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A significant turning point in both American and Soviet history was the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union stationed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, endangering US national security in the eyes of the United States. As a result of President Kennedy's response, a naval blockade was imposed, which resulted in a tense 13-day standoff. The crisis exposed the precarious balance of power during the Cold War and illustrated the value of international relations and communication. The crisis nearly brought the world to an end, but negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union resulted in the removal of the missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba. The crisis had a significant impact on global politics and international relations, only being resolved due to diplomacy and the fear of nuclear war

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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2008.00706.x

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https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons/cold-war-guatemala

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The Cold War was fought on multiple fronts throughout the world. One of the Cold War's hot spots was Guatemala, where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deposed democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman through covert operations in 1954. In this lesson, students explore why and how the U.S. got involved in Guatemala.

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Cold War in Guatemala | Stanford History Education Group

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The Cold War was fought on multiple fronts throughout the world. One of the Cold War's hot spots was Guatemala, where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) deposed democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman through covert operations in 1954. In this lesson, students explore why and how the U.S. got involved in Guatemala.

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https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control

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The nuclear arms race was perhaps the most alarming feature of the Cold War competition between the United States and Soviet Union. Over the decades, the two sides signed various arms control agreements as a means to manage their rivalry and limit the risk of nuclear war. However, deep fissures have reemerged in the U.S.-Russia relationship in recent years, raising once again the specter of a nuclear arms race.

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The nuclear arms race was perhaps the most alarming feature of the Cold War competition between the United States and Soviet Union. Over the decades, the two sides signed various arms control agreeme...

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https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/trade-cold-wars-and-value-agreements-during-crises

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There is ample evidence that protectionism responds to economic and political shocks (Bown and Crowley 2013). Moreover, tariff threats increase trade policy uncertainty and thus reduce trade (Crowley et al. 2016). Reductions in trade policy uncertainty through WTO commitments encourage firms to invest to enter new markets and expand exports (Handley 2014), which can lower prices and increase consumer welfare, as we find for the US after China's WTO accession (Handley and Limão 2017a). Entry into credible preferential trade agreements can also further strengthen policy commitments, reducing trade policy uncertainty and increasing exports, as we find in Handley and Limão (2015) for Portugal's accession to the EU.

Threats to start trade wars and to renegotiate or ignore international commitments reduce the beneficial effects of trade agreements. Two events in 2016 increased trade policy uncertainty substantially: the British vote to leave the EU in June, and Donald Trump's nomination as the GOP candidate in July. One index of the Trump trade policy uncertainty is shown in Figure 1 - the share of newspaper articles about international trade or trade policy that also mention "uncertain" or "uncertainty". This index increased when the campaign was announced, upon his nomination, and upon his subsequent election - when he took office, trade policy uncertainty reached its highest level in a decade.1 In Handley and Limao (2017b), we note various potential actions of the incoming administration that were sources of trade policy uncertainty. Several of these have now occurred, including the US withdrawal from TPP, and renegotiations of its preferential trade agreements (PTAs). In March 2018, President Trump announced he planned to impose tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium on all countries, and added that "trade wars are good... and easy to win" after other countries threatened retaliation ( New York Times 2018).2 Notably, three of the four largest steel import source countries are US PTA partners, namely, Canada, South Korea, and Mexico. The exemptions for Canada and Mexico announced on 9 March are welcome. But they are conditional on unspecified concessions on NAFTA renegotiation and only temporary - two factors that could prolong a period of uncertainty and undermine the value and stability that NAFTA and other PTAs provide for US firms, especially if this tactic is normalised.

Figure 1 New-based index of trade policy uncertainty, 2006-2017

The possibility of a trade war initially translated into tangible stock market declines. But even if the US steps back from the brink, , the new trade cold war - defined by the higher probability of breaking up agreements and entering a 'hot' trade war - is already undermining the credibility of the world trade system.3 In this column, we focus on how US exporting firms (and thus their suppliers and workers) are hurt by uncertainty, especially during an economic crisis (Carballo et al. 2018). We find evidence that the interaction of economic and policy uncertainty exacerbated the reduction of trade in the 2008 Global Crisis.4 This was mitigated in part by US PTAs that provided insurance against adverse policy shocks when demand volatility increased.

Export dynamics and the value of agreements

The recent challenges to the rules-based global trade system highlight why international trade is a fruitful avenue to explore the interaction of policy and economic uncertainty more broadly. Export entry into foreign markets requires sunk cost investments, which firms may not undertake if they perceive additional demand volatility and risk due to shocks that may discriminate against them, such as exchange rate or policy movements. The potential policy response in periods of high economic uncertainty and turmoil, even if well-intentioned, can often amplify risk for firms that export. This was a concern of G20 members during the Global Crisis and the rapid collapse in global trade. In response, they repeatedly pledged that "[w]e will not repeat the historic mistakes of protectionism of previous eras" in order to quell fears of a tit-for-tat trade war similar to the one triggered by the Depression. By 2016, the G20 was explicit about concerns with policy uncertainty and spillovers, stating "[w]e will [...] clearly communicate our macroeconomic and structural policy actions to reduce policy uncertainty, minimize negative spillovers and promote transparency".5 This language was notably absent from the 2017 Hamburg G20 Leaders' declaration.

Figure 2 Export growth to PTA and non-PTA destinations, 2002-2011

US exports contracted by 22% from 2008Q3 to 2009Q2, but the severity of the collapse and speed of recovery varied across trade policy regimes. In Figure 2, we see that export growth toward US PTA partners declined less during the crisis and recovered more quickly. We estimate a growth differential during the crisis for PTA exports of about 10% after controlling for other standard supply and demand determinants of trade. More importantly, we find the PTA differential is largest in countries with higher GDP risk. We do not find a similar differential between PTA membership and risk prior to the crisis, from 2002-2008Q3, which suggests a role for PTAs in mitigating uncertainty during the crisis.

We develop a model consistent with this aggregate evidence and examine its predictions using detailed firm-level data. Reducing overall demand uncertainty always increases export market entry and exports in our framework. But if adverse trade policy shocks (i.e. protectionism) tend to arrive in tandem with negative income shocks, then the trade-reducing effects of increased volatility during a crisis can be amplified by an interaction between economic and policy uncertainty. If trade agreements constrain governments through their long-term and credible policy commitments to keep trade barriers low in good and bad times, then they should be valuable to exporters and their governments, especially during a downturn.

We estimate and quantify these effects using data from the US Census Bureau for the period 2003-2011, which includes a period of expansion prior to the crisis, the crisis itself, and its aftermath. The firm-level data allow us to estimate differential effects of income uncertainty for PTA and non-PTAs, and also across different margins - new products per firm (i.e. varieties) and value of existing ones - while controlling for various potential confounding factors. We highlight several key findings.

First, the net entry of US varieties was higher towards PTAs relative to non-PTA markets, particularly where income uncertainty was high. The right panel of Figure 3 shows that the higher overall export growth toward PTA countries from Figure 2 is driven by this extensive margin differential, which was not present before the financial crisis, as seen in the left panel.

Figure 3 PTA export growth differential, pre- and post-crisis

Second, using the non-PTA sample, we ask what its net entry and export growth path would have been without a crisis versus its path if those countries had a PTA in place. In Figure 4, we show that average net exit for non-PTA destinations was 15% below the 'no crisis' path by the fourth quarter of 2011 (the solid line). Most of this effect would be eliminated if those countries had a PTA (the counterfactual dashed line). The effect on exports is sizeable as well. In Figure 5, we see a large cumulative decline in aggregate exports (the solid line) to non-PTA countries in the data. If a PTA had been in place, that drop would have been cut by one third, or about 8% for the extensive margin.

Figure 4 Non-PTA average growth in firm varieties if treated as if PTA member

Figure 5 Non-PTA export growth margins if treated as if PTA member

Going further, we then split our sample into industries that would face high or low tariffs in a trade war according to importer market power.6 In Figure 6, we find that the PTA export growth differentials were highest in the industries that faced high potential protection, whereas the differential is small if potential protection was low.

Figure 6 PTA export growth differential by high and low potential protection, measured by importer market power

A summary statistic that places the value of agreements into perspective is the foreign income growth differential required to offset the difference in US exports to non-PTA versus PTA markets from uncertainty. In 2011, closing the gap between the actual export growth and the PTA treatment counterfactual from Figure 5 is equivalent to cumulative foreign GDP growth from 2008-2011 of 5% for total exports, or 8% for the extensive margin.

Broader implications: That was then, this is now

Our findings suggest the current network of trade agreements lowered joint policy and economic uncertainty, particularly in high potential protection industries. Back in 2008, the WTO Director General argued the WTO provides "[...] the everyday economy, with a collective insurance policy against the disorder caused by unilateral actions, whether open or disguised; a guarantee of security for transactions in times of crisis, henceforth an element of resilience that is vital to the running of a globalized world. In short, a global insurance policy for a global real economy". Our findings highlight the insurance value of PTAs during the last economic crisis - a benefit that can't be ignored in light of recent US threats of protectionism, the renegotiation of NAFTA, and Brexit. The importance of WTO membership is less clear, but is also under threat. It may become increasingly important if some PTAs are weakened or dissolved. Renegotiation of agreements is not necessarily bad. But if negotiating international policy under duress or exiting first and hoping to work out the details later becomes more common, the value of these agreements in the next crisis may be greatly diminished.

References

Baker, S R, N Bloom, and S J Davis (2016), "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty", The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(4): 1593-1636.

Bown, C P, and M A Crowley (2013), "Import protection, business cycles, and exchange rates: Evidence from the Great Recession", Journal of International Economics 90(1): 50-64.

Bown, C (2018), "Trump's Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: How WTO Retaliation Typically Works", PIIE Blog, 5th March.

Broda, C, N Limão, and D E Weinstein (2008), "Optimal Tariffs and Market Power: The Evidence", American Economic Review 98(5): 2032-65.

Carballo, J, K Handley, and N Limão (2018), "Economic and Policy Uncertainty: Export Dynamics and the Value of Agreements", NBER Working Paper 24368.

Crowley, M, H Song, and N Meng (2016), "Tariff Scares: Trade policy uncertainty and foreign market entry by Chinese firms", CEPR Discussion Paper no. 11722.

Handley, K (2014), "Exporting under trade policy uncertainty: Theory and evidence", Journal of International Economics 94(1): 50-66.

Handley, K, and N Limão (2015), "Trade and Investment under Policy Uncertainty: Theory and Firm Evidence", American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (4).

Handley, K, and N Limão (2017a), "Policy Uncertainty, Trade, and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for China and the United States", American Economic Review 107(9): 2731-83.

Handley, K, and N Limão (2017b), "Trade under T.R.U.M.P. policies", in C P Bown (ed.), Economics and Policy in the Age of Trump, chapter 13, CEPR Press, London.

New York Times (2018), "E.U. Leader Threatens to Retaliate with Tariffs on Bourbon and Bluejeans", 2 March.

Endnotes

[1] The index applies the basic methodology in Baker et al. (2016) who focus on domestic policy uncertainty.

[2] Such tariffs can reduce US imports by over $14 billion and lead to unprecedented levels of retaliation (see Bown 2018).

[3] In Handley and Limão (2017a), we show that US TPU has high costs for its consumers' welfare - a modest increase in the probability of high protection against all its partners is equivalent to 1/3 of the cost US consumers would face if imports were banned.

[4] This research was conducted while the authors were Special Sworn Status researchers at the Census HQ and Michigan Research Data Centers. Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. All results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed.

[5] G20 Communique, April 2, 2009, see here, and G20 Leaders' Communique from the Hangzhou Summit, September 5, 2016, see here.

[6] Some goods are more responsive to trade barriers than others and a foreign government would increase tariffs more on the least responsive goods, i.e. those where its market power is high. See Broda et al. (2008) for some empirical evidence.

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Trade cold wars and the value of agreements during crises

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Economic downturns can be both a cause and an effect of uncertainty. This column argues that uncertainty has international spillovers that can be mitigated via credible international trade agreements such as NAFTA, which provided US firms with valuable insurance against the widespread threat of a global trade war during the 2008 crisis.

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https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/concl.html

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For further information, please email histinfo@hq.nasa.gov

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https://archive.org/details/1957-10-07_New_Moon

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New Moon. Reds Launch First Space Satellite, 1957/10/07 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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First report of Sputnik - animations of rocket used same animations as done for earlier report on the Vanguard story (partial newsreel)

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https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/space-race-timeline

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The space race was a 20th Century struggle between two nation-states, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The pursuit for both was the domination of space flight technologies. The competition began on 2 August 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement of their similar intent to launch artificial satellites.

The space race has its origins in the nuclear arms race between the two nations following the Second World War. Both sides were aided by German missile technology and scientists from their missile programme. The technological advantages required for such power were seen as necessary for national security and political superiority. The space race produced groundbreaking efforts to launch artificial satellites; space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human space voyages in low Earth orbit and lunar missions.

The space race between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) was a remarkable time in history with many far-reaching achievements in science, space exploration, and technology. This timeline shows the twenty-year competition between the two nations.

Space race timeline

2 August 1955: The USSR responds to the US announcement that they intend to launch the first artificial satellite into space with a satellite of their own.

4 October 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 1, the first Earth-orbiting satellite in history.

3 November 1957: The USSR successfully launches Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika into space. They become the first nation to successfully send a living organism into orbit.

31 January 1958: The US enter the space race by launching Explorer 1, the first US satellite to reach orbit. It carried experimental equipment that led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.

1 October 1958: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is created in the US, replacing the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA).

18 December 1958: The US launch SCORE, the world's first communications satellite. It captured world attention by broadcasting a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, becoming the first broadcast of a human voice from space.

2 January 1959: The USSR launches Luna 1, known as the first "cosmic rocket" as it accidentally escaped the orbit of the Moon due to the object having too much speed. Luna 1 becomes the first human-made object to leave the orbit of the Earth and orbit the sun instead.

2 August 1959: The US launches Explorer 6, the world's first weather satellite and obtains the first pictures of Earth from space.

12 September 1959: The USSR launches Luna 2 and accomplishes its mission of creating the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon.

4 October 1959: The USSR launches Luna 3 and succeeds in their mission of sending an object into orbit around the Moon and photographing the far side of the Moon.

19 August 1960: Aboard the Soviet Union's Sputnik 5, the first animals (two dogs, Belka and Strelka) and a range of plants are returned alive from space.

31 January 1961: Ham, a US chimpanzee, becomes the first hominid (or great ape) in space and the first to successfully survive the landing.

12 April 1961: The Soviet Union achieve a clear triumph in the space race. Aboard the Vostok 1, Yuri Gagarin makes a single orbit around the Earth and becomes the first man to reach space. He remained in space for one hour and forty-eight minutes before landing in Saratov Oblast, west Russia.

5 May 1961: The US achieve the first pilot-controlled journey and first American in space with Alan Shepard aboard the Mercury-Redstone 3 (or Freedom 7) spacecraft. On this flight, Shepard did not orbit Earth. He flew 116 miles high. The flight lasted about 15 minutes.

16 June 1963: Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first civilian and first woman in space. She spends almost three days in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times aboard her spacecraft, Vostok 6.

18 March 1965: Alexei Leonov leaves his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, in a specialized spacesuit and conducts a twelve-minute spacewalk, the first of its kind.

14 July 1965: The US satellite, Mariner 4, performs the first successful voyage to the planet Mars, returning the first close-up images of the Martian surface.

1967: This year proves the most deadly of the space race for both the US and Soviet Union. In January, American astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee die when a fire ignited in their Apollo 1 capsule on the launch pad. Only a few months later the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is also killed when the parachute on his Soyuz 1 capsule fails to open on his reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

21 December 1968: US spacecraft Apollo 8 becomes the first human-crewed spacecraft to reach the Moon, orbit it, and successfully return to Earth.

20 July 1969: Neil Armstrong and later Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon while their crewmate Michael Collins continues to orbit the Moon aboard the Apollo 11. This secured a victory for America in the space race with a televised landing witnessed around the world by 723 million people.
Find out more about Apollo 11
11 April 1970: The US Apollo 13 mission is known as the first explosion onboard a spacecraft where the crew survived.

19 April 1971: The USSR launches the first space station. Parts of this spacecraft will become core segments of the International Space Station (ISS) almost thirty years later in November 2000.

1 August 1971: David Scott, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, becomes the first person to drive on the Moon. He's also remembered for paying tribute to the Soviet Union and US astronauts who died in the advancement of space exploration. When walking on the Moon, Scott places a plaque with a list of the dead. Alongside this, he leaves a small aluminium sculpture of an astronaut in a spacesuit, created by Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck.

15 July 1975: With tensions between the US and USSR softening, the first cooperative Apollo-Soyuz mission is launched. With two separate flights, the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft dock in space and the two commanders Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov exchange the first international handshake. This act can be seen to symbolically end the space race, paving the way for future joint missions, such as the International Space Station and the Shuttle-Mir programme.

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Explore and learn about the key events and achievements that shaped almost twenty years of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union

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The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

Carl Sagan

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Ultimately, the nuclear weapons race had a profound impact on the Cold War and the world at large. The threat of mutual annihilation loomed over international relations, creating a tense and often unstable atmosphere. This arms race also resulted in the accumulation of a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons on both sides, far beyond what would be necessary for defense, and exponentially increasing the risk of a catastrophic accident or miscalculation. The legacy of the nuclear weapons race is still with us today, serving as a powerful reminder of mankind's capacity for destruction and the need for continued international efforts to prevent catastrophic conflict.

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Because of the cold war, a lot of innovation was fueled. The United States and Soviet Union engaged in a military buildup and technological advancements, leading to increased government spending and heavy investment in defense industries.

During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union invested heavily in technology and scientific research. This led to significant advancements in aerospace, computing, telecommunications, and other industries. The United States government invested heavily in the aerospace industry, leading to the development of advanced technologies that were used in space exploration, telecommunications, and defense. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, invested heavily in the production of nuclear weapons, leading to the development of advanced technology in nuclear fission and fusion.

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3rd world countries were significantly impacted by the Cold War as well. Conflicts frequently broke out in the Third World as a result of American and Soviet efforts to influence the regions. The US strove to eradicate any possibility of communism in South America during this trying time, often at the sacrifice of human rights and social advantages. This confrontation, which resulted in proxy wars and political unrest, caught countries like Guatemala in the midst. Shortly after WW2, Juan José Arévalo, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, was overthrown by a CIA coup.
The US perceived a communist danger in his progressive activities, such as the organization of workers, unprecedented freedom of action, actual pay increases, and the enactment of labor laws. The brutal regime that came after is notorious for its common practice of torture and genocide, which were all supported by the West.

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Shortly after the end of World War II until the early 1990s, there existed political hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union known as the Cold War. There is no denying that the Cold War had a substantial global influence on international relations. International relations were negatively impacted by the pervasive sense of mistrust and suspicion that developed between nations as a result of the Cold War.
The weapons race between the United States and the Soviet Union was one of the Cold War's most important effects on international affairs. Both nations made significant investments in the creation of nuclear weapons, which increased global anxiety and unease.
As a result of the arms race, which made many nations feel intimidated by the prospect of nuclear conflict, there was an environment of tension that significantly strained international relations.
The development of new alliances and allegiances was another effect of the Cold War on politics around the world. While the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact in 1955, the United States established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies, these ties operated as military alliances. Due to the presence of these alliances, the globe became even more divided and developed a "us vs. them" mindset, which made navigating international affairs much more challenging.

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Throughout the 20th century, the Cold War had a considerable effect on the world economy. The effects on international trade and cultural interactions were profound. The geopolitical rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, two of the greatest economies in the world, also had an impact on their respective trading partners. On nations like Cuba and Vietnam that supported the Soviet Union, the US imposed trade restrictions and embargoes. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union imposed comparable sanctions on nations that backed the United States, including South Korea and Israel. The inability of nations to trade with one another resulted in a decline in global commerce and economic growth. Despite the end of the Cold War in 1991, the international economy continues to be affected by the restructuring of trade, geopolitical connections, and economic interdependence.

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In order to demonstrate their technical dominance and control over space exploration, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a head-to-head rivalry known as the "space race" during the Cold War. Both nations sought to establish their dominance throughout the Cold War in many spheres, including space exploration. Thus, from 1955 through 1975, the two superpowers engaged in rivalry by launching their respective satellites, staffed spaceships, and crewed trips to the Moon.
A race between the two nations began when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1 satellite first in 1957. In response, the US launched Explorer 1, its first satellite, in 1958. By sending Yuri Gagarin into space as the first man in 1961, the Soviet Union maintained its advantage.
With the Apollo 11 mission, the United States finally caught up and sent a man to the moon in 1969.
Spending on space programs increased significantly as a result of the space race, which was sparked by the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. Due to this expenditure, both sides' spacecraft failed frequently, resulting in significant financial loss. Due to the failure or technical challenges of several space missions, the space also become incredibly dangerous for astronauts.
In the end, the space race produced several important breakthroughs and substantial advances in space exploration that are still used today.

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The nuclear weapons race during the Cold War was a key factor in shaping the political, military, and social landscape of the world during the latter half of the twentieth century. The arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was characterized by the pursuit of increasingly advanced and destructive weapons, each side seeking to gain an advantage in the event of a potential conflict. This race was driven by a combination of strategic concerns, ideological motivations, and domestic political pressures.

At the heart of the arms race was the development of nuclear weapons technology, which represented a paradigm shift in the nature of warfare. The development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other long-range delivery systems enabled each side to threaten the other with catastrophic destruction from afar, further escalating tensions.

In the United States, the perceived threat of Soviet aggression led to a domestic climate that favored the pursuit of military strength. This was embodied by the concept of "massive retaliation," which called for the use of nuclear weapons in response to any attack, no matter how small. Likewise, the Soviet Union's own ideology emphasized the importance of military defense and the pursuit of socialism, driving a similar focus on weapons development.

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What are some events from the cold war that still impact us todays. Are there still any consequences from that?

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/North-Atlantic-Treaty-Organization

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. Its original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Joining the original signatories were Greece and Turkey (1952); West Germany (1955; from 1990 as Germany); Spain (1982); the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); North Macedonia (2020); and Finland (2023). France withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in 1966 but remained a member of the organization; it resumed its position in NATO's military command in 2009.

The heart of NATO is expressed in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which the signatory members agree that

an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in 2001, after the September 11 attacks organized by exiled Saudi Arabian millionaire Osama bin Laden destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and part of the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., killing some 3,000 people.

Article 6 defines the geographic scope of the treaty as covering "an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America." Other articles commit the allies to strengthening their democratic institutions, to building their collective military capability, to consulting each other, and to remaining open to inviting other European states to join.

Historical background

After World War II in 1945, western Europe was economically exhausted and militarily weak (the western Allies had rapidly and drastically reduced their armies at the end of the war), and newly powerful communist parties had arisen in France and Italy. By contrast, the Soviet Union had emerged from the war with its armies dominating all the states of central and eastern Europe, and by 1948 communists under Moscow's sponsorship had consolidated their control of the governments of those countries and suppressed all noncommunist political activity. What became known as the Iron Curtain, a term popularized by Winston Churchill, had descended over central and eastern Europe. Further, wartime cooperation between the western Allies and the Soviets had completely broken down. Each side was organizing its own sector of occupied Germany, so that two German states would emerge, a democratic one in the west and a communist one in the east.

In 1948 the United States launched the Marshall Plan, which infused massive amounts of economic aid to the countries of western and southern Europe on the condition that they cooperate with each other and engage in joint planning to hasten their mutual recovery. As for military recovery, under the Brussels Treaty of 1948, the United Kingdom, France, and the Low Countries-Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg-concluded a collective-defense agreement called the Western European Union. It was soon recognized, however, that a more formidable alliance would be required to provide an adequate military counterweight to the Soviets.

By this time Britain, Canada, and the United States had already engaged in secret exploratory talks on security arrangements that would serve as an alternative to the United Nations (UN), which was becoming paralyzed by the rapidly emerging Cold War. In March 1948, following a virtual communist coup d'état in Czechoslovakia in February, the three governments began discussions on a multilateral collective-defense scheme that would enhance Western security and promote democratic values. These discussions were eventually joined by France, the Low Countries, and Norway and in April 1949 resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty.

Organization

Spurred by the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 ( see Korean War), the United States took steps to demonstrate that it would resist any Soviet military expansion or pressures in Europe. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the leader of the Allied forces in western Europe in World War II, was named Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) by the North Atlantic Council (NATO's governing body) in December 1950. He was followed as SACEUR by a succession of American generals.

The North Atlantic Council, which was established soon after the treaty came into effect, is composed of ministerial representatives of the member states, who meet at least twice a year. At other times the council, chaired by the NATO secretary-general, remains in permanent session at the ambassadorial level. Just as the position of SACEUR has always been held by an American, the secretary-generalship has always been held by a European.

NATO's military organization encompasses a complete system of commands for possible wartime use. The Military Committee, consisting of representatives of the military chiefs of staff of the member states, subsumes two strategic commands: Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT). ACO is headed by the SACEUR and located at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Casteau, Belgium. ACT is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. During the alliance's first 20 years, more than $3 billion worth of "infrastructure" for NATO forces-bases, airfields, pipelines, communications networks, depots-was jointly planned, financed, and built, with about one-third of the funding from the United States. NATO funding generally is not used for the procurement of military equipment, which is provided by the member states-though the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force, a fleet of radar-bearing aircraft designed to protect against a surprise low-flying attack, was funded jointly.

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North Atlantic Treaty Organization | History, Structure & Purpose

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NATO, military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II. By the early 21st century, it had 31 members. Learn more about NATO in this article.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2FM3_h33Tg

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Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech - 1946 | Today In History | 5 Mar 17

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 to compete with the USSR's military potential and expansionist goals. It was a military partnership between North America and Europe, especially the United States, to offer member nations collective defense against any foreign danger. The main goal of the alliances was to stop the development of communism in Europe. NATO increased its military power to oppose the Soviet Union's military supremacy and ensured its member nations had the tools and instruction needed to defend themselves from a hypothetical Soviet military attack. The Soviet Union was compelled to restrict its military actions in Europe due to NATO's strong military might. NATO played a crucial role in the Cold War by helping to stop the Soviet Union's expansionist goals in Europe, and by guaranteeing its member nations were protected from potential military attack

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This is a speech given by the US' 33rd president Harry S. Truman about the cold war

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PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN'S ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS, MARCH 12, 1947

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress of the United States:

The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.

One aspect of the present situation, which I wish to present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns Greece and Turkey.

The United States has received from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance. Preliminary reports from the American Economic Mission now in Greece and reports from the American Ambassador in Greece corroborate the statement of the Greek Government that assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation.

I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of the Greek Government.

Greece is not a rich country. Lack of sufficient natural resources has always forced the Greek people to work hard to make both ends meet. Since 1940, this industrious and peace loving country has suffered invasion, four years of cruel enemy occupation, and bitter internal strife.

When forces of liberation entered Greece they found that the retreating Germans had destroyed virtually all the railways, roads, port facilities, communications, and merchant marine. More than a thousand villages had been burned. Eighty-five per cent of the children were tubercular. Livestock, poultry, and draft animals had almost disappeared. Inflation had wiped out practically all savings.

As a result of these tragic conditions, a militant minority, exploiting human want and misery, was able to create political chaos which, until now, has made economic recovery impossible.

Greece is today without funds to finance the importation of those goods which are essential to bare subsistence. Under these circumstances the people of Greece cannot make progress in solving their problems of reconstruction. Greece is in desperate need of financial and economic assistance to enable it to resume purchases of food, clothing, fuel and seeds. These are indispensable for the subsistence of its people and are obtainable only from abroad. Greece must have help to import the goods necessary to restore internal order and security, so essential for economic and political recovery.

The Greek Government has also asked for the assistance of experienced American administrators, economists and technicians to insure that the financial and other aid given to Greece shall be used effectively in creating a stable and self-sustaining economy and in improving its public administration.

The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries. A Commission appointed by the United Nations security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece and alleged border violations along the frontier between Greece on the one hand and Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia on the other.

Meanwhile, the Greek Government is unable to cope with the situation. The Greek army is small and poorly equipped. It needs supplies and equipment if it is to restore the authority of the government throughout Greek territory. Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy.

The United States must supply that assistance. We have already extended to Greece certain types of relief and economic aid but these are inadequate.

There is no other country to which democratic Greece can turn.

No other nation is willing and able to provide the necessary support for a democratic Greek government.

The British Government, which has been helping Greece, can give no further financial or economic aid after March 31. Great Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its commitments in several parts of the world, including Greece.

We have considered how the United Nations might assist in this crisis. But the situation is an urgent one requiring immediate action and the United Nations and its related organizations are not in a position to extend help of the kind that is required.

It is important to note that the Greek Government has asked for our aid in utilizing effectively the financial and other assistance we may give to Greece, and in improving its public administration. It is of the utmost importance that we supervise the use of any funds made available to Greece; in such a manner that each dollar spent will count toward making Greece self-supporting, and will help to build an economy in which a healthy democracy can flourish.

No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected. The Government of Greece is not perfect. Nevertheless it represents eighty-five per cent of the members of the Greek Parliament who were chosen in an election last year. Foreign observers, including 692 Americans, considered this election to be a fair expression of the views of the Greek people.

The Greek Government has been operating in an atmosphere of chaos and extremism. It has made mistakes. The extension of aid by this country does not mean that the United States condones everything that the Greek Government has done or will do. We have condemned in the past, and we condemn now, extremist measures of the right or the left. We have in the past advised tolerance, and we advise tolerance now.

Greece's neighbor, Turkey, also deserves our attention.

The future of Turkey as an independent and economically sound state is clearly no less important to the freedom-loving peoples of the world than the future of Greece. The circumstances in which Turkey finds itself today are considerably different from those of Greece. Turkey has been spared the disasters that have beset Greece. And during the war, the United States and Great Britain furnished Turkey with material aid.

Nevertheless, Turkey now needs our support.

Since the war Turkey has sought financial assistance from Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of effecting that modernization necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity.

That integrity is essential to the preservation of order in the Middle East.

The British government has informed us that, owing to its own difficulties can no longer extend financial or economic aid to Turkey.

As in the case of Greece, if Turkey is to have the assistance it needs, the United States must supply it. We are the only country able to provide that help.

I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall discuss these implications with you at this time.

One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other nations.

To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations, The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. The Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar developments.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.

Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an independent state would have a profound effect upon those countries in Europe whose peoples are struggling against great difficulties to maintain their freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages of war.

It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds, should lose that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them but for the world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving to maintain their freedom and independence.

Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East.

We must take immediate and resolute action.

I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of $400,000,000 for the period ending June 30, 1948. In requesting these funds, I have taken into consideration the maximum amount of relief assistance which would be furnished to Greece out of the $350,000,000 which I recently requested that the Congress authorize for the prevention of starvation and suffering in countries devastated by the war.

In addition to funds, I ask the Congress to authorize the detail of American civilian and military personnel to Greece and Turkey, at the request of those countries, to assist in the tasks of reconstruction, and for the purpose of supervising the use of such financial and material assistance as may be furnished. I recommend that authority also be provided for the instruction and training of selected Greek and Turkish personnel.

Finally, I ask that the Congress provide authority which will permit the speediest and most effective use, in terms of needed commodities, supplies, and equipment, of such funds as may be authorized.

If further funds, or further authority, should be needed for purposes indicated in this message, I shall not hesitate to bring the situation before the Congress. On this subject the Executive and Legislative branches of the Government must work together.

This is a serious course upon which we embark.

I would not recommend it except that the alternative is much more serious. The United States contributed $341,000,000,000 toward winning World War II. This is an investment in world freedom and world peace.

The assistance that I am recommending for Greece and Turkey amounts to little more than 1 tenth of 1 per cent of this investment. It is only common sense that we should safeguard this investment and make sure that it was not in vain.

The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive.

The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.

If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation.

Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of events.

I am confident that the Congress will face these responsibilities squarely.

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PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN'S ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS, MARCH 12, 1947 Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress of the United States: The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress.

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By 1947 it had become apparent to most observers that the world was splitting in two-East and West-leaving the inevitable conflict of the Cold War. Quickly the lines in the sand were drawn even deeper as the Soviets and Americans clashed ideologically and militarily on a number of fronts. In February, for example, Britain's decision to cease aid to Greek forces fighting a Communist insurgency prompted the Truman Administration to assume new responsibilities throughout all of Southern Europe. The ensuing "Truman Doctrine" committed $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey-a huge sum given Congressional fiscal conservatism at the time-and offered a precedent for further American assistance to any "free peoples" engaged in a struggle against "terror and oppression" and "the suppression of personal freedoms." Truman's Manichean worldview pitted the world in two, good against evil, for to American policymakers, Communism seemed everywhere on the march. "Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one," Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained, "the corruption of Greece would infect Iran, and all to the East." Without American aid, Europe and Africa would be next, he continued and "we and we alone could break up the [Soviet] play." Western Europe subsequently received its own brand of American economic stimulus later that year, with the Marshall Plan designed to promote economic recovery and stability as a vaccine against the Communist "infection." The Soviets refused to participate in the plan, which Foreign Minister Molotov denounced as a "new venture in American imperialism." The Soviets offered their own aid package for Eastern Europe and, with dollars flowing to one half of the continent and rubles to the other, the division of East and West grew even deeper. The Truman Administration later followed-up this aid program to Europe with "Point Four," a program similarly designed to spread American technical know- how and dollars throughout the developing world as a means of countering Soviet expansion.

Conflict continued with the Soviet Union determined to push the United States and its allies out of West Berlin. In June 1948, the Soviets imposed a blockade on West Berlin in an attempt to cut off supplies to the city. The United States and its allies began to supply the city with a massive airlift of unprecedented size, and the Soviets ended the blockade in May 1949. The United States' commitment to Western Europe's defense, exemplified by efforts during the Berlin Blockade, led to the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949. NATO provided for a collective defense of its members, as the organization's charter promised that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all. NATO represented the United State's commitment to its European allies and would become an important key to containing the Soviet Union in Europe.

Shortly after the lifting of the Berlin Blockade, in August 1949, the Soviet Union broke the American nuclear monopoly by developing its own atomic bomb. The Soviets had matched the United States' key technology sooner than most expected. This development forced the United States to reevaluate its defense posture and accelerated the creation of even more powerful weapons, such as the hydrogen bomb, to regain its nuclear superiority. An analysis of the United States' defense position was presented to President Truman in the National Security Council Paper Number 68 (NSC 68). NSC 68, authored largely by Paul Nitze of the State Department policy staff, would come to shape American policy for many years. NSC 68 outlined that the United States needed to be prepared globally for Soviet or communist expansionism and that containment should become a global policy. The directives outlined in NSC 68 were written prior to the North Korean invasion across the 38th parallel but were not adopted until September 1950, after this conflict proved to many the necessity of American military buildup.

By the early 1950s American foreign policymakers knew that the Cold War was here to stay. Communism seemed everywhere on the move, exemplified by the crises described above and then most dramatically with the North Korean invasion of June 1950 that began the Korean War. Western policymakers believed countries at risk from Communist aggression might fall if their neighbors succumbed, like the rotten apples of Acheson's metaphor or, more commonly, like so many dominoes: if one country was lost to the Communists, so too would be the next, and the next. Communism had to be stopped, but at what cost? The increasing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union and the arms race would shape the United States strategic defense program and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) development. In the Cold War, the United States would maintain its stance that the only way to halt the expansion of communism was through development of increasingly advanced weapons systems.

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American Cold War Policy (U.S. National Park Service)

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The main goals of American foreign policy during the Cold War were to restrain Soviet expansionism and stop the spread of communism. In order to stop the expansion of communist dominance, the Truman Doctrine, which was declared in 1947, offered military and economic help to nations who were threatened by Soviet invasion. Launched in 1948, the Marshall Plan sought to improve Western Europe's ability to oppose Soviet influence while reviving its war-devastated economy.
Maintaining a powerful military and nuclear weapons was another goal of US foreign policy, which was intended to deter the Soviet Union from attacking the US or its allies.
The strategy also highlighted the need to protect US interests by using economic and diplomatic pressure rather than a direct military conflict with the Soviet Union.
With the conclusion of the Cold War in 1991, US foreign policy underwent a profound transformation, shifting from containment and discouragement of communism to engagement and collaboration with former enemies. Nevertheless, many of the difficulties the US faced during the Cold War, such as nuclear threats by non-state actors, are still relevant today.

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In addition to military and political measures, propaganda was also an important tool in Soviet foreign policy. The Soviet Union was portrayed as a strong, rich, and superior nation while the communist ideology was promoted by the government through propaganda. The Soviet government was able to transmit its ideas broadly and stifle any opposition by exerting control over media outlets, creative manifestations, literature, and educational resources. The government used propaganda in order to defend decisions such as the Korean War or the invasion of Afghanistan or make other countries believe that USSR was better than the Western Allies. Furthermore, Joseph Stalin became a subject of something almost cultlike that was fostered through propaganda. Stalin was consistently depicted as a hero, and his policies earned praise despite the horrible effects they had. The government promoted Stalin and his philosophy through literature, art, and music. Stalin's glorification aided in keeping him in charge and in exercising control over the population. Overall, propaganda was a vital instrument the Soviet leadership employed to keep power and shape the minds of its people.

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The communist ideology of the Soviet Union, which intended to advance Marxist-Leninist ideals internationally, had a significant impact on its foreign policy objectives. This gave birth to its primary goal of promoting communism and inciting a global revolution, which it hoped to result in capitalism's eventual collapse. The Soviet Union used a variety of policy instruments and techniques, including military operations, political alliances, and propaganda advertisement, to accomplish this goal.
This entailed invading nations like Cuba, Vietnam, and Afghanistan in order to impose communist regimes there or to assist those that already existed. A lot of the time, military force was used to carry out these operations.
Making political relationships with other nations was a key component of another important foreign policy objective. In addition, the Soviet Union actively tried to establish partnerships with other nations that had similar ideologies, including, but limited to China, North Korea, and Vietnam.
The Soviet Union made several attempts to advance communism and exercise influence over other nations, but it was mainly unsuccessful in doing so. The persistence of capitalist systems and the resistance of nations to Soviet involvement were among the causes of this.

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The causes for war, especially the cold war are intricately relevant even in today's time, this padlet I will talk about the 2 main ones.  Ideological differences between the U.S. and Soviet Union, the U.S. and the Soviet Union’s differing foreign policy objectives,  how the UN is involved in this and how did propaganda take a part in it.

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What Is Communism?

Communism is a political and economic ideology that positions itself in opposition to liberal democracy and capitalism, advocating instead for a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed.

Understanding Communism

"Communism" is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of ideologies. The term's modern usage originated with Victor d'Hupay, an 18th-century French aristocrat who advocated living in "communes" in which all property would be shared, and "all may benefit from everybody's work." The idea was hardly new even at that time, however: the Book of Acts describes first-century Christian communities holding property in common according to a system known as koinonia, which inspired later religious groups such as the 17th-century English "Diggers" to reject private ownership.

The Communist Manifesto

Modern communist ideology began to develop during the French Revolution, and its seminal tract, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' "Communist Manifesto," was published in 1848. That pamphlet rejected the Christian tenor of previous communist philosophies, laying out a materialist and-its proponents claim-scientific analysis of the history and future trajectory of human society. "The history of all hitherto existing society," Marx and Engels wrote, "is the history of class struggles."

The Communist Manifesto presented the French Revolution as a major historical turning point, when the "bourgeoisie" -the merchant class that was in the process of consolidating control over the "means of production" -overturned the feudal power structure and ushered in the modern, capitalist era. That revolution replaced the medieval class struggle, which pitted the nobility against the serfs, with the modern one pitting the bourgeois owners of capital against the "proletariat," the working class who sell their labor for wages.

In the Communist Manifesto and later works, Marx, Engels, and their followers advocated (and predicted as historically inevitable) a global proletarian revolution, which would usher in first an era of socialism, then of communism. This final stage of human development would mark the end of class struggle and therefore of history: all people would live in social equilibrium, without class distinctions, family structures, religion, or property. The state, too, would "wither away." The economy would function, as a popular Marxist slogan puts it, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The Soviet Union

Marx and Engels' theories would not be tested in the real world until after their deaths. In 1917, during World War I, an uprising in Russia toppled the czar and sparked a civil war that eventually saw a group of radical Marxists led by Vladimir Lenin gain power in 1922. The Bolsheviks, as this group was called, founded the Soviet Union on former Imperial Russian territory and attempted to put communist theory into practice.

Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin had developed the Marxist theory of vanguardism, which argued that a close-knit group of politically enlightened elites was necessary to usher in the higher stages of economic and political evolution: socialism and finally communism. Lenin died shortly after the civil war ended, but the "dictatorship of the proletariat," led by his successor Joseph Stalin, would pursue brutal ethnic and ideological purges as well as forced agricultural collectivization. Tens of millions died during Stalin's rule, from 1922 to 1952, on top of the tens of millions who died as a result of the war with Nazi Germany.

Rather than withering away, the Soviet state became a powerful one-party institution that prohibited dissent and occupied the "commanding heights" of the economy. Agriculture, the banking system, and industrial production were subject to quotas and price controls laid out in a series of Five Year Plans. This system of central planning enabled rapid industrialization, and from 1950 to 1965 growth in Soviet gross domestic product (GDP) outpaced that of the U.S. In general, however, the Soviet economy grew at a much slower pace than its capitalist, democratic counterparts.

Weak consumer spending was a particular drag on growth. Central planners' emphasis on heavy industry led to chronic underproduction of consumer goods, and long lines at understocked grocery stores were a fixture of Soviet life even during periods of relative prosperity. Thriving underground markets -termed the "second economy" by some academics-catered to demand for cigarettes, shampoo, liquor, sugar, milk, and especially prestige goods such as jeans smuggled in from the West. While these networks were illegal, they were essential to the party's functioning: they alleviated shortages that, left unchecked, threatened to spark another Bolshevik Revolution; they provided party propagandists with a scapegoat for shortages; and they lined the pockets of party officials, who would either take payoffs to look the other way or grow rich running illegal market operations themselves.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, following a push to reform the economic and political system and provide greater room for private enterprise and free expression. These reform pushes, known as perestroika and glasnost, respectively, did not halt the economic decline the Soviet Union suffered in the 1980s and likely hastened the Communist state's end by loosening its grip on sources of dissent.

Communist China

In 1949, following more than 20 years of war with the Chinese Nationalist Party and Imperial Japan, Mao Zedong's Communist Party gained control of China to form the world's second major Marxist-Leninist state. Mao allied the country with the Soviet Union, but the Soviets' policies of de-Stalinization and "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist West led to a diplomatic split with China in 1956.

Mao's rule in China resembled Stalin's in its violence, deprivation, and insistence on ideological purity. During the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, the Communist Party ordered the rural population to produce enormous quantities of steel in an effort to jumpstart an industrial revolution in China. Families were coerced into building backyard furnaces, where they smelted scrap metal and household items into low-quality pig iron that offered little domestic utility and held no appeal for export markets. Since rural labor was unavailable to harvest crops, and Mao insisted on exporting grain to demonstrate his policies' success, food became scarce. The resulting Great Chinese Famine killed at least 15 million people and perhaps more than 45 million. The Cultural Revolution, an ideological purge that lasted from 1966 until Mao's death in 1976, killed perhaps another 1.6 million people.

After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping introduced a series of market reforms that have remained in effect under his successors. The U.S. began normalizing relations with China when President Nixon visited in 1972, prior to Mao's death. The Chinese Communist Party remains in power, presiding over a largely capitalist system, though state-owned enterprises continue to form a large part of the economy. Freedom of expression is significantly curtailed; elections are banned (except in the former British colony of Hong Kong, where candidates must be approved by the party and voting rights are tightly controlled); and meaningful opposition to the party is not permitted.

The Cold War

The U.S. emerged from World War II the world's richest and most militarily powerful nation. As a liberal democracy that had just defeated fascist dictatorships in two theaters, the country - if not all of its people - felt a sense of exceptionalism and historical purpose. So did the Soviet Union, its ally in the fight against Germany and the world's only revolutionary Marxist state. The two powers promptly divided Europe into spheres of political and economic influence: Winston Churchill called this dividing line the "Iron Curtain."

The two superpowers, both of which possessed nuclear weapons after 1949, engaged in a long standoff known as the Cold War. Due to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction-the belief that a war between the two powers would lead to a nuclear holocaust-no direct military engagements occurred between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the Iron Curtain was largely quiet. Instead, they fought a global proxy war, with each sponsoring friendly regimes in post-colonial nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The U.S. and Soviet Union both sponsored coups to install such regimes in various countries.

The closest the U.S. came to a direct military conflict with the Soviet Union was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. did fight a prolonged hot war in Vietnam, however, in which its military supported South Vietnamese forces fighting the Chinese- and Soviet-supported North Vietnamese army and South Vietnamese communist guerrillas. The U.S. withdrew from the war and Vietnam was united under communist rule in 1975.

The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Why Did Communism Fail?

While there has been extensive study of the reasons for communism's failure, researchers have pinpointed a couple of common factors that contributed to its demise.

The first is an absence of incentives among citizens to produce for profit. The profit incentive leads to competition and innovation in society. But an ideal citizen in a communist society was selflessly devoted to societal causes and rarely stopped to think about his or her welfare. "At all times and all questions a party member should give first consideration to the interests of the Party as a whole and put them in the foremost and place personal matters and interests second," wrote Liu Shaoqi, the second chair of the People's Republic of China.

The second reason for communism's failure was the system's inherent inefficiencies, such as centralized planning. This form of planning requires aggregation and synthesis of enormous amounts of data at a granular level. Because all projects were planned centrally, this form of planning was also complex. In several instances, growth data was fudged or error-prone in order to make facts fit into planned statistics and create an illusion of progress.

The concentration of power into the hands of select few also bred inefficiency and, paradoxically enough, provided them with incentives to game the system for their benefit and retain their hold on power. Corruption and laziness became endemic features of this system and surveillance, such as the one that characterized East German and Soviet societies, was common. It also disincentivized industrious and hard-working people. The end result was that the economy suffered.

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What Is Communism? Learn Its History, Pros, and Cons

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Communism is a political and economic ideology that positions itself in opposition to liberal democracy and capitalism, advocating instead for a classless system in which the means of production are owned communally and private property is nonexistent or severely curtailed. "Communism" is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of ideologies.

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Written: Late 1847;
First Published: February 1848;
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137;
Translated: Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels, 1888;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac and Brian Baggins;
Proofed: and corrected against 1888 English Edition by Andy Blunden 2004;
Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1987, 2000. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

See Note in: Marx Engels Collected Works.

Contents

Preface
Preamble
I: Bourgeois and Proletarians
II: Proletarians and Communists
III: Socialist and Communist Literature
IV: Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

Appendix: Prefaces to Various Language Editions

Communist Confession of Faith | Principles of Communism | Demands of Communist Party in Germany

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Manifesto issued by Marx in 1848, regarded as founding documents of Communism

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Communism is a form of government most closely associated with the ideas of Karl Marx, which he outlined in The Communist Manifesto. Communism is based on the goal of eliminating socioeconomic class struggles by creating a classless society in which everyone shares the benefits of labor and the state controls all property and wealth.

Subjects

Social Studies, Civics, Economics

Image

Soldiers Marching in Beijing

China is one of just five proclaimed communist nations left. There were many more communist countries in 1973 when this photograph of Chinese soldiers was taken.

Photograph by J. Cuinieres/Roger Viollet via Getty Images

Communism is a form of government most frequently associated with the ideas of Karl Marx, a German philosopher who outlined his ideas for a utopian society in The Communist Manifesto , written in 1848. Marx believed that capitalism, with its emphasis on profit and private ownership, led to inequality among citizens. Thus, his goal was to encourage a system that promoted a classless society in which everyone shared the benefits of labor and the state government controlled all property and wealth. No one would strive to rise above others, and people would no longer be motivated by greed. Then, communism would close the gap between rich and poor, end the exploitation of workers, and free the poor from oppression.

The basic ideas of communism did not originate with Marx, however. Plato and Aristotle discussed them in ancient times, but Marx developed them into a popular doctrine, which was later propelled into practice. Marx's ideal society ensured economic equality and fairness. Marx believed that private ownership of property promoted greed, and he blamed capitalism for society's problems. The problems, he claimed, stemmed from the Industrial Revolution. The rise of factories, the reliance on machines, and the capability of mass production created conditions that promoted oppression and encouraged the development of a proletariat, or a working class.

Simply put, in a capitalist system, the factories fueled the economy, and a wealthy few owned the factories. This created the need for a large number of people to work for the factory owners. In this environment, the wealthy few exploited the laborers, who had to labor in order to live. So, Marx outlined his plan to liberate the proletariat, or to free them of the burden of labor. His idea of utopia was a land where people labored as they were able, and everyone shared the wealth.

If the government controlled the economy and the people relinquished their property to the state, no single group of people could rise above another. Marx described this ideal in his Manifesto, but the practice of communism fell far short of the ideal. For a large part of the 20th century, about one-third of the world lived in communist countries-countries ruled by dictatorial leaders who controlled the lives of everyone else. The communist leaders set the wages, they set the prices, and they distributed the wealth. Western capitalist nations fought hard against communism, and eventually, most communist countries collapsed. Marx's utopia was never achieved, as it required revolution on a global scale, which never came to pass. However, as of 2020, five proclaimed communist countries continue to exist: North Korea, Vietnam, China, Cuba, and Laos.

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Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society

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National Geographic Society

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Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society

Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society

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Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society

Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

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Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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Communism is a form of government most closely associated with the ideas of Karl Marx, which he outlined in The Communist Manifesto. Communism is based on the goal of eliminating socioeconomic class struggles by creating a classless society in which everyone shares the benefits of labor and the state controls all property and wealth.

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Acclaims
In a communist society, communalism is held as the ideal, this means that there are no classes such as poor or rich. For something to be accepted, it needs to benefit all just not one person.
Equity - Everyone is provided for, and there are no social classes because there is no class system. The state is controlled by people who represent the masses. The is no need to worry about housing or food.
Healthcare, and Education - In this system, everyone has equal opportunities, and everyone has the right to equal and free education and healthcare.
No business monopoly - Due to the government's control over factories, manufacturers are limited in the number of products they can produce and cannot charge higher prices for themselves.

Criticism
It dictated people - This system has been abused by dictators such as Stalin to control the lives of their country. Making sure no one has freedom but him, creating no space for reform
Stuns Personal Growth - It can be argued that the lack of social classes can stun personal growth. People feel that they cannot achieve something more like they are at the end of the road.
No financial freedom - In a communist society the money is controlled by its government, meaning entrepreneurs cannot get rich as opposed to a free economic market.

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SARWAT JAHAN is a senior economist in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.

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Free markets may not be perfect but they are probably the best way to organize an economy

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From September 20 to 27, there will be a week of action called by the Global Climate Strike. The call has been supported by movements such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, as well as hundreds of environmental groups and ecologists around the world. The organizers are demanding that governments declare a climate emergency and adopt urgent measures to halt the environmental crisis. Faced with the urgency of the climate crisis, we need to develop a strategy that attacks the cause of the eco-social catastrophe that threatens us all: the capitalist system

Capitalism and the Global Environmental Crisis

Capitalism has prospered for centuries by exploiting nature, either as an "inexhaustible" supply of resources to produce commodities, or as a waste dump. But the earth's ability to endure the destructive processes of capital is reaching its limit.

Capital's need for constant growth has led to the interruption of a complex natural cycle that took millions of years to develop. This has created a rift in the "metabolism" (to borrow Marx's term) between society and nature.

Climate change and the crises of the biological cycles of carbon, water, phosphorus and nitrogen; the acidification of the oceans; the accelerated loss of biodiversity; the changes in the quality of soil and chemical pollution by industry-these are some of the terrible expressions of a completely unprecedented situation for humanity, namely the tendency toward the destruction of our natural conditions for production and reproduction. This destructive tendency is directly related to the social and material deprivation of hundreds of millions of people who suffer misery, unemployment and precarious employment, which capitalism needs to ensure its profitability and reproduction.

The barbarism represented by the recent fires in the Amazon-which were the product of incentives for deforestation (and which were intensified by Brazil's right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro), the relaxation of environmental laws and the direct action of large landowners and ranchers who started the fires-is just another episode in the continual process of environmental degradation and destruction. The phenomenon of uncontrolled forest fires is growing more frequent, as shown by the fires ravaging Siberia and sub-Saharan Africa (which are more numerous, though less destructive than those in the Amazon), as well as the fires in California last autumn and in many regions of Europe. Climate change and the thirst for profit are intensifying them.

Climate Change, an Undeniable Reality

There is a broad scientific consensus that climate change is related to the dizzying increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of human activity. But the problem is not human activity in general. The problem is the activities carried out within a capitalist mode of production. Since 1880, the average temperature on the earth's surface has risen by almost 1 degree Celsius, according to different investigative bodies. An increase in the global average temperature began during the Industrial Revolution and has accelerated in the neoliberal era.

Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that the average global surface temperature could increase by 2 to 5 degrees Celsius (3.6 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coming decades. Ocean levels could rise by 18 to 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches). The IPCC warns that past and future emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) will continue to contribute to warming for more than a millennium. At the same time, CO2 particles in the atmosphere recently exceeded 400 parts for million (ppm), and may even reach 500 ppm in the coming decades, levels never seen in human history.

According to the latest report by this UN agency (whose estimates are usually very conservative compared to other studies), emissions of greenhouse gases would have to be reduced by 45% by the year 2030-in less than 11 years-in order to avoid hitting the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Above this level, there will be a generalized increase in ocean levels, extreme weather events and food shortages. The need for drastic measures against climate change is undeniable.

For many people, these estimates may seem abstract. But they become concrete when their real consequences are felt, in the form of the stronger climate-related catastrophic phenomena, with increased duration and frequency. Uncontrollable fires sweeping through entire cities around the globe (which is also associated with the spread of invasive species and forest management practices devoted to monoculture for profit), extreme heat waves, massive floods or catastrophic droughts. According to the UN, there are currently more than 20 million climate refugees. If the global temperature rises to more than 2 degrees, it is estimated that this number will grow to 280 million. Air pollution caused by vehicles (gases and particles) and industrial production in large cities kills 9 million people a year-800,000 in Europe alone.

Global warming is one of the most devastating expressions of the destructive nature of the capitalist system toward the environment. But it is not the only one. Capitalism also leads to the pollution of our air and water, soil degradation, deforestation, and the destruction of biodiversity. According to one study, the size of vertebrate populations has decreased by an average of 60 percent between 1970 and 2014. This trend will accelerate if the ecological crisis is not halted, and could produce a mass extinction of the planet's biodiversity. The entire planet has been transformed into a giant garbage dump for the household, industrial and agricultural waste generated by capitalist production, distribution and consumption patterns.

Climate Denialism and "Green Capitalism": Two Sides of the Same Coin

Faced with the catastrophic scenario that global warming entails, the powers of international capitalism waver between two strategies: On the one hand, there is a campaign to deny scientific evidence as a supposed ideology; on the other, there is a strategy to promote "green" or "sustainable" capitalism. Green capitalism defends farcical international agreements and proposes partial and limited changes to productive systems, while strengthening the model of capitalist accumulation and exploitation.

Among the climate denialists are Trump, the Republican Party and the Tea Party in the United States, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and a small minority of scientists. But its driving force is the multinational corporations that bear the greatest responsibility for emitting greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Yet while they are sponsoring climate denial campaigns, these large capitalist corporations are completely aware of the consequences of climate change and its socio-political effects, and they are preparing to respond to its implications in the fields of security and foreign policy. The most concentrated sectors of capital are proposing militarization as an instrument to adapt to climate change: more private armies and security forces that will eventually be able to defend the islands of prosperity in oceans of misery and decay.

On the other side is green capitalism, promoted by the U.S. Democratic Party, political leaders of the main European countries including Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez, and various green parties. This list includes many booming capitalist corporations, international organizations and even environmental NGOs. This is an exercise in synergy between neoliberalism and the "green economy." They speak out against global warming and agree, in expensive climate summits, on environmental measures and big targets for emission reduction. In all cases, these have been nothing more than diplomatic documents without practical implications.

At the same time, they talk about fixing the environment. This would include limiting the production of toxic substances and the destruction of natural resources, while simultaneously developing new "gentle" technologies. They argue that this would be a new source of economic growth, since the capitalist corporations would extract hefty profits.

The Green Party in Germany, for example, proposes "saving the German economy" with measures for an ecological transition, while supporting the militarization of German imperialism (they called for intervention in the conflict with Iran under European leadership). This is a policy of "green imperialism" to solve the crisis of German capitalism.

One of the most recent measures of this kind, pushed forward by the Merkel government and the Green Party in Germany, but increasingly adopted by other governments and environmental groups, seeks to implement a tax on CO2 emissions. This would tax consumption of meat, gasoline and flights to finance the ecological transition of industry. This kind of tax would lead to a rise in prices and weaken the purchasing power of the working class, but it would not have a serious effect on emissions. In short, the neoliberal strategy of green capitalism ends up being a sort of light denialism.

Capitalism's very essence is the expansion of profit and accumulation at any cost, even if this includes the material destruction of the planet. As China and the United States, together with the European Union, are producing most of the greenhouse gases that are annihilating the troposphere, and the capitalists waver between denial and powerless summits to manage the environmental crisis, the rest of the world continues to suffer the effects of climate change.

That is why green capitalism is a pipe dream. It claims to effectively eliminate the causes of the global environmental catastrophe that threatens us and promote a sustainable development of humanity and the species that populate the planet. But it can do no such thing. The solution to the global climate crisis cannot emerge from the system that created it.

There are a large number of environmental groups and NGOs in this field, including the IUCN, WWF, and even Greenpeace, that work together with the evangelists of capitalist ecological efficiency: oil companies like Shell and Exxon, mining corporations like Barrick Gold and huge behemoths like Walmart, Cargill and Monsanto. In this way, they provide a "green" cover for the plunder of natural resources all over the planet.

Green Reformism and the Green New Deal

On the spectrum of the defenders of green capitalism, there is a reformist variant that has gained a lot of attention recently: the Green New Deal, which calls for a program with hints of neo-Keynesianism in order to face the crisis. In the United States, this policy is supported by some candidates in the primaries of the Democratic Party, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and also by the self-styled democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The GND is also appearing in speeches and programs by European social-liberal parties like the PSOE or neoreformist tendencies like Podemos.

According to Ocasio-Cortez, the GND would allow the U.S. to transition to 100% renewable energy within 10 years, while creating millions of jobs linked to the construction of an efficient electrical grid throughout the country based on renewable technology, among other measures. How? By subsidizing billion-dollar corporations, the ones responsible for the current ecological crisis, so they can develop infrastructure to get us out of it. For this, they are to receive massive subsidies from the state.

The idea behind this perspective is that if the governments of the central industrialized countries in the world and the big multinational corporations become aware of the situation, they will be able to adopt measures to preserve the environment. Both the Green New Deal and similar proposals (like the UN Agenda 2020), which are reference points for many "progressive" forces around the planet, are based on the idea that "sustainable capitalism" is possible and that the corporations that created the crisis can become the saviors of the planet. But the illusion that the contradictions between capitalist interests and environmental preservation-affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people-can be resolved is utopian and reactionary.

The capitalist mode of production is in total contradiction with nature and its processes of development. For capital, the determining factor in this process is merely quantitative. Fierce competition forces each capitalist to constantly seek ways to replace workers with machines that increase the productivity of labor and the mass of goods thrown onto the market. This increases the amount of natural resources needed to produce them. The constant repetition of production and reproduction of capital ruthlessly eats up all resources, without taking into account the time required for their natural production and regeneration.

The cause of this type of environmentally destructive development, rather than capitalist irrationality, is its inherent logic. It is the logical result of an economic system whose engine is the capitalists' thirst for profit.

The Youth Climate Rebellion: Its Potential and Its Limits

On August 20, 2018, the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg stood in front of the Swedish parliament with a banner that read: "School Strike for Climate." This action inspired the movement "Fridays for Future" in European cities. Students skip classes and demonstrate against the global environmental crisis under the slogan "There Is No Planet B." This has gained more and more supporters, mobilizing hundreds of thousands in hundreds of cities across the continent.

Other ecological movements have also developed, including "Ende Gelände" in Germany and "Extinction Rebellion" in the United Kingdom. They have similar demands but different methods of struggle.

The first global climate strike was called for March 15. Hundreds of thousands of young people took to the streets in different cities around the world as part of a student strike against climate change. In Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Rome and other cities in Europe and the world, the demonstrations were massive. On May 24, there was a new global call for a student strike, which mobilized millions. A new Global Climate Strike will take place on September 20 and 27, with calls for the citizenry and other social organizations to join.

The organizers are demanding that governments declare a climate emergency and adopt urgent measures to stop an environmental crisis that "is the result of a model of production and consumption that has proven to be inadequate for satisfying the needs of many people, that puts our survival at risk, and unfairly impacts the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world."

These measures include reducing net greenhouse emissions to zero and preventing global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius. To this end, they propose actions aimed at abandoning fossil fuels and substituting them with renewable energies, actions such as blocking the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, implementing a nonnuclear energy model and the reorganizing the production system.

These movements also point out the relationship between growing social inequality and the degradation of the environment. They propose that the transition to an "eco-sustainable model" has to take into account the inequalities produced according to social class, sex, national origin, etc. In the framework of this transition, they call for different areas of production, including energy, transport and food, to be democratized and put under the control of citizen bodies.

The fact that young people are mobilizing against the barbarity of environmental destruction is enormously promising. In addition, the use of strikes to make their demands heard, and the call on all organizations of civil society to join, is an innovation that has not been done before. This gives more strength to the movement.

Faced with the "infernal powers" that capitalism has created, and whose consequences now seem inevitable, the young activists of Fridays for Future and similar movements are increasingly aware of this reality. Although often in an abstract or indirect way, they name the capitalist system as the cause of the current crisis.

They still lack, however, a defined program and strategy to overcome it. Their perspective is limited to denunciation. They demand that capitalist politicians take urgent measures, or they have embraced the proposals of the so-called green parties, but without proposals to move against the interests (and property) of those who bear the greatest responsibility for the current situation: the big multinational corporations.

Nor do they position themselves against "green" measures that threaten the majority of the working class and the poor masses, such as consumption taxes. On the contrary, in many countries the movement is demanding the implementation of even higher taxes on CO2 emissions than the capitalist parties are proposing. This would raise the prices of consumer goods for the majority of the population. In order for the youth to win the working class for the fight against climate change, they need a program that clearly states that it is the capitalists, and not the working masses, who must pay for the crisis.

In broad sectors of the movement, the dominant logic is that the key to solving the ecological crisis is changes in individual consumption, focusing their attention on "irresponsible consumption." Obviously, capitalist production, which generates consumption cycles that span the globe, molds "consumers." In this way, individual human behavior contributes to the ecological crisis, and it is desirable to encourage new forms of consumption by creating environmental consciousness.

Yet changing individual behavior often has only a negligible effect on capitalism's environmental consequences. Its effect is, moreover, highly unequal. An Oxfam report from 2015 showed that the richest 10% of the planet causes half of CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50% (3.5 billion people) is responsible for only 10%.

The logic of focusing the environmental movement on changes in individual behavior implies two strategic problems. First, it encourages an individualist conception, blurring or directly obscuring the "center of gravity" that needs to be attacked, namely imperialist capitalism, the big corporations and the capitalist states. Second, it strengthens the reactionary argument that "the people are responsible for the crisis," which leads to measures that force the working class and the poorest sectors of society to pay for the environmental crisis. This argument preserves the system and benefits the capitalists, and it prevents the one social force that could confront capitalism from joining the struggle.

One of the lessons provided by the Yellow Vest movement in France-an immense social movement triggered by an increase in the gasoline tax-is that the "ecological transition" cannot fall on the shoulders of the working class and poor masses. In the context of the ecological crisis, the central problem is not the "division" between those who pollute and those who do not, but rather between the social majority that is already paying the costs of the crisis and the capitalists that caused it.

The only way to confront the global environmental crisis caused by capitalism is for the majority of the population to join the struggle, with the working class at the forefront. This is because the contradiction between capital and labor is not just one of capitalism's many contradictions; it is the contradiction that structures capitalism itself. If the relationship between society and nature is mediated by production, it is only by revolutionizing production that the metabolism with nature can be rationally regulated. That is why the working class, which is the only authentically productive class in society, can knit together a social alliance that can pull the "emergency break" on the coming disaster.

There are important examples of unity between the environmental movement and sectors of the working class. That was the case with the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Ireland, where the Titanic was built. That shipyard was declared bankrupt, but the workers took over the plant demanding its nationalization in order to produce clean energy. There have also been calls by workers for the unions to call a climate strike, for example, in Portugal, Germany and Spain.

These initiatives are extremely important. In an intuitive yet correct way, they point to the "social subject" that can hegemonize the struggle for an alternative to environmental destruction: the working class.

The need for the working class to join this movement with its own demands and its own methods of struggle (strikes, blockades and pickets) is vital for developing the movement. It is necessary to help break down the prejudices that exist in wide sectors of the working class about the environmental movement-prejudices often justified by policies supposedly in "defense of the environment" that attack the working class, equating it with the polluting bosses and worsening its living conditions.

Above all, it is necessary to confront the reactionary role played by the majority of the bureaucratized trade unions. Especially in the sectors of heavy industry and energy, the union bureaucracies act as the capitalists' best partners. Many times they oppose any measures for ecological transition, however superficial they may be, under the slogan of "saving jobs." What they are really saving is the capitalists' profits, tying the destiny of the working class to the success of the bosses.

Facing the Climate Strike, the unions in Europe and the United States mostly oppose it-or in some cases, such as in Germany, they support it demagogically while refusing to organize any actions that would supposedly be "illegal." That is why, alongside the broadest self-organization of the youth, it is necessary to denounce the reactionary positions of the bureaucratic unions, which for decades have ignored or played down ecological problems. We must demand that they call a strike and put their organizations in the service of the struggle against the capitalists responsible for the looming catastrophe that threatens us all.

The declaration in Germany by a group of rank-and-file trade union activists called ver.di aktiv (which is supported by RIO, the Revolutionary Internationalist Organization) has received more than 500 signatures from trade unionists across the country and from different sectors. It demands that the large trade unions call for a strike. This is a small but significant expression of that policy.

An Anti-Capitalist Transitional Program to Prevent a Catastrophe

Faced with capitalism's absolutely irrational perspective, the need for drastic and urgent measures is evident. But these cannot depend on the good will of the governments of the imperialist powers that are principally responsible for the current disaster. Nor can they depend on the new agendas promoted by big corporations and bourgeois parties in the name of "green capitalism."

The only solution to the catastrophe that threatens us is to take the present and the future into our hands by subjecting the world economy to a rational plan. Or, as Marx said, through "the introduction of reason into the sphere of economic relations." This will only be possible if the economy is in the hands of the only class that, as a result of its objective situation and material interests, has an interest in preventing a catastrophe: the working class.

We, the organizations that make up the Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International, fight for this perspective within the workers' movement, among the youth and inside the environmental movement. Faced with the farce of climate summits and the promises of green capitalism, we must fight for a transitional program aimed at establishing a completely rational and ecological reorganization of production, distribution and consumption, with measures including the following:

The expropriation of the entire energy industry, under the democratic control of the workers, supervised by committees of consumers. In this way, the energy sector can advance toward a sustainable and diversified energy mix, prohibiting fracking (of gas and oil) and other extractive technologies, which would drastically reduce CO2 emissions by developing renewable energies with low environmental impact, in consultation with local communities. At the same time, abusive prices for electricity would be reduced.

The nationalization without compensation of all transport companies, under workers' control and with a perspective of technological reconversion. This should also include big automotive companies to achieve a massive reduction in automobile production and private transport, while developing public transport at all levels.

The struggle for safe working conditions at all factories and companies, free of toxins and pollutants, alongside the reduction of working hours and the distribution of all necessary hours among all available workers, without a reduction in pay. This should be part of a general plan for a rational and unified reorganization of production and distribution in the hands of the working class and its organizations.

The expropriation of big landowners and agrarian reform for small farmers and indigenous people. The expulsion of imperialist companies and the confiscation of their goods. The expropriation under workers' control of the entire (exporting) agribusiness complex. Monopoly of foreign trade and nationalization of the banks to finance the conversion and diversification of agricultural production along sustainable and democratic lines. Prohibition of glyphosate, progressive elimination of all pesticides and prohibition of marketing them, and investment in research in alternative methods, such as ecological agriculture, among others.

The establishment of well-financed funds for the conservation of biodiversity, including both species and the planet's great variety of ecosystems, with special emphasis on those most at risk. Regeneration of polluted areas (seas, rivers, lakes, forests and meadows) by imposing progressive taxes on big business.

The prohibition of polluting mountaintop removal mining, and the nationalization of traditional mining under workers' control. The development of an industry to recover minerals from electronic garbage and the implementation of "urban mining" by recycling scarce minerals from electronic devices. Expulsion of the imperialist mining companies and confiscation of their assets to repair the damages caused to local communities. Prohibition of the private appropriation of public goods, such as water.

Debt cancellation for all dependent and semicolonial countries, debt being a form of coercion to make these countries adopt (anti-environmental) neoliberal restructuring. The expropriation of all polluting companies in peripheral countries. Resolving the ecological crisis in those countries is unthinkable without completely breaking with imperialism.

Opening borders and closing migrant detention centers in the context of the migration crisis, which is a product of poverty and imperialist plunder, but also in many cases also of the climate crisis.

A radical policy that aims to avoid waste and recycle it. The existing facilities for filtering, purification, etc., are not enough. A fundamental shift in industry is needed to avoid pollution a priori and at the source. This also means ending planned obsolescence.

The lifting of business secrets (which allows, for example, the concealment of toxic emissions) and the obligation to keep public registers specifying the raw materials and products used in production.

This program, along with other measures of immediate necessity, is obviously impossible to achieve within the framework of capitalism. To implement it, we need a revolutionary strategy to decisively confront those responsible for the disaster. The youth who today take to the streets all over the world to fight for "climate justice" face the challenge radicalizing their program, of raising the only realistic perspective to stop the catastrophe: pushing the class struggle forward to end the capitalist system and to put the world economy into the hands of the working class.

Socialism or Barbarism: For a Revolutionary and Internationalist Strategy

Many scientists, environmentalists, international organizations and even large media outlets characterize the current moment as one of "civilizational crisis." According to this idea, we are past the point of no return and can hope only to adapt to the disaster. In the face of this catastrophe foretold, capitalist ideology sows fear, which underpins both security policies and supposed individual solutions under the leadership of capitalist governments and big business. It also denies a liberating perspective. From cinema and television we get a constant stream of dystopias: it is easier to imagine postnuclear worlds, alien invasions and even zombies than a society that rationally guarantees the survival of the planet and all its species.

Faced with the prospect of a catastrophe, the fundamental problem is whether the adaptation to climate change will be in the hands of capital or in the hands of the dispossessed majority of society. For this reason, the ecological crisis makes it necessary to fight for communism as the only perspective for the salvation of humanity and the planet. Communism means a society of free and associated producers in harmony with nature. In this struggle, the working class must position itself as the hegemonic subject, taking environmental demands not only as part of the struggle to improve their living conditions, but also to offer a progressive solution to the ecocide that capitalism is preparing.

This is the indispensable precondition for establishing a system based on solidarity, which rationally reestablishes the natural metabolism between humanity and nature, and which reorganizes production in a way that respects natural cycles without exhausting our resources. This would simultaneously end poverty and social inequality.

In the face of the environmental catastrophe that threatens us, the dilemma posed by Rosa Luxemburg-"socialism or barbarism"-acquires a renewed significance. On the eve of the imperialist carnage that began in 1914, the great Polish revolutionary warned that "if the proletariat fails to fulfill its tasks as a class, if it fails to realize socialism, we will all crash together into a catastrophe." For Luxemburg, socialism is not a destiny predetermined by history. The only "inevitable" thing was the collapse that capitalism was leading to, and the calamities that would accompany this process if the working class failed to prevent it.

In our century, the era or crises, wars and revolutions has reemerged, threatening the working class and the peoples of the world not only with war and misery, but also with environmental catastrophe and the potential destruction of the planet itself. A truly ecological project that confronts the environmental crisis to which capitalism is leading us can only be communist. The working class, allied with the poor masses, must be subjectively prepared to fight for this program as the vanguard of revolutionary struggle, breaking the resistance of the capitalists.

* * *

The Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International (FT-CI) is an international revolutionary organization which publishes the La Izquierda Diario / Left Voice network of online newspapers in 12 countries and 8 languages. It is made up of:

ARGENTINA: Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) / BRAZIL: Movimento Revolucionário de Trabalhadores (MRT) / CHILE: Partido de Trabajadores Revolucionarios (PTR) / MEXICO: Movimiento de los Trabajadores Socialistas (MTS) / BOLIVIA: Liga Obrera Revolucionaria (LOR-CI) / SPANISH STATE: Corriente Revolucionaria de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores (CRT) / FRANCE: Courant Communiste Révolutionnaire (CCR) which is part of the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) / GERMANY: Revolutionäre Internationalistische Organisation (RIO) / UNITED STATES: comrades of Left Voice / VENEZUELA: Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (LTS) / URUGUAY: Corriente de Trabajadores Socialistas (CTS) / Sympathizing organizations: ITALY: Frazione Internazionalista Rivoluzionaria (FIR) / PERU: Resistencia Sur / COSTA RICA: Organización Socialista
Translation: Nathaniel Flakin

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Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International

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Capitalism Is Destroying the Planet-Let's Destroy Capitalism! - Left Voice

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From September 20 to 27, there will be a week of action called by the Global Climate Strike. The call has been supported by movements such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, as well as hundreds of environmental groups and ecologists around the world.

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“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

– John Maynard Keynes

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Acclamation and Criticism of Capitalism 

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Acclamation and Criticism of Capitalism 

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Acclaims
In a capitalist society, individualism is substantial and this means that people rely on themselves instead of their government. This encourages innovation, efficiency, and economic growth.
Innovation - With the incentive of money, people are always producing and funding new ideas and projects. This way people will not stagnant the economy and instead create better or different goods.
Efficiency - With the pressure to earn money and create more goods that are in demand, efficiency booms, and waste and losses are cut. Due to the lack of reward, in this case, money, many consider public services to be inefficient
Economic Growth - Similarly to the other points with the need for money, more products are created boosting the economy

Criticisms
Lack of care for the environment - The need for growth of capitalist society has interrupted the cycle of natural amounts of waste being produced and dumped, not only natural resources are extracted every day to produce more goods. All of this has negatively affected our environment, oceans are acidifying, and biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates.
Exploration of the worker - the capitalist system heavily relies on the exploration of its workers. The owners of the mean of production want the cheapest labor they can find, it often means that workers work long hours with little pay, horrible work conditions, and no healthcare or education. It is not uncommon for some companies to turn to third-world countries in order to maximize profit, where workers have few to no rights. This results in a growing wage gap between the rich and the poor, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer
Inherited Wealth - A right within capitalism is that your wealth can be passed down through generations, the problem with that is that capitalism revolves around the notion that people work hard to be rich, but the majority of millionaires and especially billionaires are just privileged enough to be born into rich families, this shows that capitalism fails to provide both an equal outcome and an equal opportunity.

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After the Russian Revolution (1917-1923), Russia/USSR create an ideological system called communism. This system believes that the means of production should be owned by the workers. For example, a factory would be owned by factory workers, not a millionaire. Another characteristic of communism is the removal of social classes. Communism which was derived from Marxism focuses on the needs and struggles of the needs of the  working class
The USSR was a dictatorship, which means the government was not chosen by its people. The government was often chosen by one individual that held all the power.

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The USA is a liberal capitalist country, they believe in a free economic market. In the economic sense, this is a right-wing ideology, based on individualism. The opposite of communism they believe in private ownership of the means of production.
The US was also a democracy. A democracy is a system where the power to decide the people in their government in with the majority of the people. This is done through elections and this system is a part of most countries today

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The cold war (1947 - 1991) was fought not through proxy wars but through the different ideologies