|
Society For German–Soviet Friendship
The Society for German–Soviet Friendship (in German, ''Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft/DSF'') was an East German organization set up to encourage closer co-operation between the German Democratic Republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was founded from the Society for the Studies of Soviet Culture to teach about Russian culture to Germans unfamiliar with it. It quickly turned into a propaganda tool and eventually changed its name. Due to the immense popularity of Mikhail Gorbachev with ordinary East Germans disillusioned with their own hardline Communist leaders, the DSF's membership grew massively in the last years of the regime which many interpret as a sign of support of Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika by the East German people. In 1989 there were 6.3 million members.Dirk Jurich, ''Staatssozialismus und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: eine empirische Studie'', p.32. LIT Verlag Münster, 2006, Following the disbanding of the Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially German reunification, reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin. Overview With the London Protocol (1944), London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glasnost
''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, and so on. It has been used in Russian to mean "openness and transparency" since at least the end of the 18th century. In the Russian Empire of the late-19th century, the term was particularly associated with reforms of the judicial system. Among these were reforms permitting attendance of the press and the public at trials whose verdicts were now to be read aloud. Vladimir Lenin repeatedly emphasized the importance of glasnost as the most important feature of democracy. In the mid-1980s, it was popularised by Mikhail Gorbachev as a political slogan for increased government transparency (behavior), transparency in the Soviet Union. Historical usage Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva argues that the word ''glasnost'' has been in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
