Outfoxing the Eagle: Soviet, East European and Cuban Involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-892
Author(s):  
Radoslav Yordanov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
East European ◽  
Security Services ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Election Victory ◽  
Communication And Coordination

This paper examines the relations of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the East European socialist states with Nicaragua from Anastasio Somoza's removal in July 1979 until Violeta Chamorro's election victory in February 1990, using a wide array of original documents, collected from Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, German and Czech diplomatic, party and security services archives. It delves deeply into the motivations behind the Kremlin's circumscribed approach, attempting to break new ground by looking in detail at Moscow's communication and coordination with its East European allies and Cuba, aimed at supporting Managua without risking major confrontation with Washington. This research aims to contribute to the existing historiography by looking not only at the motivations behind Soviet and Eastern Bloc involvement, but also by taking into account the circumstances preventing Moscow and its allies from developing more comprehensive political and economic relations with the Sandinista regime.

The Collapse of East European Communism and the Repercussions within the Soviet Union (Part 1)

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The largely peaceful collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 reflected the profound changes that Mikhail Gorbachev had carried out in Soviet foreign policy. Successful though the process was in Eastern Europe, it had destabilizing repercussions within the Soviet Union. The effects were both direct and indirect. The first part of this two-part article looks at Gorbachev's policy toward Eastern Europe, the collapse of Communism in the region, and the direct “spillover” from Eastern Europe into the Soviet Union. The second part of the article, to be published in the next issue of the journal, discusses the indirect spillover into the Soviet Union and the fierce debate that emerged within the Soviet political elite about the “loss” of the Eastern bloc—a debate that helped spur the leaders of the attempted hardline coup d'état in August 1991.

The Economic Dimension of the East–West Conflict and the Role of Germany

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-215
Author(s):  
Dietmar Petzina
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Industrial Country ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Economic Dimension ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Willy Brandt ◽  
East West

A survey of the economic problems in East–West relations during the era of the Cold War is of particular interest from the German perspective. First, no other Western industrial country played a comparable role in the economic relations with East European countries; and secondly, East–West trade, especially the economic contacts with the German Democratic Republic (GDR), became an outstanding feature of German Ostpolitik under the conditions of the divided country. It appears to be an acceptable proposition to say that this form of West Germany economic and trade policy was the equivalent of the militarily defined US policy towards the Soviet Union, in so far as the famous dictum of the former Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt, that the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was ‘an economic giant and a political dwarf only partly corresponded to reality. It therefore seems appropriate to discuss the economic dimension of the East–West conflict in the context of German interests and policies – not to the exclusion of all else, but with a certain priority.

A Socialist 007 : East European Spy Dramas in the Early James Bond Era

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikołaj Kunicki
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Television Series ◽  
The West ◽  
James Bond ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Bond Phenomenon

If the James Bond films were officially unavailable to East European audiences until 1989, the Eastern Bloc did not escape the global reach of the Bond phenomenon. East European spy dramas began to appear during the late 1960s, and they were mostly made for television and not all that distant in spirit from the Bond films. This chapter examines three television series: More Than Life at Stake (1967-1968) from Poland, The Invisible Gun Sight (1973-1979) from the German Democratic Republic, and Seventeen Moments of Spring (1972) from the Soviet Union. While these tales of espionage evince the projections of the west in the east during the Cold War, they reveal foremost the powerful appeal of consumerism behind the Iron Curtain.

China's International Trade: Policy and Organizational Change and their Place in the ‘Economic Readjustment‘

1984 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 813-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Y. Kueh ◽  
Christopher Howe
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
General Orientation ◽  
The Soviet Union

There are three aspects of China's foreign economic relations which are important to our efforts to understand the Readjustment of 1979–84. These are: (a) the government's general orientation towards foreign economic relations; (b) quantitative trends in investment and trade flows; and, (c) the nature of trade organization and international economic links. The general orientation to trade is critical in a planned economy where central preferences (essentially political) are easily reflected throughout the system. Stalin's policy of autarchy transformed the international role of the Soviet economy, while in China, Mao Zedong's willingness to trade with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc profoundly changed the character of the Chinese economy between 1953 and 1959. Large-scale plant imports created new industries and enlarged heavy industries established – particularly in the north-east – before 1949. This phase of policy had exhausted itself in China towards the end of the 1950s, although import data for 1959 reflect prior commitments and give little sign of this. However, the reality was that China's capacity to absorb imported capital goods, and the agricultural capacity to sustain foreign exchange earnings at the necessary level, were both weakening even before the dislocations of the Great Leap radically changed the role of foreign trade by converting China from a net food exporter to a net importer.

The Fight against Smuggling at the Soviet-Polish Border throughout 1921-1939

2017 ◽  
pp. 192-201
Author(s):  
Roman Kotsan
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Economic Crime ◽  
Private Capital ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Security Services ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Liability Limitation

The article considers smuggling as economic crime in the Soviet-Polish border in the interwar period. The reasons for smuggling activities are studied and summarized. Range of smuggled goods is shown. The number of arrested smugglers, their nationality, the value of seized goods both from Poland and the Soviet Union are investigated. Smuggling as a political phenomenon in the Soviet-Polish border in 1921-1939 is under study. The use of smugglers by the intelligence agencies of both Poland and the USSR are emphasized. The role of public authorities of both abovementioned countries in the fight against smuggling, namely Border Guard Corps from Poland; border guards, customs, security services and local Soviet authorities on the part of the USSR are studied. The influence of anti smuggling measures (increased criminal liability, limitation of private capital in trade, strengthen of the state borders protection) on its amount decrease is studied. Keywords: State border, smuggling, crime, scouting, Poland, USSR

East European military expenditures in the 1970s: collective good or bargaining offer?

1983 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Reisinger
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Gross National Product ◽  
Defense Spending ◽  
Collective Good ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Military Expenditures ◽  
Domestic Support ◽  
Nicolae Ceausescu ◽  
General Secretary

In late November 1978, Nicolae Ceausescu, general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, returned to Bucharest from a Moscow meeting of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). In a series of speeches from 25 November through 1 December, he began to denounce efforts by the Soviet Union to integrate more fully the armies of the WTO members and to get the East European members to increase their defense expenditures. Ceausescu was making a dramatic (and apparently successful) appeal for domestic support for his resistance to Soviet pressure. Other WTO member-states, although less publicly, have also resisted this Soviet pressure. Romania is not the only East European state ignoring Soviet calls for higher defense spending. Poland, for example, has also shown a significant decline during the 1970s in the amount of its gross national product (GNP) spent on defense (D/GNP). East Germany, on the other hand, increased its expenditures dramatically over the same decade.

The Trials of Arnošt K.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gordin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Soviet Authority ◽  
The Soviet Union

The Prague-born philosopher and historian of science Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979)—who often published under his Russian name Ernest Kol’man—has fallen into obscurity, much like dialectical materialism, the philosophy of science he represented. From modest Czech-Jewish origins, Kolman seized opportunities posed by the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution to advance to the highest levels of polemical Stalinist philosophy, returned to Prague as an activist laying the groundwork for the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, was arrested and held for three years by the Soviet secret police, returned to work in Moscow and Prague as a historian of science, played vastly contrasting roles in the Luzin Affair of the 1930s and the rehabilitation of cybernetics in the 1950s, and defected—after 58 years in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—to Sweden in 1976. This article argues that Kolman’s biography represents his gradual separation of dialectical materialism from other aspects of Soviet authority, a disentanglement enabled by the perspective gained from repeated returns to Prague and the diversity of dialectical-materialist thought developed in the Eastern Bloc. This essay is part of a special issue entitled THE BONDS OF HISTORY edited by Anita Guerrini.

scholarly journals How successful was Joseph Stalin in establishing Soviet Union as a superpower?

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Jakub Majkowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This essay will firstly address the extent of Stalin’s achievements in leading the course for domestic policy of the Soviet Union and its contribution towards maintaining the country’s supremacy in the world, for example the rapid post-war recovery of industry and agriculture, and secondly, the foreign policy including ambiguous relations with Communist governments of countries forming the Eastern Bloc, upkeeping frail alliances and growing antagonism towards western powers, especially the United States of America.   The actions and influence of Stalin’s closest associates in the Communist Party and the effect of Soviet propaganda on the society are also reviewed. This investigation will cover the period from 1945 to 1953. Additionally, other factors such as the impact of post-war worldwide economic situation and attitude of the society of Soviet Union will be discussed.    

scholarly journals INDIA-RUSSIA ENERGY COOPERATION BLOOMING TIES BEYOND THE HORIZON

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 705-709
Author(s):  
Bhagyadhar Sethy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Ties ◽  
Rates Of Growth

Russia and India have a long history of cooperation in the energy sector. The prospects for the development of the energy dialogue are as promising now as they were during the period of friendship between the Soviet Union and India. Since the late 2000s, the Russia–India energy partnership has been enjoying a renaissance. So why is now the time for Russia to think seriously about giving a new impetus to the energy dialogue with India? India is the worlds third largest energy consumer and a major energy importer with steadily growing demand. Russia is a key global producer and exporter of petroleum and natural gas. The two countries needs naturally complement each other. The current energy bilateral cooperation, already strong, can significantly extend to new sources such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Building on these can be an industry in natural gas vehicles and renewable energy, enabling economic instruments, such as energy benchmarks, and a policy framework, including labour mobility, to develop a skills corridor in energy. This paper examines the current state of Energy and economic relations between India and Russia. It flags the major issues that hinder development of economic ties between the two countries and discusses future prospects for growth. India and Russia have a long-standing relationship and securing an economic and energy partnership is important from both the diplomatic and geopolitical perspectives. Russia has a vital role in ensuring Indias energy security in the coming decade. India imports oil, mostly from the volatile region of the Middle East. However, to sustain current high rates of growth, India needs to secure and diversify its energy sources. How Russia is an obvious choice in this respect?

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