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Brinkmanship : Cold war on the edge to become a hot war,. Since the early 1950s through mid-1960s. German Question: a discourse about the division. What agreements were reached about German question at Potsdam Conference? (Document 2).
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Brinkmanship:Cold war on the edge to become a hot war, Since the early 1950s through mid-1960s
What agreements were reached about German question at Potsdam Conference? (Document 2) • ….supreme authority in Germany is exercised, on instructions from their respective Governments, by the Commanders-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the French Republic, each in his own zone of occupation, and also jointly, in matters affecting Germany as a whole, in their capacity as members of the Control Council. • …Soviet demands for reparations…..
(Document 1) • 1947, July – Paris conference on the Marshall plan: • Can you describe the position of Molotov and aims of the Soviet Union? • What was the aims of the USA in Europe? • How did the French president understand the results of the Yalta conference? • Question about UN and German question? • Did French president Vincent Auriol see the East-West Division as an inevitable consequence of the Marshall Plan?
Soviet Draft for a German Peace Treaty, 10 March 1952decision-making in the USADocument 3/4 • 1) What did Stalin propose? (3) • 2) How did the DOS evaluate the “..abstract unification…” of Germany? (4) • 3) How did the DOS propose to resolve the German problem? (4) • 4) What was important – the integration and European Defense system or unification of Germany? (4)
Stalin and the SED Leadership, 7 April 1952 (Document 5) • 1) How did Stalin represent the American policy towards Germany? • 2) How did he emphasize the Soviet concerns as to the Western problem towards Germany? • 3) What did Stalin recommend the German communists to do?
Final assessment of the Cold War Origins • 3 major interpretations regarding the origins of the Cold War: 1) the orthodox interpretation - a responsibility for the breakdown of the wartime Grand Alliance to the Soviet Union: • Stalin expanded communism in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, and • The U.S. had no choice but to check Soviet expansionism. • So, ideological clash Soviet historians - the United States exaggerated any threat the Soviet Union may have posed to the United States at the end of World War
1 famous alternative view in orthodox: Hans Morgenthau and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. • traditional goals of Russian expansionism, rather than communist ideology, was premises for the Cold War; • Americans failed to appreciate the nature of Stalin's ambitions, • and the Soviets could not understand the cause of American sensitivity. >> • the Cold Wary was the product of mutual misunderstanding. • Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Hans J. Morgenthau, The Origins of the Cold War (1970)
Final assessment of the Cold War Origins 2) Revisionist (Gabriel Kolko): • Economic factor - the Truman administration supported for a interventionist strategy designed to make the world safe for American capitalism: • global open door policy of equal trade, • investment opportunity, • private enterprise, • multilateral cooperation in foreign commerce • freedom of the seas
Final assessment of the Cold War Origins: revisionists • The Soviet Union: did not want to subordinate its economic system • Losing control in countries with strong communist parties resulted in American support of conservative establishments. Gabriel Kolko and Joyce Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (1972)
Final assessment of the Cold War Origins • 3) post-revisionism (John Gaddis): • both internal and external influences important in explaining the breakdown of the Grand Alliance: • domestic politics, • bureaucracy, • personality, • specific perceptions of Soviet intentions
Final conclusion of N. Tsvetkova • ideological differences are insufficient to explain the Cold War after World War II • Soviet and American interests now collided as both nations attempted to fill the power vacuum created by the collapse of Germany and Japan: Europe, Asia • Misunderstanding: Russian political expansionism cannot understand American global economic policy
Global Cold War and the road to détente or Global Cold War andthe road to a hot atom war??? Since the early 1950s through mid-1960s
Aftermath: the end of Truman presidency, 1953., death of Stalin,1953, the end of Korean War, 1953 >> New leaders: D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961 N. Khrushchev, 1953-1964 New strategies: American “New Look” , 1950s and Soviet “nation-building”, 1960s Approach: blocks, alliances building.
Strategies: the United States • Project Solarium, 1953-54: 4 approaches to USSR • Military alliances • Line and nuclear weapons • Throwing out the pro-soviet governments • Negotiations and compromises • New look strategy was a combination of three ideas and meant: “…react massively, with nuclear weapons, in the event of communist aggression at any level, strategic or tactical.” • John Foster Dulles, a domino theory: the loss of a country will follow the loss of others
Strategies: the Soviet Union • Khrushchev: “ this is atomic blackmail” >> • 1) to build atom in the USSR: new army branch -Nuclear-Missile Combat + outer-space • 2) Nationbuilding 1950s – was to support national movements in developing countries and to turn the Third World into socialism. >> • Cold War became a global war, not only European one: Middle East (Egypt + Iran) + Latin America (Cuba) + sub-Saharan Africa (Congo, now Zaire).
The Nature of the period of the Cold War, the mid-1950s through mid-1960s • The growing Soviet-American rivalry in the Third World, because • the Soviet Union wanted to challenge U.S. around the world >> • The spread of the Cold War in the Middle East, East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. • New idea in the literature: The Soviet expansion was determined by the fear of possible Chinese communist expansion and rising China as nuclear power.
Realization of strategies: 1) alliances-building – Asia +Middle East • ANZUS (Australia, Zealand, United States) 1951 • SEANTO - Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, 1954: combat the expansion of communism Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos • Warsaw Pact, 1955 –mutual military alliance between USSR and Eastern Europe>> • To find more allies in developing world: bilateral alliances with Egypt, Syria, China
I) Realization of strategies: 2) nation-building in former colonies: • Middle East: • Egypt (Gamal Nasser, who made a problem with Suez Canal, 1956) and idea of pan-Arabism – to establish an alliance of all Arab nations to rid the region of outside political influences (it is denied) • Iran, 1953 – Shah Pahlavi after the killing of Mossadeq
Eisenhower Doctrine for ME/ USSR • USA: To use force in the Middle East against an armed aggression from any nation controlled by International Communism, 1956. • USSR: To be oriented on Arabs (their parties like BAATH in Syria and Iraq) declared a socialism
China-Soviet Union-United States until the end of 1960s • China-Soviet Union: • Soviet assistance + aspirations of China to get a nuclear weapon (They built in 1964) • 1959 split for nuclear program +ideological split: Mao blamed the USSR for falsifications of the Marxism • China-United States: • Taiwan problem (Chinese bombardments of small islands near it + American military support of Taiwan) Soviet Union –U.S. – they both did not want the empower China with weapons but cannot combine their ideological blindness.
South-East Asia: Vietnam, 1954 • Ho Chi Minh led the “communist” Vietminh, the army again France (North) • South was pro-American: former emperor Bao Dai • French government asked for the American help after defeat at Dien Bien Phu. • Eisenhower rejected the idea to help France (due to a special decision-making process +public opinion and opposition of the Congress)^ 1954 • So, new president, John Kennedy must resolve it.
II) The war for outerspace, Soviet Sputnik, American Vanguard October 1957 (USSR) and February 1958 (USA) – it was an intercontinental ballistic missile 1) a psychological strike for American society: high vulnerability + Soviet technological prowess. 2) first unbelief in U.S. Government among American public 3) the phenomenon of a Cold War university and science However,
Positive Effect of Sputnik-Vanguard • Khrushchev proposed a 2-3 years suspension of nuclear weapon tests and announced an indefinite suspension of their nuclear test program. • Under public pressure – the USA and Great Britain also did the 1-year suspension of the tests. • The Limited Test-Ban Treaty, 1963 + idea of control of dissemination of nuclear weapon
Positive Effect of Sputnik-Vanguard idea of co-existence: Since 1958 • first contacts – people-to-people • Exchanges in information (America, USSR) • Visit of Khrushchev to America, 1959 • American Exhibition Moscow and Leningrad, 1958
Effect of Sputnik-Vanguard: Khrushchev’ domestic policy was aimed at surpassing the U.S. • To seed corn in Russia like in Iowa and • To breed rabbits to produce more meet than in the USA >> • New Russian names of this politics was invented by NK: • Dognat (Rundown) • Peregnat (Surpass)
The early of 1960s: Kennedy and Khrushchev • Developing countries: • AID and Peace Corps, 1961 not to let Russia to win Third world • Caribbean crisis, 1962 • Castro since 1959 and asked the USA to help • Eisenhower did not support him • Castro asked the Soviet Union • CIA: to kill Castro or to invade Cuba by trained émigré; • The mistake of Kennedy – not to support the émigré invasion by military forces, April 1961>> • In result: Kennedy has drawn Havana and Moscow closer together. • Castro declared himself a socialist, to ensure a Soviet commitment to defend Cuba • Kennedy –we need to defend other parts – South Vietnam • Soviets – we need to defend Cuba
P.S.: Caribbean crisis, 1962 • Other pressing factors: • Berlin crisis, august 1961 • South Vietnam –pressure from the North • Chinese pressure on Taiwan • Soviet missiles were deployed on Cuban territory in early 1962 >> • 6 days crisis in October: world on the edge of the nuclear war: • Kennedy felt humiliation after failed invasion of Cuba + he was strongly criticized for his soft reaction to the building of the Berlin Wall >> • He wanted to go to the end • Khrushchev felt the force and backed • Solution: mutual removal of missiles (American missiles in Turkey) • and new concepts and strategies were elaborated
New approaches in Cold War politics • Kennedy: • “flexible response” • To use not only nuclear attack against the Soviet Union but also: • covert action, • antiguerrilla operations, • conventional forces • Military build up • Diplomacy Today: it was the direct road to Vietnam tragedy
Vietnam in the Cold War • Kennedy increased the number of military advisers from 700 to 16,700 • He believed in domino theory • Lyndon Johnson: South Vietnam would collapse if the United States did not expand its participation in the war. >> air war+ ground combat forces (500 000 in 1968) + bombing campaigns • Problem: the factor of China: Mao sent 300 000 to help Ho Shi Minh • Today: Johnson did not use the possibilities to convince China and a wrong estimation of Chinese foreign policy as having expansionist character in Asia. • But: Chinese policy was more defensive (?) • USA till 1969 did not use zero relations of China-Soviet Union >> • Talks since 1969.
The road to relaxation • Both Soviets and Americans wanted to improve relations since Sputnik, Vietnam, Chinese test of bomb in 1964 • Both were eager to halt the spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear-weapon states.
Cold War Culture Home fronts Selling image
Frames of the theme • Social-cultural dimension of the Cold War: • It means as an umbrella term to embrace the mass experience within cold-war political events. • social history in its broad sense of ‘ordinary’ and ‘everyday’, but in extraordinary circumstances. • Problems: • Did the Cold War high politics influence arts, movies, pop culture, everyday life, etc. of people who lived during the period of the Cold War, 1940s -1990? • Were the cultural artifacts to use as a tool in propaganda or they were made by autonomous artists who lived in the cold war and reflect its the reality?
2 dimensions of Cold War Cultures (American-West and Soviet-socialist) 1) Home fronts: how did the Cold War influence a domestic life? 2) Selling a brand (image) aboard: How did both superpowers sell their images, ideologies to foreign public and to each other?
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension • Purge: both in the United States and Soviet Union: pursue of dissidents • Campaign against those who appraised West culture in the Soviet Union (in Russian: “against cosmopolitism) – “Kosmopolit”, since 1950s until the end of 1980s = traditional Russian xenophobia VS. America-and-West-admirers 2) Camping against communists (Senator McCarthy), since the end 1940 until the mid-1950s >> American variant of xenophobia during the Cold War – a scare to be infected with leftist and communist ideas
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension 2) dissidentsin all the countries whose words were differentiated from an official discourse: In Soviet Union: • The Thaw since 1956: phenomenon of physicist-lyric poet – a dissent voice among technocrats (scholars, and engineers) like A. Sakharov = R. Havemann in the GDR. • The defection to the West of a number of leading Soviet artists However, a support of the communist regime in 1960-1970s became more wide: a standard of life became higher and the absent of repression
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension Eastern Europe: from open riots to silent opposition • Germany, 1953 • Riots in Poland, 1956 • Hungary, 1958 • Czechoslovakia, 1968 >> • Silent nonviolent dissidents were strong in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland • Church (Catholic and Lutheran) was shelter for dissidents in GDR, and Poland • End of 1970s – Jimmy Carter idea to promote human rights became the main idea of dissidents
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension In United States: -1960s-1970s generation of baby-boomers – 20% of population of 24 years. -Hippy and counterculture movement (rock groups) against War (pacifism) -strong revisionism in arts and social studies (critical theory to interpret history and politics) In Western Europe: -radical students in the FU, leftists, post-modernism, the battles between left- and right-wing intellectuals: Picasso and Congress of for Cultural Freedom: Main ideas – rejection of dominant values of American society, idea of American imperialism
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: cultural dimensions 3) Making divergent official cultural discourses in historical memory: different story of the Second world war (two victors) in both the U.S. and the USSR; 4) Official games with public fearof future nuclear war: through anti-war demonstrations, documentary films and movies like ‘The third war’ 5) “We [USSR] turned out to be in position of defender in the face of American cultural offensive:” inserting some American ideas in society, movies, culture (globalization, Americanization or copying to smooth people)
What is meant by the American dream?That all men shall be free to seek a better life,with free worship, thought, assembly, expressionof belief and universal suffrage and education.
Idea of “American dream” in Hollywood and of a birth of a “Soviet dream” in Mosfilm “Soviet dream” as an answer to Hollywood films: - provincial girls win big cities by following methods: • A successful career but a tragedy of personal life • A successful marriage (love, family) Moscow does not believe in tears, Oscar, 1979
II) Selling its image to foreign publicHow both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tried to sell their ideologies • Main motive: to win an allegiance of people around the world (the war for hearts and minds) • Means: • Propaganda (radio) • Training of definite social and professional groups • Cultural presentations