Page 254 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V
P. 254
water 2031
Gutta cavat lapidem. [Dripping water
hollows out a stone.] • Ovid (43 bce–17 ce)
out in Hungary, the Soviets, without consulting their Holloway, D., & Sharp, J. M. O. (Eds.). (1984). The Warsaw Pact:
allies, crushed it with 200,000 troops. In 1968, when the Alliance in transition? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
The Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Retrieved Feb-
Czechoslovak government introduced reforms such as ruary 9, 2004, from www.isn.ethz.ch/php
greater freedom of the press, the Soviets reacted by occu- The Warsaw Pact. Retrieved February 9, 2004, from www.
fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1955warsawpact.html
pying Czechoslovakia withWarsaw Pact forces consisting
of twenty-three Soviet divisions supplemented by five east
European divisions and a small group from Bulgaria.This
preponderance of Soviet forces clearly demonstrated the
actual position of the east European allies in the organi- Water
zation,as well as the coercive nature of Communist rule in
general. In 1981, the Soviets were spared the difficult ater covers nearly 75 percent of the earth’s surface
choice of whether to use WTO forces to invade Poland, Wand is an integral component of every living
where the Solidarity movement was challenging the gov- being. Fresh water is essential for human survival; while
ernment, when the Polish leadership itself imposed mar- a person can live for weeks without food, one can only
tial law. These three crises, especially the last two, led to survive a few days without water.Throughout history, the
increasing disillusionment among the east European allies. location of available water has played an important role
The Romanians did not send any troops to help put down in human development and influenced settlement pat-
the Prague Spring in 1968 and shortly thereafter insisted terns and farming, social customs, religion, transporta-
that Soviet troops leave their country.Albania, which had tion, and power generation.
already become inactive, completely withdrew in 1968
also. During the 1980s, meetings of the Political Consul- Settlement
tative Committee,allegedly the highest organ of theWTO, The availability of fresh water for human and animal con-
often provided the increasingly restive east European allies sumption and crop irrigation has influenced human set-
a forum for voicing their views. tlement for many millennia. Even though water covers
In 1989 the sudden and unexpected collapse of Com- much of the earth’s surface, less than 2 percent of it is
munism in all the Warsaw Pact countries except the potable.While many different cultures learned to adapt to
Soviet Union quickly made the pact obsolete. When harsh or unforgiving environments, water from natural
East Germany joined the Federal Republic of Germany, springs,rivers,or rainfall was a necessity for survival.Dur-
the futility of maintaining the WTO became manifest. On ing the early history of humans, the availability of water
1 July 1991,Vaclav Havel, president of Czechoslovakia, played an important factor in the survival strategy prac-
declared the Warsaw Treaty Organization dissolved.The ticed by humans. Archaeologists have discovered habita-
fact that Havel was a former dissident lent a peculiar tion sites that date to the foraging (Paleolithic) era and
irony to the end of this not particularly effective alliance. indicate humans arranged their movement so they were
always relatively near a source of fresh water.This would
Gale Stokes
have provided them with water for sustenance and in
See also Eastern Europe; Russian-Soviet Empire many cases fish to eat. It also would have provided them
with an advantageous hunting spot by giving the hunters
an improved chance of catching animals as they visited the
Further Reading watering hole.AtWadi Kubbaniya in Egypt, for example,
Gati, C. (1990). The bloc that failed: Soviet-East European relations in archaeologists have found a series of sites dating to
transition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Holden, G. (1989). The Warsaw Pact: Soviet security and bloc politics. 17,000–15,000 BCE,which followed the river’s path as its
London: Blackwell. streambed moved across the landscape over the centuries.