Jazz, Power, and Soviet Youth in the Early Cold War, 1948−1953

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gleb Tsipursky
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Competition ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Examining the history of jazz in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1953, this essay sheds light on the role of popular music in the cultural competition of the early Cold War. While the Soviet authorities pursued a tolerant policy toward jazz during World War II because of its wartime alliance with the United States, the outbreak of the Cold War in the late 1940s led to a decisive turn against this music. The Communist Party condemned jazz as the music of the “foreign bourgeoisie,” instead calling for patriotic Soviet music. Building on previous studies of the complex fate of western music in the USSR during the postwar decades, this article highlights a previously unexamined youth counterculture of jazz enthusiasts, exploring the impact of anti-jazz initiatives on grassroots cultural institutions, on the everyday cultural practices of young people, and on the Cold War’s cultural front in the USSR. It relies on sources from central and regional archives, official publications, and memoirs, alongside oral interviews with jazz musicians and cultural officials.

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.

Cold War Exiles and the CIA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Home Base ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Secret War

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, the United States government unleashed covert operations intended to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of these efforts, the CIA undertook support of Russian exiles, populations uprooted either during World War II or by the Russian Revolution decades before. No one seemed better prepared to fight in the American secret war against communism than the uprooted Russians, whom the CIA directed to carry out propaganda, espionage, and subversion operations from their home base in West Germany. Yet the American engagement of Russian exiles had unpredictable outcomes. Drawing on recently declassified and previously untapped sources, Cold War Exiles and the CIA examines how the CIA’s Russian operations became entangled with the internal struggles of Russia abroad and also the espionage wars of the superpowers in divided Germany. What resulted was a transnational political sphere involving different groups of Russian exiles, American and German anti-communists, and spies operating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Inadvertently, CIA’s patronage of Russian exiles forged a complex sub-front in the wider Cold War, demonstrating the ways in which the hostilities of the Cold War played out in ancillary conflicts involving proxies and non-state actors.

The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-702
Author(s):  
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

In 1946, the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson pondered America's intentions in Iran. In what was to become one of the first major crises of the Cold War, Iran was fighting a Soviet aggressor that did not want to leave. Robeson posed the question, “Is our State Department concerned with protecting the rights of Iran and the welfare of the Iranian people, or is it concerned with protecting Anglo-American oil in that country and the Middle East in general?” This was a loaded question. The US was pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops after its occupation of the country during World War II. Robeson wondered why America cared so much about Soviet forces in Iranian territory, when it made no mention of Anglo-American troops “in countries far removed from the United States or Great Britain.” An editorial writer for a Black journal in St. Louis posed a different variant of the question: Why did the American secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, concern himself with elections in Iran, Arabia or Azerbaijan and yet not “interfere in his home state, South Carolina, which has not had a free election since Reconstruction?”

Cold War consumption and the marketing of childhood in the Soviet Union and the United States, 1950-1960

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
The Cold War

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.

scholarly journals UNITED STATES DURING THE COLD WAR 1945-1990

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Novita Mujiyati ◽  
Kuswono Kuswono ◽  
Sunarjo Sunarjo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Cold War

United States and the Soviet Union is a country on the part of allies who emerged as the winner during World War II. However, after reaching the Allied victory in the situation soon changed, man has become an opponent. United States and the Soviet Union are competing to expand the influence and power. To compete the United States strive continuously strengthen itself both in the economic and military by establishing a defense pact and aid agencies in the field of economy. During the Cold War the two are not fighting directly in one of the countries of the former Soviet Union and the United States. However, if understood, teradinya the Korean War and the Vietnam War is a result of tensions between the two countries and is a direct warfare conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War ended in conflict with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the winner of the country.

The Origins of the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter traces the deterioration of Soviet-American relations at the end of World War II and into the beginning of the cold war. While the United States and the Soviet Union found common cause during World War II in defeating Hitler’s Germany, their relationship began to deteriorate as the eventual defeat of Germany became more certain. The chapter emphasizes that it was growing beliefs about malign Soviet intentions, rather than changes in Soviet capabilities, that fuelled the origins of the cold war. In particular, the chapter details crises in Iran, Turkey, and Germany that contributed to U.S. beliefs about long-term Soviet intentions. As uncertainty evaporated, the enmity of the cold war took hold.

Crisis prevention and the Austrian State Treaty

1987 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Crisis Prevention ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Ways Of Life

Much has been written about how the United States and the Soviet Union have managed crises since World War II, avoiding dangerous escalation and war; little on how the two superpowers have avoided confrontations. In part scholarly neglect of the question of crisis avoidance reflects the acute suspicion and hostility of the cold war. When U.S.-Soviet rivalry was perceived as a struggle between incompatible ideologies and ways of life, it was unthinkable that the superpowers might have any common interests, much less that they could collaborate, even tacitly, to control the conflict in their relationship.

Same As It Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis J. Gavin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
Nuclear History ◽  
The Cold War

A widely held and largely unchallenged view among many scholars and policymakers is that nuclear proliferation is the gravest threat facing the United States today, that it is more dangerous than ever, and that few meaningful lessons can be drawn from the nuclear history of a supposed simpler and more predictable period, the Cold War. This view, labeled “nuclear alarmism,” is based on four myths about the history of the nuclear age. First, today's nuclear threats are new and more dangerous than those of the past. Second, unlike today, nuclear weapons stabilized international politics during the Cold War, when in fact the record was mixed. The third myth conflates the history of the nuclear arms race with the geopolitical and ideological competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, creating an oversimplified and misguided portrayal of the Cold War. The final myth is that the Cold War bipolar military rivalry was the only force driving nuclear proliferation. A better understanding of this history, and, in particular, of how and why the international community escaped calamity during a far more dangerous time against ruthless and powerful adversaries, can produce more effective U.S. policies than those proposed by the nuclear alarmists.

scholarly journals Cold and World War II: Understanding the Causes, Views and Conceptual Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-414
Author(s):  
Abraham Kuol Nyuon
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
New World Order ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
The Cold War

This article examines the theoretical framework of the cold war as the basis for comprehending the genesis of the Cold War. This author gave emphasizes to events which clearly elaborate the end of the war known as the superpowers struggle from 1945-1991 by focusing on factors which have speed up the collapse of the Cold War resulting into the new World Order. In this paper, the author argued that, the Cold War and World War II are inseparable because conflict among the Allies surfaced at the end of the World War II. This paper set out how World War II shaped the beginning of the Cold War through engaging with the major schools of thoughts that are considered as the cause of Cold War. Therefore, the blame for the escalation of the Cold war should be attributed to both the United States and the Soviet Union as both of them were serving their national interest. Keywords: War, interest, power, ideology, determinants, cessation, orthodox, revisionist, realist, War, destruction, assured, mutually, weapon and competition.

Africa

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
External Actors ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of the Cold War on Africa. It explains that while Africa is the least-known Cold War battleground, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba became embroiled in the internal affairs of countless African countries. The chapter analyzes the ideologies, practices, and interests of these main external actors and describes the four major arenas of conflict that are representative of broad trends in Cold War intervention in Africa. It also discusses how the Cold War altered the dynamics of local struggles, created unprecedented levels of destruction and widespread instability, and contributed to many of the problems that plague Africa today.

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