafficking from Eastern Europe Although all trafficking is horrific and inhumane as Katya's representative story indicates, it is important to note that trafficking from Eastern Europe has been particularly pervasive. "Trafficking from the region for sexual exploitation has become so common since the early 1990s that it is considered by experts as a distinct wave in the global sex trade" (Synovitz 2005)
In the United States, the economic decline over the past decade has been due to the cost of upkeep and expansion of infrastructural and government responsibilities outpacing capital growth at local, state, and federal levels. Consumer debt, faulty bookkeeping in investment firms, and a general overreliance on credit on individual and national levels (Evans-Pritchard 2007)
Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. His son, Alexander III was named the new tsar and had a reactionary leadership style, indicating that many of the problems that Russia had been going through, especially edging toward Revolution, were due to the destructive influence of the West (Gregory 2001)
The United States is only now beginning to feel the effects of becoming the first true post-industrial nation as the economy has become more service and information-based rather than industrial. China has become the industrial superpower and more and more postindustrial countries have outsourced manufacturing to countries where workers can be paid less and there is less governmental regulation (Kynge 2006)
The industrialization of the Soviet Union was not one fueled by consumer demands and was not focused upon the production of commodities. Stalin insisted upon the vital need for the Soviet Bloc to be self-sufficient and not take assistance from the West but to surpass the West in every possible domain as quickly as possible (Lenski 1978)
Through this process, over 5 million kulaks, who were the wealthier people of the former serf class, were forcibly deported to make room for the state and collective farms. Collective farming also resulted in a famine in Ukraine in 1932 that claimed millions of lives from starvation (McKenzie et al
Stalin wanted to make sure that Russia had equal armament to the West so that in the event of another war, Russia would not be humiliated once again. The first phase of industrialization was completed in 1932 and succeeded in the conversion of subsistence agricultural efforts into farming collectives, through the use of forced migration in many cases (Nove 1965)
With the massive international financial aid, Georgia can only provide its 5-million populations an average monthly income of less than $25, compared to $73 in Azerbaijan. Pensions and salaries are paid sporadically, retirees and refugees are struggling to survive on their $9 monthly allowances, and the country is regularly plunged into cold and darkness by seasonal energy shortages" (Rasizade 139)
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev says he expects the major oil and gas fields and pipelines to provide revenues of more than $150bn to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey by 2024. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has forecast that Azerbaijan's oil revenues alone will swell government coffers by $50bn" (Williams 44)
Thousands of East Berliners - and then hundreds of thousands - surged into West Berlin. The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of communism in East Germany and, by the end of the year, in all of East Europe (Edwards, 2009)
He writes, "Television's celebrations of the fall of the Wall represent, like the celebrations triggered by the revolutions in Eastern Europe, and in Czechoslovakia and Romania in particular, a unique mixture of live broadcasting transmitting 'raw slices' of revolution in the making, and a well-tailored staging of 'media events' epitomized by the two concerts, one rock and one classical, which were broadcast worldwide. This blend of the 'raw' and the 'cooked' intensified the drama of the unfolding events by exploiting the advantages of both genres (Loshitzky, 1997)