Stalin, Togliatti, and the Origins of the Cold War in Europe

2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Pons
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The West ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
West European

Soviet policy toward the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from 1943 to 1948 exemplified Josif Stalin's complicated relationship with the West European Communist parties and Western Europe in general. For a considerable while, Stalin insisted that the PCI follow a policy of moderation. Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the PCI, heeded Stalin's orders and tried to ensure that the Italian Communists pursued a policy of national unity and avoided conflicts that might lead to civil war in Italy. But this moderate approach collapsed after the Soviet Union rejected the Marshall Plan in 1947 and thereby forced the West European Communist parties into extra-parliamentary opposition. Not until after the poor showing of the PCI in the 1948 Italian elections was the party able to regain a viable role. Stalin's conflicting advice to the PCI was indicative of his tenuous grasp of the situation in Western Europe.

The Sociology of New Thinking: Elites, Identity Change, and the End of the Cold War

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert English
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Gorbachev Era ◽  
General Secretary

This article recounts the origins of Soviet “new thinking” as a case study of how Soviet intellectuals sought to redefine national identity in response to the West. It demonstrates that new thinking was fundamentally normative, not instrumental, insofar as it was developed in a period (1950s–1960s) when “socialism” was thought to be materially outperforming capitalism. It also demonstrates that new thinking decisively affected Soviet policy in the second half of the 1980s. Putting forth a socialization argument to show how newthinking ideas originated in the post-Stalin period within a community of intellectuals, the article charts the growing influence of these intellectuals through the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, when Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party and empowered many of the new thinkers as advisers, their liberal, Westernizing ideas played an indispensable role in shaping his reforms. The analysis focuses on mechanisms of identity change at two levels: that of the community of reformist intellectuals, and that of the Soviet Union itself. The analysis challenges realist and rationalist views that new thinking was largely instrumental. Until the Gorbachev era, Soviet reformers advocated new-thinking ideas often at the risk of their personal, professional, and institutional interests.

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.

scholarly journals DIASPORA DAN IDENTITAS KOMUNITAS EKSIL ASAL INDONESIA DI BELANDA

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Gusnelly Gusnelly
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

This paper is the result of research on Indonesian migration that focuses on the diaspora of the exile community in the Netherlands. The purpose to discuss this issue is to tell about the existence of an Indonesian community that has been exiled from the country for decades and became stateless or lost citizenship, because its passport was revoked by the Indonesian government. They are the generation who have been forced to move to several countries and choose to seek asylum in various Western European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The history of their existence abroad as a result of the event of G30S/1965. They were abroad when the G30S occurred in the country. Their departure abroad was in the leftist (socialist) countries of the mid-1960s not because of political affairs but for various interests, but in fact it was related to the occurrence of the G30S/1965. In 1989 with the fall of communism and the end of the cold war after the collapse of the superpower of the Soviet Union, most of them have registered themselves as asylum seekers to several countries in Western Europe, including to the Netherlands. As a Dutch citizen, their descendants get education and work in the Netherlands. Their descendants feel that the Dutch or Europeans are his identity but the exiles keep their nationalism for Indonesia. We call that with long-distance nationalism.Keywords: Dutch, diaspora, exile community, asylum, citizenshipABSTRAKTulisan ini merupakan hasil penelitian tentang migrasi orang Indonesia yang fokus pada diaspora komunitas eksil di Belanda. Tujuan untuk membahas masalah ini adalah untuk menceritakan tentang keberadaan komunitas Indonesia yang sejak puluhan tahun terbuang dari tanah air dan menjadi stateless atau kehilangan kewarganegaraan, sebab pasportnya dicabut oleh pemerintah Indonesia. Mereka merupakan anak bangsa dari satu generasi yang terpaksa pindah ke beberapa negara dan memilih mencari suaka ke berbagai negara Eropa Barat pascaruntuhnya Uni Soviet. Sejarah keberadaan mereka di luar negeri sebagai akibat dari peristiwa G30S tahun 1965. Mereka sedang berada di luar negeri ketika terjadi peristiwa G30S di dalam negeri. Kepergian mereka ke luar negeri yaitu di negara-negara beraliran kiri (sosialis) di pertengahan tahun 60-an bukan karena hanya karena urusan politik, tetapi untuk berbagai kepentingan, namun pada kenyataannya disangkutpautkan dengan terjadinya peristiwa G30S tahun 1965 tersebut. Pada tahun 1989 dengan kejatuhan komunisme dan berakhirnya perang dingin setelah keruntuhan negara adi kuasa Uni Soviet sebagian besar mereka telah mendaftarkan diri menjadi pencari suaka ke beberapa negara di Eropa Barat, termasuk ke Belanda. Sebagai warga negara Belanda, anak keturunannya mendapatkan pendidikan dan bekerja di Belanda. Anak-anak keturunannya merasa Belanda atau Eropa adalah identitasnya akan tetapi orang eksil tetap menjaga nasionalisme mereka buat tanah airnya yaitu Indonesia. Kami menyebutnya dengan nasionalisme jarak jauh.  Kata Kunci: Belanda, diaspora, komunitas eksil, suaka, kewarganegaraan

scholarly journals Voci libere in URSS

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
International Level ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Conceptual Overview

Free Voices in the USSR is a project dedicated to the myriad of independent voices present in the culture of dissent in the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century. Its aim is to offer a conceptual overview of the many forms of dissent by exploring two main thematic areas, the first devoted to “free voices” in the USSR and the second focused on reception in the West. The different manifestations of the USSR’s ‘Second Culture’, which was non-official and independent, spread thanks to the samizdat (the clandestine publication and circulation of texts within the USSR) and the tamizdat (the publication of texts forbidden in the USSR in the West). The reception of non-official forms of expression in the West is explored in the context of the debates arising from the Cold War; the role of the West in engaging with the literary, cultural and artistic challenges to the Soviet regime from within its own borders proved fundamental. Contributions to this website including critical essays, bio-bibliographic entries, archive information and the review and cataloguing of magazines are the result of coordinated research by a group of specialists at an international level.

Western Europe

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Etges
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter explores the role and experience of Western Europe in the Cold War. It explains that Western Europe is not a precise political or geographical entity, and that its role in the Cold War can only be understood in the context of its changing internal dynamics and changing relationship with the United States, the Soviet Union, and countries of Eastern Europe. The chapter argues that Western Europe both shaped and was shaped by Cold War in a political, economic, military, cultural, and ideological sense, and also considers the German question, Franco-German rapprochement and European integration, and military aspects of the Western alliance.

2. Dividing Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Messenger
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
European Integration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Schuman Plan

This chapter examines how the politics of the Cold War shaped integration and created and cemented the division of Europe in the immediate postwar era. It first provides an overview of the origins of the Cold War in Europe before discussing the Marshall Plan and the Schuman Plan. It then considers the Western Alliance and German rearmament, the Soviet Union's attitude towards European integration, and alternatives to integration including the Western European Union and NATO. The chapter shows that the outbreak of the Cold War not only enabled the United States to remain engaged in European affairs but also spurred the process of European integration while ensuring that it would be confined to the western part of the continent. Of great significance was the connection made by American and French officials, notably Jean Monnet, between economic development, national security, and the double containment of Germany and the Soviet Union.

Violence and the New Internationalism, 1988–2003

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-197
Author(s):  
Laura Robson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Considerable Promise ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
West Bank And Gaza ◽  
First Intifada ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Resistance Movement

This chapter looks at the first intifada—a grassroots resistance movement that emerged in the West Bank and Gaza in late 1987 and showed considerable promise before being crushed by Israeli military might. Its collapse also coincided with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, marking the beginning of a new American tactic of supposed humanitarian concern for ethnically or communally defined victims of a regime as a pretext for military action intended to ensure resource access, especially to oil. These arguments for and practices of occupation not only invigorated and intensified internal ethnic and communal tensions within the Iraqi state, but also fueled new forms of Islamist opposition that had never before flourished in the Mashriq.

Politics without Commerce? Explaining the Discontinuity in Soviet-Nigerian Relations, 1971-1979

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 289-314
Author(s):  
Ehimika A. Ifidon ◽  
Charles O. Osarumwense
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Cold War

The paper set out to explain the discontinuity in Soviet-Nigerian relations between the periods 1967-1970 and 1971-1979. The explanation usually given for the poor relations between Nigeria and the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1966 is the anti-communism of the Nigerian political elite; and ideological incompatibility for the non-vibrant relations between 1971 and 1979. These explanations appear idealistic and hypothetical. A major source of the problem of explanation is the consideration of Soviet-Nigerian relations only within the context of the Soviet-American Cold War struggle, from a trilateral perspective. What if the Cold War did not exist, what would have been the nature of Soviet-Nigerian relations? Adopting a bilateral framework, the paper argues that it was the inchoate state of trade relations, which would have provided the basis for continuity across administrations, that retarded Soviet-Nigerian political relations between 1971 and 1979.

Litvinov's Lost Peace, 1941–1946

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Grand Alliance ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Realist Conception

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and the ensuing conflict witnessed the political rehabilitation of the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maksim Litvinov. After serving as ambassador to the United States from 1941 to 1943, Litvinov returned to the Soviet Union and played a key role in charting Moscow's wartime Grand Alliance strategy. He urged So-viet leaders to convene a joint Anglo-Soviet-American commission to discuss military-political questions, and he helped organize the October 1943 foreign ministers'conference in Moscow. As the war drew to a close, Litvinov argued for a postwar settlement dividing the world into security zones. His realist conception of foreign policy suggested a more moderate alternative o Josif Stalin's reliance on confrontation with the West. Although Litvinov faded again from public view after his retirement in 1946, his belief that the Grand Alliance could continue suggests that the rapid, postwar descent into the Cold War might have been averted had it not been for Stalin.

scholarly journals Canada and the Beginning of the Cold War: Modern Interpretations

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Maryna Bessonova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

The most widespread plots interpreted as the beginning of the Cold War are the events that took place in 1946: February 9 – J. Stalin’s speech to the electorate in Moscow; February 22 – the American charge d’Affaires in the Soviet Union G. Kennan’s “long telegram”; March 5 – W. Churchill’s speech in Fulton (the USA); September 27 – the Soviet Ambassador in the United States N. Novikov’s “long telegram”. But there was an earlier event, so called “Gouzenko affair”, which is almost unknown for the Ukrainian historiography. On September 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk of the Soviet embassy to Canada, defected to the Canadian side with more than a hundred secret documents that proved the USSR’s espionage activities in the countries of North America. Information about the network of Soviet agents caused a real panic in the West and was perceived as a real start of the Cold War. In the article, there is made an attempt to review the main events related to the Gouzenko affair and to identify the dominant interpretations of this case in contemporary historical writings. One can find different interpretations of the reasons and the consequences of Gouzenko’s defection which dramatically affected the history of the world. One of the main vivid results was an anti-communist hysteria in the West which was caused by the investigation that Canadian, American and British public officials and eminent scientists were recruited by the Soviet Union as agents for the atomic espionage. For Canada, the Gouzenko affair had an unprecedented affect because on the one hand it led to the closer relations with the United States in the sphere of security and defense, and on the other hand Canada was involved into the international scandal and used this case as a moment to start more activities on the international arena. It has been also found that the Canadian and American studies about Gouzenko affair are focused on the fact that the Allies on the anti-Hitler coalition need to take a fresh look at security and further cooperation with the USSR, while the overwhelming majority of Russian publications is focused on the very fact of betrayal of Igor Gouzenko.

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