‘No One in Our Age was Cleverer …’

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-136
Author(s):  
Alan Bollard
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
General Theory ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Imf

As troops massed on the border, John Maynard Keynes had to hastily cut short a holiday in France. A government advisor, academic, journalist, and polymath, he spent the next few years working on pioneering and highly innovative economic ideas: how to pay for the war, how to apply his ground-breaking ‘General Theory’ to policy, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of Versailles, and how to set up an international clearing exchange at Bretton Woods that would eventually become the IMF. As Germany turned on the Soviet Union, Keynes became very worried about his Russian in-laws caught up in the terrible siege of Leningrad.

scholarly journals Activities of Non-Governmental Organisations Aimed at Conflict Settlement in Post-Soviet States

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Nikitin ◽  
Irina Bolgova ◽  
Yulia Nikitina
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Public Interests ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
International Environment ◽  
International Projects ◽  
The Government ◽  
Public Organisations ◽  
Set Up

This article analyses the peace-making activities of Soviet/Russian nongovernmental public organisations (NGOs) with reference to the Federation for Peace and Conciliation, the successor of the Soviet Peace Committee. NGOs were formed at the initiative of the state and party organs of the Soviet system but were transformed into independent NGOs after the collapse of the USSR with their own active strategy of assistance in conflict resolution. This study is based upon unique archive materials and the personal experience of one of the authors, who used to work for such organisations. The study focuses on the ethnopolitical conflicts which took place between the collapse of the USSR and the mid‑1990s. There is a widespread opinion in academic literature that so-called non-governmental organisations set up by the government do not have their own identity, especially during social crises, and passively follow the government’s political line. However, the study of their activities demonstrates that during the first years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these organisations initiated a significant number of practical and political projects with the participation of high-ranked representatives of the governments, parliaments, and political parties of both post-Soviet and foreign states and international organisations, including the UN, OSCE, NATO, CIS, etc. This, in turn, played a role as a substantial supplement to classical interstate diplomacy and practically promoted the settlement of certain ethnopolitical conflicts. The archive materials analysed prove that in the early post-Soviet period, a certain inversion in the direction of political and ideological impulses took place, and a number of non-governmental organisations that used to transmit the interests of the Communist Party and state organs to the international environment were able to create new international projects and consultations in the form of “track one-and-a-half” diplomacy, i. e. the informal interaction of officials in the capacity of unofficial experts. And in such cases, it was NGOs which shaped the agenda and transmitted public interests to the state structures of Russia and the CIS states, mediating between fighting sides and amongst representatives of various states, practically assisting the settlement of ethnopolitical conflicts.

The Communications–Computing Symbiosis: The Beginning

2021 ◽  
pp. 259-286
Author(s):  
Laszlo Solymar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Electronic Mail ◽  
Internet Security ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Computer Laboratory ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Bill Gates ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Electronic Spreadsheet

Chapter 16 discusses the history of the computer. Important events include IBM bringing out the personal computer, and Xerox PARC inventing the graphical user interface. Paul Allen and Bill Gates left Harvard in 1975 to set up a computer laboratory. A year later Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up Apple, followed soon by Dan Bricklin inventing the electronic spreadsheet. At the start of the 1980s Gates leased the MS-DOS operating system to IBM. Prior to all this, in 1969 the Advanced Research Product Agency set up ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet. Other topics covered in this chapter include the birth of electronic mail, uses and abuses of the Internet, security and coding, and the Minitel in France. The last part of the chapter looks at the Soviet Union and the InterNyet.

Contemporary U.S. Theory of International Law

1989 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 281-295
Author(s):  
Edward McWhinney
Keyword(s):  
Retrospective Study ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
General Theory ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War ◽  
New Generation

My retrospective study, published in the twenty-fifth anniversary volume of this Yearbook, attempted a critical survey of post-war Soviet general theory of international law, and noted the signs of an intellectual changing of the guard and the emergence of a new generation of Soviet international legal theorists. Is it possible today to speak of a post-war U.S. general theory of international law, and, if so, can we speak of a generational change, in the late 1980's, similar to that in the Soviet Union?

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1929 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 956-971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel N. Harper
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Center ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Revolution

A salient feature of the Soviet order set up in Russia by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is the provision for a single, mobilized political center, striving to organize all social processes to conform with its particular ideology and program. The Communist party is this political center of the Soviet Union, enjoying a monopoly of legality in respect of organization. Only an outline of the methods by which this political machine exercises its leadership is possible within the limits of the present note. The emphasis will be on the structure which the Communists have given to their party, in order more effectively to carry the responsibility of leadership assumed by them. The word “party” is used, but one has here an organization which differs sharply from political parties of parliamentary systems. Also in its relations to the formal governmental bodies the Communist party presents several features which differentiate it from the party systems of other countries.The special methods of organization adopted and the peculiar position enjoyed by the Communist party in the Soviet Union permit of several theoretical interpretations. One of these is that the Revolution contemplated by the Communists has three distinct stages, of which only the second has as yet been reached. There was the successful seizure of power, finally consolidated after some three years of civil war. Then came the present period of transition, the length of which will depend upon the success of the party in the exercise of its leadership. Only the successful achievement of the present party leadership will bring the final triumph of the Revolution as the third and last period.

The Statecraft of Dean Acheson

Worldview ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-38
Author(s):  
David S. McLellan ◽  
Ronald J. Stupak
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Small Advantage ◽  
De Gaulle

When Dean Acheson was appointed Under Secretary of State in September, 1945, I. F. Stone wrote in The Nation: “He has been pro-De Gaulle, anti-Franco, strongly opposed to the admission of Argentina to the U.N., and friendly to the Soviet Union … of all the men now in the Departrrient, Acheson was by far the best choice for Under Secretary, and it is no small advantage to pick a man who already knows a good deal about the inner workings.” Stone went on to note that one of Acheson's strongest assets was “in his relations with Congress. He deserves a generous share of the credit for the passage of the Bretton Woods legislation, and he played no inconsiderable part in the Senate's approval of the Charter.” In order to placate Acheson's reactionary critics, Tom Connally reassured trie Senate that he would “never have voted for Mr. Acheson's confirmation [as Under Secretary] unless it had been implicitly understood that he would not have a predominant voice in foreign policy.”

New Coal Basin of the U.S.S.R.

1944 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 132-132
Author(s):  
I. Andronov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Southern Urals ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Coal Basin ◽  
The Southern Urals ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Coking Coal ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Power Base ◽  
Set Up

Until quite recently only a few specialists, even in the Soviet Union, knew about the Poltava and Bredin anthracite deposits in the Southern Urals. Under the stern conditions of war, however, this coal basin in the east of the Soviet Union has sprung to economic life. A new power base has been set up, new shafts sunk, all of them working and with reserves of coal before them sufficient for many years. Many of the Bredin pits contain coking coal, and the Poltava-Bredin coal district will soon be able to supply many of the large Urals works with high-quality fuel.

The Role of History in the DDR

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Dorpalen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
National Committee ◽  
German History ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Set Up

AbstractWhen Walter Ulbricht and other Communist Party leaders returned to Germany from their Soviet exile in April, 1945, they brought with them not only blueprints for the administration and rehabilitation of Germany and for her gradual conversion to socialism,1 but also detailed plans for the Marxist reinterpretation of German history and for the teaching of this revised history in German schools and universities. Work on these plans had been underway for more than a year; it was based on earlier studies designed to refute Nazi conceptions of Germany's past. Similarly, it could draw on efforts to implement the popular-front strategy of the preceding decade, pointing out to non-Marxists that the communist-sponsored anti-fascist popular front (Volksfront) was deeply rooted in German history. This concern with history had gathered further momentum in connection with efforts to denazify German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. To gain their support for the "National Committee 'Free Germany'," the Volksfront organization set up in the USSR in July, 1943, the communist leaders sought to convince these men that the goals of the Committee accorded with some of the noblest traditions of Germany's past. On this basis outlines were compiled for a new approach to German history, emphasizing the democratic progressive strands of that history. Similarly texts were drawn up to explain the inevitability of the defeat of reactionary Nazism and imperialism at the hands of the forces of progress as represented above all by the Soviet Union. The nation was thus to be led on to the path of peace and progress, but with the ultimate socialist goal barely mentioned. Preparations also were made to train at once teachers who could offer this type of instruction.2

Current Views of the Soviet Union on the International Organization of Security, Economic Coöperation and International Law: A Summary

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 450-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Prince
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Far East ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Civil Aviation ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The Soviet Union

The U.S.S.R. is destined to play a decisive role in establishing an effective international organization of security. Therefore a summary of current trends of thought and attitudes in the Soviet Union is here presented, reflecting its foreign policy and its views on the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, the Bretton Woods Articles of Agreement, the legal status of the Polish Govemment-In-Exile, the treatment of Germany, the Chicago Civil Aviation Conference, the legal status of the Atlantic Charter and the situation in the Far East.

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