Imre Nagy was a moderate communist leader who tried to loosen the Soviet Communist hold in Hungary. Naturally the population and parliament tried to move closer to freedom and democracy. When the Soviets caught wind of this they dismissed Imre and sent in tanks to subdue the population. They installed a hard line Communist leader by the name of Janos Kadar.

The spirit of freedom that infected the population of Czechoslovakia during the 1960s.

The Soviets reserved the right to intervene in the affairs of any of the East European satellites if communism seemed threatened. The Eastern Block Satellites enjoyed a qualified sovereignty.

Better known as the Nationalists party in China. Thy Kuomintang became a political party in the first year of the Chinese republic (1912). The party participated in the first Chinese parliament, which was soon dissolved by a coup d'Jtat (1913). This defeat moved its leader, Sun Yat-sen, to organize it more tightly, first (1914) on the model of a Chinese secret society and, later (1923-24), under Soviet guidance, on that of the Bolshevik party. The Nationalist Party owed its early successes largely to Soviet aid and advice and to close collaboration with the Chinese communists (1924-27). After Sun Yat-sen's death in 1925, leadership of the party passed gradually to Chiang Kai-shek, who brought most of China under its control by ending or limiting regional warlord autonomy (1926-28). Nationalist rule, inseparable from Chiang's, became increasingly conservative and dictatorial but never totalitarian. The party program rested on Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and people's livelihood.

The communists organized in the 1920s and by 1927 they were in open rebellion against the Nationalists Party (Kuomintang). During the 1930s the Japanese invaded China. The Rebellion went on hold and the two fighting parties made an uneasy alliance until WWII ended.

This was the leader of the Communists in China. Mao never considered himself subordinate to the Soviet leaders. He projected himself as a new prophet of Marxism-Leninism, adapting the Arevolution@ to the engine of social change.

The Living Thoughts of Chairman Mao, were widely quoted and assiduously studied.

1946-1949 The Nationalists lost ground steadily after WWII. The United States gave large sums of money to bolster the Kuomintang but to no avail. What doctrine was invoked to accomplish this? The Nationalists seemed to lack the ability or will to resist. On the other hand, the Red Army, equipped with American supplies obtained through mass surrenders and sales by corrupt Kuomintang functionaries, moderated their propaganda to attack wide sections of the population and pressed forward. In short the Communists won the hearts and minds of the people. They routed the Kuomintang armies in the north and moving south, occupied the Nationalist capital at Nanking. By the autumn of 1949 Nationalist resistance ended on the Chinese mainland and Chiang withdrew his shattered forces to the island of Taiwan, where with American help he established a small but soon prospering Republic of China, which for the next twenty-two years held the permanent seat in the UN assigned to China.

Surprisingly, the Soviets were not that supportive of the Chinese. Mao took the Soviet Brand of Communism (Marxism) and changed it around his own personality. Soon Chinese Marxism became a Cult of Personality, and that personality was Mao.

This was a ruse for mass arrests and executions, forced labor, the liquidation of anti-Communist opponents, and internal party purges, styled Arectification@ drives. Mao later admitted that excesses had been committed in the early years of Chinese Communism.

Because in the differences in ideology of the two great Communist states, tensions developed. The two major Communists states were not only ideological rivals but disputed the lands of inner Asia in which Russia had expanded in the age of the Tsars. In 1960 the Chinese Communists and the Soviets were hurling polemics at each other; in 1968 they clashed in armed conflict over border territory that divided Manchuria and Russia=s maritime provinces, and continued to confront each other with large armies in these border areas.

In 1972 with the aid of secret missions by Henry Kissinger, President Nixon arranged a visit to China were he met Chairman Mao. It was the first time an American President was allowed into the country. The Soviets viewed this opening up of American-China relations as a threat, because their relations with China weren=t very good.

Old abuses like child marriage and concubinage were outlawed. More profoundly than the Russian, the Chinese Revolution was refashioning the habits and ethos of a gigantic population, reaching remote villages and hamlets untouched for centuries.

In 1966 progress was seriously set back due to a period of great turmoil known as the Cultural Revolution.

War broke out in 1950. The Soviet-sponsored regime of North Korea crossed the border along the 38th parallel and launched an invasion of the Western supported republic in the South.

During the Second World War, the Western powers and the Soviets had agreed that Korea, once a source of imperialist contentions between Japan and Russia, and after 1910 under Japanese rule, would again become free and independent. At the war=s end Soviet troops by arrangement occupied the Northern part of the country to the 38th parallel, and the United States troops the Southern part. The USSR established a satellite government under a Moscow-trained Communist leader, supported a large North Korean army, and rejected an American proposal to hold elections in a unified Korea under international supervision.

Elections in South Korea in 1948 resulted in the Presidency of Syngman Rhee, who despite democratic forms governed the republic dictatorially for the next twelve years. After the election the United States withdrew its occupation forces but continued military and economic support to South Korea. By the same token, the Soviets left North Korea but continued financial and military aid.

Although the American government had not explicitly included Korea, as it had Japan and the Philippines, in the perimeter of defined as vital to the defense of American Interests in Asia, President Truman was resolved to check the invasion when it occurred. He was convinced that it was incited by the Soviet Union as part of the Soviet world-wide offensive, a further stage in the Cold War in which communism had passed from subversion to armed aggression.

Douglas MacArthur was the General of the United Nations forces that were mainly U.S.. The troops were held back at first but then made progress. Then in a bold move the US troops crossed the 38th parellel and headed toward the Yalu river. By November 1950 the Chinese joined the war. 600,000 troops forced the UN forces back. In the following months the UN forces fought their way back to the 38th parallel. The stalemate led to a cease-fire in 1951. It took two years to exchange prisoners and finish the treaty. American casualties were 54,000 dead 100,000 wounded. The Koreans lost 2 million.

Meanwhile, MacArthur was demanding the authority to blockade China's coastline and bomb its Manchurian bases. Truman refused, feeling that such a course would bring the Soviet Union into the war and thus lead to a global conflict. In response, MacArthur appealed over Truman's head directly to the American public in an effort to enlist support for his war aims.

April 11 1951, President Harry S. Truman relieved MacArthur of his commands because of the general's insubordination and unwillingness to conduct a limited war. He was replaced by General Matthew B. Ridgway. Returning to the United States for the first time since before World War II, MacArthur at first received widespread popular support; the excitement waned after a publicized Senate investigation of his dismissal.