Relations between Nicaragua and the Socialist Countries

1985 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 111-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén Berrios
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Third World ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Commercial Activity

Since the Late 1960s, due to détente and rising nationalism in Latin America, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries have succeeded in expanding diplomatic relations with most countries in the Western Hemisphere (Blasier, 1984; Fichet, 1981). For an increasing number of Third World nations, the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) countries of Eastern Europe have become a source of trade, credits, technical assistance and political support. Hence, many Third World countries view CMEA agreements as a means of strengthening their negotiating position vis-á-vis the United States and other developed countries. In turn, the CMEA countries have stepped up their commercial activity irrespective of the nature of the governments of the recipient countries. In the case of Latin America, CMEA ability to provide such funding is restrained by their own economic limitations, by geographical distance and by the shortage of foreign exchange. These factors discourage risky commitments in a region that is peripheral to essential security concerns of the CMEA countries.

US and the Cold War in Latin America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Field Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War in Latin America had marked consequences for the region’s political and economic evolution. From the origins of US fears of Latin American Communism in the early 20th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, regional actors played central roles in the drama. Seeking to maximize economic benefit while maintaining independence with regard to foreign policy, Latin Americans employed an eclectic combination of liberal and anti-imperialist discourses, balancing frequent calls for anti-Communist hemispheric unity with periodic diplomatic entreaties to the Soviet bloc and the nonaligned Third World. Meanwhile, US Cold War policies toward the region ranged from progressive developmentalism to outright military invasions, and from psychological warfare to covert paramilitary action. Above all, the United States sought to shore up its allies and maintain the Western Hemisphere as a united front against extra-hemispheric ideologies and influence. The Cold War was a bloody, violent period for Latin America, but it was also one marked by heady idealism, courageous political action, and fresh narratives about Latin America’s role in the world, all of which continue to inform regional politics to this day.

U.S.-Bolivia Relations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Siekmeier
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Third World ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Economic Wealth ◽  
The U.S

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, U.S. officials often viewed Bolivia as both a potential “test case” for U.S. economic foreign policy and a place where Washington’s broad visions for Latin America might be implemented relatively easily. After World War II, Washington leaders sought to show both Latin America and the nonindustrialized world that a relatively open economy could produce significant economic wealth for Bolivia’s working and middle classes, thus giving the United States a significant victory in the Cold War. Washington sought a Bolivia widely open to U.S. influence, and Bolivia often seemed an especially pliable country. In order to achieve their goals in Bolivia, U.S. leaders dispensed a large amount of economic assistance to Bolivia in the 1950s—a remarkable development in two senses. First, the U.S. government, generally loath to aid Third World nations, gave this assistance to a revolutionary regime. Second, the U.S. aid program for Bolivia proved to be a precursor to the Alliance for Progress, the massive aid program for Latin America in the 1960s that comprised the largest U.S. economic aid program in the Third World. Although U.S. leaders achieved their goal of a relatively stable, noncommunist Bolivia, the decision in the late 1950s to significantly increase U.S. military assistance to Bolivia’s relatively small military emboldened that military, which staged a coup in 1964, snuffing out democracy for nearly two decades. The country’s long history of dependency in both export markets and public- and private-sector capital investment led Washington leaders to think that dependency would translate into leverage over Bolivian policy. However, the historical record is mixed in this regard. Some Bolivian governments have accommodated U.S. demands; others have successfully resisted them.

The Peruvian Experiment in Retrospect

1987 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane S. Jaquette ◽  
Abraham F. Lowenthal
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Third World ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Science Writing ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Third World

NO country in Latin America, and few anywhere in the third world, was the subject of more social science writing during the late 1970s and early 1980s than Peru. Books, monographs, articles, and dissertations poured forth from Peru itself, from elsewhere in Latin America, and from the United States, Western Europe, and even the Soviet Union and Japan.

Economic and Social Council

1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-322
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Governing Council ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Special Fund ◽  
Social Council ◽  
One Year

The resumed 28th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was held in New York on December 14 and 15, 1959, under the presidency of Mr. Cosio Villegas (Mexico). Much of the business of the 1090th meeting dealt with elections, with the following results: 1) Canada, Japan, and the Soviet Union were elected members of the Governing Council of the Special Fund representing the economically developed countries; 2) Yugoslavia, Pakistan, and Thailand were elected members of the Governing Council representing the less developed countries; 3) Sweden was elected to the seat on the Governing Council left vacant by Denmark, for the remainder of Denmark's term (one year); 4) Haiti, Israel, and Norway were elected members of the Technical Assistance Committee, for a period of two years beginning on January 1, 1960; 5) China, Costa Rica, France, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States were elected to the Council Committee on Nongovernmental Organizations for 1960; and 6) Mr. Mohamed Abu Rannat (Sudan) and Mr. Enrique Rodriguez Fabregat (Uruguay) were elected members of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, thereby increasing the number of members of the subcommission to fourteen.

The Neglected Tragedy: the Return to War in Angola, 1992–3

1994 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony W. Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Third World ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Primary Products ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Developed Countries ◽  
The Third World

The state system during the so-called ‘cold war’ rested on a paradox. Peace and stability in the developed countries was accompanied by scores of ‘hot’ wars in the Third World, fuelled and at times created by the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies. Each superpower had a high incentive to arm client states and rebel armies, in return for political loyalty and access to primary products. Nowhere did the logic of this system have such negative effects as in Africa. There, the result was the militarisation of states, the escalation of wars, and the strengthening of authoritarian forms of rule.

Economic and Social Council

1959 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-294 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Social Council

The resumed 26th session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was held in New York on October 23 and December 10 and 11, 1958, under the presidency of Mr. Davidson (Canada). A draft resolution by which ECOSOC would decide to enable the International Atomic Energy Agency to become a member of the Technical Assistance Board and to participate in the Expanded Program of Technical Assistance was adopted unanimously at the 1045th meeting. The Council elected the members of the Governing Council of the Special Fund: elected as members representing the economically more advanced countries were Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and representing the less-developed countries were Argentina, Chile, Ghana, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the United Arab Republic, and Yugoslavia. Brazil was elected as a member of the Technical Assistance Committee to fill the vacancy resulting from the election of Venezuela to ECOSOC. At its 1046th meeting the Council elected the following seven members of the Council Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations for 1959: China, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Council unanimously confirmed the names of persons nominated by governments to represent them on the functional commissions of ECOSOC. The delegate of France announced that his country had been unable to take advantage of the extended time-limit for the submission of lists of the territories it wished to be admitted as associate members of the Economic Commission for Africa. The Council unanimously adopted a resolution designed to make the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies applicable to the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization.

Socialist Modernity and the Birth of the Third World

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Third World ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Less Developed Countries ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
The Third World

This chapter examines how the Soviet Union attacked Point Four as “A Program for Expansion under a Screen of Anti-Communism” that was no different from older forms of imperialism. While condemning American assistance, however, they applauded a fair aid policy that supported political independence and invested to promote national agriculture and industry. This signaled that they were open to joining a multilateral program and offering technical assistance and industrial machinery to underdeveloped countries, with a stress on equality and open criticism of imperialist dynamics. But what would the Soviets contribute? Western analysts thought of expertise, while critics familiar with the Central Asian precedent worried about the repression of minorities. Only in 1954 did the Soviet Union respond with a plan for the Virgin Lands, the campaign to bring up-to-date farming and irrigation techniques to backward steppe regions in Kazakhstan. This became a paradigm for what socialist modernity could offer to less developed countries. The chapter then recounts how, in the early 1950s, the world's less-developed countries began identifying as a homogeneous group. In the United Nations, the phrase used was “underdeveloped countries,” but this was soon replaced by a much more evocative concept: the “Third World.” The expression was coined in 1952 by French demographer Alfred Sauvy, who anticipated a collective awakening of the subject peoples previously ignored, exploited, and watched warily.

International Aviation Rivalry in Latin America, 1919-1927

1965 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Phillips Newton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
World War I ◽  
Transportation Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
World War ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Pan American

In Latin America, international rivalry over aviation followed World War I. In its early form, it consisted of a commercial scramble among several Western European nations and the United States to sell airplanes and aviation products and to establish airlines in Latin America. Somewhat later, expanding European aviation activities posed an implicit threat to the Panama Canal.Before World War I, certain aerophiles had sought to advance the airplane as the panacea for the transportation problem in Latin America. The aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont of Brazil and the Aero Club of America, an influential private United States association, were in the van. In 1916, efforts by these enthusiasts led to the formation of the Pan American Aviation Federation, which they envisioned as the means of promoting and publicizing aviation throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Revisiting the 1954 Coup in Guatemala: The Soviet Union, the United Nations, and “Hemispheric Solidarity”

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Denise Getchell
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The Cold War

This article reevaluates the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 that overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The coup is generally portrayed as the opening shot of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere and a watershed moment for U.S.–Latin American relations, when the United States supplanted its Good Neighbor Policy with a hardline anti-Communist approach. Despite the extensive literature on the coup, the Soviet Union's perspectives on the matter have received scant discussion. Using Soviet-bloc and United Nations (UN) archival sources, this article shows that Latin American Communists and Soviet sympathizers were hugely influential in shaping Moscow's perceptions of hemispheric relations. Although regional Communists petitioned the Soviet Union to provide support to Árbenz, officials in Moscow were unwilling to prop up what they considered a “bourgeois-democratic” revolution tottering under the weight of U.S. military pressure. Soviet leaders were, however, keen to use their position on the UN Security Council to challenge the authority of the Organization of American States and undermine U.S. conceptions of “hemispheric solidarity.” The coup, moreover, revealed the force of anti-U.S. nationalism in Latin America during a period in which Soviet foreign policy was in flux and the Cold War was becoming globalized.

A Theologian Looks at Latin America

1958 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-430
Author(s):  
Gustave Weigel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
The South ◽  
World Power ◽  
International Power ◽  
The Way

One of the constant worries of the United States, since the role of a dominant world-power has been thrust on her, is the situation of Latin America. Relations with Canada require thought and preoccupation but they produce no deep concern. Canada and the United States understand each other and they form their policies in terms of friendly adjustment. Yet the same is not true when we consider the bloc of nations stretching to the south of the Rio Grande. They form two thirds of the geographic stretch of the western hemisphere, and they constitute a population equal to ours. The dependence on Latin America on the part of the United States in her capacity as an international power is evident. What is not evident is the way to make our friendship with our southern neighbors a more stable thing than the fragile arrangement which confronts us in the present.

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