Labor, the UN and the Cold War

1957 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Karan Jacobson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

One of the significant structural differences between the organization of economic and social work under the League and under the United Nations is the extent to which non-governmental organizations (NGO's) have been allowed to participate. NGO's have been granted far greater privileges in the UN than they enjoyed in the League. Initially, they were formally recognized in Article 71 of the Charter, which gives the Economic and Social Council the right to make “suitable arrangements” for consultation with them. While defined in differing ways during different periods, consultative status under this article has, subject to various conditions, always included the right to participate in the debates of ECOSOC, its commissions and committees, and to propose items for inclusion in their provisional agenda. NGO's have made extensive use of these privileges. Their use, however, as well as the entire record of NGO action in the UN, has been inseparably linked with the cold war. Russian demands at San Francisco for privileges for the newly created, communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) were a contributing factor in the decision to include Article 71 in the Charter. The initial definition of this article resulted primarily from the interaction of pressures by the Soviet Union and the WFTU and the western response.

The Indian Ocean Creole Islands: Geo-politics and Decolonisation

1992 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Houbert
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North And South ◽  
Radical Transformation

Decolonisation was a policy of the West, as well as a process reflecting the radical transformation of the configuration of power in the international system. The Soviet Union, perceived as poised to dominate Eurasia, had to be ‘contained’ lest it expanded into the Rimland and challenged the West at sea. This geo-political obsession was reinforced by the ‘loss of China’ and the outbreak of the bitter struggle between North and South Korea. But the cold war was about ideology as well as military power, and containment was therefore not just a question of building pacts but of fostering the ‘right’ kind of political régimes.

The De-moralization of the Cold War

2018 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

As the American public became increasingly disenchanted over the nation’s ongoing presence in Southeast Asia, the Nixon administration initiated a diplomatic strategy toward the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Nixon, who early in his political career had been a passionate anticommunist, began to consider ways in which he might bring China into the international community. The president believed that this strategy had the potential to decrease the Cold War tensions that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. The foreign policy strategy that Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, developed came to be known as détente. The initiatives that composed Nixon’s policy were based on Kissinger’s realist view of international affairs. That perspective embraced the idea of accepting the world as it was rather than trying to change it. By deemphasizing the importance of the conflict between international communism and democracy, pundits on the Right believed Nixon was not only withdrawing America from its global responsibilities, but in doing so was giving the communist world free reign to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy.

scholarly journals Bellicose Peace: China’s Peace Signature Campaign and Discourses about “Peace” in the Early 1950s

Modern China ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-280
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Forster
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Peace ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

In the early 1950s, China engaged in several military actions, most notably in the Korean War. Nevertheless, the World Peace Council, an international organization sponsored by the Soviet Union, praised the country as a “fortress for the protection of world peace” in 1954. This hinged upon a very specific, bellicose understanding of “peacefulness,” which did not mean the rejection of war, but war against the “right” enemy. I discuss this understanding, its function within the international community, its embeddedness in international political thinking, and its promulgation among the Chinese population, using the example of a campaign in 1950 to collect signatures on a World Peace Council–authored appeal against the atomic bomb. Self-promotion as a peaceful nation in the bellicose sense served a variety of purposes for the young People’s Republic of China (PRC), most importantly the goal to instill bloc thinking in the PRC’s population and to gain prestige within the new international order of the Cold War.

scholarly journals The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia from the Historical Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-439
Author(s):  
Kaan DİYARBAKIRLIOĞLU
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Strategic Plans ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Christian Population

The Nagorno-Karabakh problem had continued for years. The problem had grown thanks to the policies of Russia in the region. The Russians first had carried out expansionist policies. After the industrial revolution, oil in the Caucasus had gained importance in the region. Therefore, the Russian Armenians immigrated to these regions. Strategic plans have been developed to increase the Christian population in the region and to make the region a region without Turks. Armenia and Azerbaijan had gained independence after the Soviet Union collapsed after the Cold War. After the Soviet Union, Russia had given the region the right to self-determination, and the population in the Nagorno-Karabakh region began to be Armenian. Azerbaijani Turks were immigrated from this region. Negotiating groups have been included for the solution of the problem in this region and a ceasefire has been signed between the two countries. Violations had occurred over the years after the ceasefire signed between the two countries. Russia had not wanted the presence of international actors in this region. For this reason, Russia continues to be on the Armenian side. Today, Russia has a voice in the region with a balanced policy. Nagorno-Karabakh region is legally connected to Azerbaijan and has not been recognized as de-facto.

scholarly journals The World Youth Festival as a Soviet Cultural Product during the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pia Koivunen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
World Federation ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses Soviet cultural diplomacy from the perspective of cultural production. It analyses a Soviet-sponsored international event, the World Festival of Youth and Students, as a cultural product created within the socialist system. The first festival was held in Prague in 1947, and the tradition continued throughout the Cold War period until today. Earlier scholarship has examined the festival as a propaganda tool, a forum for cross-cultural encounters, and a battlefield of the cultural Cold War between the capitalist West and the socialist East. Much has been written about individual world youth festivals and national delegations, while the design, cultural background and fundamental ideas behind the event have been much less acknowledged. By employing the concept of mega-event and comparing the festival with iconic international events, such as World’s Fairs and the Olympic Games, it discusses the festival’s composition and evolution, its reception, and how the event found its place in a world shaped by the tensions between the two social systems. It employs materials from the main organiser of the event, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, documents from the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) and the Communist Party of the USSR, and contemporary newspapers and magazines. The author argues that the USSR developed an attractive global cultural institution, which well suited the Cold War environment but was too dependent on financial support from the socialist bloc and too tied to the political agenda of the Soviet Union to become a universally accepted institution.

New Materials for Studying Preparation and Staging of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957

2018 ◽  
pp. 550-563
Author(s):  
Daniel Sawert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

The article assesses archival materials on the festival movement in the Soviet Union in 1950s, including its peak, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in 1957 in Moscow. Even now the Moscow festival is seen in the context of international cultural politics of the Cold War and as a unique event for the Soviet Union. The article is to put the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in the context of other youth festivals held in the Soviet Union. The festivals of 1950s provided a field for political, social, and cultural experiments. They also have been the crucible of a new way of communication and a new language of design. Furthermore, festivals reflected the new (althogh relative) liberalism in the Soviet Union. This liberalism, first of all, was expressed in the fact that festivals were organized by the Komsomol and other Soviet public and cultural organisations. Taking the role of these organisations into consideration, the research draws on the documents of the Ministry of culture, the All-Russian Stage Society, as well as personal documents of the artists. Furthermore, the author has gained access to new archive materials, which have until now been part of no research, such as documents of the N. Krupskaya Central Culture and Art Center and of the central committees of various artistic trade unions. These documents confirm the hypothesis that the festivals provided the Komsomol and the Communist party with a means to solve various social, educational, and cultural problems. For instance, in Central Asia with its partiarchal society, the festivals focuced on female emancipation. In rural Central Asia, as well as in other non-russian parts of the Soviet Union, there co-existed different ways of celebrating. Local traditions intermingled with cultural standards prescribed by Moscow. At the first glance, the modernisation of the Soviet society was succesful. The youth acquired political and cultural level that allowed the Soviet state to compete with the West during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students. During the festival, however, it became apparent, that the Soviet cultural scheme no longer met the dictates of times. Archival documents show that after the Festival cultural and party officials agreed to ease off dogmatism and to tolerate some of the foreign cultural phenomena.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

The Cold War in the Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
School Experiences ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Voluntary Programs ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War experiences of America’s schoolchildren are often summed up by quick references to “duck and cover,” a problematic simplification that reduces children to victims in need of government protection. By looking at a variety of school experiences—classroom instruction, federal and voluntary programs, civil defense and opposition to it, as well as world friendship outreach—it is clear that children experienced the Cold War in their schools in many ways. Although civil defense was ingrained in the daily school experiences of Cold War kids, so, too, were fitness tests, atomic science, and art exchange programs. Global competition with the Soviet Union changed the way children learned, from science and math classes to history and citizenship training. Understanding the complexity of American students’ experiences strengthens our ability to decipher the meaning of the Cold War for American youth and its impact on the politics of the 1960s.

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Defence

The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.

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