1984, Regional Crises, and Morning in America

Author(s):  
David Ryan

Despite Reagan’s favorable treatment in the recent historiography and his close association in contemporary public discourse with democracy promotion, key elements of the Reagan Doctrine presented an electoral liability in the run-up to the 1984 elections. This chapter examines the impact of regional conflicts in Nicaragua and Lebanon on the overall attempts to modify Reagan’s image for the 1984 elections. While foreign policy issues were rarely a primary concern during the election, Reagan’s pollsters and strategists wanted to diminish the early 1980s association in the public of the candidate as a warmonger as confrontation with the Soviet Union still resonated. Moreover, the prospects of intervention in Nicaragua frequently invoked the negative memories and reverberations of the Vietnam War. As Reagan’s identity was recast across 1984 through overtures to China and the Soviet Union, it was imperative to operate a form of damage control over the issues of Nicaragua and Lebanon. Keeping these issues out of the electoral discourse was considered to be crucial.

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-315
Author(s):  
Andrzej Szabaciuk

The aim of the article is to analyze the image of economic emigration from Ukraine to Poland created by pro-Kremlin media after 2014. It shows how Russian propaganda changed during the 20th century, what function it had from the tsarist period, through the years of the Soviet Union, to contemporary times. Its significance in the period after the decomposition of the union state was presented, and in particular the changes that it underwent since Vladimir Putin’s first presidency. There were shown ideological changes, which more or less influenced the public discourse, and thus also the media coverage. The functions of the Russian propaganda after the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the way of presenting mass labour migration from Ukraine to Poland are presented, both in the context of creating a specific narrative about the current internal and foreign situation of Ukraine after the Dignity Revolution, as well as against the background of Polish-Ukrainian relations and migration processes taking place in Poland. It was shown which aspects of mass migration were most often presented by pro-Kremlin information platforms, in which context and how a specific propaganda discourse was constructed. An important element is the analysis of changes observed in the message of the state-controlled Russian media concerning the mass migration of Ukrainians to Poland and the analysis of the origins, scale, significance and consequences of this migration. More extensive research leads to the conclusion that the media controlled by the Kremlin authorities can skilfully construct the message by adapting it to the addressee. In Polish language information services, the information addressed to the recipient is much more detailed and prepared in such a way as to build an aversion between the host society and Ukrainian economic immigrants. While preparing the article, we used the analysis of data found with elements of a comparative analysis.


2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (02) ◽  
pp. 259-288
Author(s):  
Elena Zubkova

To what extent was the Soviet state able to control (and oppose) the process of social exclusion and to what extent was Soviet society ready to integrate social outcasts? This article attempts to answer these questions by analyzing the phenomenon of begging in the Soviet Union between the 1940s and the 1960s. The article begins by studying the phenomenon of begging as a reaction to poverty, serving as a survival strategy for the lower social classes who were excluded from society due to poor standards of living. A brief historical overview of the campaign to combat begging in the the USSR from the Revolution of 1917 until the mid-1950s shows both the continuity and shifting perspectives of state reaction to this social problem. This article also analyzes begging, which was an important social phenomenon in the USSR after World War II, through the specific biographies of actual beggars. The article concludes with an examination of the public discourse on poverty in the 1950s and early 1960s, which reveals how both society and the state viewed the issue.


Author(s):  
Joseph T. Glatthaar

At the end of World War II, America was in a uniquely strong position which it was not always able to leverage. “The limits of power” details the deterioration of America’s relationship with the Soviet Union into weapons stockpiling, brinkmanship, and the threat of mutually assured destruction. The Vietnam War lost popularity over time and while wars in the Gulf captured the public imagination, they fueled anti-American sentiment in those territories. During the War on Terror, strategists first overestimated the effectiveness of technology and then underestimated numbers and costs required for the lengthier, costlier, but more effective “boots on the ground” approach. Care for veterans was also under-resourced.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Fedor L. Sinitsyn

This article examines the development of social control in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, who was General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1964 to 1982. Historians have largely neglected this question, especially with regard to its evolution and efficiency. Research is based on sources in the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) and the Moscow Central State Archive (TSGAM). During Brezhnevs rule, Soviet propaganda reached the peak of its development. However, despite the fact that authorities tried to improve it, the system was ritualistic, unconvincing, unwieldy, and favored quantity over quality. The same was true for political education, which did little more than inspire sullen passivity in its students. Although officials recognized these failings, their response was ineffective, and over time Soviet propaganda increasingly lost its potency. At the same time, there were new trends in the system of social control. Authorities tried to have a foot in both camps - to strengthen censorship, and at the same time to get feedback from the public. However, many were afraid to express any criticism openly. In turn, the government used data on peoples sentiments only to try to control their thoughts. As a result, it did not respond to matters that concerned the public. These problems only increased during the era of stagnation and contributed to the decline and subsequent collapse of the Soviet system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-70
Author(s):  
Ilia Valerievich Mametev

The article focuses on the problems of shadow economy, such as the illegal activity, as well as a legal activity hidden from the state control, which became an integral part of the life of the Soviet Union in the period of stagnation. The development of the shadow sector was connected, first of all, with the inability of the command-administrative system to take into account the demands of the population for certain goods and services. There have been examined prerequisites for the emergence of the shadow economy and the stages of its development in the society that built communism in the 1960s–1980s. The shadow economy contributed to the growth of corruption and criminalization, initiated the racket in the 1990s and significantly affected the public consciousness of the Soviet citizens and, later, the mentality of modern Russian society


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Novita Mujiyati ◽  
Kuswono Kuswono ◽  
Sunarjo Sunarjo

United States and the Soviet Union is a country on the part of allies who emerged as the winner during World War II. However, after reaching the Allied victory in the situation soon changed, man has become an opponent. United States and the Soviet Union are competing to expand the influence and power. To compete the United States strive continuously strengthen itself both in the economic and military by establishing a defense pact and aid agencies in the field of economy. During the Cold War the two are not fighting directly in one of the countries of the former Soviet Union and the United States. However, if understood, teradinya the Korean War and the Vietnam War is a result of tensions between the two countries and is a direct warfare conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War ended in conflict with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the winner of the country.


1997 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 1194
Author(s):  
Richard C. Thornton ◽  
Ilya V. Gaiduk

1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Buszynski

Southeast Asia in United States policy fell from a region of high priority during the Vietnam war to become, after the fall of Indochina, an area of relatively minor interest. For the United States, Southeast Asia evoked memories of misperception, intensified over-commitment, and simplistic assumptions that characterized the American effort to defeat local Vietnamese national communism. Since the formulation of the Nixon doctrine of disengagement in 1969, United States policy towards Southeast Asia has been undergoing a process of long-term readjustment in recognition of the exaggerated significance that the region had assumed in American thinking. The fall of Saigon in April 1975 was a major stimulus to this readjustment as it gave the Americans compelling reasons to anticipate a reassertion of Soviet influence in the region. Successive American administrations attempted to place the region in a wider global context to avoid the dangers of extreme reaction to local national communism while developing the flexibility to coordinate a response to the Soviet Union at a global level. The main concern of American policy was to remove the basis for direct United States involvement in the region in a way that would satisfy post-Vietnam war public and congressional opinion and the demands of strategic planners for greater freedom of manoeuvre against the Soviet Union.


Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer

This book chronicles and assesses the little-known involvement of US diplomat George F. Kennan—renowned as an expert on the Soviet Union—in US policy toward East Asia, primarily in the early Cold War years. Kennan, with vital assistance from his deputy John Paton Davies, played pivotal roles in effecting the US withdrawal from the Chinese civil war and the redirection of American occupation policy in Japan, and in developing the “defensive perimeter” concept in the western Pacific. His influence, however, faded soon thereafter: he was less successful in warning against US security commitments in Korea and Indochina, and the impact of the Korean War ultimately eclipsed his strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. This was due in large part to Kennan’s inability to reconcile his judgment that the mainland of East Asia was strategically expendable to the United States with his belief that US prestige should not be compromised there. The book examines the subsequent evolution of Kennan’s thinking about East Asian issues—including his role as a prominent critic of US involvement in the Vietnam War—and the legacies of his engagement with the region.


Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada

Chapter 2 presents the Soviet chronotope embodied in Victory Day celebrations. Victory Day, which is the celebration of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War II, presumes the familiar Soviet genre of history, in which the Soviet Union brought civilization to Buryatia, and Buryats achieved full citizenship in the Soviet utopian dream through their collective sacrifice during the war. The ritual does not narrate Soviet history. Instead, through Soviet and wartime imagery, and the parade form, the public holiday evokes this genre in symbolic form, enabling local residents to read their own narratives of the past into the imagery. This space for interpretation enables both validation as well as critique of the Soviet experience in Buryatia. Although not everyone in Buryatia agrees on how to evaluate this history, this genre is the taken-for-granted backdrop against which other religious actors define their narratives.


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