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Communism

Communism

Timeline

1934   Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.

1936   In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of Socialist and Communist parties.

1946   Hungarian Communists and Social Democrats co-found the Left Bloc.

1947   The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.

1947   Cold War: in an effort to fight the spread of Communism, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs an act into law that will later be called the Truman Doctrine. The act grants $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece, each battling an internal Communist movement.

1947   The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.

1947   The U.S. Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.

1948   Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia.

1948   Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.

1950   Second Red Scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.

1953   Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

1954   McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1955   Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1961   In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1966   Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.

1970   Vietnam War: In Paris, a Communist delegation rejects US President Richard Nixon's October 7 peace proposal as "a maneuver to deceive world opinion".

1972   Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s.

1975   Successful Communist coup in Laos.

1989   The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

1989   Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations.

1989   Cold War: Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. This key event led to the eventual reunification of East and West Germany.

1989   Cold War: Velvet Revolution begins: In Czechoslovakia, a student demonstration in Prague is quelled by riot police. This sparks an uprising aimed at overthrowing the communist government (it succeeds on December 29).

1989   After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu takes over as president of Romania, ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's Communist dictatorship.

1990   The first post-Communist presidential and parliamentary elections are held in Romania.