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How does the growing "parity" of Nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them affect an ever-changing diplomatic landscape? Especially during the Eisenhower administration.

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The breakdown of the Grand Alliance and the emergence of superpower rivalry in Europe and Asia (1943–1949)

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role of ideology; fear and aggression; economic interests;

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a comparison of the roles of the US and the USSR

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The US, USSR and China—superpower relations (1947–1979): containment; peaceful co-existence; Sino-Soviet and Sino-US relations; detente

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Confrontation and reconciliation; reasons for the end of the Cold War (1980–1991): ideological challenges and dissent; economic problems; arms race

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The impact of Cold War tensions on two countries (excluding the USSR and the US)

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The impact of two leaders, each chosen from a different region, on the course and development of the Cold War

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Video Resource: COLD WAR – “Part 1 – From World War to Cold War” 

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Video Resource: COLD WAR – “Part 1 – From World War to Cold War” 

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An excellent summary of the outcomes of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Available at:

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THE COLD WAR - PART 1: From World War to Cold War

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Teachers support material supporting the Cold War video series from Media Rich Learning.

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Teachers support material supporting the Cold War video series from Media Rich Learning.

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Access useful links to this entire topic from the PDF

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Cold War - Media Rich Learning Teachers_guide

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An useful short video of the amount of nuclear bombs detonated from 1945~1998 (in relation to the respective countries)

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"1945-1998" by Isao Hashimoto: CTBTO Preparatory Commission

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"This piece of work is a bird's eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second. No letter is used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier. The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted.

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For all who feel the dryness of this course......
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3UlX09b1eM5WkJXSG9YS2wyM2c

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Reference Material: Dates of individual Soviet Leaders and US Presidents during the Cold War 1945 to 1991

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Reference Material: Dates of individual Soviet Leaders and US Presidents during the Cold War 1945 to 1991

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A chronological list of Soviet and US leaders during the Cold War

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Timeline of US Presidents and Soviet Premiers during the Cold War Era

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Looks at the perspectives of each leader at the Yalta Conference.

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"Did the West sell out Eastern Europe at Yalta"  WW2History.com

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"To what extent at the Yalta Conference did Roosevelt and Churchill betray the very ideals many believed they had been fighting the war for? Did the West sell out Eastern Europe at Yalta? "

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SOURCES OF DISCORD - MULTIPLE SOURCES & REVISION WORKSHEETS.

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SOURCES OF DISCORD - MULTIPLE SOURCES & REVISION WORKSHEETS.

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A free set of downloadable material including worksheets that i suggest all DP History students read and fill out during their revision before the final exam, it will act as a useful reminder of the key issues at play around Yalta and Potsdam

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Communists tactics to win politics (4th Comintern Congress)

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Communists tactics to win politics (4th Comintern Congress)

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“The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.” One may argue that this is the basis of the communist takeover in Eastern Europe politics after WWII.

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Fourth Congress of the Communist International

5 December 1922

1. Endorsement of the Resolutions of the Third Congress

The Fourth World Congress first of all affirms that the resolutions of the Third World Congress

1) on the world economic crisis and the tasks of the Communist International and

2) on the tactics of the Communist International have been completely borne out by the course of events and by the development of the workers' movement in the period between the Third and Fourth Congresses.

2. The Period of Capitalist Decline

On the basis of its assessment of the world economic situation the Third Congress was able to declare with complete certainty that capitalism had fulfilled its mission of developing the productive forces and had reached a stage of irreconcilable contradiction with the requirements not only of modern historical development, but also of the most elementary conditions of human existence. This fundamental contradiction was reflected in the recent imperialist war, and further sharpened by the great damage the war inflicted on the conditions of production and distribution. Obsolete capitalism has reached the stage where the destruction that results from its unbridled power is crippling and ruining the economic achievements that have been built up by the proletariat, despite the fetters of capitalist slavery.

The overall picture of capitalist economic decline is not belied by the inevitable conjunctural fluctuations, typical of the capitalist system during periods of downturn as well as upturn. The attempts of bourgeois and social-democratic political economists to interpret the improvement which began in the second half of 1921 (in the United States, to a significantly lesser extent in Japan and Britain, and partly also in France and other countries) as a sign that the capitalist equilibrium has been restored stem partly from a desire to falsify the facts and partly from the lack of insight of these servants of capital. The Third Congress, which took place before the present industrial revival, foresaw that it must come sooner or later and even then characterised it as only a slight deviation from the basic trend of progressive decline of the capitalist economy. Already it can be safely predicted that if the current industrial revival proves in any way incapable of restoring the capitalist equilibrium or of repairing the extensive war damage, then the next cyclical crisis, which should correspond to the underlying trend of capitalist decline, will reinforce its effects and so greatly increase the revolutionary potential of the situation.

Capitalism to its very end will be at the mercy of cyclical fluctuations. Only the seizure of power by the proletariat and a world socialist revolution can save humanity from permanent catastrophe, caused by the existence of the modern capitalist system.
What capitalism is passing through today is nothing other than its death throes. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable.
3. The International Political Situation

The continuing decline of capitalism is also reflected in the international political situation.

The question of reparations is still undecided. While the Entente powers hold conference after conference, the economic collapse of Germany continues, threatening the existence of capitalism throughout Central Europe.

The catastrophic deterioration in Germany's economic situation will either force the Entente to renounce reparations,' which will hasten the political and economic crisis in France, or else lead to the establishment of a Franco-German industrial bloc on the continent: this will worsen Britain's economic situation and its position on the world market and place Britain and the continent in political opposition to one another.

In the Near East, Entente policies have proved completely bankrupt. The Sèvres treaty has been torn up by Turkish bayonets. The war between Greece and Turkey, and the events connected with it, have clearly revealed how unstable the present political balance is. The spectre of a new imperialist world war is rising up. Imperialist France, having helped to ruin the joint work of the Entente in the Near East through its rivalry with Britain, is now once more being pushed by capitalist interests into a common capitalist front against the Eastern peoples. However, by doing this, capitalist France will yet again show the peoples of the Near East that the only way they can defend themselves against oppression is by joining with Soviet Russia and gaining the support of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world.

Regarding the Far East, the victorious Entente powers tried at Washington to revise the Versailles treaty. However, they managed to gain only a respite by agreeing to restrict over the next few years the production of only one type of armaments, namely warships. They did not find any solution to their problem. The struggle between America and Japan continues and is inflaming the civil war in China. The Pacific seaboard is still a breeding-ground of major conflicts.

The example of the national liberation movements in India, Egypt, Ireland and Turkey shows that the colonial and semi-colonial countries are hotbeds of growing revolutionary upsurge against imperialist power. They represent inexhaustible sources of revolutionary energy, and in the given situation this works objectively against the existence of bourgeois control of the world.

Events are liquidating the Versailles treaty. However, its demise is not giving way to a general agreement among the capitalist states and to the abandonment of imperialism, but instead is leading to new contradictions, new imperialist alignments and a new arms race.

In the present situation the reconstruction of Europe is impossible. Capitalist America is unwilling to make sacrifices to reconstruct the European capitalist economy. Vulture-like, capitalist America watches the decay of capitalist Europe, intending to claim its inheritance. America will enslave capitalist Europe unless the European working class seizes political power, clears the world of the ruins of the war and starts to build a federal Soviet republic of Europe.

The recent events even in as small a country as contemporary Austria [When Austria had had to be rescued from sheer collapse, first by American famine relief and then by reconstruction loans floated under the auspices of the League of Nations] are important in that they are symptomatic of the political situation in Europe. By edict of Entente imperialism, this famous 'democracy', jointly defended by Christian Socialists and the leaders of the Two-and-a-Half International, has been eliminated by a single stroke of the pen in Geneva and replaced by the undisguised dictatorship of an Entente agent. Even the bourgeois parliament has in practice been abolished; its place has been taken by the Entente bankers' own bailiff.

These events in little Austria, along with the recent fascist coup in Italy, [with his troops ready to march on Rome, Mussolini was asked to form a government on 29 October 1922] highlight the instability of the whole situation and demonstrate, better than anything, that 'democracy' is just an illusion, meaning in reality the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

At the same time the international political position of Soviet Russia, the only country where the proletariat has defeated the bourgeoisie and for five years retained power despite enemy attacks, has become considerably stronger. At Genoa and at the Hague the Entente capitalists tried to force the Russian Soviet republic to abandon the nationalisation of industry and undertake a burden of debt so great that Soviet Russia would have become a virtual colony of the Entente. The proletarian government of Soviet Russia proved strong enough to resist these arrogant demands. Amidst the chaos of the collapsing capitalist system of power, Soviet Russia stands firm, from Berezina to Vladivostok, from Murmansk to the mountains of Armenia, and is becoming a major power within Europe, and in the Near and Far East. Despite the capitalist world's attempt to strangle Soviet Russia by a financial blockade, the country will move towards economic recovery, using its own economic resources. At the same time competition between the capitalist powers will force them to start separate talks with Soviet Russia. One-sixth of the world is under Soviet power. Even now the mere existence of the Soviet republic in Russia is a permanent source of weakness for bourgeois society and an extremely important factor of world revolution. The more Soviet Russia's economy is restored and strengthened, the greater will be the influence of this pre-eminent revolutionary factor in international politics.

4. The Capitalist Offensive

Since nowhere, except in Russia, did the proletariat deal capitalism a decisive blow while it was weakened from the war, the bourgeoisie, with the help of the social democrats, was able to defeat the militant revolutionary workers, re-establish its political and economic power and launch a new offensive against the proletariat. All the efforts of the bourgeoisie to get the international production and distribution of goods running smoothly again after the upheavals of the war have been made solely at the expense of the working class.

The systematically organised international capitalist offensive against all the gains of the working class has swept across the world like a whirlwind. Everywhere reorganised capital is mercilessly lowering the real wages of the workers, lengthening the working day, curtailing the modest rights of the working class on the shop floor and, in countries with a devalued currency, forcing destitute workers to pay for the economic disasters caused by the depreciation of money etc.

The capitalist offensive, which has recently grown to huge proportions, is everywhere forcing the working class to defend itself. Thousands and thousands of workers in the major sectors of industry are taking up this fight. All the time the struggle is attracting new groups of workers who play a vital role in economic life (railwaymen, miners, metal-workers, public and municipal employees). So far the majority of strikes have not brought immediate results, but the struggle itself is creating among multitudes of previously backward workers an implacable hatred of capitalists and the state power that protects them. This fight, forced on the proletariat, is making it impossible for the social-reformists and trade-union bureaucrats to continue their policy of collaboration with the employers. It graphically demonstrates to even the most backward layers of the proletariat the inseparable link between economics and politics. Today every big strike is a major political event. Such strikes have shown that the parties of the Second International and the leaders of the Amsterdam trade unions, far from giving help to the working masses in their hard defensive fight, have openly abandoned them to the mercy of fate, and betrayed them to the employers and the bourgeois governments.

One of the aims of the Communist Parties is to expose this continual, unprecedented treachery and illustrate it by using examples from the day to day struggle of the working masses. It is the duty of every Communist Party to extend and deepen the countless economic strikes, wherever possible turning them into political strikes and actions. Obviously the Communist Parties must also, in the course of defensive struggles, aim to strengthen the revolutionary consciousness and militancy of the proletarian masses to such an extent that, given favourable circumstances, the struggle will turn from defence to attack.

As the struggle spreads, it is inevitable that the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie will steadily intensify. The situation is still objectively revolutionary; even the smallest strike could become the starting-point of great revolutionary battles.

5. International Fascism

Closely linked to the economic offensive of capital is the political offensive of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. Its sharpest expression is international fascism. Since falling living standards are now affecting the middle classes, including the civil service, the ruling class is no longer certain that it can rely on the bureaucracy to act as its tool. Instead, it is resorting everywhere to the creation of special White Guards, which are particularly directed against all the revolutionary efforts of the proletariat and are being increasingly used for the forcible suppression of any attempt by the working class to improve its position.

The characteristic feature of 'classical' Italian fascism, which at present has the whole country in its grip, is that the fascists not only form counter-revolutionary fighting organisations, armed to the teeth, but also attempt to use social demagogy to gain a base among the masses: in the peasantry, in the petty bourgeoisie and even in a certain section of the proletariat. There is currently a fascist threat in many countries: in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, almost all the Balkan countries, Poland, Germany, Austria, America and even in countries like Norway. The possibility of fascism appearing in one or another form cannot be ruled out even in such countries as France and Britain.

One of the most important tasks of the Communist Parties is to organise resistance to international fascism. They must be at the head of the working class in the fight against the fascist gangs, must be extremely active in setting up united fronts on the question and must make use of illegal methods of organisation.

But the reckless promotion of fascist organisation is the last card in the bourgeoisie's hand. Open rule by the White Guards also works against the very foundations of bourgeois democracy. The broadest masses of working people become convinced that bourgeois rule is possible only in the form of an undisguised dictatorship over the proletariat.

6. The Possibility of New Pacifist Illusions

The current international political situation is characterised by fascism, the state of siege and the rising wave of White Terror against the working class. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in the near future open bourgeois reaction may, in some very important countries, give way to an era of 'democratic pacifism'. In Britain (where the Labour Party made gains at the last elections) and in France (where a period of rule by the so-called "Left Bloc" is unavoidable) this kind of 'democratic pacifist' transitional period is very likely and may in its turn give rise to a revival of pacifist hopes in bourgeois and social-democratic Germany. In the period between the present domination of open bourgeois reaction and the complete victory of the revolutionary proletariat over the bourgeoisie, there will be various stages and the possibility of various short-lived episodes. The Communist International and its sections must be aware of all these possibilities. They must know how to defend their revolutionary positions in any situation.

7. The Situation Within The Labour Movement

At the same time as capitalist attacks are forcing the working class onto the defensive, the parties of the centre (the Independents) are drawing closer to and even fusing with the open social-traitors (the social democrats). During the revolutionary upsurge even the centrists, bowing to the pressure of the masses, declared themselves for the dictatorship of the proletariat and moved towards the Third International. But as soon as the wave of revolutionary feeling subsided even temporarily, these centrists ran back to the social-democratic camp, which in reality they had never left. Those people who during the mass revolutionary struggles held a vacillating position are now renouncing the defensive fight and returning to the camp of the Second International, which was always consciously counter-revolutionary. The centrist parties and the entire centrist Two-and-a-Half International are in a state of disintegration. The best of the revolutionary workers who were briefly in the centrist camp will in time come over to the Communist International. In some countries (Italy) this has already started to happen. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of the centrist leaders, who are at present allying themselves with Noske, Mussolini, etc., will turn into hardened counter-revolutionaries.

From an objective viewpoint, the fusion of the parties of the Second and the Two-and-a-Half Internationals can only benefit the revolutionary workers' movement. The idea of a second revolutionary party outside the Communist camp is losing credibility. Now only two groups will contend for leadership of the majority of the working class: the Second International, which represents the influence of the bourgeoisie within the working class, and the Third International, which has raised the banner of socialist revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.

8. The Trade-Union Split and the Preparations for White Terror Against the Communists

The fusion of the parties of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals was undoubtedly caused by the need to prepare a 'favourable atmosphere' for a systematic campaign against the Communists. Part of this campaign is the deliberate agitation by the leaders of the Amsterdam International in favour of a split. The Amsterdam leaders are avoiding any fightback against the capitalist offensive whilst continuing their policy of collaboration with the employers. They are systematically trying to eliminate Communist influence in the trade unions in order to make sure the Communists put no obstacles in the way of collaboration. Since, however, in many countries the Communists have already won a majority in the trade unions, or are about to do so, the Amsterdam leaders are prepared to use the tactic of forcing expulsions and formally splitting the union movement. Nothing is more effective in undermining the strength of proletarian resistance to the capitalist offensive than a split in the trade unions. The reformist trade-union leaders are well aware of this. But since they realise that the ground is slipping from under their feet and that they cannot avoid their imminent bankruptcy, they are anxious to split the unions, the strongest weapon of proletarian class struggle, so that the Communists will be left with only the fragments and splinters of the old trade-union organisations. The working class has not seen such a malicious betrayal since August 1914. [the parties of the Second International had then abandoned their previously militant opposition to war and joined the patriotic chorus]

9. The Task of Winning the Majority

In these circumstances the main directive of the Third World Congress is still completely valid: to achieve an increase of Communist influence among the majority of the working class and to involve its most decisive sections in struggle.

It is now even more important than it was at the time of the Third Congress to realise that with the present precarious equilibrium of bourgeois society a severe crisis may quite suddenly break out as the result of a major strike, a colonial rising, a new war or even a parliamentary crisis. This is precisely why tremendous importance accrues to the "subjective factor", i.e., the level of consciousness, militancy and organisation of the working class and its vanguard.

To win the majority of the American and European working class - this was and is the key task facing the Communist International.

In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the Communist International has the following two tasks:

1) to establish the nucleus of a Communist Party, representing the interests of the proletariat as a whole;

2) to give full support to the national-revolutionary movement against imperialism, to become its vanguard and within this national movement to initiate and develop a social movement.

10. The United Front Tactic

There is consequently an obvious need for the united front tactic. The slogan of the Third Congress, "To the masses", is now more relevant than ever. The struggle to establish a proletarian united front in a whole series of countries is only. just beginning. And only now have we begun to overcome all the difficulties associated with this tactic. The best example is France, where the course of events has won over even those who not so long ago had opposed this tactic on principle. The Communist International requires that all Communist Parties and groups adhere strictly to the united front tactic, because in the present period it is the only way of guiding Communists in the right direction, towards winning the majority of workers.

At present the reformists need a split, while the Communists are interested in uniting all the forces of the working class against capital.

Using the united front tactic means that the Communist vanguard is at the forefront of the day to day struggle of the broad masses for their most vital interests. For the sake of this struggle Communists are even prepared to negotiate with the scab leaders of the social democrats and the Amsterdam International. Any attempt by the Second International to interpret the united front as an organisational fusion of all the 'workers' parties' must of course be categorically repudiated. The attempts of the Second International to absorb workers' organisations further to the left and call this a united front (the 'fusion' of the social democrats and Independents in Germany [in 1922]) in fact simply provide yet another opportunity for the social-democratic leaders to betray new masses of workers to the bourgeoisie.

The existence of independent Communist Parties and their complete freedom of action in relation to the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary social democracy is the most important historical achievement of the proletariat, and one which the Communists will in no circumstances renounce. Only the Communist Parties stand for the overall interests of the whole proletariat.

In the same way the united front tactic has nothing to do with the so-called 'electoral combinations' of leaders in pursuit of one or another parliamentary aim.

The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Every action, for even the most trivial everyday demand, can lead to revolutionary awareness and revolutionary education; it is the experience of struggle that will convince workers of the inevitability of revolution and the historic importance of Communism.

It is particularly important when using the united front tactic to achieve not just agitational but also organisational results. Every opportunity must be used to establish organisational footholds among the working masses themselves (factory committees, supervisory commissions made up of workers from all the different parties and unaligned workers, action committees, etc.).

The main aim of the united front tactic is to unify the working masses through agitation and organisation. The real success of the united front tactic depends on a movement "from below", from the rank-and-file of the working masses. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which Communists must not refuse to have talks with the leaders of the hostile workers' parties, providing the masses are always kept fully informed of the course of these talks. During negotiations with these leaders the independence of the Communist Party and its agitation must not be circumscribed.

Obviously, the united front tactic has to be applied differently in different countries, according to the concrete conditions. Still, where the objective conditions in the most important countries are ripe for a socialist transformation, and where the social-democratic parties with their counter-revolutionary leaders are deliberately seeking to split the working class, the united front tactic will be of decisive importance for the whole epoch.

The slogan of a workers' government (or a workers' and peasants' government) can be used practically everywhere as a general agitational slogan. However, as a central political slogan, the workers' government is most important in countries where the position of bourgeois society is particularly unstable and where the balance of forces between the workers' parties and the bourgeoisie places the question of government on the order of the day as a practical problem requiring immediate solution. In these countries the workers' government slogan follows inevitably from the entire united front tactic.

The parties of the Second International are trying to rescue the situation in these countries by advocating and forming a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the social democrats. The recent attempts by certain parties of the Second International (e.g. in Germany) to take part in this kind of coalition government secretly, whilst refusing to be openly involved, are nothing but a manoeuvre to pacify the indignant masses, just a more subtle deception of the working masses. In place of a bourgeois/social-democratic coalition, whether open or disguised, Communists propose a united front involving all workers, and a coalition of all workers' parties around economic and political issues, which will fight and finally overthrow bourgeois power. Following a united struggle of all workers against the bourgeoisie, the entire state apparatus must pass into the hands of a workers' government, so strengthening the position of power held by the working class.

The most elementary tasks of a workers' government must be to arm the proletariat, disarm the bourgeois counter-revolutionary organisations, bringing control over production, shift the main burden of taxation onto the propertied classes and break the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

Such a workers' government is possible only if it is born out of the struggle of the masses and is supported by combative workers' organisations formed by the most oppressed sections of workers at grassroots level. However, even a workers' government that comes about through an alignment of parliamentary forces, i.e., a government of purely parliamentary origin, can give rise to an upsurge of the revolutionary workers' movement. It is obvious that the formation of a genuine workers' government, and the continued existence of any such government committed to revolutionary politics, must lead to a bitter struggle with the bourgeoisie or even to civil war. The mere attempt by the proletariat to form such a workers' government will from its very first days come up against extremely strong resistance from the bourgeoisie. The slogan of a workers' government therefore has the potential to rally the proletarians and unleash revolutionary struggle.

In certain circumstances, Communists must declare themselves ready to form a workers' government with non-Communist workers' parties and workers' organisations. However, they should do so only if there are guarantees that the workers' government will conduct a real struggle against the bourgeoisie of the kind already outlined. The obvious conditions on which Communists will participate in such a government are:

1 Communists participating in such a government remain under the strictest control of their Party;

2 Communists participating in such a workers' government should be in extremely close contact with the revolutionary organisations of the masses;

3 The Communist Party has the unconditional right to maintain its own identity and complete independence of agitation.

For all its great advantages, the slogan of a workers' government also has its dangers, as does the whole tactic of the united front. To avoid these dangers and to confront now the illusion that the stage of 'democratic coalition' is inevitable, the Communist Parties must be aware of the following:

Every bourgeois government is simultaneously a capitalist government, but not every workers' government is a truly proletarian, socialist government.

The Communist International must consider the following possibilities:

1 A liberal workers' government, such as existed in Australia and is possible in Britain in the near future.

2 A social-democratic 'workers' government' (Germany).

3 A workers' and peasants' government. Such a possibility exists in the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, etc.

4 A social-democratic/Communist coalition government.

5 A genuine proletarian workers' government, which can be created in its pure form only by a Communist Party.

Communists are also prepared to work alongside those workers who have not yet recognised the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Accordingly Communists are also ready, in certain conditions and with certain guarantees, to support a non-Communist workers' government. However, the Communists will still openly declare to the masses that the workers' government can be neither won nor maintained without a revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.

The first two types of workers' governments (the workers' and peasants' and the social-democratic/Communist governments) fall short of representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, but are still an important starting-point for the winning of this dictatorship. The complete dictatorship of the proletariat can only be a genuine workers' government (type 5) consisting of Communists.

12. The Factory Committee Movement

No Communist Party can consider itself a serious and well-organised mass Communist Party unless it has strong Communist cells in the factories, mills, mines, railways, etc. In present-day conditions a workers' movement cannot consider itself a systematically organised mass proletarian movement unless the working class and its organisations can set up factory committees to form the backbone of the movement. In particular, the fight against the capitalist offensive and for control of production is hopeless unless the Communists command a firm foothold in all the factories and the workers have set up in the workplaces their own fighting proletarian organisations (factory committees, workers' councils).

Congress therefore considers that one of the major tasks facing every Communist Party is to strengthen its influence in the factories and to support the factory committee movement or take the initiative in starting such a movement.

13. International Discipline

Now, more than ever, the strictest international discipline is necessary, both within the Communist International and in each of its separate sections, in order to carry out the united front tactic at the international level and in each individual country.

The Fourth Congress categorically demands that all sections and all members keep strictly to this tactic, which will bring results only if it is unanimously and systematically carried out not only in word but also in deed.

Acceptance of the twenty-one conditions involves carrying out all the tactical decisions taken by World Congresses and by the Executive Committee, the organ of the Communist International between World Congresses. Congress instructs the Executive Committee to be extremely firm in demanding and seeing that every Party puts these tactical decisions into practice. Only the clearly defined revolutionary tactics of the Communist International will ensure the earliest possible victory of the international proletarian revolution.

Congress decides to attach as an appendix to this resolution the text of the December theses (192 1) of the Executive Committee, which are a correct and detailed explanation of the united front tactic.

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Fourth Congress of the Communist International

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Fourth Congress of the Communist International 5 December 1922 The Fourth World Congress first of all affirms that the resolutions of the Third World Congress 1) on the world economic crisis and the tasks of the Communist International and 2) on the tactics of the Communist International have been completely borne out by the course of events and by the development of the workers' movement in the period between the Third and Fourth Congresses.

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History File: Historical Documentary - Berlin 1945-1948

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History File: Historical Documentary - Berlin 1945-1948

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This documentary looks at the Soviet occupation of postwar East Berlin and looks at it from the Soviet perspective from the POV of a Red Army officer (based on his memoirs).

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History File The Cold War: Berlin 1945-48

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BBC History File documentary on Berlin and the Cold War. Intended for educational purposes.

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Excerpt from Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

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Excerpt from Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

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This extract gives a revisionist social perspective on the swift integration of Eastern Europe into the Soviet bloc. If you are lazy, just read p.17~p.18.

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Iron Curtain_The Crushing of Eastern Europe_1994-1956_Chapter 1_Page 13 to 18

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NATO's Strategy of Flexible Response and the Twenty-First Century

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NATO's Strategy of Flexible Response and the Twenty-First Century

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A full description of the "flexible response" strategy of the Kennedy Administration. Published by the Marine Corps University Command & Staff College.

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NATO'S Strategy Of Flexible Response And The Twenty-First Century

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NATO and the Warsaw Pact Force Comparison

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NATO and the Warsaw Pact Force Comparison

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A comparison between the two forces from 1960~1980. Published by NATO Information Services.

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NATO and Warsaw Pact Force Comparisons 1984

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1985 GENEVA SUMMIT

Definition: International summit meeting between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. This was the first face-to-face meeting for the two. Their report was initially confrontational, but by the end of the summit they had forged the beginnings of a personal relationship that would result in unprecedented arms reduction agreements and, ultimately, lead to the end of the Cold War.

20TH PARTY CONGRESS

Definition: 1955 Meeting of the Communist party of the Soviet Union at which Nikita Khrushchev delivered his “secret speech” denouncing former Soviet leader, Josef Stalin.

ABM

Definition: ABM is the initialism for “antiballistic missile,” a defensive weapon designed to detect and intercept incoming offensive nuclear missiles.

APOLLO-SOYUZ

Definition: Apollo-Soyuz was a Joint U.S.-Soviet space program undertaken during Detente. On July 17, 1975, a U.S. Apolo spacecraft and Soviet Soyuz vessel docked for two days of joint

operations.

ARMY-MCCARTHY HEARINGS

Definition: The Army-McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on investigations between March 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the U.S. Army and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. The Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, of

pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, who was a former McCarthy aide and a friend of Cohn's. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith, in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected Communists and security risks in the Army.

ATOMIC AGE

Definition: The term “atomic age” refers to the period following the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 which was characterized by both optimism and fear. It was believed that

all power sources in the future would be atomic in nature. The atomic bomb ("A-bomb") would render all conventional explosives obsolete and nuclear power plants would do the same for power sources such as coal and oil. There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, from irradiating food to

preserve it, to the development of nuclear medicine. This would render the Atomic Age as significant a step in technological progress as the first smelting of Bronze, of Iron, or the

commencement of the Industrial Revolution. This hope was counterbalanced by a growing fear that the world would be destroyed in a war fought with atomic or nuclear weapons.

BAY OF PIGS INVASION

Definition: The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

BERLIN AIRLIFT

Definition: Successful effort by Britain and the United States to supply West Berlin with essentials such as food, medicine and coal during a Soviet blockade of road, rail and canal routes into the city.

BERLIN WALL

Definition: The Berlin Wall was a fortified partition that completely cut-off West Berlin from surrounding communist East Germany and East Berlin. It was built to prevent East German citizens from emigrating to the West.

BIG THREE

Definition: The Big Three refers the dominant members of the Allies of World War II: Britain (the British Empire and the British Commonwealth), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the United States

of America. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the Big Three and China as the "Four Policemen". France, before its defeat in 1940 and after Operation Torch in 1942, as well as

Poland, were considered major allies as well.

BOLSHEVIKS

Definition: The Bolsheviks were the political faction that preceded the Russian Communist Party. In October 1917, during the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks launched a coup to unseat the ruling provisional government in Petrograd, Russia. This paved the way for the modern Soviet Socialist State, the USSR or Soviet Union.

CHARTER 77 DECLARATION

Definition: The Charter 77 Declaration was a political manifesto which demanded that the Communist rulers of Czechoslovakia abide by the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final

Acts. Many of the 230 original signatories were harassed or imprisoned, among them the poet and playwright, Václav Havel. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, many “Chartists” played

important roles in Czech and Slovak politics. Havel became the first post-Communist President of Czechoslovakia and, later, the Czech Republic.

CIA

Definition: The Central Intelligence Agency, established in 1947 during the Truman administration was the United States’ top spy agency during the Cold War.

COLD WAR

Definition: The Cold War was the state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, although many historians believe the conflict can be dated to as early as 1917. Throughout this period, rivalry between the two superpowers was expressed through military coalitions, propaganda, espionage, weapons development, industrial advances, and competitive technological development, e.g., the space race. Both superpowers engaged in costly defence spending, a massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars.

COMMUNISM

Definition: Within the context of the Cold War, Communism is a family of economic and political ideas and social movements related to the establishment of a classless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. It is also often used to refer to a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that the society has already reached communism.

COMMUNIST BLOC

Definition: The terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960 respectively. Communist governments were initially installed in a Bloc politics process that included extensive political and media controls, along with a Soviet approach to restricting emigration. Events such as the Tito-Stalin split and Berlin Blockade prompted stricter control. While the Bloc persisted through revolts, such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the 1968 Czechoslovakia Prague Spring, its command economies experienced inefficiencies and stagnation preceding the Bloc's dissolution.

CONTAINMENT

Definition: Containment was the policy developed by the Truman administration to “contain” Soviet expansion to its 1945 borders. It was proposed by career diplomat George Kennan and enunciated in an article he wrote under the pseudonym “X” for Foreign Affairs magazine entitled, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”

CONTRAS

Definition: “Contra” referred to paramilitary groups opposed the ruling Sandinista government in Nicaragua following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The “Contras” became fodder for many water cooler discussions during the 1987 Iran-Contra scandal and Congressional hearings.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Definition: The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in October 1962, during the Cold War. The crisis developed when the Cuban and Soviet governments in September 1962 placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. When United States intelligence discovered the weapons, its government decided to do all they could to ensure their removal. The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.

“CUBA SÍ, YANQUIS NO”

Definition: “Cuba Sí, Yanquis No" was the oft-repeated slogan used by Cuba nationalists in the wake of the 1959 revolution that brought to power Fidel Castro. The slogan refers to the historical influence wielded by the United States over Cuban affairs.

DEMOBILIZATION

Definition: Demobilization is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and military force will not be necessary. The opposite of demobilization is mobilization. In the final days of World War II, for example, the United States Armed Forces developed a demobilization plan which would discharge soldiers on the basis of a point system that favored length and certain types of service. In this manner, the armed forces of the United States were reduced from over 10,000,000 at the end of the war to roughly 1.5 million service members a year-and-a-half later.

Détente
Definition: from the French word meaning loosening or relaxing—means literally as an
easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. In the context of the Cold War, it represented the period between roughly 1969 and 1979 where the two sides in the bi-polar confrontation sought to “agree to disagree.”

EASTERN BLOC (ALSO SOVIET BLOC, COMMUNIST BLOC)

Definition: The terms Eastern Bloc, Communist Bloc or Soviet Bloc were used to refer to the former Communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, including the countries of the Warsaw Pact, along with Yugoslavia and Albania, which were not aligned with the Soviet Union after 1948 and 1960 respectively. Communist governments were initially installed in a Bloc politics process that included extensive political and media controls, along with a Soviet approach to restricting emigration. Events such as the Tito-Stalin split and Berlin Blockade prompted stricter control. While the Bloc persisted through revolts, such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the 1968 Czechoslovakia Prague Spring, its command economies experienced inefficiencies and stagnation preceding the Bloc's dissolution.

GRAND ALLIANCE

Definition: The Grand Alliance was an alliance made during World War II, which joined together the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain. It was essentially an alliance of necessity, as all three needed to join together in order to defeat the threat of Nazi Germany.

POTSDAM DECLARATION

Definition: The Potsdam Declaration or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender was a statement issued on July 26, 1945 by President of the United States Harry S. Truman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated that if Japan did not

surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction". Japan's initial rejection of the ultimatum led directly to Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9. Whether the ultimatum was intended to be acceptable without recourse to use nuclear weapons has been subject to considerable debate. The declaration was one of Churchill's final official acts as Prime Minister before leaving office the following day in favour of Clement Atlee.

LIMITED TEST BAN TREATY

Definition: The Limited Test Ban Treaty was an arms control agreement negotiated by the US, USSR, and UK in 1963 prohibiting tests of nuclear devices in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. It did not prohibit underground nuclear testing, so long as radioactive debris was contained within the “territorial limits" of the testing state. The treaty has since been signed by a total of 116 countries, including potential nuclear states Argentina, Brazil, India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa. Though two major nuclear powers, France and the People's

Republic of China, have not signed, they are now abiding by its provisions. In 1992, China exploded a bomb beyond the LTBT limits.

LONG TELEGRAM

Definition: The Long Telegram was a diplomatic cable sent from George Kennan, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, to officials with the Treasury Department in Washington. The missive was intended to explain Soviet intransigence on issues such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. However, the “Long Telegram” laid the

groundwork for U.S.-Soviet Relations for much of the Cold War.

MANHATTAN PROJECT

Definition: The Manhattan Project was the World War II program to develop the first nuclear weapon—the atomic bomb. The scientific research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and much of the work was accomplished at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first test explosion—code-named “Trinity” was conducted in July 1945. Just weeks later atomic bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing tens of thousands of Japanese civilians and resulting in the “full and unconditional surrender” of Japan to end World War II. Context: For J. Robert Oppenheimer, witnessing the Trinity test explosion, called to mind the words of the Hindu God Vishnu, “I have become Death, destroyer of worlds.”

MARSHALL PLAN

Definition: The Marshall Plan (from its enactment, officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.

OPEN SKIES

Definition: Open Skies was a concept for a mutual reconnaissance agreement between the U.S. and Soviet Union designed to eliminate the potential of “surprise” attacks and, thus, relieve tension in the Cold War. The plan was developed by Nelson Rockefeller and proposed by President Eisenhower at the 1956 Geneva summit. On behalf of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev rejected the idea calling it a “bold espionage plot” and likening it to peering into respective bedrooms. The deployment by the United States of the U-2 spy plane, already in development prior to Geneva, eliminated the need for any cooperative reconnaissance agreement.

RED ARMY

Definition: The Russian Red Army was formed after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution from remnants of the rebel Red Guards and the ruins of the Tzar’s Imperial Army. By the end of World War II, the Soviet Red Army was the mightiest and most feared land army in the world and was used by Josef Stalin to impose Soviet Communism on the nations of eastern Europe. In 1946, the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army. Context: The "Red Army" name refers to the traditional colour of the workers' movement. This represents, symbolically, the blood shed by the working class in its struggle against capitalism, and the belief that all people are created equal.

SPACE RACE

Definition: The Space Race was the competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union for dominance in outer space. Context: Between 1957 and 1975, the Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority.

SPUTNIK

Definition: Sputnik 1 was the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite. It was launched into a low altitude elliptical orbit by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. The success of the Soviet Sputnik program ignited the Space Race within the Cold War. Context: Sputnik 2 was the second spacecraft launched in Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal—a dog named Laika.

TRUMAN DOCTRINE

Definition: Proclaimed by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, the Truman Doctrine stated that the U.S. would, "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The speech represented a dramatic sea-change in U.S. foreign policy from that of non-intervention to one of world leadership.

U-2

Definition: The Lockheed U-2 spy plane was developed to conduct overflights of the Soviet Union for the purposes of aerial reconnaissance. The aircraft was capable of photographing objects from an altitude of more than 70,000 ft. Context: A U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 sparking the U-2 incident between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

UNITED NATIONS

Definition: The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achieving world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries and to provide a platform for dialogue.

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A report commissioned by the Secretary of Defense of U.S. in 1971. It gives insight into U.S. activities during the two Indochina wars and the Vietnam War, along with other operations in the said region. The operations extended from the Eisenhower Administration to the Lyndon Administration.

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The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed. However, the publications of the report that resulted from these leaks were incomplete and suffered from many quality issues.

On the 40th anniversary of the leak to the press, the National Archives, along with the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon Presidential Libraries, has released the complete report. There are 48 boxes and approximately 7,000 declassified pages. Approximately 34% of the report is available for the first time.

What is unique about this, compared to other versions, is that:

The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases

The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969

All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included

This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition

Files

All files in the "Title" column are in PDF format.

Due to the large file sizes, we recommend that you save them rather than try to open them directly.

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The Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. In June of 1971, small portions of the report were leaked to the press and widely distributed.

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Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, The Far East, Volume VIII - Office of the Historian

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An interesting collection of anti-communist propaganda from the USA during the Cold War.

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General Curtis Le May - Head of SAC (Strategic Air Command (USAF) 1948-57) and his formation of the top secret plan to win the Cold War with "Project Control"

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General Curtis Le May - Head of SAC (Strategic Air Command (USAF) 1948-57) and his formation of the top secret plan to win the Cold War with "Project Control"

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A BBC Timewatch documentary from 1996 detailing how this plan was conceived and how they were attempting to provoke a Soviet response through aggression in their flights over the Soviet Union

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This is a definitive documentary detailing the whole history of the 30 year conflict in Vietnam.

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Vietnam War BBC film HD - The Best Documentary Ever!!

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Historic GDP of the Soviet Union and the USA

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Historic GDP of the Soviet Union and the USA

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[Part of the Soviet Union series]

Some data on soviet GDP growth. First, the chart many supporters of the USSR like. It supposedly shows that the soviet economy worked relatively well, and that industrialisation and growth were due precisely to central planning, when the Soviet Union was formed, in 1922, after the revolution in 1917.

We can then compare the Soviet Union to the United States

The USSR never did really compete in the same league as the US, and the gap between the two didn't became narrower after the USSR began, even when taking into account that poorer countries tend to grow faster when they industrialise.

We can then compare the USSR with other countries that had similar incomes in 1930. The USSR doesn't do particularly well in this metric. Initially it did better than many countries, but by the 70s it was being outpaced by the rest. By 1990, the average income in the USSR matched that of Malaysia, below countries like Spain and Portugal.

The USSR could be seen as a long-term bubble economy: Initial fast-growth, then stagnation, and finally crisis, in comparison to the rest of the economies, that took longer to take off, but that growth was then sustained.

We can also take another year, like 1950, to avoid WWII effects, and use indexed data, but this doesn't change the picture much. That's why I included fewer countries, to make my life easier. I also included the United States and Switzerland and Hong Kong. Hong Kong tells roughly the same story as Singapore: that you can be really poor and grow rich with adequate institutions and capitalism. The United States and Switzerland (Or any developed country) illustrate an effect that wasn't obvious from the previous charts: that it isn't fair to compare the rates of growth between these countries and the SU. Richer countries grow at a slower pace.

Given this data, the Soviet Union was the mediocre economy economists say it was, not a healthy, growing, superpower. If the USSR had an impact in the world, it was due to its size, natural resources, population, and strong military, not because it was more productive than other countries.

And in case you were wondering about Cuba, here's the data for Cuba and some countries in its surroundings. I have a post about Cuba here, in Spanish.

Against these charts, it could be argued that these measures of GDP don't really capture the welfare of the inhabitants of these countries. Fair enough, we could then study those other indicators and examine quality of life in a different way. But it has to be granted that by this measure, the best (argueably) centrally planned economy did not outperform the best free market economies.

To finish, the Stalin question. Did Stalin help industrialise Russia? Would Russia be a poor agrarian country without his policies?

No, say economists Cheremukhin, Golosov,Guriev, and Tsyvinski (2013)

Therefore our answer to the 'Was Stalin Necessary?' question is a definite 'no'. Even though we do not consider the human tragedy of famine, repression and terror, and focus on economic outcomes alone, and even when we make assumptions that are biased in Stalin's favour, his economic policies underperform the counterfactual. We believe Stalin's industrialisation should not be used as a success story in development economics, and should instead be studied as an example where brutal reallocation resulted in lower productivity and lower social welfare.

(Edit) But wait! What about Robert Allen's From Farm to Factory? What if we consider the USSR starting with Stalin (1928).

Then we find that from 1928-1970, the USSR was the fastest growing economy except for Japan!

And even compared to the Third World, its performance was remarkable,

Allen uses Maddison (1995) data for his charts. The Maddison Project has updated data, so I first attempt to replicate his Figure 1.1.

The little red star is the USSR, of course. So Allen's chart is correct. In mine, Jamaica appears as the top performer, and Japan comes as second. The USSR was the third fastest growing economy in the world in the 1928-1970 period (Including countries for which we have 1928 data).

Next, I consider the period 1928-1989 and 1928-1991. Allen stops at 1970 because until then 'the planning system was working well'. In my view, we should see what came after 1970 as a consequence of what came before, including perhaps the breakup and crash of the Soviet economy in 1991. Stopping our analysis when the planning system stopped working well seems to me like stopping an analysis of the Spanish economy just when the housing bubble was about to pop. By this I mean that Soviet growth was propelled in great measure by increasing inputs (capital and labour), not productivity, and that is not a stable long-term run strategy. At some point you run out of people to put to work. I refer to you to this other post of mine for more info on this. This is not an speculation of mine, it is the consensus view of why the USSR ended up stagnating (Though this by itself did not cause its collapse).

Now, the USSR is below South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Portugal, Finland, Singapore, Italy, Norway, and Thailand.

When extended to 1991, the USSR is also overtaken by Spain, Jamaica, and Singapore

But still, it's not that bad, certainly better than my charts above suggest. Spain doesn't appear in the 1928-1989 chart because of the 1936-39 civil war.

Let us now consider one final chart: 1950-1989. Here we have data for far more countries, and we avoid the effect of WWII. The Soviet Union was here the 61th out of 148 economies in growth. Still in the upper 50%!

Zooming in near the USSR,
(Edit2)
Yet another way of looking at this is expressing GDP per capita as a fraction of US GDP per capita. Doing that we get this chart:

I included countries already chosen in previous charts, plus averages for Africa, Latin America and Western Europe. In 1952, the Soviet Union was only behind Ireland and Western Europe as a whole. By 1975, when the USSR reached its maximum, it had a higher GDP per capita than Mexico, Latin America, Colombia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Africa.

By the end of 1991 (just before the fall), it had about the same GDP per capita as Mexico.
(Edit3)
A chart with growth rates for the Soviet Union and the Former Soviet Union (basically, Russia). I see the Brezhnevian stagnation (Under Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev, as the Perestroika did little to change the trend) as a followup from previous policies to Stalin-Khrushchev. So it's dubious that such growth rates could have continued indefinitely. We must also note that the FSU is recovering from a crisis, which makes easier to have larger growth rates.
(Edit4)
The analysis above may need some further reconsideration. The charts presented until now are controlling just for initial GDP. But Easterly & Fischer (1995) run a regression for the 1960-1989 period, controlling for variables such as initial GDP, share of investment, and secondary school enrollment. GDP growth for the Soviet Union in that period was 2.36% vs 2.00% for the West. But when controlling for those variables, the predicted growth for the Soviet Union jumps to 4.7%. Meaning that the economic system itself reduced growth in -2.34 points. (The value for the West does not change). In the 1950s, however, Easterly & Fischer do find that the Soviet system performed well in terms of growth. They ultimately explain this by what the dub the extensive growth hypothesis: Growth fueled by increasing the amount of available factors (Labour and Capital) rather than increasing productivity. That, combined with a low elasticity of capital-labour substitution (Using a CES production function, they get 0.4) meant that diminishing returns to capital would ultimately stall growth when the capital share of the economy began to reduce as the economy shifted to consumer goods.

(Edit 5. And hopefully the last one!)

An analysis of Allen's book can be found here

Conclusion

The USSR did grow quite fast under Stalin. The question would then be to explain why did it grow so fast, why did it stagnate, and why Cheremukhin, Golosov et al. find that it wasn't because of Stalin, while Allen finds the opposite (I'll write a followup post explaining that). However, if we consider the Soviet Union starting with Stalin and ending in 1989, its performance was not as good. Furthermore, if we consider the post-WWII performance of the Soviet Union in comparison to other countries, it shows signs of stagnation. We can then say that the impressive growth of the Soviet Union was a one-off event, produced by Stalin's industrial policies. The USSR, however, wasn't able to sustain this growth rate.

Furthermore we would also have to examine other countries with central planning to see if the Soviet model was replicated, or if the performance of the Soviet economy was also due to specific factors present in Russia but not elsewhere. Note also that the Soviet Union spent a sizable share of its economy (15-17%) on military spending (vs 5% in the US in the 80s) and on investment (rather than consumption), so GDP growth does not translate into population welfare equally in every country. This could be read to mean that the USSR would have done even better had it spent less on the military. Or, conversely, that its GDP did that good because of it, if it's easier to grow an economy oriented to produce T-72s and MiG-29s than consumer goods. As you can see in my other posts, healthcare, food consumption, and working conditions were not as good as this GDP comparison might suggest.

Bonus link: USA vs USSR industrial capacity

References

Cheremukhin, A., Golosov, M., Guriev, S., & Tsyvinski, A. (2013). Was Stalin Necessary for Russia's Economic Development? (No. w19425). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Easterly, W., & Fischer, S. (1995). The Soviet economic decline. The World Bank Economic Review, 9(3), 341-371.

The Maddison-Project, http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/home.htm, 2013 version.

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Part of the Soviet Union series] Some data on soviet GDP growth. First, the chart many supporters of the USSR like. It supposedly shows that the soviet economy worked relatively well, and that industrialisation and growth were due precisely to central planning, when the Soviet Union was formed, in 1922, after the revolution in 1917....

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In WW2, who had greater industrial capacity, the Americans or the Soviets? * r/AskHistorians

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Reddit gives you the best of the internet in one place. Get a constantly updating feed of breaking news, fun stories, pics, memes, and videos just for you. Passionate about something niche? Reddit has thousands of vibrant communities with people that share your interests. Alternatively, find out what's trending across all of Reddit on r/popular.

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CIA Comparison of the Soviet and US Economy - Published in 1999

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CIA Comparison of the Soviet and US Economy - Published in 1999

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Write your feedback for one student entry below: Reasons 1 & 2 are paired together and must swap feedback, reasons 3 & 4 are paired also, 5 & 6, 7 & 8 and so on. Add your Points / Examples / Evidence on this side >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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MODEL ANSWER: Reasons For The Cold War - 15) Exposure of Espionage On Both Sides

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MODEL ANSWER: Reasons For The Cold War - 15) Exposure of Espionage On Both Sides

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Point(s) / Examples =
Espionage was nothing new, but it could lead to worsening relations between the superpowers, it was even an issue for the Grand Alliance conferences between the US and USSR during WW2. For example, during the Yalta Conference in the Crimea, the rooms of Churchill and FDR were reportedly tapped by the Soviets to gain an upper hand in those negotiations. It seems a little naive for the historiography of the time to think of this as just a breakdown of good relations after the death of FDR. The pre-war animosity (mistrust) that existed between the members of the Grand Alliance simply had a brief respite  from 1941 to 1945 when Churchill and particularly FDR appeased Stalin when fighting together against the Nazi regime. After the war ended, it could be argued that normal (adverse) diplomatic relations had simply resumed.
Further incidents of espionage acted to amplify the “mistrust” between the two sides, such as the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951 and the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers’ U2 spy plane in 1960, which both illustrate the reciprocity of intelligence gathering during the Cold War. Particularly for the latter incident in 1960, where the chance for reform within the Soviet regime via Khrushchev was lost and Bolshevik conservatism saw a  resurgence of aggression that culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Evidence =
In summing up Judge Kaufman proclaimed that he held the Rosenbergs responsible not only for espionage but also for deaths in the Korean War:

I consider your crime worse than murder... I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-Bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. No one can say that we do not live in a constant state of tension. We have evidence of your treachery all around us every day for the civilian defense activities throughout the nation are aimed at preparing us for an atom bomb attack.

Source: Summing up by Eliza Kaufman on March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage. They were sentenced to death on April 5 by Judge Kaufman under Section 2 of the  Espionage Act of 1917, 50 U.S. Code 32 (now 18 U.S. Code794), which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information "relating to the national defense."

In 1951 the exposure of espionage within the Manhattan Project with the case of  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (among others) demonstrated the level of public paranoia in the US at this time. The execution of this Jewish couple for treason smacked of anti-semitism as well as anti-Communism, and reminded many commentators of Nazi stereotypes of “evil, communist Russian Jews.” Comparisons were made with the  Dreyfus Affair, and it drew condemnation from figures such as Albert Einstein and Jean Paul Sartre who described it as a “legal lynching”. The impartiality of the judge, Irving Kaufman, was brought into question by his admission that the death penalty was recommended to him by prosecutor Roy Cohn (who later acted as counsel for Senator Mc Carthy) who also recommended fellow anti-Communists to be the Judge and chief prosecutor in the trial in his position as a deputy to the US Attorney General.

The shooting down of the US U2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers in 1960 was a huge backwards step for diplomacy with the Soviets, it pressured Khrushchev into taking a more hard line approach to placate his critics in the Kremlin and resulted in more openly aggressive policies towards the US, with Soviet support of Client states like Cuba.

Pre-war animosity was evident in the propaganda coming from both sides. The execution of the Romanovs (the King’s cousins) lived long in the memory of the satirical press in Britain and  Stalin was seen as simply another European dictator like Hitler and Mussolini until he became an ally in 1941. Francis Gary Powers photographed while in custody by the Soviets.

DP History Cold War sub-topic =
Rivalry, mistrust and accord the emergence of superpower rivalry in Europe and Asia (1943–1949,  role of ideology; fear and aggression.

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11. The pursuit of allies to produce “buffer zones” for both sides. (Addition and Later Reasons, 1950-69)

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11. The pursuit of allies to produce “buffer zones” for both sides. (Addition and Later Reasons, 1950-69)

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COLD WAR TOPIC

Point

The buffer zone created by the United States and the Soviet Union shows their wills to seek for a more peaceful resolution for both sides, in order to recover from economic issues and political problems after the World War II. The buffer zone can ensure they are not threatened by one and another and ensure both sides will not take military action easily. At the same time, the United States needs to contain the spread of communism in Europe by stabilizing economic and domestic problems in these countries.

Evidences

Fact Sheet about Marshall Plan (State Department Published)
https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/marshall.html

Examples

During Cold War period, the creation of "Buffer Zone" become one of the focus of foreign policy for both US and the Soviet Union.

For the United States, the NATO can be a proof of creating a buffer zone in order to ensure there is no more expansion of communism in Europe and any other part of the world. The countries in this organization include US, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, Norway... This creates alliances between US and European Countries and prevented the Soviet Union intervention of other countries' politics.

The Marshall Plan (April 1948 - December 1951) is another policy for the United States to create its buffer zone in Europe. This is a programme designed by the United States to aids 17 western and southern European Countries to recover from the World War II. The reason for this plan is the United States afraid the instability of economic and political status in these countries will create a chance for arising communist forces. This programme shows the fear of communism spread in Europe that will become uncontainable by the United States.

For the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact can be a significant policy to discuss the intention to form buffer zone for themselves. The Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955, signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. The main idea of the treaty is when any one of the members is under attack, they will set up unified military forces to defend it. This treaty is the aggressive response on the remilitarization of Western Germany by NATO.

Citation:
http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/formation-of-nato-and-warsaw-pact
https://www.nato.int/cps/su/natohq/declassified_139339.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-warsaw-pact-is-formed
https://www.britannica.com/event/Marshall-Plan
https://www.nato.int/cps/ua/natohq/topics_52044.htm

This is a speech delivered by Marshal Malinovskii (Soviet Defense Minister), talking about the needs of Warsaw Pact.

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12. A lack of parity in the “arms race”. 

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12. A lack of parity in the “arms race”. 

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Point & Example:
The "arms race" between USA and USSR is mainly referring to the development of nuclear bombs. Superpowers, both with an aim of not having a physical war, showed their military powers by developing powerful and lethal hydrogen nuclear weapons. The USA was aiming to imply USSR to listen to them and back down a little bit by dropping their nuclear weapons on the territory of Japanese Empire. In response to the USA, the USSR started to develop nuclear bombs in order to demonstrate that they were not weak and also to threaten the USA back. Consequently, the arms race kept going throughout the period of the Cold War.

Evidence:
Inaugural Address:
https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=TAaDaezB__8C&pg=RA1-PA13&lpg=RA1-PA13&dq=both+racing+to+alter+that+uncertain+balance+of+terror+that+stays+the+hand+of+mankind's+final+war&source=bl&ots=5jYTzr5igt&sig=ab8ePxkW9suUaeBmt5tGNZQN3fw&hl=zh-TW&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjC3MCmw8fYAhWIHpQKHXfZAsYQ6AEIMzAB#v=onepage&q=both%20racing%20to%20alter%20that%20uncertain%20balance%20of%20terror%20that%20stays%20the%20hand%20of%20mankind's%20final%20war&f=true

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7. USSR's Expansion west into Eastern Europe + broken election promises (Reason for Cold War Earliest Causes 1945-50)

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7. USSR's Expansion west into Eastern Europe + broken election promises (Reason for Cold War Earliest Causes 1945-50)

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DP History Subtopic: Rivalry, mistrust and accord the emergence of superpower rivalry in Europe and Asia (1943–1949)role of ideology; fear and aggression

Points
After the Yalta Agreement in 1945, Stalin compromised to allow its satellites state, especially Poland to “create democratic institutions of their own choice.” Nevertheless, Stalin still monitors the elections and ensure the nominees to be favoring Stalin and USSR. At the same time, Moscow-trained cadres are implemented  As recorded in Stalin's secretary memoir,  Stalin once said “"It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."

Stalin's ambition of expansion can be originated from his establishment of Cominform in 1947, in addition to the agreement of Warsaw Pact which comes in 1955 as a continuation of USSR's sphere of influence. For USSR,   creating a buffer zone against the “democratic” party is also another aspect that convince Stalin to  break the elections promises and seek for a greater control of territories.

In regards to the Soviet territories

Evidences

Cominform and Warsaw Pact

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The Soviet Union and the Establishment of Communist Regime in Eastern Europe from 1944 onwards

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Point/Example:
The American fear of communist attack could be divided in two major forms—ideological and physical.

Ideologically, American feared that democracy can be sabotaged by soviet espionage and political repression. The fear mainly come from witnessing Soviet’s takeover of formerly-democratic nations and his failed promise of Declaration of a Liberated Europe, which he promised free electron in Eastern Europe.

American’s national security is seen to be threaten based on several reasons. First, many historians suggest America lack understanding of the damage WW2 had brought to the USSR. America did not fully sense USSR’s vulnerability despite 25 millions people killed and 70% of their industries destroyed. The American still see the USSR as a major power and rivalry. In Stalin’s election speech during 1946, he announces WW2 as a “test” of Soviet’s “multinational state system” of being viable. This shows Stalin’s optimism towards international socialism and his vision of expansion. Besides, in 1949, Mao took over China and made China a communist state, which further threatens United State’s power in the Pacific.
Perhaps most importantly is Soviet’s test of nuclear weapon in 1949, which USSR constructed based on technological information passed on by spies (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) in the Manhattan Project. The American were now aware of that Josef Stalin, a hostile and unreliable politician, now has the ability to cause devastating damage to the United States at any time.

Evidence:
McCarthyism refers to the second red scare that took placed in United States after the second world war. American’s fear and insecurity became evident when the “loyalty project” is imposed by President Truman’s Executive Order 9835 in 1947 and assisted by the FBI. Cases that especially strengthen American’s speculation are the accusation of Harry White (second most important influential official in U.S. Treasury) for passing information to KGB; and Alger Hiss, a high level official in State Department that had contributed to the founding of UN, convicted of perjury in 1950.

Moreover, the Venona Project (deciphering international cables to obtain key information) that began during the WW2 had accumulated evidences suggesting “the Soviets had recruited spies in virtually every major American government agency of military or diplomatic importance. American authorities learned that since 1942 the United States had been the target of a Soviet espionage onslaught involving dozens of professional Soviet intelligence officers and hundreds of Americans, many of whom were members of the American Communist party (CPUSA).” (Yale University Press, 1999)

Then, US government had set up the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1938 aiming to investigate disloyalty and communist ties of American citizens, employees, and organizations.

Beside nuclear weapon, soviet espionage is commanded into various other military departments. For example, William Perl, a US government aeronautical scientist, provided the USSR with the results of highly secret design experiments of American jet engines and aircrafts. This promotes the USSR to quickly catch up with American technological lead in the development of jets. During the Korean War, US military leaders expected the air force to dominate; however, they were shocked when Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters not only flew ring around U.S. propeller-driven aircraft but were conspicuously superior to the first generation of American jets as well. The military performance of USSR deepens US’s insecurity when it comes to the two nation’s confrontation.

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Point:
The dislike of capitalism from the USSR is not only because of the difference in ideologies, but also from their appraoches toward Germany, governmental system, and politics.

The approaches of America toward Germany is wanting them to recover and become a trading partner with them, but USSR want to weaken Germany in order to create a buffer zone and friendly state around the country.

The American governmental structure is a two party democracy with "freedom" and that the USSR comes with a one party state and that of the secret police

After Theodore Roosevelt died in 1945, Truman replaced his position as the US president. With his "anti-communist" political perspective, gradually after the end of the war, the relationship between the two state is getting worse.

Evidence:
The Anti-American Sentiment in Russia has been in Russian's blood for a long time. During the 1920s, USSR Lenin describe the USA as "meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties"
Soviets contradiction with USA started grow and so do the feeling of toward the anti american sentiment.

Document number 128
"Action plan to strengthen anti-American propaganda for the near future." Document of agitprop CC
03/01/1949  article number 15:

...
Capitalistic monopolies of US inspirators of aggression policy ...
US stronghold of colonial enslavement and colonial wars ...
Monopolies feed fascism on American soil ...
Democracy in US hypocritical coverup for absolute rule of capital ...
Myth of high standards of living for all social classes in US...
Myth of universal equality and equal opportunities for everyone in US...
Degeneration of American culture...
Decay of cinematography in US...
Corrupt American press...
Crime in US...
...

http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org/fond/issues-doc/69577
(origin in Russian)

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3. USSR’s fear of the American’s atomic bomb 

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3. USSR’s fear of the American’s atomic bomb 

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Point/ Example:
As the Manhattan Project shows the final result with the denotation of Trinity in July 1945. The first denotation of nuclear weapon conduct by the UA army. and in August 1945, the USA detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities and this action force the Japanese to surrender and brings the world war two to an end. This action had added pressure on other opponent regimes such as the USSR. Before 1945, the nuclear program in the Soviet Union was fairly small.
From Stalin’s decision of expanding and speeding up the atomic programs, it shows the fear of falling behind. Soon in 1949, "First Lightning”, USSR’s first nuclear bombed successfully tested shows the urge and the tension USSR put into the project.
Furthermore, the developing of more advanced nuclear weapons soon became a competition between the two regimes, the nuclear arms race, the United States felt that the USSR is technologically caught up and feel threatened, nuclear weapon became an Intimidation.

Evidence:
At the Potsdam Conference, July 1945, according to Truman, "I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make good use of it against the Japanese.” and Stalin privately told his top advisers to speed up the Soviet atomic program: "They simply want to raise the price. We've got to work on Kurchatov and hurry things up.”

Source:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/Sovwpnprog.html
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/soviet-atomic-program-1946
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ukraine-and-soviet-nuclear-history

Picture of the atomic bomb test - Which one? Trinity?

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Point/Examples:
The Cold War was "a state of geopolitical tension" between the USSR and USA. The purpose of having the war known as "Cold" war was because there was no physical combat. However, because of the great tension from both sides, preparation was executed in case of a physical war. The commonalities between both sides were the fear of counterpart's attack.

A command exercise by NATO of nuclear weaponry in November 1983

Evidence:
A primary source of U.S assessment that concluded the Soviet leadership feared American nuclear strike in 1983.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/read-the-us-assessment-that-concluded-the-soviet-leadership-feared-an-american-nuclear-strike-in-1983/1779/

Washington Post by David E. Hoffman discussing the primary resource 1983 "war scare".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-1983-war-scare-soviet-leadership-feared-nuclear-surprise-attack-by-us/2015/10/24/15a289b4-7904-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html?utm_term=.38eab25652bc
Curtis LeMay

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Point:
While Truman had only met Stalin personally once, and gave some remarks of admiration to him e.g. "he is honest, but smart as hell," he certainly distrusts his nation and the ideology behind him. This is best exemplified by his support of the Kingdom of Greece during the Greek civil war, which started a year after the closure of WWII. Keeping in mind that Greece was a monarchy at the time being, it is clear that Truman is not a simple advocate of democracy, but the enemy of communism. The Truman doctrine, which is proposed during the same speech in March 12, 1947, is the summary of his belief: "to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." His belief is not just a political one, but also assuming moral responsibility; he even tried to rally faith against the communists by attempting to gain the support of both Catholics and Protestants against the USSR, shown in the evidence given below.

Evidence (IN chronological order)
1. The Congress speech March 12, 1947
"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, Romania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar developments."

This source implicitly demonstrated Truman's opinions on the consolidation of the eastern bloc by the USSR, and the nature of USSR in general: here he referred to it as the enforcer of authoritarian regimes.

2. Inaugural Address of Harry S. Truman, Jan. 20, 1949

"  That regime adheres to a false philosophy which purports to offer freedom, security, and greater opportunity to mankind. Misled by this philosophy, many peoples have sacrificed their liberties only to learn to their sorrow that deceit and mockery, poverty and tyranny, are their reward.
That false philosophy is communism.
Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters.
Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. |
Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause, punishment without trial, and forced labor as the chattel of the state. It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce, what leaders he shall follow, and what thoughts he shall think.
Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom in the exercise of his abilities.
Communism maintains that social wrongs can be corrected only by violence.
Democracy has proved that social justice can be achieved through peaceful change.
Communism holds that the world is so deeply divided into opposing classes that war is inevitable.
Democracy holds that free nations can settle differences justly and maintain lasting peace.
These differences between communism and democracy do not concern the United States alone. People everywhere are coming to realize that what is involved is material well-being, human dignity, and the right to believe in and worship God. "

This source clearly demonstrates Truman's hatred towards communism. Here he described communism as authoritarian, brutal and misleading.

3. Personal Note by Harry S. Truman, Feb. 26 1952
https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/trumanpapers/psf/longhand/index.php?documentid=hst-psf_naid735301-01&documentYear=&documentVersion=both

"I wanted to do was to organize the moral forces against the immoral forces. I told him that Stalin and his crowd had no intellectual honesty and no moral code, that they had broken 30 or 40 treaties they'd made with us and the free world and that all I wanted to do was to organize Exodus XX, Matthew V, VI & VII to save morals in the world."

"But if I could succeed in getting the world of morals associated against the world of no morals, we'd have world peace for ages to come. Confucius, Buddha, Moses, our own, Jesus Christ, Mahomet, all preached--"Do as you'd be done by." Treat others as you'd be treated. So did all the other great teachers and philosophers.

But along comes Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin to upset morals and intellectual honesty and a lot of "crack pots" want to follow them.

The Great Creator of the Universe won't allow it! I am sure of that."

This source demonstrates Truman's dislike towards Stalin-and towards communism in general-in the moral and religious aspect. He believed that it is against Christian values and immoral for communism to exist; his description is not unlike the struggle between God and Satan, the conflict between the Omni-benevolent and the embodiment of evil.

A picture
A nice representation of the political situation.

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9. USSR’s need for secure western boarders 

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9. USSR’s need for secure western boarders 

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USSR’s need for secure western boarders

After ww2 socialist European nations transitioned into being satellite states of USSR. Soviet Union had control over 6 satellites forming the Eastern Bloc countries.  Countries affiliated with the name Eastern Bloc countries are: Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union. During the cold war the Soviet Union gained power over these satellites with one of the reasons in mind being to secure western boarders in case of possible conflict with the western allies. These Eastern Bloc countries did not provide any other war winning or defining values besides serving as a buffer zone and possibly being strategically viable if aggression occurred.

As a result of the satellite states being established, Winston Churchill gave a captivating speech named the “iron curtain” in disapproval of Stalin and the soviet’s doings. As a response to Churchill Stalin took on an interview showing his thoughts on the topic.

Key points in Stalin’s interview can be seen in these quotes:

“One must therefore ask, what can be surprising in the fact that the Soviet Union, in a desire to ensure its security for the future, tries to achieve that these countries should have governments whose relations to the Soviet Union are loyal?”

In this sentence Stalin states how it is important that the soviets utilize these lands for future security measures.

“Mr. Churchill sometimes recalls in his speeches the common people from small houses, patting them on the shoulder in a lordly manner and pretending to be their friend. But these people are not so simple-minded as it might appear at first sight. Common people, too, have their opinions and their own politics. And they know how to stand up for themselves. It is they, millions of these common people, who voted Mr. Churchill and his party out in England”

In this section Stalin then accuses Churchill of pretending to care about the common day to day person, and shows a communist belief that the capitalists are greedy and do not care about the common people.

Through Stalin’s interview we can observe clear indications that Stalin believes that the satellite states are a necessity for the soviet security in the foreseeable future, supporting claims that the soviet Union were in pursuit of secure western boarders.

http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/stalin-responds-iron-curtain-speech-1946/

the building of the Berlin wall can be seen as another proof of the danger Stalin sees towards the west of their territories.

  building the wall. (Trump approves) the Berlin wall was built for the sake of segregating the USSR owned east Berlin from west Berlin http://www.historynotes.info/on-this-day-first-block-in-berlin-wall-was-set-up-83/

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6. America's refusal to share nuclear secrets

Pt
Is reasonable that US refuse to share the secrets of nuclear bomb. In 1942, after the Nazi Germany was defeated by the western allies and the USSR, the US army rapidly collecting the intelligence of German Nuclear Energy project. Through the information they got from Nazi Germany, the US government establish a secret project, called Manhattan Project. Firstly, the president of US, Trumen, at that time is a anti-communist. Unlike the previous president, Roosevelt, Trumen wanted to use the secrets of nuclear bomb as a chips for the negotiation with Stalin. Secondly, the US government spent too much effort and resources on the nuclear project during WW II, especially for the money. Thirdly, through the means of monopolizing the secrets not only can avoid the stimulation of developing nuclear bomb toward their enemies or untrusted nation,including Nazi Germany, Japan, and USSR.

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10. USSR’s aim of spreading world communism

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10. USSR’s aim of spreading world communism

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Point:

There are two possible aims of USSR spreading world communism:

I. The communist ideology of eradication of the capitalist.

The first reason might be the ideology within communist itself. Since the Lenin's period (27th Party Congress,1986), the Communist Party of Soviet Union had aimed to achieve “world socialist system,” developing "equal and friendly" relations with "liberated" (Third World) countries.

II. USSR wanted a buffer zone.

By the end of Second World War, the USSR asked for a buffer zone for securing the western border. However, the USA saw this as a threat. During Second World War, the communist ideology was spreading throughout the Europe. The USA was afraid that the communist ideology would take over the Europe, so they started the “containment” policy, aiming to close up the Soviet Union. This action made the Soviet Union felt nationally unsecured. Hence, the Soviet Union aggravated the spread of communist ideology.

Evidence and Citation

https://archive.org/stream/sovietunioncount00zick/sovietunioncount00zick_djvu.txt

Chapter 10

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6. America's refusal to share nuclear secrets
Points/Examples :
Is reasonable that the US refuse to share the secrets of the nuclear bomb. In 1942, after Nazi Germany was defeated by the western allies and the USSR, the US army rapidly collecting the intelligence of German Nuclear Energy project. Through the information they got from Nazi Germany, the US government establish a secret project, called Manhattan Project. Firstly, the president of US, Truman, at that time is an anti-communist. Unlike the previous president, Roosevelt, Truman wanted to use the secrets of the nuclear bomb as chips for the negotiation with Stalin. Secondly, the US government spent too much effort and resources on the nuclear project during WW II, especially for the money. Thirdly, through the means of monopolizing the secrets not only can avoid the stimulation of developing nuclear bomb toward their enemies or untrusted nation,including Nazi Germany, Japan, and USSR.

Evidence:
In 1945, an article published by Life mentioned that before the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki ” probably no more than a few dozen men in the entire country knew the full meaning of the Manhattan Project, and perhaps only a thousand others even were aware that work on atoms was involved.”
In 1942, the US government carried out a Law that warned the workers in Oak Ridge. (The person who disclosing the project's secrets was punishable by 10 years in prison or a $10,000 ($352,000 today) fine)
In 1939, the beginning of Manhattan Project , the US government employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $70 billion in 2016 dollars) on the construction of factories and laboratories. The government spent 90% of the money they got from taxes on the nuclear bomb project, rather than the development and production of weapons in World War II.
In 1945, Potsdam Conference, Truman mentioned the US government found “a new weapon of unusual destructive force.”

Rivalry, mistrust, and accord >> > The emergence of superpower rivalry in Europe and Asia (1943–1949).

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Quotes that are misplaced to Stalin.

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← Reactionary Anti-Gay Article Posing as "Marxist" Advocates "Conversion Therapy" And Attacks the Stalin Society of North America More On "How many divisions does the Pope have?" →

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https://www.activehistory.co.uk/Miscellaneous/menus/IB/random_q_generator/coldwar.php

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General Curtis Le May - Head of SAC (Strategic Air Command (USAF) 1948-57) and his formation of the top secret plan to win the Cold War with "Project Control"

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William A Wallace - US Secretary of State for Commerce writes a letter to Truman that is a valuable source in showing that not all of the US Government supported the "containment" policy of the USA.

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William A Wallace - US Secretary of State for Commerce writes a letter to Truman that is a valuable source in showing that not all of the US Government supported the "containment" policy of the USA.

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A useful source that gives a different and perhaps revisionist perspective on the US military build up in the immediate post-war period. Raising the question of how much was the US policy responsible for the breakdown of the Grand Alliance? He was promptly fired by Truman after the letter was sent.

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"Achieving an Atmosphere of Mutual Trust and Confidence": Henry A. Wallace Offers an Alternative to Cold War Containment

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Allies during World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union disagreed over a number of issues after the war. These included control of Eastern Europe, division of Germany, atomic energy, international loans, and the Middle East. On February 9, 1946, Soviet premier Josef Stalin asserted that the continued existence of capitalism in the West would inevitably lead to war.

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USSR Music (extract from Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovitch))

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USSR Music (extract from Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovitch))

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It's better than it sounds:

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ショスタコーヴィチ　交響曲第5番「革命」第4楽章

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Zhdanov Doctrine  (Opening Speech of Cominform by Central Committee Secretary Andrei Zhdanov )

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Zhdanov Doctrine  (Opening Speech of Cominform by Central Committee Secretary Andrei Zhdanov )

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The Zhdanov Doctrine is a cultural doctrine developed by the Central Committee Secretary Andrei Zhdanov as the Central Committee Resolution in 1946. It is the first to officially propose the concept of the divided political and cultural situation of the post-war European landscape (or at least I think it is).

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https://www.johndclare.net/cold_war5.htm

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Panorama TV Show 1962 - Reflection on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Panorama TV Show 1962 - Reflection on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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An interesting collection of contemporary views on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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1962 Panorama - Cuba - End of the Missile Crisis - BBC Documentary

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Documentary on the mysterious death of General Sikorski - the Polish leader in exile - in 1943

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Documentary on the mysterious death of General Sikorski - the Polish leader in exile - in 1943

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An interesting documentary that raises serious questions about when the Cold War actually begins?

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Air Crash Investigation Detectives Sikorskis Last Flight

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Timeline of the Cold War History of Berlin

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Timeline of the Cold War History of Berlin

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This can help you to see the deteriorating relations between East and West Berlin from mid 1945 onward.

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On September 9, Ernst Reuter gives a speech to more than 300,000 Berliners gathered in front of the ruins of the Reichtag building, appealing to the "people of the world" not to abandon "this city and its people."

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Watch the video linked here and use the notes below this Pad to help you revise the crisis.

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NOTES ON THE COLD WAR CRISIS 1 - THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

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NOTES ON THE COLD WAR CRISIS 1 - THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

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Use these notes to help you understand how this crisis develops

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A good strategic look at the member states of NATO over time

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The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949.

The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949 by a committee which was chaired by US diplomat Theodore Achilles. Earlier secret talks had been held at the Pentagon between 22 March and 1 April 1948, of which Achilles said:

The talks lasted about two weeks and by the time they finished, it had been secretly agreed that there would be a treaty, and I had a draft of one in the bottom drawer of my safe. It was never shown to anyone except Jack [ Hickerson]. I wish I had kept it, but when I left the Department in 1950, I dutifully left it in the safe and I have never been able to trace it in the archives. It drew heavily on the Rio Treaty, and a bit of the Brussels Treaty, which had not yet been signed, but of which we were being kept heavily supplied with drafts. The eventual North Atlantic Treaty had the general form, and a good bit of the language of my first draft, but with a number of important differences.

According to Achilles, another important author of the treaty was John D. Hickerson:

More than any human being Jack was responsible for the nature, content, and form of the Treaty...It was a one-man Hickerson treaty.

As a fundamental component of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty is a product of the US' desire to avoid overextension at the end of World War II, and consequently pursue multilateralism Europe. It is part of the US' collective defense arrangement with Western European powers, following a long and deliberative process. The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War. Rather, it was invoked for the first and only time in 2001 during Operation Eagle Assist in response to the September 11 attacks.

By signing the North Atlantic Treaty, parties are "determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of the peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law."

Founding members

The following twelve states signed the treaty and thus became the founding members of NATO. The following leaders signed the agreement as plenipotentiaries of their countries in Washington, D.C.:

Later members

The following 17 states joined the treaty after the 12 founding states:

Article 1 of the treaty states that member parties "settle any international disputes in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

Members seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area through preservation of peace and security in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

The treaty includes Article 4, which triggers not military intervention but merely consultation over military matters when "the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."

It has been invoked three times by Turkey: once in 2003 over the Second Persian Gulf War ( Iraq War), once in June 2012 after the shooting down of a Turkish military jet, and once again in October 2012 after Syrian attacks on Turkey and their counterattacks.

An Article 4 meeting was invoked by Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in March 2014 as a response to the extraterritorial Crimean crisis.

Turkey announced plans to convoke under Article 4 an extraordinary meeting on 28 July 2015, ostensibly in response to the 2015 Suruç bombing, which it attributed to ISIS, and other security issues along its southern border. A press statement released by the Alliance declared that "Turkey requested the meeting in view of the seriousness of the situation after the heinous terrorist attacks in recent days, and also to inform allies of the measures it is taking." The US announced through The New York Times on 27 July that it had already agreed "in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, Syrian insurgents and Turkish forces working together to sweep Islamic State militants from a 60-mile-long strip of northern Syria along the Turkish border... long-range artillery could be used across the border." Concerns were expressed that the plan would put allied warplanes closer than ever to areas that Syrian aircraft regularly bomb; the plan did not determine the reaction if Syrian warplanes attack allied personnel on the ground in what is Syrian territory. Turkish Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the operations will continue as long as Turkey faces a threat, and discussed the situation with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in a telephone call over the weekend of 26 July. The US said that Turkey "has a right to take action" against the PKK, a Kurdish insurrectionary group that has sought since 1984 autonomy from Turkey. A news report also disclosed prior to the 28 July meeting that Turkey had violated Iraqi airspace in its pursuit of the PKK.

The key section of the treaty is Article 5. Its commitment clause defines the casus foederis. It commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in Europe or North America, to be an armed attack against them all.

It has been invoked only once in NATO history: by the United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001, when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the 9/11 attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation in the Mediterranean which was designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction, as well as enhancing the security of shipping in general. Active Endeavour began on 4 October 2001.

In April 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan considered invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty to protect Turkish national security in a dispute over the Syrian Civil War. The alliance responded quickly and a spokesperson said the alliance was "monitoring the situation very closely and will continue to do so" and "takes it very seriously protecting its members." On April 17, Turkey said it would raise the issue quietly in the next NATO ministerial meeting. On April 29, the Syrian foreign ministry wrote that it had received Erdoğan's message, which he had repeated a few days before, loud and clear. On 25 June, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister said that he intended to raise Article 5 at a specially-convened NATO meeting because of the downing of an "unarmed" Turkish military jet which was "13 sea miles" from Syria over "international waters" on a "solo mission to test domestic radar systems". A Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted that the plane "flying at an altitude of 100 meters inside the Syrian airspace in a clear breach of Syrian sovereignty" and that the "jet was shot down by anti-aircraft fire," the bullets of which "only have a range of 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles)" rather than by radar-guided missile. On 5 August, Erdoğan stated, "The tomb of Suleyman Shah [in Syria] and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land... Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary." NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen later said in advance of the October 2012 ministerial meeting that the alliance was prepared to defend Turkey, and acknowledged that this border dispute concerned the alliance, but underlined the alliance's hesitancy over a possible intervention: "A military intervention can have unpredicted repercussions. Let me be very clear. We have no intention to interfere militarily [at present with Syria]." On 27 March 2014, recordings were released on YouTube of a conversation purportedly involving then Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, then National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan, and Deputy Chief of General Staff General Yaşar Güler. The recording has been reported as being probably recorded at Davutoğlu's office at the Foreign Ministry on 13 March. Transcripts of the conversation reveal that as well as exploring the options for Turkish forces engaging in false flag operations inside Syria, the meeting involved a discussion about using the threat to the tomb as an excuse for Turkey to intervene militarily inside Syria. Davutoğlu stated that Erdoğan told him that he saw the threat to the tomb as an "opportunity".

Prior to the meeting of Defence Ministers and recently appointed Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Brussels in late June 2015, it was stated by a journalist, who referenced an off-the-record interview with an official source, that "Entirely legal activities, such as running a pro-Moscow TV station, could become a broader assault on a country that would require a NATO response under Article Five of the Treaty... A final strategy is expected in October 2015." In another report, the journalist reported that "as part of the hardened stance, the UK has committed £750,000 of its money to support a counter-propaganda unit at NATO's headquarters in Brussels."

Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states' territories in Europe and North America, and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would.

On 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, which includes troops from 42 countries. The decision came at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two states leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked the first time in NATO's history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area.

Three official footnotes are have been released to reflect the changes made since the treaty was written:

The definition of the territories to which Article 5 applies was revised by Article 2 of the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the accession of Greece and Turkey signed on 22 October 1951.

Regarding Article 6:

On 16 January 1963, the North Atlantic Council noted that insofar as the former Algerian Departments of France were concerned, the relevant clauses of this Treaty had become inapplicable as from 3 July 1962.

Regarding Article 11:

The Treaty came into force on 24 August 1949, after the deposition of the ratifications of all signatory states.

1. ^ "Theodore Achilles Oral History Interview". Truman Library.

2. ^ Cha, Victor (Winter 2009-2010). "Powerplay: Origins of U.S. Alliances in Asia". International Security. 34 (3): 158-196.

3. ^ Mabon, David W. (May 1988). "Elusive Agreements: The Pacific Pact Proposals of 1949-1951". Pacific Historical Review. 57 (2): 147-178.

4. ^ https://www.loc.gov/law/help/us-treaties/bevans/m-ust000004-0828.pdf

5. ^ Bevans, Charles Irving (1968). "North Atlantic Treaty". Treaties and other international agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949. Volume 4, Multilateral 1946-1949. Washington, D.C.: Department of State. p. 831. LCCN 70600742. OCLC 6940.

6. ^ "NATO Declassified - Treaty Signatories". NATO.

7. ^ telegraph.co.uk: "Turkey calls for emergency Nato meeting to discuss Isil and PKK", 26 Jul 2015

8. ^ "The consultation process and Article 4". NATO.int. 4 March 2014. Since the Alliance's creation in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked several times.... On two occasions in 2012, Turkey requested that the North Atlantic Council (NAC) convene under Article 4: once on 22 June after one of its fighter jets was shot down by Syrian air defence forces and the second time on 3 October when five Turkish civilians were killed by Syrian shells.... Previously, on 10 February 2003, Turkey formally invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, asking for consultations in the NAC on defensive assistance from NATO in the event of a threat to its population or territory resulting from armed conflict in neighbouring Iraq.

9. ^ "UNSC, EU, NATO to hold urgent meetings over Ukraine". 1 March 2014. Meanwhile, Lithuania and Latvia called upon the North Atlantic Council, the decision-making body of NATO, to hold an extraordinary session on Ukraine, citing security concerns., Turkishpress.com

10. ^ Ford, Matt (1 March 2014). "Russia's Seizure of Crimea Is Making Former Soviet States Nervous". The Atlantic. Linas Linkevicius, Lithuania's foreign minister, responded on Saturday by invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty ... for only the fourth time in the alliance's history.

11. ^ Baker, Peter (3 March 2014). "Top Russians Face Sanctions by U.S. for Crimea Crisis". The New York Times. NATO called its second emergency meeting on Ukraine in response to a request from Poland under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty relating to threats to a member state's security and independence.

12. ^ Ford, Dana (27 July 2015). "Turkey calls for rare NATO talks after attacks along Syrian border". CNN.

13. ^ nytimes.com: "Turkey and U.S. Plan to Create Syria 'Safe Zone' Free of ISIS", 27 Jul 2015

14. ^ NATO: Key Events (timeline), 2001: "Large-scale terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C.-NATO invokes Article 5 for the first time ever and adopts a broader approach to security" (See also: Public statement of casus foederis)

15. ^ Daley, Suzanne (13 September 2001). "AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE ALLIANCE; For First Time, NATO Invokes Joint Defense Pact With U.S." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

16. ^ "NATO Update: Invocation of Article 5 confirmed - 2 October 2001". Nato.int.

17. ^ "NATO's Operations 1949-Present" (PDF). NATO. 22 January 2010.

18. ^ "Turkey: Syria's jet downing an attack on the whole of NATO". TodaysZaman. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015.

19. ^ "Ankara Bar Association challenges YouTube ban". TodaysZaman. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015.

20. ^ "Turkish journalist detained over leak of key Syria meeting". TodaysZaman. 29 March 2014. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015.

21. ^ NATO. "NATO - Event: Meetings of NATO Ministers of Defence, 24-Jun.-2015". NATO.

22. ^ Hall, John (8 August 1965). "Hawaii Lacks NATO Coverage if Attacked". Chicago Tribune. UPI. p. 4 - via Newspapers.com .

23. David P. Auerswald, and Stephen M. Saideman, eds. ^ NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (Princeton U.P., 2014)

Watry, David M. Diplomacy at the Brink: Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden in the Cold War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014.

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The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C.

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