HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

Origins

Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States resumed following the conclusion of the Second World War in August 1945. As the war came to a close, the Soviets laid claim to much of Eastern Europe and the Northern half of Korea. They also attempted to occupy the Japanese northernmost island of Hokkaido and lent logistic and military support to Mao Zedong in his efforts to overthrow the Chinese Nationalist forces.

Tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western powers escalated between 1945 and 1947, especially when in Potsdam, Yalta, and Tehran, Stalin's plans to consolidate Soviet control of Central and Eastern Europe became manifestly clear. On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his landmark speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, lamenting that an "iron curtain" had descended on Eastern Europe.

Historians interpret the Soviet Union's Cold War intentions in two different manners. One emphasizes the primacy of communist ideology and communism's foundational intent, as outlined in the Communist Manifesto, to establish global hegemony. The other interpretation, advocated notably by Richard M. Nixon, emphasized the historical goals of the Russian state, specifically hegemony over Eastern Europe, access to warm water seaports, the defense of other Slavic peoples, and the view of Russia as "the Third Rome."

The roots of the ideological clashes can be seen in Marx's and Engels' writings and in the writings of Vladimir Lenin, who succeeded in building communism into a political reality through the Bolshevik seizure of power in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Walter LaFeber stresses Russia's historical interests, going back to the Czarist years when the United States and Russia became rivals. From 1933 to 1939, the United States and the Soviet Union experienced détente, but relations were not friendly.

After the USSR and Germany became enemies in 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a personal commitment to help the Soviets. However, the U. S. Congress never voted to approve any sort of alliance, and the wartime cooperation was never especially friendly. For example, Josef Stalin was reluctant to allow American forces to use Soviet bases. Cooperation became increasingly strained by February 1945 at the Yalta Conference, as it was becoming clear that Stalin intended to spread communism to Eastern Europe – and then, perhaps – to France and Italy.

Some historians, such as William Appleman Williams, also cite American economic expansionism as one of the roots of the Cold War. These historians use the Marshall Plan and its terms and conditions as evidence to back up their claims.

These geopolitical and ideological rivalries were accompanied by a third factor that had just emerged from World War II as a new problem in world affairs: the problem of effective international control of nuclear energy. In 1946, the Soviet Union rejected a United States proposal for such control, which had been formulated by Bernard Baruch on the basis of an earlier report authored by Dean Acheson and David Lilienthal, with the objection that such an agreement would undermine the principle of national sovereignty. The end of the Cold War did not resolve the problem of international control of nuclear energy, and it has re-emerged as a factor in the beginning of the Long War (or the war on global terror) declared by the United States in 2006 as its official military doctrine.

Global Realignments

This period began the Cold War in 1947. It continued until the change in leadership for both superpowers in 1953 – from President Harry S. Truman to Dwight D. Eisenhower in the United States and from Josef Stalin to Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union.

Notable events include the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift, the Soviet Union's detonation of its first atomic bomb, the formation of NATO in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955, the formation of East and West Germany, the Stalin Note for German reunification of 1952 superpower disengagement from Central Europe, the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War.

The American Marshall Plan intended to rebuild the European economy after the devastation incurred by the Second World War in order to thwart the political appeal of the radical left. For Western Europe, economic aid ended the dollar shortage, stimulated private investment for postwar reconstruction, and, most importantly, introduced new managerial techniques.

For the United States, the plan rejected the isolationism of the 1920s and integrated the North American and Western European economies. The Truman Doctrine refers to the decision to support Greece and Turkey in the event of Soviet incursion, following notice from Britain that she was no longer able to aid Greece in its civil war against communist activists. The Berlin blockade took place between June 1948 and July 1949, when the Soviets, in an effort to obtain more post-World War II concessions, prevented overland access to the allied zones in Berlin. Thus, personnel and supplies were lifted in by air. The Stalin Note was a plan for the reunification of Germany on the condition that it became a neutral state and that all Western troops be withdrawn.

Escalation and Crisis

Two opposing geopolitical blocs had developed by 1959 as a result of the Cold War; consult the legend on the map for more details

A period of escalation and crisis existed between the change in leadership for both superpowers from 1953 – with Josef Stalin’s sudden death and the American presidential election of 1952 – until the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Events included the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the Prague Spring in 1968. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in particular, the world was closest to a third (nuclear) world war. The Prague Spring was a brief period of hope when the government of Alexander Dubček (1921–1992) started a process of liberalization, which ended abruptly when the Russian Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia.

Thaw and Détente, 1962-1979

The Détente period of the Cold War was marked by mediation and comparative peace. At its most reconciliatory, German Chancellor Willy Brandt forwarded the foreign policy of Ostpolitik during his tenure in the Federal Republic of Germany. Translated literally as "eastern politics," Egon Bahr, its architect and advisor to Brandt, framed this policy as "change through rapprochement."

These initiatives led to the Warsaw Treaty between Poland and West Germany on December 7, 1970; the Quadripartite or Four-Powers Agreement between the Soviet Union, United States, France, and Great Britain on September 3, 1971; and a few east-west German agreements, including the Basic Treaty of December 21, 1972.

Limitations to reconciliation did exist, evidenced by the deposition of Walter Ulbricht by Erich Honecker as East German General Secretary on May 3, 1971.

Second Cold War

The diversified state of the Cold War relations in 1980; consult the legend on the map for more details

The period between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985 was characterized by a marked "freeze" in relations between the superpowers after the "thaw" of the Détente period of the 1970s. As a result of this intensification, the period is sometimes referred to as the "Second Cold War."

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 in support of an embryonic communist regime in that country led to international outcries and the widespread boycotting of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games by many Western countries in protest of Soviet actions. The Soviet invasion led to a protracted conflict, which involved Pakistan – an erstwhile U.S. ally – in locking horns with the Soviet military might for over 12 years.

Worried by Soviet deployment of nuclear SS-20 missiles (commenced in 1977), NATO allies agreed in 1979 to continue Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to constrain the number of nuclear missiles for battlefield targets while threatening to deploy some five hundred cruise missiles and MGM-31 Pershing II missiles in West Germany and the Netherlands if negotiations were unsuccessful. The negotiations failed, as expected. The planned deployment of the Pershing II met intense and widespread opposition from public opinion across Europe, which became the site of the largest demonstrations ever seen in several countries. Pershing II missiles were deployed in Europe beginning in January 1984 and were withdrawn beginning in October 1988.

The "new conservatives" or "neoconservatives" rebelled against both the Richard Nixon-era policies and the similar position of Jimmy Carter toward the Soviet Union. Many clustered around hawkish Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat, and pressured President Carter into a more confrontational stance. Eventually, they aligned themselves with Ronald Reagan and the conservative wing of the Republicans, who promised to end Soviet expansionism.

The elections, first of Margaret Thatcher as British prime minister in 1979, followed by that of Ronald Reagan to the American presidency in 1980, saw the elevation of two hard-line warriors to the leadership of the Western Bloc.

Other events included the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Solidarity Movement in Poland.

"End" of the Cold War

Changes in borders in Europe and Central Asia with the end of the Cold War; some 23 new countries were formed in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise.

This period began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader in 1985 and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Events included the Chornobyl accident in 1986 and the Autumn of Nations – when, one by one, communist regimes collapsed. This includes the famous fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989), the Soviet coup attempt in 1991, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Other noteworthy events include the implementation of the policies of glasnost and perestroika, public discontent over the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan, and the socio-political effects of the Chornobyl nuclear plant accident in 1986. East-West tensions eased rapidly after the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev. After the deaths of three elderly Soviet leaders in quick succession, beginning with Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, the Politburo elected Gorbachev Soviet Communist Party chief in 1985, marking the rise of a new generation of leadership. Under Gorbachev, relatively young reform-oriented technocrats rapidly consolidated power, providing new momentum for political and economic liberalization and the impetus for cultivating warmer relations and trade with the West.

Meanwhile, in his second term, Ronald Reagan surprised the neoconservatives by meeting with Gorbachev in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1985 and Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1986. The latter meeting focused on continued discussions around scaling back the intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. The talks were unsuccessful. Afterward, Soviet policymakers increasingly accepted Reagan's administration's warnings that the U.S. would make the arms race an increasing financial burden for the USSR.

The twin burdens of the Cold War arms race, on the one hand, and the provision of large sums of foreign and military aid, upon which the socialist allies had grown to expect, left Gorbachev's efforts to boost the production of consumer goods and reform the stagnating economy in an extremely precarious state. The result was a dual approach of cooperation with the West and economic restructuring (perestroika) and democratization (glasnost) domestically, which eventually made it impossible for Gorbachev to reassert central control over Warsaw Pact member states.

Thus, beginning in 1989, Eastern Europe's communist governments toppled one after another. In Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria, reforms in the government, in Poland under pressure from Solidarity, prompted a peaceful end to communist rule and democratization. Elsewhere, mass demonstrations succeeded in ousting the communists from Czechoslovakia and East Germany, where the Berlin Wall was opened and subsequently brought down in November 1989. In Romania, a popular uprising deposed the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime during December and led to his execution on Christmas Day later that year.

Conservatives often argue that one major cause of the demise of the Soviet Union was the massive fiscal spending on military technology that the Soviets saw as necessary in response to NATO's increased armament of the 1980s. They insist that Soviet efforts to keep up with NATO military expenditures resulted in massive economic disruption and the effective bankruptcy of the Soviet economy, which had always labored to keep up with its Western counterparts. The Soviets were a decade behind the West in computers and falling further behind every year.

The critics of the Soviet state that computerized military technology was advancing at such a pace that the Soviets were simply incapable of keeping up, even by sacrificing more of the already weak civilian economy. According to the critics, the arms race, both nuclear and conventional, was too much for the underdeveloped Soviet economy of the time.

For this reason, Ronald Reagan is seen by many conservatives as the man who "won" the Cold War indirectly through his escalation of the arms race. However, the proximate cause for the end of the Cold War was ultimately Mikhail Gorbachev's decision, publicized in 1988, to repudiate the Leonid Brezhnev doctrine that any threat to a socialist state was a threat to all socialist states.

The Soviet Union provided little infrastructure help for its Eastern European satellites, but they did receive substantial military assistance in the form of funds, material, and control. Their integration into the inefficient military-oriented economy of the Soviet Union caused severe readjustment problems after the fall of communism.

Research shows that the fall of the USSR was accompanied by a sudden and dramatic decline in total warfare, interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, the number of refugees and displaced persons, and an increase in the number of democratic states. The opposite pattern was seen before the end.^[1]