What factors have contributed to the collapse of successive regimes in Central and Eastern Europe?

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Chris Randall

“What factors have contributed to the collapse of successive regimes in Central and Eastern Europe”?

From 1900 to 1992, Central and Eastern Europe has seen the rise and fall of empires, suffered under dictatorships and lived under the influence of Soviet Russia in the Eastern Bloc. Within this time countries have been formed and broken up, mainly due to the world wars and civil wars. I will look at the changes and the factors that caused them over this time period.

In 1900 some of the main powers in Europe lay within the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires. Both were made up of a vast amount of different countries, which is one of the factors that contributed to later collapse of these empires. Due to the vast ethnic diversity, there were often conflicts between races over land and their different religions. There were also language barriers making it difficult for only one ruler to control the empire.

The autocracy of these countries may have also caused problems with riots such as what was happening around that time within Russia.

As time went on another problem started emerge. In both empires the rulers often were in power for years, running in the family. This was especially notable in the Austro-Hungarian Empire with their leader Franz Josef who became emperor of Austria at the age of 18 in 1848, ruled up until 1916, at the age of 86. With leaders becoming older their grip and power over the empire became weaker and less forceful. They were unable to control and unite the different countries and with religious conflicts, language barriers and different needs added on to this, the leaders were just unable to cope.

With the outbreak of World War One the fate of these empires seemed to be set. The expense of the war in terms of resources, time and men made these countries weaker than before with cracks in both empires beginning to show. When the end came in 1918, Austro-Hungary's leader Franz Josef had been dead for 2 years and it was difficult for the new emperor to revive the country as it had little industry and that was becoming stagnant.

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The Treaty Of Versailles was the deciding factor in the break up of the empires even though the Ottoman Empire had seemed to have already crumbled and broken up by itself. The treaty and World War One can be seen as the first major factors which contributed to the collapse of a regime.

With the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires dissolved and divided, new countries were formed from the remainders of the empire. New countries such as Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland and Hungary were all given the chance to form their own governments and start afresh. Yet they suffered many of ...

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