Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
General Secretary ◽  
East West

This chapter describes the Soviet Union as the focus of evil in the modern world and, most famously, an evil empire. It mentions General Secretary Iuriĭ Andropov, who implied that Ronald Reagan had nothing to say but profanities alternated with hypocritical preaching on the Soviet Union and looks at an article in Pravda that summed up Andropov's foreign-policy as nuclear insanity. It also explains the Cold War's improbable and unpredictable end, such as Reagan rejecting the failed foreign-policy doctrines of containment. The chapter talks about Mikhail Gorbachev, whose new thinking transformed the Soviet Union and transcended the East–West confrontation. It illustrates the Cold War's denouement between 1985 and 1991 that is regularly cited as a textbook case of long-standing adversaries setting aside prior disagreements and beginning to cooperate.

Castro and “New Thinking” in Latin America

1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kline
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Long Run ◽  
New Thinking

This article will argue that general agreement between Cuba and the Soviet Union on their foreign policy toward Latin America is likely over the long run, despite (a) Fidel Castro's condemnation of perestroika and glasnost, and (b) his obvious attempt to embarrass Soviet Secretary-General Mikhail Gorbachev during the latter's state visit to Cuba in April 1989. Serious obstacles — such as differences over Cuban domestic policy and Castro's personal ambitions — remain to be overcome, but foreign policy disagreements between the two countries are likely to prove less intractable than is frequently assumed.This article will start with (1) an overview of Cuban Latin American foreign policy since the 1970s; then proceed to (2) an interpretation of Soviet “new thinking;” and finally (3) argue that this particular interpretation of “new thinking” is consistent with, and not contradictory to, Castro's foreign policy.

The Helsinki Accord: A Growth Industry

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Korey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Negotiation Strategies ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Growth Industry

Despite conservative opposition, in the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter turned the tide in favor of the Helsinki Accord by taking a strong stand in fostering U.S. participation in it. Korey focuses on the U.S. delegation to the Commission on Security and Cooperation (CSCE) in Europe and credits the success of the Helsinki Accord to U.S. adroit negotiation strategies, beginning with the Carter administration. By 1980, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came to embrace the “humanitarianism” of the treaty. The Vienna review conference's (1986–89) effort peaked when a milestone was reached in the human rights process, linking it directly to security issues equally pertinent to the East and the West. The author contends that the United States' ardent participation in the monitoring of compliance was particularly effective in putting pressure on the Soviet Union to uphold the agreement within its territory, yielding enormous progress in human rights

Jazz as Democracy?? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Crist
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Governmental Secrecy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 1958 tour on behalf of the U.S. State Department, part of the grand Cold War project of propagating American-style democracy in opposition to communism, did not advance in an orderly and self-evident manner. Rather it was an extremely contingent enterprise enacted through countless individual actions and statements by a motley assortment of bureaucrats and businessmen, and frequently teetered on the brink of chaos. The story of Brubeck's tour, including its evolution and impact, is complex and multifaceted, involving overlapping and conflicting agendas, governmental secrecy, high-minded idealism, and hard-nosed business. The narrative also raises issues of race and race relations in the context of the Cold War struggle against communism and brings into focus the increasing cultural prestige of jazz and other popular genres worldwide during the period when the ideological premises of the Cold War were being formulated. Thirty years later——in 1988, as the Cold War was waning——the Quartet performed in Moscow at the reciprocal state dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during their fourth summit meeting. The sequence of events leading up to this occasion, including the Quartet's long-anticipated tour of the Soviet Union during the previous year, reveals Brubeck to have been not only a talented musician but a canny entrepreneur as well. By the late 1980s the cultural and political landscape had shifted so dramatically as to be virtually unrecognizable to the Cold Warriors of the 1950s. By all accounts, Brubeck's tours in the 1950s and 1980s were among the most successful of their kind. Though Brubeck attributes their efficacy primarily to the power of an influential idea that came into its own toward the beginning of the Cold War——namely, jazz as democracy——the documentary record makes clear that the impact of his travels involved a multifarious nexus of other factors as well, including reputation, personality, and marketability.

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.

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.

New Departures

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-129
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Soviet Foreign Policy ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This chapter covers Ronald Reagan's first meeting with Mikhail Gorbache in Geneva in November 1985, exploring the internal and external roots of the nascent new thinking in Soviet foreign-policy and its impact on East–West relations. It recounts how superpower relations over a five-year period became messy and contradictory as Moscow and Washington exchanged harsh words and engaged in more dialogue than is commonly thought. It also mentions how the process of ending the Cold War had begun as US policymakers regained confidence in their place in the world and their Soviet counterparts took drastic measures to deal with a deteriorating situation. The chapter refers to policymakers in Washington and Moscow who struggled with the dualities of the Cold War. It describes that the policymakers witnessed a strong and rising United States and a Soviet Union that was on a grim downward trajectory.

The Social Creativity of Deng and Gorbachev

2019 ◽  
pp. 134-176
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
Alexei Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Economic Foundation ◽  
Social Creativity ◽  
Power Role

This chapter interprets the reforms by Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev in the context of their efforts to find alternative means to great power status—through social creativity. Deng launched the “reform and opening” policy, developing the economic foundation for China to play a great power role while exercising unparalleled diplomatic flexibility in dealing with some of China's most difficult territorial and sovereignty disputes. Gorbachev abandoned Russia's usual military methods for achieving great power status in favor of promoting a new, idealistic philosophy for a more peaceful and harmonious world—the “New Thinking.” While Gorbachev's ideas enjoyed remarkable success internationally, the failure of his domestic reforms, along with the rise of nationalism, contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union and an end to the Soviet Union's status as an innovator of new principles for world order.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Miller
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Market Socialism ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Tiananmen Square ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Liberal Capitalism ◽  
General Secretary

Amid the thousands of protesters who assembled on China’s Tiananmen Square in May 1989, just weeks before the Chinese government sent troops to crush the demonstrations, one person held a placard that declared: “We Salute the Ambassador of Democracy.”1 The envoy that this protester saluted was neither an activist, nor a dissident, nor from a country renowned for human rights advocacy. It was Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The type of democracy he offered was not Western-style liberal capitalism, but market socialism. Chinese students took trains from far-flung provinces just to see him....

scholarly journals The First Major Reform

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Patricia Hafso
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Government Transparency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
General Secretary

During the 1980s, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev implemented extensive reforms prohibiting alcohol. The reform had distastrous results and is widely regarded as a failure. Although Gorbachev's alcohol reform was ultimately reversed and regarded as unsuccessful, the alcohol policy is revealing in regards to changes taking place in Soviet society during the 1980s. The reform demonstrated changes in the political landscape, economics, and government transparency. 

Leonid Brezhnev and Edward Gierek: The Making and Breaking of an Uneven Friendship

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-286
Author(s):  
Jakub Szumski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
General Secretary

The article examines the relationship between the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, and the First Secretary of the Polish United Worker’s Party, Edward Gierek, during the 1970s and contributes to the understanding of relationships between Brezhnev and other leaders of the Eastern Bloc. In order to fulfill his foreign policy goals, Brezhnev needed active and willing cooperation from the Eastern Bloc and its leaders benefited from this endeavor. Gierek responded to this demand by entering into an “uneven friendship” with Brezhnev that was established according to the Soviet “friendship code.” This privileged relationship was dependent on the inner situation within the Soviet leadership, the progress of détente, Poland’s domestic stability, and ultimately did not counterbalance Poland’s structurally disadvantageous status in the Eastern Bloc.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document