scholarly journals The Bridges of Ideas: Transnational Network of the Book Program for Eastern Europe, 1956-1990

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Free World ◽  
Transnational Network ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

<div>This proposed contribution reflects on how one, relatively small U.S.-led program of cultural diplomacy shaped the attitude of Polish intellectuals towards liberalization and openness to the free world during the Cold War. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that this long-lasting literary service could be considered as a vital tool for creating more space for political and cultural freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. The program represented the spirit of solidarity and friendship between Eastern Europe and the U.S. that, even now, should not be forgotten. That thirty years after the book program ended, Eastern Europe still lacks a transnational perspective on defending universal liberal values and the process of gaining freedom in the region before 1989 demonstrates the importance of bringing the Eastern and Western narratives closer together, by reexamining the legacy of the book program today.</div>

scholarly journals The Bridges of Ideas: Transnational Network of the Book Program for Eastern Europe, 1956-1990

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Free World ◽  
Transnational Network ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

<div>This proposed contribution reflects on how one, relatively small U.S.-led program of cultural diplomacy shaped the attitude of Polish intellectuals towards liberalization and openness to the free world during the Cold War. The importance of the topic lies in the fact that this long-lasting literary service could be considered as a vital tool for creating more space for political and cultural freedom in Soviet-bloc countries. The program represented the spirit of solidarity and friendship between Eastern Europe and the U.S. that, even now, should not be forgotten. That thirty years after the book program ended, Eastern Europe still lacks a transnational perspective on defending universal liberal values and the process of gaining freedom in the region before 1989 demonstrates the importance of bringing the Eastern and Western narratives closer together, by reexamining the legacy of the book program today.</div>

scholarly journals “We Are Not Copyists”: Socialist Networks and Non-alignment from Below in A. Philip Randolph’s Asian Journey

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 402-428
Author(s):  
Su Lin Lewis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Trade Unionist ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
Hearts And Minds

Abstract In 1952, A. Philip Randolph, the head of America’s largest black union and a prominent civil rights campaigner, traveled to Japan and Burma funded by the American Committee for Cultural Freedom. In Asia, he encountered socialists and trade unionists struggling to negotiate the fractious divides between communism and capitalism within postwar states. In Burma, in particular, Western powers, the Soviet bloc, and powerful Asian neighbors used propaganda, aid missions, and subsidized travel to offer competing visions of development while accusing each other of new forms of imperialism and foreign interference. In such an environment, a battle for hearts and minds within Asian labor movements constituted the front lines of the early years of the Cold War. Randolph’s journey shows us how Asian socialists and trade unionists responded to powerful foreign interests by articulating an early sense of non-alignment, forged in part through emerging Asian socialist networks, well before this was an official strategy. The Asian actors with whom Randolph interacted in Japan and Burma mirrored his own struggles as a socialist, a trade unionist, and a “railway man” while furthering his campaign for civil rights at home. This article uses Randolph’s journey to examine parallels and divergences between African-American and Asian socialists and trade unionists during the early Cold War, an age characterized by deepening splits in the politics of the Left.

“I Am Afraid Americans Cannot Understand”: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in France and Italy, 1950–1957

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-124
Author(s):  
Andrea Scionti
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
International Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Congress For Cultural Freedom ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

This article examines the nature and significance of the activities carried out in France and Italy by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an international organization that was secretly funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to support anti-Communist intellectuals, including those on the left end of the political spectrum. These two West European countries, with their large and politically influential Communist parties, were central to the CCF's work in Europe. The organization's task was complicated by domestic concerns and traditions that forced local intellectuals to stress their autonomy from the CCF International Secretariat and its U.S. patrons. The article uses the cultural Cold War and the competing interpretations of anti-Communism and cultural freedom within the CCF as a lens to explore the limits of U.S. influence and persuasion among the intellectual classes of Europe. By repeatedly asserting their independence and agency, the French and Italian members of the CCF helped redefine the character and limits of U.S. cultural diplomacy.

scholarly journals Promoting the Socialist Community: Efforts and Effects of the Socialist Camp’s Cultural Diplomacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Nagornaia
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Hybrid Identities ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

Based on an analysis of modern Cold War historiography, the article considers current discussions, topics, and perspectives in the chosen research landscape. Taking into account the modern circumstances, the author concludes that in the latest publications, there is a tendency to reconsider the dichotomic model “Sovietisation vs Americanisation” and, instead, take a closer look at the representations of socialism and the structures and actors of cultural diplomacy in Eastern Europe. Referring to propaganda projects of socialist integration and intercultural spaces, the author demonstrates what was specifically socialist about the forms and instruments of representations of the Eastern Bloc, the conflicting spheres of collaboration, and independent initiatives of people’s democracies in the sphere of cultural diplomacy. The author concludes that at the end of the Second World War, the propaganda system in the Soviet Union was integrated into a larger scheme of presenting the world system of socialism where the Eastern European states became symbolically appropriated spaces and promising symbolic resources. The cultural initiatives of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe at the international level testify to the cultural pluralism in the Eastern Bloc. The independent steps the countries of the socialist camp took for self-realisation on the international arena testify to this cultural pluralism. The effectiveness of their symbolic messages was facilitated by the geographical proximity to borders, integration into the contexts of western culture, and better developed information resources. In the article, the author’s own analysis is preceded by a review of materials thematically related to the section of the journal on the cultural diplomacy of socialism. Articles referred to in the study and devoted to the projects of the socialist camp prove the thesis that the Eastern Bloc that emerged during the Cold War and the hybrid identities developed under its influence survived the breakdown of the bipolar order and are important for modern culture.

Dancing National Ideologies: The Athens Festival in the Cold War

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 306-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey Prickett ◽  
Steriani Tsintziloni
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Greek Society ◽  
Cultural Tensions ◽  
Dance Companies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Aesthetic Values ◽  
The U.S

The international Athens Festival was prominent in shaping a cosmopolitan identity and openness within Greek society. During its first decade (1955–1966), the Festival also functioned as a significant form of cultural diplomacy. Audiences were exposed to elite dance companies from nations such as the U.S., which functioned ideologically and diplomatically. Our presentation interrogates the construction of a dance field in Greece and the shaping of aesthetic values, contextualized within socio-cultural tensions. Research exposes imperatives of a rising superpower consolidating its position, revealing multiple types of influence on Greece and other nations in a battle of political wills with the USSR.

Public Diplomacy during the Cold War: The Record and Its Implications

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Critchlow
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Department Of State ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

Public diplomacy in its many forms proved a great asset for the United States during the Cold War. A new book by Yale Richmond, a retired U.S. official who for many years was involved with policy toward the Soviet Union, including U.S. Soviet exchanges, highlights the importance of the “cultural” dimension of the Cold War. Richmond focuses on the U.S. side of the U.S. Soviet exchanges, but he also provides interesting comments about Soviet policy, drawing on newly declassified materials from the former Soviet archives. The exchanges, information programs, and other activities undertaken by the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State played a crucial role in spreading democratic ideas and values within the Soviet bloc. Candid and balanced broadcasts were far more effective than the heavy—handed propaganda that was used initially. The record of public diplomacy during the Cold War provides some important lessons for U.S. foreign policy makers in the post—Cold War world.

The U.S. “Loss” of Czechoslovakia: On the Edge of Historical Truth

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vít Smetana
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World ◽  
The U.S

This review essay provides a critical assessment of a book published in 2012 by Igor Lukes, On the Edge of the Cold War: American Diplomats and Spies in Postwar Prague. Lukes's aim in the book is to explain why the United States failed to prevent Czechoslovakia from being absorbed into the Soviet bloc after the Second World War. Although the book is highly readable and contains useful information, it is professionally unbalanced. Lukes's generally acceptable conclusions are undermined by numerous factual and methodological mistakes. These flaws stem from Lukes's frequently insufficient historical critique of his sources, his neglect of other important documentation, and his tendency to ignore much of the relevant historical literature.

The Secret War of Intelligence: The Mysterious Mission of “Jack Strong” and its Impact on the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-185
Author(s):  
Piotr Żuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Secret War ◽  
The U.S

For nearly a decade, a colonel on the Polish General Staff, Ryszard Kukliński, provided invaluable information about Soviet and Warsaw Pact military activities to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the codename “Jack Strong.” Along with Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, who cooperated with the CIA in the late 1950s and early1960s until he was arrested and executed by the Soviet regime, Kukliński has gone down in history as one of the most valuable U.S. intelligence sources in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. This essay examines Kukliński's case in light of three recent Polish-language books written from divergent perspectives.

Philip Wayne Powell, the Cold War, and the Conquest of Northern Mexico

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-304
Author(s):  
Raphael B. Folsom
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Colonial Mexico ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

The writings of the U.S. scholar Philip Wayne Powell have had an enduring influence on the historiography of colonial Mexico and the Spanish borderlands. But his writings have never been examined as a unified corpus, and so the deeply reactionary political ideology that lay behind them has never been well understood. By analyzing Powell’s political convictions, this article shows how contemporary scholarship on the conquest of northern Mexico can emerge from Powell’s long shadow. Los escritos del estudioso estadounidense Philip Wayne Powell han ejercido una influencia perdurable sobre la historiografía del México colonial y las zonas fronterizas españolas. Sin embargo, dichos escritos nunca han sido examinados como un corpus unificado, de manera que la ideología política profundamente reaccionaria detrás de ellos nunca ha sido bien comprendida. Al analizar las convicciones políticas de Powell, el presente artículo muestra cómo puede surgir un conocimiento contemporáneo sobre la conquista del norte de México a partir de la larga sombra de Powell.

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