Whistle Stopper - People Power: The End of Soviet-Style Communism

List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $16.49
Your Save: $ 3.46 ( 17% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Wgbh Boston
Starring: People's Century

Average Customer Rating:

Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0783421279834
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Wgbh Boston
Manufacturer: Wgbh Boston
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Wgbh Boston
Release Date: 2000-03-28
Running Time: 60
Studio: Wgbh Boston

Related Items
People's Century: Total War 1939-1947 Great Leap: Communism in China People's Century: Killing Fields 1914-1919 On the Line - Mass Production Creates Mass Consumption People's Century: Red Flag - Communism in Russia

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Communism's Shiva : The "People"
Comment: While every history lesson is of course incomplete, this video touches the hard-to-reach personal side to the end of Soviet-style communism. Through interviews with people who were instrumental in the process, it gives the viewer a sense of what was going on for "the people" in Eastern Europe at the time. The whole story is well put-together and has no appreciable editorial slant. Communism was torn down by the hands of the same people who built it up; this video will help you understand why. In addition, it's extremely enjoyable! One of PBS's best.

Customer Rating:

Summary: An Incomplete History Lesson
Comment: I purchased this video more as a history lesson for my children. I enjoyed most of the video, especially the video footage from inside the eastern block countries. However, I was disappointed that there was not one mention of the underlying cause for the crumbling of the Soviet Empire. There was little mention of the failure of the communist system of government. Most of the failure was attributed merely to economic conditions. The video did not mention the western military build-up which was responsible for pushing the Soviet Union to the brink of destruction. There was not one mention of Ronald Reagan and the policies which he enacted that were responsible for bringing Gorbechev to the negotiating table. There was little or no mention of the moral failings of the communist system which left the people in fear and dispair. It was as if all of this occurred in a vacuum. This is a typical PBS production which cannot bring itself to give credit to conservative policies and therefore does not give a full accounting of history.

More Reviews

Editorial Reviews:

"I just felt as though [the border guard] was an obstacle that wouldn't let me through. And I thought never again will someone stand in front of me and say, 'You can't go through here.'" - Barbel Reinke, East Germany. In 1991, the Communist Party lost control of the Soviet Union, the culmination of a process that had started in 1980 in the Polish shipyards: Ten million eventually joined Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement and signaled the beginning of the end for Soviet-style communism.

In People Power, eyewitnesses tell the story of how the Communist system that dominated post-war Eastern Europe collapsed as they remember the extraordinary weeks that preceded and followed the fall of the Berlin Wall; Poland's fight for solidarity; Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution;" the struggle for power in the Soviet Union, and more.

The people remember: 1980 Gdansk, the role of the Church, Solidarity movement, martial law in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Berlin Wall, Romania, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the dissolution of the Soviet Union.