Word: blocs
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...keeping the peace for the past 48 years will open its doors to former adversaries. Some will be invited to join as full members soon; others will be encouraged to do so later; and representatives of all the emerging democracies in what used to make up the Soviet bloc will intensify their cooperation with NATO on a range of common concerns, from arms control to regional crisis management...
There's one simple explanation for the triumph of capitalism over Soviet communism: we had Astaire and Marilyn; all they had were boy-loves-tractor pictures. As the battle of the ideologies was fought on movie screens around the world, the edifying drabness of Soviet-bloc films couldn't compete with America's glamorous, sexy, lilting pop culture. As Dana Ranga, director of the terrific documentary East Side Story, puts it, "A specter was haunting communism: the specter of Hollywood...
...joke. Many Commusicals were censored for having a decadent Westernized tone. As an officious official bellows to a young dancer in Carnival Night (U.S.S.R., 1957), "We want to raise the consciousness of our workers. But what do you expect to raise with naked legs?" Only about 40 Soviet-bloc musicals were made in 40 years, from The Jolly Fellows to the glossy, ginchy No Cheating, Darling (G.D.R., 1973). Yet these films brought vigorous fun to an audience starved for it. Their makers deserved to be named Heroes of the Soviet People...
...political life. The new Parliament is more regionally Balkanized than at any other time in the country's 130-year history. The Reform Party nearly swept the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia but failed to pick up a single seat east of the Prairies. In Quebec the separatist Bloc Quebecois took a majority of the 75 seats in its home province. And even Chretien's Liberals depended for two-thirds of its majority on a single province, Ontario. The new fault lines could not come at a worse time. Quebec separatist leaders have sworn to hold a referendum...
...made Liberal solution to such nagging problems as Qu?bec separatism, growing unemployment and a sagging national health care system. Taking up the position of chief opposition party is the Alberta-based Reform Party, whose right-wing, populist agenda dominated in the West. That was enough to push the separatist Bloc Qu?becois, the Reform Party's diehard foe, into the number two government heckler slot, further muddying the chances for a national referendum on Qu?bec independence. The Liberals now face a House of Commons sharply divided along regional lines, with two smaller opposition parties, the right-wing Progressive Conservatives...