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.

The Internationalization of Domestic Conflict: The Role of the UN Security Council

1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-35
Author(s):  
Niels M. Blokker ◽  
Marieke Kleiboer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Veto Power ◽  
International Level ◽  
First Line ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Cold War

In recent years, the UN Security Council has increasingly been involved in domestic conflicts. To explain this development, two lines of arguments have been used most often, both referring to the end of the Cold War. The first line of argument holds that the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to more domestic conflicts that manifest themselves at the international level, and the UN has simply responded to that growing problem. In the second line of argument, the collapse of the Soviet Union has led to an end of the anticipation and use of Soviet veto power in the Security Council, leading to more opportunities for the UN to take a more proactive stance in domestic conflicts. How plausible are these explanations? In this article, the argument is made that both lines of explanation rest partly on faulty premises.

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.

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.

The Sociology of New Thinking: Elites, Identity Change, and the End of the Cold War

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert English
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Gorbachev Era ◽  
General Secretary

This article recounts the origins of Soviet “new thinking” as a case study of how Soviet intellectuals sought to redefine national identity in response to the West. It demonstrates that new thinking was fundamentally normative, not instrumental, insofar as it was developed in a period (1950s–1960s) when “socialism” was thought to be materially outperforming capitalism. It also demonstrates that new thinking decisively affected Soviet policy in the second half of the 1980s. Putting forth a socialization argument to show how newthinking ideas originated in the post-Stalin period within a community of intellectuals, the article charts the growing influence of these intellectuals through the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, when Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party and empowered many of the new thinkers as advisers, their liberal, Westernizing ideas played an indispensable role in shaping his reforms. The analysis focuses on mechanisms of identity change at two levels: that of the community of reformist intellectuals, and that of the Soviet Union itself. The analysis challenges realist and rationalist views that new thinking was largely instrumental. Until the Gorbachev era, Soviet reformers advocated new-thinking ideas often at the risk of their personal, professional, and institutional interests.

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.

The Indian Ocean Creole Islands: Geo-politics and Decolonisation

1992 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Houbert
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
The West ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North And South ◽  
Radical Transformation

Decolonisation was a policy of the West, as well as a process reflecting the radical transformation of the configuration of power in the international system. The Soviet Union, perceived as poised to dominate Eurasia, had to be ‘contained’ lest it expanded into the Rimland and challenged the West at sea. This geo-political obsession was reinforced by the ‘loss of China’ and the outbreak of the bitter struggle between North and South Korea. But the cold war was about ideology as well as military power, and containment was therefore not just a question of building pacts but of fostering the ‘right’ kind of political régimes.

Violence and the New Internationalism, 1988–2003

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-197
Author(s):  
Laura Robson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Considerable Promise ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
West Bank And Gaza ◽  
First Intifada ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Resistance Movement

This chapter looks at the first intifada—a grassroots resistance movement that emerged in the West Bank and Gaza in late 1987 and showed considerable promise before being crushed by Israeli military might. Its collapse also coincided with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, marking the beginning of a new American tactic of supposed humanitarian concern for ethnically or communally defined victims of a regime as a pretext for military action intended to ensure resource access, especially to oil. These arguments for and practices of occupation not only invigorated and intensified internal ethnic and communal tensions within the Iraqi state, but also fueled new forms of Islamist opposition that had never before flourished in the Mashriq.

China and the Cold War

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rana Mitter
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
World War ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
War Narrative ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the role of China in the Cold War. It describes the origins of Cold War in China and the participation of nationalist China in World War 2 and the Cold War, and suggests that China played a pivotal role as the third (albeit shorter) leg of a cold war tripod. The chapter contends that the Cold War era in China is inseparable from the political supremacy Mao Zedong, and highlights the impact of the split between China and the Soviet Union on the role of China in the Cold War. It also argues that the 1972 Sino-United States rapprochement contributed to the fading of China from the Cold War narrative.

An Introduction: International Law in a Multipolar World

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Stanimir Alexandrov ◽  
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes ◽  
Kal Raustiala
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear Nonproliferation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, international relations and international law were deeply shaped by the struggle for global dominance between the United States and the Soviet Union. The clashes between the superpowers reverberated in legal issues relating to the functioning of the United Nations, the use of force, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, etc. The many newly independent states, caught in the middle, repeatedly made claims for reform and initiated rule-making initiatives, but with limited results. After the end of the Cold War, the United States, its Western allies, and their shared economic and geopolitical interests remained largely unchallenged in the international arena.

3. International history 1900–99

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Len Scott
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Total War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of — and conflict among — European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.

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