The Fall of Communism: Crash Course European History #47

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact had a huge impact on the countries of Eastern Europe. As the former satellite states turned away from communism and Soviet influence, some of them shifted toward democracy in an orderly way, and some descended into violence and bloodshed and ethnic recrimination. In many ways, this collapse is still playing out today. In this video you'll learn how countries like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and many others moved into the post-Soviet world.

Sources

-Alexievich, Svetlana. Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. An Oral History. Bella
Shayevich, trans. New York: Random House, 2017.
-Hsu, Roland, ed. Ethnic Europe: Mobility, Identity, and Conflict in a Globalized World. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
-James, Harold. Making of the European Monetary Union. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.
-Smith, Bonnie G. Europe in the Contemporary World, 1900 to the Present. 2nd ed. London:
Bloomsbury, 2020.

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[SK-ssrm]

One day, we will see Crash Course covering the Coronavirus.

[JaimeNyx]

That callout to Stan was a lot more heart-wrenching than I expected.

[Corporis]

The "I miss you Stan" got me good.

[DutchLabrat]

About the fishing.. The EU did not create the decline of the fish population. Marine biologists had warned against this for decades *and* fishermen were warned against making huge investments because there were hardly any fish left. Still they did and than used the EU as a scapegoat for the failure of their risky investments.
See also the milk lake, butter mountain, etc.... same story

[Dwumper]

This whole "cleptocratic event" cannot be understated. In the small eastern european city I live in most of the public assets like factories, mills, public buildings and such were all bought up by a small number of individuals. The most common tactic for achieving this was simply buying the shares workers received in their factory. They sold it for cheap because they had no idea what those were good for (remember, the whole idea of stock was new to them) and that they were desperate for money in the collapsing economy. The same thing happened everywhere, but entire industries were "stolen" this way.

[Trandul]

Politicians love blaming the EU for their own failings.

[jonathanfaber]

"Stupid disease, always placing yourself at the centre of human history"

[nehalmahmudkhan]

I expected a separate episode for the war in former Yugoslavia. It is important for everyone to be aware of that especially in times like these.

[mpbrainwave]

What a shame, a history channel and shows wrong maps - 05:56 - Crimea is in different than Ukraine color. What kind of a map are you using? Russian one? But why? Crimea is Ukraine and whole civilise world recognizes this, be civilize too please

[DaDunge]

9:10 And if they had kept fishing they would have depleted the supply and all fishermen would have gone out of business. Also as supply declined the price rose.

[BlueViper]

When he said, “I miss you Stan.”

I felt that

[Imthefake]

it feels so strange to have an episode of crash course history mention something that happened after i was born

[vathek]

Um, actually... the EC had an elected parliament from 1979 onwards; it wasn’t a new development when the EU was born as this video implies.

The other um, actually... is that this video seems to imply that passport controls are abolished across the common market, when in fact the Schengen Area does not cover all common market members (eg Ireland) but does cover some non common market members (eg Monaco).

Another thing that’s not a mistake but ought to be mentioned is that the EU divides up fishing quotas equitably between its members according to a formula that all have agreed to. It is then up to the members themselves to assign these quotas to individual companies and boats. Declining fishing communities is at least in part the fault of member states for failing to give their share to small fishermen rather than big fishing companies, rather than the Union whose primary goal is to reverse overfishing.

[LightZorel]

I really want more "Me from the Past"

[michaelleone]

I always wondered if these were all filmed at once and then periodically released. Or if they were released as they were made and finished.
But the pandemic has been raging for months and this is the first one that is not in the studio? It doesn’t make sense.

[elenas]

There’s not much about communism in this video.. and that’s the reason I clicked on it

[oktavia_kirana]

now that I school closes and I have more time to relax, i try to watch at least one Crash Course video every day just to make sure I'm not letting a day goes by without learning anything

[nataluwechka]

Excuse me but Crimea is Ukraine. Check your maps while preps video.

[tomtrask_YT]

7:02 - the point at which I realized the world wasn't going to open up over John's shoulder.

[matthewmcneany]

For those who didn't live through it I think it's difficult to express just how relentlessly optimistic the 1990s were for those living in the west. (Yugoslav wars aside).