scholarly journals Faith, Fallout, and the Future: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction in the Early Postwar Era

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 520
Author(s):  
Michael Scheibach
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Atomic Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Role Of Religion

In the early postwar era, from 1945 to 1960, Americans confronted a dilemma that had never been faced before. In the new atomic age, which opened with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, they now had to grapple with maintaining their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future while also controlling their fear of an apocalyptic future resulting from an atomic war. Americans’ subsequent search for reassurance translated into a dramatic increase in church membership and the rise of the evangelical movement. Yet, their fear of an atomic war with the Soviet Union and possible nuclear apocalypse did not abate. This article discusses how six post-apocalyptic science fiction novels dealt with this dilemma and presented their visions of the future; more important, it argues that these novels not only reflect the views of many Americans in the early Cold War era, but also provide relevant insights into the role of religion during these complex and controversial years to reframe the belief that an apocalypse was inevitable.

The Future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom ◽  
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
China Threat

Is China bent on world domination? Although Americans perceived the Soviet Union as posing the greatest Cold War-era military challenge, they also periodically feared a “China threat” during those decades. Since the days of Mao, the PRC’s penchant for staging parades showing off its...

Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Cold War

Foreign intelligence played a number of important roles in the Cold War, but this topic has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. This survey article provides a broad overview of some of the new literature and documentation pertaining to Cold War era intelligence, as well as the key dimensions of the topic. Despite the continued obstacles posed by secrecy and the mixed reliability of sources, the publication of numerous memoirs and the release of a huge volume of fresh archival material in the post— Cold War era have opened new opportunities to study the role of intelligence in Cold War history. Scholars should explore not only the “micro level” of the problem (the impact of intelligence on specific events) but also the “macro level,” looking at the many ways that the Cold War as a whole (its origins, its course, and its outcome) was influenced, perhaps even shaped, by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other key countries. It is also crucial to examine the unintended consequences of intelligence activities. Some interesting examples of “blowback” (effects that boomerang against the country that initiated them) have recently come to light from intelligence operations that the United States undertook against the Soviet Union. Only by understanding the complex nature of the role of intelligence during the Cold War will we be able to come to grips with the historiographic challenge that the topic poses.

The Sputnik Challenge

Willy Ley ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared S. Buss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Lag ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter discusses the myriad of Ley’s activities during the late 1950s, when his status as a scientific celebrity and rocket expert peaked. It follows his pre-Sputnik and post-Sputnik tactics. Not only did Ley encourage millions of Americans to believe in American “firsts” in 1955 and 1956, but also he encouraged Americans to express resentment, anger, and shock following the launch of Sputnik I in 1957. In newspaper columns that circulated across the United States, Ley expressed fears of missile gaps and cultural lag with the Soviet Union. While historians have analyzed the role of politicians during the Cold War, they have not recognized the role of Ley as America’s rocket expert, who now shared the stage with Wernher von Braun.

scholarly journals ‘Socialising’ primary care? The Soviet Union, WHO and the 1978 Alma-Ata Conference

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (Suppl 3) ◽  
pp. e000992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Emanuelle Birn ◽  
Nikolai Krementsov
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Health ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Soviet Republic ◽  
Community Based ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Historical Accounts

In September 1978, the WHO convened a momentous International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, capital of the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. This unprecedented gathering signalled a break with WHO’s long-standing technically oriented disease eradication campaigns. Instead, Alma-Ata emphasised a community-based, social justice-oriented approach to health. Existing historical accounts of the conference, largely based on WHO sources, have characterised it as a Soviet triumph. Such reasoning, embedded in Cold War logic, contradicts both the decision-making processes in Geneva and Moscow that led the conference to be held in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the reality that the highest Soviet authorities did not consider it a significant ideological or political opportunity. To redress the omissions and assumptions of prior accounts, this article examines the Alma-Ata conference in the context of Soviet political and health developments, drawing from Soviet archival and published sources as well as WHO materials and interviews with several key Soviet protagonists. We begin by outlining the USSR’s complicated relationship to WHO and the international health sphere. Next, we trace the genesis of the proposal for—and realisation and repercussions of—the primary healthcare (PHC) meeting, framed by Soviet, Kazakh, WHO and Cold War politics. Finally, we explore misjudgements and competing meanings of PHC from both Soviet and WHO perspectives, in particular focusing on the role of physicians, community participation and socialist approaches to PHC.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 25 The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan—1979–80

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nolte Georg ◽  
Barkholdt Janina
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Final Section ◽  
International Community ◽  
Large Majority ◽  
Negative Reaction ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This contribution discusses the intervention by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (1979-1980). After recalling the facts and the context of this intervention, it sets out the legal positions of the main protagonists (the Soviet Union and Afghanistan) and examines the reaction of the international community of States. It then analyses the different grounds invoked by the Soviet Union as justification for the lawfulness of its intervention focusing on the claim of an intervention by invitation. In the final section it is argued that the negative reaction of a large majority of states to the justifications offered by the Soviet Union have led to a confirmation and clarification of the applicable law.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 13 The Intervention in Czechoslovakia—1968

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafner Gerhard
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Valid Consent ◽  
The Cold War

This contribution discusses the intervention of five member states of the Warsaw Pact Organization under the leading role of the Soviet Union in the CSSR in August 1968, which terminated the “Prague Spring” in a forceful manner. After presenting the facts of this intervention and its reasons, it describes the legal positions of the protagonists of this intervention as well as that of the states condemning it, as presented in particular in the Security Council. It then examines the legality of this intervention against general international law and the particular views of the Soviet doctrine existing at that time, defending some sort of socialist (regional) international law. This case stresses the requirement of valid consent for the presence of foreign troops in a country and denies the legality of any justification solely based on the necessity to maintain the political system within a state.

Playing Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damion L. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Atomic Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Olympic Movement ◽  
Policy Program

This chapter highlights the formalization of U.S. Cold War sport foreign policy. As the Soviet Union reentered the Olympic movement in 1952, sport took on heightened meaning, and became a proxy for combat in the atomic age. Thus, this chapter highlights how the two superpowers fought for athletic supremacy, as well as how the United States developed a program of international athletic goodwill tours as a means to counteract the Soviet Union's successful implementation of its own athletic foreign policy program. Sports became a crucial Cold War weapon that deployed the notions of strength and cultural, political, and economic superiority over the Soviet Union.

Violating the Canon: Reading Der Nister with Vasilii Grossman

Slavic Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 642-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Murav
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mikhail Bakhtin ◽  
War Literature ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Political Constraints ◽  
Literary Space ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era

'Violating the Canon” makes the case for an alternative Jewish and literary space in the context of Soviet war literature by comparing works by Vasilii Grossman, Il'ia Erenburg, and the Yiddish author Der Nister. In this article, Harriet Murav distinguishes the question of literary value from the question of identity and separates out the problem of determining the typicality or representativeness of a work from the problem of engaging the complexity of its meanings. Jewish literature from the Soviet Union ought to be recovered from the constraints that subordinate it to Cold War-era sociological and political constraints. Mikhail Bakhtin, Werner Sollors, and Michael Warner provide approaches that allow access to more fluid and open-ended readings.

Introduction: The Nordic Countries and the German Question after 1945

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-452
Author(s):  
KARL CHRISTIAN LAMMERS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German States ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Cold War

This article introduces Scandinavia (or the Norden, as the region is sometimes called) and describes the position of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, during the Cold War. The Cold War created a new political situation in the Nordic region, and to some degree divided the Nordic countries between East and West and also on the German question. The introduction analyses how the Nordic countries dealt with Germany – that is with the two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and also describes the role of the Soviet Union and how it tried to influence the Nordic stance on the German question.

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.

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