Solidarity in Search of Human Agency: ‘Détente from Below’ and Independent Peace Activists in the Soviet Union

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-368
Author(s):  
Irina Gordeeva
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Peace Activists ◽  
Peace Activism ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Nuclear ◽  
East West

While the histories of Western grassroots movements and the officially sanctioned, communist-sponsored peace movement are well known, the independent peace activists of the Soviet bloc have remained footnotes in the history of social movements. The Group for the Establishment of Trust between East and West (the Trust Group) was the largest and most prominent unofficial peace group in the late Soviet Union. Active between 1982 and 1989, its members established significant ties with foreign peace activists. This article considers the agenda, activities and membership of the Trust Group. It contrasts the persecution experienced by this independent movement with the activities of the official, state-sanctioned Soviet Peace Committee (SPC). As the article shows, the Trust Group’s agenda resonated with the concept of ‘détente from below’, as promoted by members of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), including the historian E.P. Thompson. The article traces how Western advocates of ‘détente from below’ sought to support these independent campaigners in the Soviet Union, thus highlighting important East-West dimensions in European peace activism in the 1980s.

The East-West Politics of Global Modeling

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Scientific Cooperation ◽  
Global Modeling ◽  
Interconnected System ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
East West

This chapter focuses on computer-based global modeling, a new technology of knowledge production that emerged in the early 1970s and played an important, transformative role in Soviet governance by opening it up to East-West cooperation. Global modelers conceptualized the planet as a complex, interconnected system, the understanding of which required transnational scientific cooperation, enabling both scientists and data to cross national boundaries and Cold War divides. Moreover, Soviet scientists forged and used models of possible long-term futures of the world to reveal and criticize problems being experienced, but not always acknowledged, in the Soviet Union. Therefore, a history of computer-based global modeling is a history of East-West transfer, the transformation of the late state socialism and globalization.

From Helsinki to “Mars”

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-94
Author(s):  
Douglas Selvage
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
East West

Abstract After the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) at Helsinki on 1 August 1975, the Soviet Union sought to compel the West to accept its vision for détente. This meant, on the one hand, the acceptance of the political and social status quo within the Soviet bloc and, on the other hand, the “completion” of the existing political détente with “military détente”—namely, East-West arms control agreements that preserved or augmented existing Warsaw Pact advantages. To this end, the KGB and its Soviet-bloc partners undertook two parallel campaigns of active measures, “Synonym” and “Mars.” Despite tactical successes, both campaigns failed to achieve their goals. The United States, supported by other Western governments, continued to pressure the Eastern-bloc governments on human rights violations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continued to modernize its forces in Europe, most importantly with the stationing of U.S. Euromissiles in 1983 in accordance with NATO's dual-track decision of December 1979.

The Soviet Union's global ports and flexible web-like naval strategy: Case studies of Antsiranana and Tivat

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-231
Author(s):  
Rinna Kullaa
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Flexible Tool ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The 1960S

This article contributes to the history of the Soviet Union and global naval history by comparing two examples of naval ports across the European and African continents: Tivat in Yugoslavia and Antsiranana in Madagascar. Comparison of the utilization and construction of these ports reveals how the Soviet network of naval ports did not display a singular rationale, but rather featured a global spider’s-web-like quality. The most marked quality of the Soviet Union's approach to naval construction was the use of nuclear carriers as a flexible tool of geographic and political aims. The goals of Soviet naval strategy were not static but mutated over the decades from the 1960s to the 1980s. In short, the policy was flexible, heavily armed and global. At each port, the Soviet Union and its navy developed a somewhat different relationship to the country and the two examples are in many ways unique; outliers but not peripheral. Their different constructions show the Soviet Union's approach to the Mediterranean as one seaway and the Indian Ocean as another, demonstrating flexibility in each theatre. Yugoslavia, its leadership and populace remained outside of the Soviet bloc for the entirety of the Soviet Union’s existence. Moscow’s attempt to include Yugoslavia in its naval network via Tivat represents a centuries-old geopolitical orientation towards the Balkan peninsula, but not successful socialist politics per se if we understand its goal to be domination over the socialist world. Madagascar on the other hand has a geographically vital position close to Africa and overlooks naval traffic both to the Red Sea as well as to the Gulf while standing at a safe distance to both continents. Moscow’s naval politics can give us an alternative view of the history of different socialisms practised in world politics in Europe and in Africa via maritime networks.

The Fight for Peace

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Feinberg
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Rural Populations ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
Peace Activists ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace Activism ◽  
Global Peace

This chapter examines the Communist-led peace movement and analyzes its propaganda. Like show trials, the peace movement spread a similar set of messages around the Soviet bloc and throughout the world. Unlike the show trials, peace discourse was primarily concerned with revealing the truth of the warmongering West. For example, peace activists detailed American war crimes in Korea and exposed American racist policies at home. Within Eastern Europe, peace activism became a part of daily life as both urban and rural populations were pressured to take part in various peace campaigns. In the United States, in contrast, supporting the peace movement was vilified as support for Communism. From the American perspective, the global peace movement of the 1950s only told lies.

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

Displace of Documentary Heritage from the Soviet Union to Poland during the Third Decade of the XXth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Hiarnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

The paper explores the displace of Polish archives from the Soviet Union that was performed in 1920s according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 and other international agreements. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the process of displace, based on the archival sources and literature. The object of the research is those documents that were preserved in the archives of Belarus and together with archives from other republics were displaced to Poland. The exploration leads to clarification of the selection of document fonds to be displaced, the actual process of movement and the explanation of the role that the archivists of Belarus performed in the history of cultural relationships between Poland and the Soviet Union. The articles of the Treaty of Riga had been formulated without taking into account the indivisibility of archive fonds that is one of the most important principles of restitution, which caused the failure of the treaty by the Soviet part.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

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