scholarly journals Stalin, the Politburo, and the Onset of the Cold War, 1945-1946

1988 ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Albert Resis
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New Wave ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Great Patriotic War ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

The precise function that Marxist-Leninist ideology serves in the formation and conduct of Soviet foreign policy remains a highly contentious question among Western scholars. In the first postwar year, however, few senior officials or Soviet specialists in the West doubted that Communist ideology served as the constitutive element of Soviet foreign policy. Indeed, the militant revival of Marxism-Leninism after the Kremlin had downplayed it during 'The Great Patriotic War" proved to be an important factor in the complex of causes that led to the breakup of the Grand Alliance. Moscow's revival of that ideology in 1945 prompted numerous top-level Western leaders and observers to regard it as heralding a new wave of Soviet world-revolutionary messianism and expansionism. Many American and British officials were even alarmed by the claim, renewed, for example, in Moscow's official History of Diplomacy, that Soviet diplomacy possessed a "scientific theory," a "weapon" possessed by none of its rivals or opponents. This "weapon," Marxism-Leninism, Moscow ominously boasted, enabled Soviet leaders to comprehend, foresee, and master the course of international affairs, smoothing the way for Soviet diplomacy to make exceptional gains since 1917. Now, in the postwar period, Stalinist diplomacy opened before the Soviet Union "boundlesshorizons and the most majestic prospects."

The Soviet Union and the Renner Government of Austria, April–November 1945

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 246-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Piotrowski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Joseph Stalin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Red Army

When the Red Army moved through Eastern Europe in 1945, it faced the problem of creating what the men in the Kremlin called “friendly” governments. In several countries, Joseph Stalin in short order resolved the dilemma by putting into power Communists who had arrived in the van of his army. In the Western mind, Stalin represented a force inexorably driven by a logic inherent in all totalitarian systems. Stalin became the reincarnation of Hitler, a dictator who sought to impose his system on all territories under his sway—and whose appetite could not be sated. Such a view left little ambiguity in interpreting Stalin's foreign policy. It offered no room for an assessment that Soviet foreign policy was driven by a mix of motives, not only by aggression steeped in Communist ideology, but also by considerations of national security, opportunism, and compromise.

scholarly journals Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and the Eurasian Countries: An Empirical Study

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tacinur Akça
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Cultural Wealth ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The Cold War

The Eurasian Countries incorporates many economic and cultural wealth. The Eurasian countries have attracted attention all over the world with its rich oil and natural gas reserves and geopolitical situation. Due to the increasing importance of the Eurasian countries, as well as being an alternative to a political foreign policy and it has created an economically viable alternative in terms of foreign trade for Turkey. The importance of exports is increasing for the development of Turkey and Eurasia cannot be neglected as an important issue. History of the republic's foreign policy is focused on establishing good relations with the West. Of the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended after the opening of the new Turkish foreign policy became inevitable to be based in Central Asia and the Caucasus, Turkey aimed to be active in this region. The main purpose of our study was that Turkey's foreign trade with The Eurasian Countries is to reveal the relationship. The interest in the region began in the beginning of 1990, the economic policies implemented by Turkey has tried to analyze using relevant data. İn our study, in order to analyze the economic relationship between our countries and Eurasian Countries, Turkey's import and export figures which were explained in the form of tables with the countries concerned. We will concentrate on the major Eurasian countries, especially in our work we focus on Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Incremental Activism in Soviet Third World Policy: The Role of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee

Slavic Review ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 614-630
Author(s):  
Jan S. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy

Historically, leaders of the Soviet Union have shown extraordinary faith in the power of bureaucratic reorganization to solve political problems. The 1985-1987 restaffing and restructuring of the foreign policy establishment indicate that Mikhail Gorbachev shares this faith. In the first sixteen months of his leadership, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs replaced its minister, two first deputy ministers, seven deputy ministers, a third of all Soviet ambassadors, and created four new departments. In addition, important changes were made in the central party apparat, affecting three of the CPSU Central Committee departments: The International Information Department was abolished. The Propaganda Department gained added prominence in international affairs with the appointment of a new chief, Aleksandr Iakovlev, who began playing a conspicuous role as Gorbachev's advisor at international conferences even before his elevation to the Politburo in January 1987. Of great significance for the Soviet foreign policy establishment as a whole, the International Department (ID) was given new leadership, a new arms control unit, and expanded missions.

The De-moralization of the Cold War

2018 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Laurence R. Jurdem
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

As the American public became increasingly disenchanted over the nation’s ongoing presence in Southeast Asia, the Nixon administration initiated a diplomatic strategy toward the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Nixon, who early in his political career had been a passionate anticommunist, began to consider ways in which he might bring China into the international community. The president believed that this strategy had the potential to decrease the Cold War tensions that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. The foreign policy strategy that Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, developed came to be known as détente. The initiatives that composed Nixon’s policy were based on Kissinger’s realist view of international affairs. That perspective embraced the idea of accepting the world as it was rather than trying to change it. By deemphasizing the importance of the conflict between international communism and democracy, pundits on the Right believed Nixon was not only withdrawing America from its global responsibilities, but in doing so was giving the communist world free reign to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy.

India’s Foreign Policy and its Challenges

Think India ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Dr.Ramesh Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Chinese Foreign Policy ◽  
New Wave ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
At Home

Most nations and large ones at that do not simply alter their worldwide orientation. States tend to be conventional about foreign policy. Fundamental changes in foreign policy take place only when there is a radical change either at home or in the world. Much as the ascent of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s shaped key changes in Chinese foreign policy, India’s associations with the world have seen a fundamental alteration over the last decade and a half. A number of factors were at work in India. The old political and economic order at home had distorted and outwardly the end of the Cold War detached all the old benchmarks that guided India’s foreign policy. Many of the center viewpoints of the older system had to throw away and consensus generated on fresh ones. The fall down of the Soviet Union and the new wave of financial globalization left India scrambling to find new anchors for its conduct of outer relations.  

scholarly journals Superpower Dominance: The Yum Kippur Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 667-675
Author(s):  
Mohamad Hasan Soueidan
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

The Yum Kippur War, or as the Egyptians call it The October War, is one of the most important wars in the history of the Middle East between the coalition of Egypt and Syria versus Israel. It occurred at a time when the two superpowers then, the Americans and the Soviet Union, were in engaging in what was called the Cold War. For that every Superpower used to support a certain party of conflict to assure the balance of global dominance isn't affected. This paper reviews American foreign policy during the war in 1973. It concentrates on how the American institutions and foreign policy activists acted and influenced the outcome of the war. The paper finally conducts a counter analysis on what could have happened if the Americans didn’t support the Israelis in the war.

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.

Ballet in the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Searcy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The United States ◽  
Performing Artists ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union developed cultural exchange programs, in which they sent performing artists abroad in order to generate goodwill for their countries. Ballet companies were frequently called on to serve in these programs, particularly in the direct Soviet-American exchange. This book analyzes four of the early ballet exchange tours, demonstrating how this series of encounters changed both geopolitical relations and the history of dance. The ballet tours were enormously popular. Performances functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. At the same time, Soviet and American audiences did not understand ballet in the same way. As American companies toured in the Soviet Union and vice versa, audiences saw the performances through the lens of their own local aesthetics. Ballet in the Cold War introduces the concept of transliteration to understand this process, showing how much power viewers wielded in the exchange and explaining how the dynamics of the Cold War continue to shape ballet today.

Cold War consumption and the marketing of childhood in the Soviet Union and the United States, 1950-1960

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
The Cold War

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.

Soviet Foreign Policy Factionalism Under Stalin?: A Case Study of the Inevitability of War Controversy

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Paul Marantz
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Harsh Discipline ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Strict Adherence ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractThere has been a great deal of controversy among Western scholars concerning the direction of Soviet foreign policy in the final years and months of Stalin's rule.1 One of the crucial questions at issue is whether or not there were significant divisions of opinion within the Politburo over foreign policy matters. This article attempts to explore this particular question through an examination of a doctrinal controversy that surfaced during Stalin's last years. In one of his most famous works, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, Lenin argued that war was an inevitable concomitant of the capitalist system. He contended that the unending struggle for markets meant that periodic wars among the capitalist powers were unavoidable and inevitable.2 Stalin adhered to this view throughout his long reign, and it was not until three years after Stalin's death, in Khruschchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, that it was finally revised. Yet despite Stalin's strict adherence to the Leninist analysis of imperialism, and despite the harsh discipline that characterized his rule, there is evidence that the official interpretation was being publicly questioned even while Stalin was still alive. Given the nature of esoteric communication in the Soviet Union,and the close connection between doctrinal and policy debates, an examination of the controversy concerning the inevitability of war can provide important evidence having a direct bearing upon our understanding of this period.3

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