The Cold War was a period of confrontation between the USSR and the USA. The peculiarity of this conflict lies in the fact that it took place without a direct military clash between the opponents. The causes of the Cold War were ideological and ideological differences.
She seemed to be "peaceful". There were even diplomatic relations between the parties. But there was a quiet rivalry. It affected all areas - this is the presentation of films, literature, and the creation of the latest weapons, and the economy.
It is believed that the USSR and the USA were in a state of cold war from 1946 to 1991. This means that the confrontation began immediately after the end of World War II and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All these years, each country sought to defeat the other - this is how the presentation of both states to the world looked like.
Both the USSR and America sought the support of other states. States enjoyed sympathy from Western European countries. The Soviet Union was popular with Latin American and Asian states.
The Cold War divided the world into two camps. Only a few remained neutral (perhaps three countries, including Switzerland). However, some even single out three sides, referring to China.
Political map of the Cold War world 
Political map of Europe during the Cold War
The most acute moments in this period were the Caribbean and Berlin crises. Since their beginning, the political processes in the world have deteriorated significantly. The world was threatened even with a nuclear war - it was hardly avoided.
One of the features of the confrontation is the desire of the superpowers to overtake each other in various areas, including military technology and weapons of mass destruction. It was called an "arms race". There was also competition in the field of propaganda in the media, in science, sports, and culture.
In addition, it is worth mentioning the total espionage of the two states against each other. In addition, many conflicts took place on the territories of other countries. For example, the United States installed missiles in Turkey and Western European countries, and the USSR in Latin American states.
The competition between the USSR and America could develop into the Third World War. Three world wars in one century is hard to imagine, but it could have happened many times. We list the main stages and milestones of the rivalry - the table below:
| date | Event | Results |
| 1949 | The appearance of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union | Achieving nuclear parity between adversaries. |
| Formation of the military-political organization NATO (from Western countries). | Exists to this day | |
| 1950 – 1953 | Korean War. It was the first "hot spot". The USSR helped the Korean communists with specialists and military equipment. | As a result, Korea was divided into two different states - the pro-Soviet North and the pro-American South. |
| 1955 | Creation of the military-political Organization of the Warsaw Pact - the Eastern European bloc of socialist countries, which was headed by the Soviet Union | Equilibrium in the military-political sphere, but today there is no such bloc |
| 1962 | Caribbean crisis. The USSR installed its own missiles in Cuba, close to the United States. The Americans demanded to dismantle the missiles - they were refused. Missiles from both sides put on alert | It was possible to avoid war thanks to a compromise, when the Soviet state removed the missiles from Cuba, and America from Turkey. In the future, the Soviet Union ideologically and materially supported the poor countries, their national liberation movements. The Americans supported pro-Western regimes under the guise of democratization. |
| From 1964 to 1975 | The Vietnam War, unleashed by the United States, continued. | Vietnam victory |
| Second half of the 1970s | The tension eased. Negotiations began. | Establishment of cultural and economic cooperation between the states of the eastern and western blocs. |
| Late 1970s | The period was marked by a new breakthrough in the arms race. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan. | New aggravation of relations. |
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union began perestroika, and in 1991 it collapsed. As a result, the entire socialist system was defeated. This is how the end of a long-term confrontation that affected all countries of the world looked like.
When the Second World War ended, the USSR and America felt like winners. The question arose of a new world order. At the same time, the political and economic systems and ideologies of both states were opposite.
The doctrine of the United States was to "save" the world from the Soviet Union and communism, and the Soviet side sought to build communism throughout the globe. These were the main prerequisites for the emergence of the conflict.
Many experts consider this conflict artificial. It's just that every ideology needed an enemy - both America and the Soviet Union. Interestingly, both sides were afraid of the mythical “Russian/American enemies”, while seemingly having nothing against the population of the enemy country.
The culprits of the conflict can be called the ambitions of leaders and ideology. It took place in the form of the emergence of local wars - "hot spots". Let's take a look at some of them.
The story began with the liberation of the Red Army and the American military of the Korean Peninsula from the Japanese armed forces. Korea has already been divided into two parts - so the prerequisites for future events have arisen.
In the northern part of the country, power was in the hands of the communists, and in the south - the military. The former were pro-Soviet forces, the latter were pro-American. However, in fact, there were three interested parties - China gradually intervened in the situation.
Destroyed tank 
Soldiers in the trenches 
Detachment evacuation 
shooting training 
Korean boy on the road of death 
City defense
Two republics were formed. The state of the communists became known as the DPRK (in full - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), and the military founded the Republic of Korea. At the same time, there were thoughts about the unification of the country.
The year 1950 was marked by the arrival of Kim Il Sung (the leader of the DPRK) in Moscow, where he was promised the support of the Soviet government. Chinese leader Mao Zedong also believed that South Korea should be annexed by military means.
Kim Il Sung - Leader of North Korea
As a result, on June 25 of the same year, the DPRK army went to South Korea. Within three days, she managed to take Seoul, the South Korean capital. After that, the offensive operation was slower, although in September the North Koreans already almost completely controlled the peninsula.
However, the final victory did not take place. The United Nations Security Council voted to send an international military contingent to South Korea. The solution was implemented in September when the Americans came to the Korean Peninsula.
It was they who launched the strongest offensive from the territories that were still controlled by the army of Lee Syngman, the leader of South Korea. At the same time, troops landed on the West Coast. The US military took Seoul and even crossed the 38th parallel, advancing on the DPRK.
Lee Seung-man - leader of South Korea
North Korea was threatened with defeat, but China helped it. His government sent "People's Volunteers", that is, soldiers, to help the DPRK. A million Chinese soldiers began to fight the Americans - this led to the alignment of the front along the original borders (38th parallel).
The war lasted three years. In 1950, several Soviet aviation divisions came to the aid of the DPRK. It is worth saying that American technology was more powerful than Chinese - the Chinese had heavy losses.
The truce came after three years of war - 07/27/1953. As a result, North Korea continued to be led by Kim Il Sung - the “great leader”. The plan for the division of the country after the Second World War is still in force, and Korea is led by the grandson of the then leader, Kim Jong-un.
A decade after the end of World War II, Europe was finally divided between West and East. But there was no clear line of conflict dividing Europe. Berlin was something like an open “window”.
The city was divided into two halves. East Berlin was part of the GDR, and West Berlin was part of the FRG. Capitalism and socialism coexisted in the city.
Schematic of the division of Berlin by the Berlin Wall
To change the formation, it was enough to go to the next street. Up to half a million people walked between West and East Berlin every day. It happened that East Germans preferred to move to the western part.
The East German authorities were worried about the situation, besides, the “Iron Curtain” should have been closed due to the spirit of the era. The decision to close the borders was made in the summer of 1961 - the plan was drawn up by the Soviet Union and the GDR. Western states spoke out against such a measure.
The situation escalated especially in October. Tanks of the US Armed Forces appeared near the Brandenburg Gate, and Soviet military equipment drove up from the opposite side. The tankers were ready to attack each other - the combat readiness lasted more than a day.
However, then both sides took the equipment to distant parts of Berlin. Western countries had to recognize the division of the city - this happened a decade later. The appearance of the Berlin Wall became a symbol of the post-war division of the world and Europe.
In January 1959, a revolution took place on the island, led by 32-year-old Fidel Castro, the leader of the partisans. His government decided to fight American influence in Cuba. Naturally, the Cuban government received support from the Soviet Union.
Young Fidel Castro
But in Havana, there were fears about the invasion of American troops. And in the spring of 1962, N. S. Khrushchev came up with a plan to put nuclear missiles of the USSR in Cuba. He believed that this would frighten the imperialists.
Cuba agreed with Khrushchev's idea. This led to the sending of forty-two missiles equipped with nuclear warheads, as well as bombers for nuclear bombs, to the territory of the island. The equipment was transferred secretly, although the Americans found out about it. As a result, US President John F. Kennedy protested, to which he received assurances from the Soviet side that there were no Soviet missiles in Cuba.
However, in October, a US spy plane took photographs of the missile launch sites, and the US government thought about a response. On October 22, Kennedy made a televised address to the US population, where he spoke about Soviet missiles on Cuban territory and demanded that they be removed.
Then came the announcement of a naval blockade of the island. On October 24, a meeting of the UN Security Council was held at the initiative of the Soviet Union. The situation in the Caribbean became tense.
About twenty ships of the Soviet Union sailed towards Cuba. The Americans were ordered to stop them even with fire. However, the battle did not take place: Khrushchev ordered the Soviet flotilla to stop.
From 23.10 Washington exchanged official messages with Moscow. In the first of these, Khrushchev said that the behavior of the United States was "the madness of degenerate imperialism" and also "the purest banditry."
After a few days, it became clear: the Americans want to get rid of the enemy's missiles by any means. On October 26, N. S. Khrushchev wrote a conciliatory letter to the American president, where he acknowledged the presence of Soviet powerful weapons in Cuba. However, he assured Kennedy that he would not attack the United States.
Nikita Sergeevich said that this is the way to the destruction of the world. Therefore, he demanded from Kennedy a promise not to commit aggression against Cuba in exchange for the removal of Soviet weapons from the island. The President of the United States agreed to this proposal, so a plan for a peaceful settlement of the situation was already being created.
October 27 was the “Black Saturday” of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then the Third World War could begin. Aircraft of the US Armed Forces flew in squadrons twice a day in the air of Cuba, trying to intimidate the Cubans and the USSR. On October 27, the Soviet military shot down an American reconnaissance aircraft using an anti-aircraft missile.
Pilot Anderson, who flew it, died. Kennedy decided to start bombing the Soviet missile bases and attack the island within two days.
But the next day, the authorities of the Soviet Union decided to agree to the conditions of the United States, that is, to remove the missiles. But this was not agreed with the leadership of Cuba, and Fidel Castro did not welcome such a measure. However, after that, the tension decreased and on November 20, the Americans ended the naval blockade of Cuba.
The conflict began in 1965 with an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. Vietnamese coast guard ships fired on American destroyers that supported the anti-guerrilla struggle of the South Vietnamese troops. Thus happened the open entry into the conflict of one of the superpowers.
At the same time, the other, that is, the Soviet Union, indirectly supported the Vietnamese. The war proved difficult for the Americans and provoked massive anti-war demonstrations led by young people. In 1975, the Americans withdrew their contingent from Vietnam.
After that, America embarked on domestic reforms. The crisis continued in the country 10 years after this conflict.
In the spring of 1978, revolutionary events took place in Afghanistan that brought the communist movement, the People's Democratic Party, to power. Nur Mukhamed Taraki, a writer, became the head of the government.
The party soon became mired in internal conflicts, which in the summer of 1979 resulted in a confrontation between Taraki and another leader named Amin. In September, Taraki was removed from power, expelled from the party, after which he was arrested.
Afghan leaders of the 20th century
"Purges" began in the party, which caused indignation in Moscow. The situation was reminiscent of the "cultural revolution" in China. The authorities of the Soviet Union began to fear a change in the course of Afghanistan to a pro-Chinese one.
Amin voiced requests to bring Soviet troops into Afghan territory. The USSR implemented this plan, at the same time deciding to eliminate Amin.
The West condemned these actions - this is how the aggravation of the Cold War happened. In the winter of 1980, the UN General Assembly voted for the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan by 104 votes.
At the same time, Afghan opponents of the communist revolutionary authorities began to fight against the Soviet troops. The armed Afghans were supported by the United States. They were "mujahideen" - supporters of "jihad", radical Islamists.
The war lasted 9 years and claimed the lives of 14 thousand Soviet soldiers and more than 1 million Afghans. In the spring of 1988, in Switzerland, the Soviet Union signed an agreement to withdraw troops. Gradually, this plan began to be put into action. The process of withdrawing the military lasted from February 15 to May 15, 1989, when the last soldier of the Soviet army left Afghanistan.
The last event in the confrontation is the elimination of the Berlin Wall. And if the causes and nature of the war are clear, then it is difficult to describe the results.
The Soviet Union had to reorient its economy towards financing the military sphere due to rivalry with America. Perhaps this was the reason for the shortage of goods and the weakening of the economy and the subsequent collapse of the state.
Today's Russia lives in conditions when it is necessary to find the right approaches to other countries. Unfortunately, there is no sufficient counterbalance to the NATO bloc in the world. Although 3 countries are still influential in the world - the USA, Russia and China.
The United States, by its actions in Afghanistan - by helping the Mujahideen - gave birth to international terrorists.
In addition, modern wars in the world are also waged locally (Libya, Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq).
In contact with
During World War II, the US and the USSR fought together as allies against the Axis powers. However, relations between the two peoples were tense. Americans had long feared Soviet communism and were concerned about the tyranny of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
For its part, the USSR resented the Americans' years-long refusal to consider the country as a legitimate part of the world community, as well as their late entry into World War II, which led to the deaths of tens of millions of Soviet citizens.
After the end of the war, these grievances grew into an irresistible feeling of mutual distrust and enmity. Post-war Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans' fears of wanting to control the world order.
Meanwhile, the USSR resented US officials' belligerent rhetoric, arms buildup, and interventionist approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, neither country was entirely to blame for the Cold War, the problem was mutual, and in fact some historians believe it was inevitable.
By the time World War II ended, most US officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a "containment" strategy. In 1946, diplomat George Kennan (1904-2005) explained it this way in his famous "long telegram": The Soviet Union was a "political force" fanatically determined that there could be no permanent modus vivendi (agreement between the parties) with the United States who disagree).
As a result, America's only choice was "long-term, patient, but tough and vigilant measures to contain Russia's expansive tendencies."
President Harry Truman (1884-1972) agreed: "It should be the policy of the United States," he told Congress in 1947, "to support free peoples who resist attempts at submission by external pressure." This way of thinking will shape US foreign policy for the next four decades.
The term "cold war" first appeared in a 1945 essay by the English writer George Orwell, which he called "you and the atomic bomb."
The containment strategy also provided the basis for an unprecedented US arms buildup. In 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSH-68 joined Truman's recommendation that the country use military force to "contain" communist expansionism. In this regard, the authors of the report called for a fourfold increase in defense spending.
In particular, US officials have called for the creation of , despite having only just ended. Thus began a deadly "arms race".
In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb. In response, President Truman announced that the United States would build an even more destructive weapon than the atomic bomb: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." Stalin followed suit.
As a result, the stakes in the Cold War were dangerously high. The first hydrogen bomb tested, in Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, showed how terrible a nuclear age can be for all of us.
The explosion created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized the island and blew a huge hole in the ocean floor. Such an explosion could easily and naturally destroy half of Manhattan.
Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed tons of poisonous radioactive waste into the atmosphere.
The constant threat of nuclear annihilation has had a profound effect on American domestic life. People built bomb shelters in their backyards. Schoolchildren practiced evacuation methods and ways of surviving a nuclear strike.
In the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of new films saw the light of day, with images of nuclear strikes and the devastation that followed them, the mutation of people exposed to radiation, the audience was horrified. In every aspect of life, the Cold War was a constant presence in American daily life.
Outer space has become another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile P-7 is delivered to the world's first artificial Earth satellite, and the first man-made object launched into the Earth's orbit.
The launch of the satellite came as a surprise, and not a very pleasant one, to most Americans. In the United States, outer space was seen as the next frontier, a logical continuation of the Great American Tradition of Exploration.
In addition, the demonstration of the power of the R-7 rocket, which apparently was capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the United States from outer space, was like a slap in the face for the Americans. Intelligence increased the collection of information about Soviet military activities.
In 1958, the US launched its own satellite, developed by the US Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and the Space Race began. That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs, were aimed at using the military potential of outer space. Still, the USSR was one step ahead, the launch of the first man into space took place in April 1961.
After Alan Shepard became the first American in space, (1917-1963) made a bold statement to the public, he claimed that the US planned to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, on NASA's Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to walk on the moon. This event marked the victory in the American space race. American astronauts began to be seen as American national heroes. The Soviets, in turn, were presented as villains who were investing all their strength to overtake America and prove the great strength of the communist system.
Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began to work the other way. The committee began a series of hearings designed to show that communist subversion is taking place in the United States.
In Hollywood, HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the film industry to renounce leftist political beliefs and testify against each other. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these blacklisted people were screenwriters, directors, actors, and others. They couldn't find a job for over ten years. HUAC also accused State Department employees of subversive activities. Soon other anti-Communist politicians, especially Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), extended this line to eliminate anyone who worked in the federal government. Thousands of federal employees were under investigation. Some of them were fired or even criminal proceedings were initiated against them. This anti-communist hysteria continued throughout the 1950s. Many liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were forced to testify against colleagues and "loyalty oaths", such a phenomenon has become commonplace.
The fight against subversive activities in the United States was also reflected in the growing Soviet threat abroad. In June 1950, the first real hostilities of the Cold War began when the pro-Soviet North Korean People's Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared that this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. And they believe that non-intervention is a bad course of events. President Truman sent , but the war dragged on, reached a stalemate, and ended in 1953.
Other international conflicts followed. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy faced a series of troubling situations in the Western Hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year. Seemingly to prove that there was no real communist threat to the Third World, the Americans had to take part in the civil war in Vietnam, where the collapse of the French colonial regime led to a struggle between the pro-American Dinh Diem and the communist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, a number of measures have been taken in the US to ensure the survival of the anti-communist state in the region, and in the early 1960s it seemed clear to American leaders that if they were to successfully “contain” communist expansionism, it would be necessary to intervene more actively in conflicts. However, what was planned as a short-term action actually dragged out for 10 years of armed conflict.
Almost immediately after taking office, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) embarked on a new approach to international relations. Instead of seeing the world as hostile, “bi-polar,” he suggested, why not use diplomacy rather than military action? To this end, he called on the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, the Americans began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing. At the same time, he adopted a policy of "détente"—"relaxation"—with respect to the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), which banned the production of nuclear missiles for both sides and took a step towards reducing the ten-year threat of nuclear war.
Despite Nixon's efforts, the Cold War flared up again during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom throughout the world. As a result, he worked to secure financial and military assistance to anti-communist governments and insurgencies against established communist rule around the world. This policy, especially in countries like Grenada and El Salvador, was known as the Reagan Doctrine.
We do not want a single inch of foreign land. But we will not give our land, not a single inch of our land, to anyone.
Joseph Stalin
The Cold War is a state of contradiction between the two dominant world systems: capitalism and socialism. Socialism represented the USSR, and capitalism, in a major way, the USA and Great Britain. Today it is popular to say that the Cold War is a confrontation between the USSR and the USA, but at the same time they forget to say that the speech of the British Prime Minister Churchill led to the formal declaration of war.
In 1945, contradictions began to appear between the USSR and other members of the anti-Hitler coalition. It was clear that Germany had lost the war, and now the main question is the post-war structure of the world. Here, everyone tried to pull the blanket in his direction, to take a leading position relative to other countries. The main contradictions were in European countries: Stalin wanted to subordinate them to the Soviet system, and the capitalists sought to prevent the Soviet state from entering Europe.
The causes of the Cold War are as follows:
The active stage of confrontation between the two systems begins with the US atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If we consider this bombing in isolation, then it is illogical - the war is won, Japan is not a competitor. Why bomb cities, and even with such weapons? But if we consider the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, then in the bombing appears the goal is to show the potential enemy their strength, and to show who should be the leader in the world. And the factor of nuclear weapons was very important in the future. After all, the atomic bomb appeared in the USSR only in 1949 ...
If we briefly consider the Cold War, then its beginning today is associated exclusively with Churchill's speech. Therefore, they say that the beginning of the Cold War is March 5, 1946.
In fact, Truman (President of the United States) delivered a more specific speech, from which it became clear to everyone that the Cold War had begun. And Churchill's speech (it is not difficult to find and read it on the Internet today) was superficial. It talked a lot about the Iron Curtain, but not a word about the Cold War.
On February 10, 1946, the Pravda newspaper published an interview with Stalin. Today this newspaper is very hard to find, but this interview was very interesting. In it, Stalin said the following: “Capitalism always breeds crises and conflicts. This always creates the threat of war, which is a threat to the USSR. Therefore, we must restore the Soviet economy at an accelerated pace. We must prioritize heavy industry over consumer goods.”
This speech of Stalin turned over and it was on it that all Western leaders relied, talking about the desire of the USSR to start a war. But, as you can see, in this speech of Stalin there was not even a hint of the militaristic expansion of the Soviet state.
To say that the beginning of the Cold War is connected with Churchill's speech is a bit illogical. The fact is that at the time of 1946 it was just the former Prime Minister of Great Britain. It turns out a kind of theater of the absurd - the war between the USSR and the USA is officially started by the former Prime Minister of England. In reality, everything was different, and Churchill's speech was just a convenient pretext, on which it was later profitable to write everything off.
The real beginning of the Cold War should be attributed to at least 1944, when it was already clear that Germany was doomed to defeat, and all the allies pulled the blanket over themselves, realizing that it was very important to gain dominance over the post-war world. If you try to draw a more accurate line for the start of the war, then the first serious disagreements on the topic of “how to live on” between the allies happened at the Tehran conference.
For a correct understanding of the processes that took place during the Cold War, you need to understand what this war was in history. Today, more and more often they say that it was actually the third world war. And this is a huge mistake. The fact is that all the wars of mankind that were before, including the Napoleonic wars and World Wars 2, these were the warriors of the capitalist world for the rights dominated in a certain region. The Cold War was the first global war where there was a confrontation between two systems: capitalist and socialist. Here it may be objected to me that in the history of mankind there were wars, where at the forefront was not capital, but religion: Christianity against Islam and Islam against Christianity. In part, this objection is true, but only from happiness. The fact is that any religious conflicts cover only part of the population and part of the world, while the global cold war has engulfed the whole world. All countries of the world could be clearly divided into 2 main groups:
There were also "indefinite". There were few such countries, but they were. Their main specificity was that outwardly they could not decide which camp to join, therefore they received funding from two sources: both from Moscow and from Washington.
One of the problems of the Cold War is the question of who started it. Indeed, there is no army here that crosses the border of another state, and thereby declares war. Today you can blame everything on the USSR and say that it was Stalin who started the war. But this hypothesis is in trouble with the evidence base. I will not help our "partners" and look for what motives the USSR could have for the war, but I will give the facts why Stalin did not need the aggravation of relations (at least not directly in 1946):
The facts show that in 1944-1946 the USSR was not ready to start a war. And Churchill's speech, which formally started the Cold War, was not delivered in Moscow, and not at its suggestion. But on the other hand, both opposing camps were extremely interested in such a war.
As early as September 4, 1945, the United States adopted Memorandum 329, which developed a plan for the atomic bombing of Moscow and Leningrad. In my opinion, this is the best proof of who wanted war and aggravation of relations.
Any war has goals, and it is surprising that our historians for the most part do not even try to define the goals of the Cold War. On the one hand, this is justified by the fact that the USSR had only one goal - the expansion and strengthening of socialism by any means. But Western countries were more resourceful. They sought not only to spread their world influence, but also to inflict spiritual blows on the USSR. And it continues to this day. The following goals of the United States in the war in terms of historical and psychological impact can be distinguished:
There are, of course, pages of history with which our country can be reproached, but most of the stories are sucked out of thin air. Moreover, liberals and Western historians for some reason forget that it was not Russia that colonized the whole world, it was not Russia that destroyed the indigenous population of America, it was not Russia that shot Indians with cannons, tying 20 people in a row to save cannonballs, it was not Russia that exploited Africa. There are thousands of such examples, because every country in history has hard-hitting stories. Therefore, if you really want to poke around in the bad events of our history, be kind enough not to forget that Western countries have no less such stories.
The stages of the Cold War is one of the most controversial issues, since it is very difficult to graduate them. However, I can suggest dividing this war into 8 key phases:
These are the main stages of the Cold War. As a result, socialism and communism lost out to capitalism, since the moral and psychic influence of the United States, which was openly directed at the leadership of the CPSU, achieved its goal: the leadership of the party began to put their personal interests and benefits above socialist foundations.
The confrontation between the two ideologies began in 1945. Gradually, this confrontation embraced all spheres of public life.
The main military confrontation of the Cold War era is the struggle between the two blocs. On April 4, 1949, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was created. NATO included the USA, Canada, England, France, Italy and a number of small countries. In response, on May 14, 1955, the OVD (Warsaw Pact Organization) was created. Thus, there was a clear confrontation between the two systems. But again, it should be noted that the first step was taken by the Western countries, which organized NATO 6 years earlier than the Warsaw Pact appeared.
The main confrontation, about which we have already partially spoken, is atomic weapons. In 1945, this weapon appeared in the United States. Moreover, in America they developed a plan for delivering nuclear strikes on the 20 largest cities of the USSR, using 192 bombs. This forced the USSR to do even the impossible to create its own atomic bomb, the first successful tests of which took place in August 1949. In the future, all this resulted in an arms race on a huge scale.
In 1947, the United States developed the Marshall Plan. According to this plan, the United States provided financial assistance to all countries affected during the war. But there was one limitation in this plan - only those countries that shared the political interests and goals of the United States received assistance. In response to this, the USSR begins to provide assistance in post-war reconstruction to countries that have chosen the path of socialism. Based on these approaches, 2 economic blocks were created:
Despite the formation of alliances, the essence has not changed: ZEV helped with US money, and CMEA helped with USSR money. The rest of the countries only consumed.
In the economic confrontation with the United States, Stalin took two steps that had an extremely negative impact on the American economy: on March 1, 1950, the USSR moved from calculating the ruble in dollars (as it was around the world) to gold backing, and in April 1952, the USSR, China and Eastern European countries are creating an alternative trade zone to the dollar. This trading zone did not use the dollar at all, which means that the capitalist world, which previously owned 100% of the world market, lost at least 1/3 of this market. All this happened against the backdrop of the "economic miracle of the USSR." Western experts said that the USSR would be able to reach the level of 1940 after the war only by 1971, but in reality this happened as early as 1949.
| Event | date |
|---|---|
| 1948 | |
| Vietnam War | 1946-1954 |
| 1950-1953 | |
| 1946-1949 | |
| 1948-1949 | |
| 1956 | |
| Mid 50s - mid 60s | |
| Mid 60s | |
| War in Afghanistan |
These are the main crises of the Cold War, but there were others, less significant. Next, we will briefly consider what the essence of these crises was, and what consequences they led to in the world.
Many people in our country do not take the Cold War seriously. We have an understanding in our minds that war is “drawn swords”, weapons in hand and in the trenches. But the Cold War was different, although even it was not without regional conflicts, some of which were extremely difficult. The main conflicts of those times:
For a correct understanding of the essence of the Berlin crisis of 1948, one should study the map.
Germany was divided into 2 parts: western and eastern. Berlin was also in the zone of influence, but the city itself was located deep in the eastern lands, that is, on the territory controlled by the USSR. In an effort to put pressure on West Berlin, the Soviet leadership organized its blockade. It was a response to the recognition of Taiwan and its admission to the UN.
England and France organized an air corridor, supplying the inhabitants of West Berlin with everything they needed. Therefore, the blockade failed and the crisis itself began to slow down. Realizing that the blockade leads to nothing, the Soviet leadership removes it, normalizing life in Berlin.
The continuation of the crisis was the creation of two states in Germany. In 1949, the western states were transformed into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In response, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was created in the eastern lands. It is these events that should be considered the final split of Europe into 2 opposing camps - West and East.
In 1946, a civil war broke out in China. The Communist bloc staged an armed coup seeking to overthrow the government of Chiang Kai-shek from the Kuomintang party. The civil war and revolution became possible thanks to the events of 1945. After the victory over Japan, a base was created here for the rise of communism. Starting in 1946, the USSR began supplying weapons, food and everything necessary to support the Chinese communists who were fighting for the country.
The revolution ended in 1949 with the formation of the People's Republic of China (PRC), where all power was in the hands of the Communist Party. As for the Chiang Kai-shek, they fled to Taiwan and formed their own state, which was very quickly recognized in the West, and even admitted to the UN. In response, the USSR leaves the UN. This is an important point as it had a major impact on another Asian conflict, the Korean War.
From the first meetings of the UN, one of the main issues was the fate of the state of Palestine. At that time, Palestine was actually a British colony. The division of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state was an attempt by the US and the USSR to strike at Great Britain and its positions in Asia. Stalin approved of the idea of creating the state of Israel, because he believed in the power of the "leftist" Jews, and expected to gain control over this country, gaining a foothold in the Middle East.
The Palestinian problem was resolved in November 1947 at the UN Assembly, where the position of the USSR played a key role. Therefore, we can say that Stalin played a key role in the creation of the state of Israel.
The UN Assembly decided to create 2 states: Jewish (Israel" Arab (Palestine). In May 1948, Israel's independence was declared and immediately the Arab countries declared war on this state. The Middle East crisis began. Great Britain supported Palestine, the USSR and the USA supported Israel. In In 1949, Israel won the war and immediately a conflict arose between the Jewish state and the USSR, as a result of which Stalin severed diplomatic relations with Israel.The US won the battle in the Middle East.
The Korean War is an undeservedly forgotten event that is little studied today, which is a mistake. After all, the Korean War is the third in history in terms of human casualties. During the war years, 14 million people died! More casualties in only two world wars. The large number of casualties is due to the fact that this was the first major armed conflict in the Cold War.
After the victory over Japan in 1945, the USSR and the USA divided Korea (a former colony of Japan) into zones of influence: reconciled Korea - under the influence of the USSR, South Korea - under the influence of the USA. In 1948, 2 states were officially formed:
With the support of the USSR and China, on June 25, 1950, Kim Il Sung starts a war. In fact, it was a war for the unification of Korea, which the DPRK planned to end quickly. The factor of a quick victory was important, since this was the only way to prevent the US from intervening in the conflict. The beginning was promising, the UN troops, which were 90% American, came to the aid of the Republic of Korea. After that, the DPRK army retreated and was close to collapse. The situation was saved by Chinese volunteers who intervened in the war and restored the balance of power. After that, local battles began and the border between North and South Korea was established along the 38th parallel.
The first détente in the Cold War occurred in 1953 after the death of Stalin. An active dialogue began between the opposing countries. Already on July 15, 1953, the new government of the USSR, headed by Khrushchev, announced its desire to build new relations with Western countries, based on a policy of peaceful coexistence. Similar statements were made from the opposite side.
A major factor in stabilizing the situation was the end of the Korean War and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Israel. Wanting to demonstrate to the Westernized countries the desire for peaceful coexistence, Khrushchev withdrew Soviet troops from Austria, having obtained a promise from the Austrian side to maintain neutrality. Naturally, there was no neutrality, just as there were no concessions and gestures from the United States.
Detente lasted from 1953 to 1956. At this time, the USSR established relations with Yugoslavia, India, began to develop relations with African and Asian countries, which had only recently freed themselves from colonial dependence.
At the end of 1956, an uprising began in Hungary. Local residents, realizing that the position of the USSR after the death of Stalin, became noticeably worse, raised an uprising against the current regime in the country. As a result, the cold war came to its critical point. For the USSR there were 2 ways:
The 2nd option was chosen. The army crushed the rebellion. For suppression in places it was necessary to use weapons. As a result, the revolution was won, it became clear that the "detente" was over.
Cuba is a small state near the US, but it almost led the world to a nuclear war. At the end of the 50s, a revolution took place in Cuba and Fidel Castro seized power, who declared his desire to build socialism on the island. For America, this was a challenge - a state appeared near their border, which acts as a geopolitical enemy. As a result, the United States planned to resolve the situation by military means, but were defeated.
The Krabi Crisis began in 1961, after the USSR secretly delivered missiles to Cuba. This soon became known, and the US President demanded to withdraw the missiles. The parties escalated the conflict until it became clear that the world was on the verge of a nuclear war. As a result, the USSR agreed to withdraw its missiles from Cuba, and the United States agreed to withdraw its missiles from Turkey.
In the mid-1960s, new tensions arose, this time in Czechoslovakia. The situation here strongly resembled the one that was earlier in Hungary: democratic tendencies began in the country. Basically, young people opposed the current government, and the movement was headed by A. Dubcek.
A situation arose, as in Hungary - to allow for a democratic revolution, meant to give an example to other countries that the socialist system could be overthrown at any moment. Therefore, the Warsaw Pact countries sent their troops to Czechoslovakia. The rebellion was suppressed, but the suppression caused outrage throughout the world. But it was a cold war, and, of course, any active actions of one side were actively criticized by the other side.
The peak of the Cold War came in the 1950s and 1960s, when the aggravation of relations between the Soviet Socialist Republic and the United States was so great that a war could break out at any moment. Beginning in the 1970s, the war was detente and the subsequent defeat of the USSR. But in this case, I want to focus briefly on the United States. What happened in this country before "détente"? In fact, the country ceased to be popular and came under the control of the capitalists, under which it is to this day. One can say even more - the USSR won the Cold War from the USA in the late 60s, and the USA, as the state of the American people, ceased to exist. Capitalists seized power. The apogee of these events is the assassination of President Kennedy. But after the United States became a country representing the capitalists and oligarchs, they already won the USSR in the Cold War.
But let us return to the Cold War and détente in it. These signs were indicated in 1971 when the USSR, the USA, Britain and France signed agreements on the start of the work of a commission to solve the Berlin problem, as a point of constant tension in Europe.
In 1975, the most significant event of the détente era of the Cold War took place. During this year, a pan-European meeting on security was held, in which all the countries of Europe took part (of course, including the SSR, as well as the USA and Canada). The meeting was held in Helsinki (Finland), so it went down in history as the Helsinki Final Act.
As a result of the congress, an Act was signed, but before that there were difficult negotiations, primarily on 2 points:
The commission from the USSR agreed to both points, but in a special formulation that did little to oblige the country itself. The final signing of the Act was the first symbol that the West and the East can agree among themselves.
In the late 70s and early 80s, a new round of the Cold War began, when relations between the USSR and the USA heated up. There were 2 reasons for this:
The United States in the countries of Western Europe placed medium-range missiles that were capable of reaching the territory of the USSR.
The beginning of the war in Afghanistan.
As a result, the Cold War reached a new level and the enemy engaged in their usual business - an arms race. It hit the budgets of both countries very painfully and ultimately led the United States to a terrible economic crisis in 1987, and the USSR to defeat in the war and subsequent collapse.
Surprisingly, in our country the Cold War is not taken seriously. The best fact demonstrating the attitude to this historical event in our country and in the West is the spelling of the name. In our country, the Cold War is written in quotation marks and with a capital letter in all textbooks, in the West - without quotation marks and with a small letter. This is the difference in attitude.
It really was a war. Just in the understanding of people who have just defeated Germany, war is weapons, shots, attack, defense, and so on. But the world has changed, and in the Cold War contradictions and ways to resolve them have come to the fore. Of course, this resulted in real armed clashes.
In any case, the outcome of the Cold War is important, because the USSR ceased to exist as a result of it. This ended the war itself, and Gorbachev received a medal in the United States "for victory in the cold war."
War is incredible
peace is impossible.
Raymond Aron
Today's relations between Russia and the collective West can hardly be called constructive, let alone partnership. Mutual accusations, loud statements, growing saber-rattling and furious propaganda - all this creates a strong impression of deja vu. All this once was and is repeated now - but already in the form of a farce. Today, the news feed seems to return to the past, at the time of the epic confrontation between two powerful superpowers: the USSR and the USA, which lasted more than half a century and repeatedly brought humanity to the brink of a global military conflict. In history, this long-term confrontation has been called the Cold War. Historians consider its beginning to be the famous speech of the British Prime Minister (at that time already former) Churchill, delivered in Fulton in March 1946.
The era of the Cold War lasted from 1946 to 1989 and ended with what the current Russian President Putin called "the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" - the Soviet Union disappeared from the map of the world, and with it the entire communist system sank into oblivion. The confrontation between the two systems was not a war in the truest sense of the word, a clear clash between the armed forces of the two superpowers was avoided, but the numerous military conflicts of the Cold War that it gave rise to in different regions of the planet claimed millions of human lives.
During the Cold War, the struggle between the USSR and the United States was not only in the military or political sphere. No less intense was the competition in the economic, scientific, cultural and other fields. But the ideology was still the main one: the essence of the Cold War is the sharpest confrontation between the two models of the state system: communist and capitalist.
By the way, the very term "cold war" was coined by the cult writer of the 20th century, George Orwell. He used it even before the start of the confrontation in his article "You and the atomic bomb." The article was published in 1945. Orwell himself in his youth was an ardent supporter of the communist ideology, but in his mature years he was completely disillusioned with it, therefore, probably, he understood the issue better than many. Officially, the term "cold war" was first used by the Americans two years later.
The Cold War was not only fought by the Soviet Union and the United States. It was a global competition involving dozens of countries around the world. Some of them were the closest allies (or satellites) of the superpowers, while others were drawn into the confrontation by accident, sometimes even against their will. The logic of the processes required the parties to the conflict to create their own zones of influence in different regions of the world. Sometimes they were reinforced with the help of military-political blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact became the main alliances of the Cold War. On their periphery, in the redistribution of spheres of influence, the main military conflicts of the Cold War took place.
The described historical period is inextricably linked with the creation and development of nuclear weapons. Mainly, it was the presence of this most powerful means of deterrence in the hands of the opponents that did not allow the conflict to go into a hot phase. The Cold War between the USSR and the USA gave rise to an unheard-of arms race: already in the 70s, the opponents had so many nuclear warheads that they would have been enough to destroy the entire globe several times. And that's not counting the huge arsenals of conventional weapons.
Over the decades, there have been both periods of normalization of relations between the US and the USSR (détente) and times of tough confrontation. The crises of the Cold War several times brought the world to the brink of a global catastrophe. The most famous of these is the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took place in 1962.
The end of the Cold War was swift and unexpected for many. The Soviet Union lost the economic race with the West. The lag was already noticeable at the end of the 60s, and by the 80s the situation had become catastrophic. The most powerful blow to the national economy of the USSR was dealt by the fall in oil prices.
In the mid-80s, it became clear to the Soviet leadership that something must be changed in the country immediately, otherwise a catastrophe would come. The end of the Cold War and the arms race were vital for the USSR. But perestroika, started by Gorbachev, led to the dismantling of the entire state structure of the USSR, and then to the collapse of the socialist state. Moreover, the United States, it seems, did not even expect such a denouement: back in 1990, American Soviet experts prepared for their leadership a forecast for the development of the Soviet economy until the year 2000.
At the end of 1989, Gorbachev and Bush officially announced during a summit on the island of Malta that the global cold war was over.
The theme of the Cold War is very popular in the Russian media today. Speaking of the current foreign policy crisis, commentators often use the term "new cold war". Is it so? What are the similarities and differences between the current situation and the events of forty years ago?
After the war, the Soviet Union and Germany lay in ruins, and Eastern Europe suffered greatly during the fighting. The economy of the Old World was in decline.
On the contrary, the territory of the United States was practically not affected during the war, and the human losses of the United States could not be compared with the Soviet Union or Eastern European countries. Even before the start of the war, the United States had become the world's leading industrial power, and military supplies to the allies further strengthened the American economy. By 1945, America had managed to create a new weapon of unheard of power - a nuclear bomb. All of the above allowed the United States to confidently count on the role of a new hegemon in the post-war world. However, it soon became clear that on the way to planetary leadership, the United States had a new dangerous rival - the Soviet Union.
The USSR almost single-handedly defeated the strongest German land army, but paid a colossal price for it - millions of Soviet citizens died at the front or in occupation, tens of thousands of cities and villages lay in ruins. Despite this, the Red Army occupied the entire territory of Eastern Europe, including most of Germany. In 1945, the USSR, no doubt, had the strongest armed forces on the European continent. No less strong were the positions of the Soviet Union in Asia. Literally a few years after the end of World War II, the communists came to power in China, which made this huge country an ally of the USSR in the region.
The communist leadership of the USSR never abandoned plans for further expansion and spread of its ideology to new regions of the planet. It can be said that throughout almost its entire history, the foreign policy of the USSR was quite tough and aggressive. In 1945, especially favorable conditions developed for the promotion of communist ideology in new countries.
It should be understood that the Soviet Union was incomprehensible to most American, and Western politicians in general. A country where there is no private property and market relations, churches are being blown up, and society is under the complete control of the special services and the party, seemed to them some kind of parallel reality. Even Hitler's Germany was somewhat more understandable to the average American. In general, Western politicians had a rather negative attitude towards the USSR even before the start of the war, and after its completion, fear was added to this attitude.
In 1945, the Yalta Conference took place, during which Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt tried to divide the world into spheres of influence and create new rules for the future world order. Many modern researchers see the origins of the Cold War in this conference.
Summarizing the above, we can say: the cold war between the USSR and the USA was inevitable. These countries were too different to coexist peacefully. The Soviet Union wanted to expand the socialist camp to include new states, while the US sought to reshape the world to create more favorable conditions for its large corporations. However, the main causes of the Cold War are still in the realm of ideology.
The first signs of a future Cold War appeared even before the final victory over Nazism. In the spring of 1945, the USSR made territorial claims against Turkey and demanded that the status of the Black Sea straits be changed. Stalin was interested in the possibility of creating a naval base in the Dardanelles.
A little later (in April 1945), British Prime Minister Churchill instructed to prepare plans for a possible war with the Soviet Union. He later wrote about this in his memoirs. At the end of the war, the British and Americans kept several divisions of the Wehrmacht undisbanded in case of a conflict with the USSR.
In March 1946, Churchill gave his famous Fulton speech, which many historians consider the "trigger" of the Cold War. In this speech, the politician called on Britain to strengthen relations with the United States in order to jointly repel the expansion of the Soviet Union. Churchill considered the growing influence of communist parties in the states of Europe to be dangerous. He urged not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s and not to be led by the aggressor, but to firmly and consistently defend Western values.
“... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, the Iron Curtain was lowered across the entire continent. Behind this line are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. (…) The communist parties, which were very small in all the eastern states of Europe, seized power everywhere and gained unlimited totalitarian control. (…) Police governments predominate almost everywhere, and so far, apart from Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy anywhere. The facts are as follows: this, of course, is not the liberated Europe for which we fought. This is not what is needed for permanent peace…” – this is how Churchill, undoubtedly the most experienced and insightful politician in the West, described the new post-war reality in Europe. The USSR did not like this speech very much, Stalin compared Churchill with Hitler and accused him of inciting a new war.
It should be understood that during this period, the Cold War confrontation front often ran not along the external borders of countries, but within them. The poverty of Europeans, ravaged by the war, made them more receptive to leftist ideology. After the war in Italy and France, about a third of the population supported the communists. The Soviet Union, in turn, did everything possible to support the national communist parties.
In 1946, the Greek rebels became more active, led by local communists, and the Soviet Union supplied weapons through Bulgaria, Albania and Yugoslavia. It was not until 1949 that the uprising was put down. After the end of the war, the USSR for a long time refused to withdraw its troops from Iran and demanded that it be granted the right to protectorate over Libya.
In 1947, the Americans developed the so-called Marshall Plan, which provided for significant financial assistance to the states of Central and Western Europe. This program included 17 countries, the total amount of transfers was 17 billion dollars. In exchange for money, the Americans demanded political concessions: the recipient countries were to exclude communists from their governments. Naturally, neither the USSR nor the countries of the "people's democracies" of Eastern Europe received any assistance.
One of the real "architects" of the Cold War can be called the Deputy American Ambassador to the USSR George Kennan, who sent telegram No. 511 to his homeland in February 1946. It went down in history under the name "Long Telegram". In this document, the diplomat recognized the impossibility of cooperation with the USSR and called on his government to oppose the communists harshly, because, according to Kennan, the leadership of the Soviet Union respects only force. Later, this document largely determined the position of the United States in relation to the Soviet Union for many decades.
In the same year, President Truman announced the "containment policy" of the USSR throughout the world, later called the "Truman Doctrine".
In 1949, the largest military-political bloc was formed - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. It included most of the countries of Western Europe, Canada and the United States. The main task of the new structure was to protect Europe from the Soviet invasion. In 1955, the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the USSR created their own military alliance, called the Warsaw Pact Organization.
The following stages of the Cold War are distinguished:
Despite the fact that every year the events of the Cold War are getting further and further away from us, topics related to this period are of increasing interest in Russian society. Domestic propaganda tenderly and carefully nurtures the nostalgia of a part of the population for those times when "there were two to twenty sausages and everyone was afraid of us." Such, they say, the country was destroyed!
Why did the Soviet Union, having huge resources at its disposal, having a very high level of social development and the highest scientific potential, lost its main war - the Cold War?
The USSR appeared as a result of an unprecedented social experiment to create a just society in a single country. Such ideas appeared in different historical periods, but usually they remained projects. The Bolsheviks should be given their due: for the first time they managed to realize this utopian plan on the territory of the Russian Empire. Socialism has a chance to take its place as a just system of social order (socialist practices are becoming more and more evident in the social life of the Scandinavian countries, for example) - but this was not feasible at a time when they tried to introduce this social system in a revolutionary, coercive way. We can say that socialism in Russia was ahead of its time. It is unlikely that he became such a terrible and inhuman system, especially in comparison with the capitalist one. And it is all the more appropriate to recall that historically it was the Western European "progressive" empires that caused the suffering and death of the largest number of people around the world - Russia is far in this respect, in particular, to Great Britain (probably, it is she who is the true "evil empire"). ", a tool of genocide for Ireland, the peoples of the American continent, India, China and many others). Returning to the socialist experiment in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century, it should be recognized that the peoples living in it cost innumerable victims and suffering throughout the century. The German Chancellor Bismarck is credited with the following words: "If you want to build socialism, take a country that you do not mind." Unfortunately, it turned out not to be a pity for Russia. However, no one has the right to blame Russia for its path, especially given the foreign policy practice of the past 20th century in general.
The only problem is that under Soviet-style socialism and the general level of productive forces of the 20th century, the economy does not want to work. From the word at all. A person deprived of material interest in the results of his labor does not work well. Moreover, at all levels, from an ordinary worker to a high official. The Soviet Union - having Ukraine, Kuban, Don and Kazakhstan - already in the mid-60s was forced to buy grain abroad. Even then, the food supply situation in the USSR was catastrophic. Then the socialist state was saved by a miracle - the discovery of "big" oil in Western Siberia and the rise in world prices for this raw material. Some economists believe that without this oil, the collapse of the USSR would have happened already in the late 70s.
Speaking about the reasons for the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, of course, one should not forget about ideology. The USSR was originally created as a state with a completely new ideology, and for many years it was its most powerful weapon. In the 1950s and 1960s, many states (especially in Asia and Africa) voluntarily chose the socialist type of development. Believed in the construction of communism and Soviet citizens. However, already in the 1970s, it became clear that the construction of communism was a utopia that could not be realized at that time. Moreover, even many representatives of the Soviet nomenklatura elite, the main future beneficiaries of the collapse of the USSR, stopped believing in such ideas.
But at the same time, it should be noted that today many Western intellectuals admit that it was the confrontation with the “backward” Soviet system that forced the capitalist systems to mimic, to accept unfavorable social norms that originally appeared in the USSR (8-hour working day, equal rights for women , various social benefits and much more). It will not be superfluous to repeat: most likely, the time of socialism has not yet come, since there is no civilizational base for this and an appropriate level of development of production in the global economy. Liberal capitalism is by no means a panacea for world crises and suicidal global wars, but rather, on the contrary, an inevitable path to them.
The loss of the USSR in the Cold War was due not so much to the power of its opponents (although it was certainly great), but to the insoluble contradictions inherent within the Soviet system itself. But in the modern world order, there are no fewer internal contradictions, and certainly no more security and peace.
Of course, the main positive outcome of the Cold War is that it did not develop into a hot war. Despite all the contradictions between the states, the parties were smart enough to realize what edge they were on and not cross the fatal line.
However, other consequences of the Cold War cannot be overestimated. In fact, today we live in a world that was largely shaped during that historical period. It was during the Cold War that the current system of international relations emerged. And at the very least, it works. In addition, we should not forget that a significant part of the world elite was formed back in the years of confrontation between the US and the USSR. We can say that they come from the Cold War.
The Cold War had an impact on almost all international processes that took place during this period. New states arose, wars broke out, uprisings and revolutions broke out. Many countries in Asia and Africa gained independence or got rid of the colonial yoke thanks to the support of one of the superpowers, which thus sought to expand their own zone of influence. Even today, there are countries that can safely be called "cold war relics" - for example, Cuba or North Korea.
It is impossible not to note the fact that the Cold War contributed to the development of technology. The confrontation of the superpowers gave a powerful impetus to the study of outer space, without it it is not known whether the landing on the moon would have taken place or not. The arms race contributed to the development of rocket and information technologies, mathematics, physics, medicine and much more.
If we talk about the political results of this historical period, then the main one, without a doubt, is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the entire socialist camp. As a result of these processes, about two dozen new states appeared on the political map of the world. Russia inherited from the USSR the entire nuclear arsenal, most of the conventional weapons, as well as a seat in the UN Security Council. And as a result of the Cold War, the United States has significantly increased its power and today, in fact, is the only superpower.
The end of the Cold War led to two decades of explosive growth in the global economy. Huge territories of the former USSR, previously closed by the Iron Curtain, have become part of the global market. Military spending dropped sharply, and the freed funds were directed to investments.
However, the main result of the global confrontation between the USSR and the West was a clear proof of the utopian nature of the socialist model of the state in the conditions of social development at the end of the 20th century. Today in Russia (and other former Soviet republics) disputes about the Soviet stage in the history of the country do not subside. Someone sees in it a blessing, others call it the greatest catastrophe. At least one more generation must be born in order for the events of the Cold War (as well as for the entire Soviet period) to be viewed as a historical fact - calmly and without emotions. The communist experiment is, of course, the most important experience for human civilization, which has not yet been “reflected”. And perhaps this experience will still benefit Russia.
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cold war
cold war- this is a military, political, ideological and economic confrontation between the USSR and the USA and their supporters. It was the result of contradictions between two state systems: capitalist and socialist.
The Cold War was accompanied by an intensification of the arms race, the presence of nuclear weapons, which could lead to a third world war.
The term was first used by the writer George Orwell October 19, 1945 in You and the Atomic Bomb
Period:
1946-1989
Causes of the Cold War
Political
An insoluble ideological contradiction between the two systems, models of society.
Fear of the West and the United States of strengthening the role of the USSR.
Economic
The struggle for resources and markets for products
Weakening the economic and military power of the enemy
Ideological
Total, irreconcilable struggle of two ideologies
The desire to fence the population of their countries with the way of life in enemy countries
Objectives of the parties
To consolidate the spheres of influence achieved during the Second World War.
Put the enemy in unfavorable political, economic and ideological conditions
The goal of the USSR: the complete and final victory of socialism on a world scale
US goal: containment of socialism, opposition to the revolutionary movement, in the future - "throw socialism into the dustbin of history." The USSR was seen as "evil empire"
Conclusion: neither side was right, each aspired to world domination.
The forces of the parties were not equal. The USSR bore all the hardships of the war on its shoulders, and the United States received huge profits from it. It was not until the mid-1970s that parity.
Cold War Means:
Arms race
Block confrontation
Destabilization of the military and economic situation of the enemy
psychological warfare
Ideological confrontation
Intervention in domestic politics
Active intelligence activity
Collection of compromising materials on political leaders, etc.
Major periods and events
March 5, 1946- W. Churchill's speech in Fulton(USA) - the beginning of the Cold War, in which the idea of creating an alliance to fight communism was proclaimed. The speech of the Prime Minister of Great Britain in the presence of the new American President Truman G. had two goals:
Prepare the Western public for the subsequent rupture between the victorious countries.
Literally eradicate from the consciousness of people the feeling of gratitude to the USSR, which appeared after the victory over fascism.
The United States set a goal: to achieve economic and military superiority over the USSR
1947 – The Truman Doctrine". Its essence: containment of the spread of the expansion of the USSR by creating regional military blocs dependent on the United States.
1947 - Marshall Plan - a program to help Europe after World War II
1948-1953 - Soviet-Yugoslav conflict over the ways of building socialism in Yugoslavia.
Split the world into two camps: supporters of the USSR and supporters of the USA.
1949 - the split of Germany into the capitalist FRG, the capital is Bonn and the Soviet GDR, the capital is Berlin. (Before that, two zones were called Bizonia)
1949 - creation NATO(North Atlantic military-political alliance)
1949 - creation CMEA(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance)
1949 - successful atomic bomb test in the USSR.
1950 -1953 – war in korea. The United States participated directly in it, while the USSR veiled it by sending military specialists to Korea.
US target: to prevent Soviet influence in the Far East. Outcome: the division of the country into the DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the capital of Pyongyang), established close contacts with the USSR, + into the South Korean state (Seoul) - the zone of American influence.
2nd period: 1955-1962 (cooling in relations between countries , growing contradictions in the world socialist system)
During this period, the world stood on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.
Anti-communist speeches in Hungary, Poland, events in the GDR, the Suez Crisis
1955 - creation ATS- Organizations of the Warsaw Pact.
1955 - Geneva Conference of Heads of Government of the Victorious Countries.
1957 - development and successful testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile in the USSR, which increased tension in the world.
October 4, 1957 - opened space age. Launch of the first artificial earth satellite in the USSR.
1959 - the victory of the revolution in Cuba (Fidel Castro). Cuba became one of the most reliable partners of the USSR.
1961 - aggravation of relations with China.
1962 – Caribbean crisis. Settled by Khrushchev N.S. and D. Kennedy
The signing of a number of agreements on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
The arms race, which significantly weakened the economies of countries.
1962 - complication of relations with Albania
1963 - USSR, UK and USA signed first nuclear test ban treaty in three spheres: atmosphere, space and under water.
1968 - complication of relations with Czechoslovakia ("Prague Spring").
Dissatisfaction with Soviet policy in Hungary, Poland, the GDR.
1964-1973- US war in Vietnam. The USSR provided military and material assistance to Vietnam.
3rd period: 1970-1984- tension strip
1970s - the USSR made a number of attempts to strengthen " detente" international tension, arms reduction.
A number of strategic arms limitation agreements have been signed. So in 1970, an agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany (V. Brand) and the USSR (Brezhnev L.I.), according to which the parties pledged to resolve all their disputes exclusively by peaceful means.
May 1972 - arrival in Moscow of US President Richard Nixon. Treaty signed on limiting missile defense systems (PRO) and OSV-1- Interim Agreement on Certain Measures in the Sphere of Strategic Offensive Arms Limitation.
Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling bacteriological(biological) and toxic weapons and their destruction.
1975- high point of détente, signed in August in Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and Declaration of Principles on Relations between states. Signed by 33 states, including the USSR, USA, Canada.
Sovereign equality, respect
Non-use of force and threats of force
Inviolability of borders
Territorial integrity
Non-intervention in internal affairs
Peaceful settlement of disputes
Respect for human rights and freedoms
Equality, the right of peoples to control their own destiny
Cooperation between states
Fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law
1975 - Soyuz-Apollo joint space program
1979- Treaty on the Limitation of Offensive Arms - OSV-2(Brezhnev L.I. and Carter D.)
What are these principles?
4 period: 1979-1987 - complication of the international situation
The USSR became a truly great power that had to be reckoned with. The détente was mutually beneficial.
The aggravation of relations with the United States in connection with the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in 1979 (the war lasted from December 1979 to February 1989). The goal of the USSR- to protect the borders in Central Asia against the penetration of Islamic fundamentalism. Eventually- The US has not ratified SALT-2.
Since 1981, the new President Reagan R. has launched programs SOI– Strategic defense initiatives.
1983- USA host ballistic missiles in Italy, England, Germany, Belgium, Denmark.
Anti-space defense systems are being developed.
The USSR withdraws from the Geneva talks.
5 period: 1985-1991 - the final stage, mitigation of tension.
Having come to power in 1985, Gorbachev M.S. pursues a policy "new political thinking".
Negotiations: 1985 - in Geneva, 1986 - in Reykjavik, 1987 - in Washington. Recognition of the existing world order, expansion of economic ties between countries, despite different ideologies.
December 1989 - Gorbachev M.S. and Bush at the summit on the island of Malta announced about the end of the Cold War. Its end was caused by the economic weakness of the USSR, its inability to support the arms race anymore. In addition, pro-Soviet regimes were established in the countries of Eastern Europe, the USSR lost support in their person as well.
1990 - German reunification. It became a kind of victory for the West in the Cold War. The fall berlin wall(existed from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989)
December 25, 1991 - President D. Bush announced the end of the Cold War and congratulated his compatriots on the victory in it.
Results
The formation of a unipolar world, in which the United States, a superpower, began to occupy a leading position.
The United States and its allies defeated the socialist camp.
Beginning of Westernization of Russia
The collapse of the Soviet economy, the fall of its authority in the international market
Emigration to the West of citizens of Russia, the way of his life seemed too attractive to them.
The collapse of the USSR and the beginning of the formation of a new Russia.
Terms
Parity- the primacy of the side in something.
Confrontation- confrontation, clash of two social systems (people, groups, etc.).
Ratification- giving the document legal force, accepting it.
Westernization- borrowing a Western European or American way of life.
Material prepared: Melnikova Vera Alexandrovna
