Cold War: A Dangerous Line

Every event that takes place in stories the state has both positive and negative consequences for people. Thus, the victory in the Great Patriotic War brought the USSR the glory of the country that defeated Nazism, liberated and saved millions of people, and as a result - the growth of power and increased influence throughout the world. But, besides this, the victory in World War II put the USSR in front of the need to participate in the Cold War, which was provoked and imposed on the Soviet state by the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.

Western provocations

So, in 1949, after the creation of the NATO bloc, the main goal of which was to oppose the USSR, it became obvious that the Cold War declared by Churchill was serious and for a long time, that the USSR would not be able to evade this confrontation and survive, preserving its gains. In the same 1949, Western countries demonstrated their aggressive attitude towards the USSR and its interests, creating the Federal Republic of Germany from three zones of occupation: American, British and French.

The provocative moment was that the leadership of the FRG considered itself the only representative of the German people, declared its desire to unite the entire German people under its leadership. Contacts with the Soviet zone of occupation were not established, the later created German Democratic Republic was not considered an independent state. This position of Western countries provoked the "First Berlin Crisis".

Former allies demonstrated a similar approach to the interests of the USSR, to building relations with Moscow, not only in Europe. In the Middle East, in particular, in 1949, the British and Americans managed to seize the initiative (through money and promises) in overseeing the young Jewish state, in the creation of which the USSR also took part. Many opinions and positions on this issue were not heard and taken into account. The Western countries have taken clearly not the best decision to resolve the situation in the region. The consequences of this one-sided decision are still being felt.

The confrontation between capitalist and communist ideologies in the Far East turned out to be much more bloody. There, in 1950-1953, a war broke out between North Korea, supported by the USSR and China, and South Korea, supported by the United States. The aggregate losses of China and the United States were approximately equal: 50-60 thousand people. Soviet - several times less, about 300 people killed. The losses of the Korean people are still difficult to calculate, but they are enormous. The consequences of this confrontation between the two systems also affect the region until now.

It is not surprising that in this situation the USSR took all possible measures to protect its interests, within the framework of which was the development of modern types of weapons (nuclear, thermonuclear), and the formation of organizations in which the allied countries of the USSR were gathered. In particular, in 1949 the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was created. The priority area of ​​the CMEA activity was the development of economic, scientific and technical cooperation between the member countries. The organization began to operate in full force only in the 60s.

In 1955, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia signed the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Thus, the Warsaw Pact Organization (OVD) was formed. The ATS has become a force opposing NATO in Europe. Naturally, the West was not happy with this state of affairs. And they took the first opportunity to try to split the OVD.

Organized fermentation

In particular, after the death of I.V. Stalin in 1953 and the initiatives of N.S. Khrushchev, fermentation began in the ranks of the international communist movement to debunk the personality cult. Numerous provocateurs were quick to take advantage of this fermentation. As a result, they managed to organize anti-government and anti-Soviet demonstrations in Hungary in October-November 1956, which were suppressed.

It should be noted that the space race began during this period. It was space exploration that became the sphere in which the USSR became the undisputed leader. The flight of the first man into space was carried out by the USSR. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was recognized and respected throughout the world. Space successes incredibly raised the country's authority.

But on the whole, the international situation continued to heat up. The Cold War at any moment could develop into an open military confrontation between the two blocs. But this did not stop the United States. They continued their provocations. Within the framework of these provocations, there was a flight of a reconnaissance aircraft in 1960 over the territory of the USSR. The plane was shot down by Soviet troops, and the pilot, Francis Powers, was captured.

But the closest thing to the line beyond which an open military confrontation begins, the USSR and the United States came in 1962. It's about the so-called Cuban missile crisis. The United States went to the next provocation. It consisted in the installation of missiles with a nuclear charge on the territory of Turkey (this endangered the territory of the USSR). The Soviet authorities decided to respond symmetrically - by deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba. Thus, the world was on the brink of a nuclear war. Through negotiations, the USSR and the United States managed to play the situation back. The nuclear war did not start at that moment.

By the mid-60s, a new tendency in the international arena became completely obvious - the USSR and the United States aligned their forces, despite the fundamentally more advantageous position of the United States at the beginning of the confrontation. The USSR managed to restore the economy, not to lose allies, to show new achievements. It became obvious to Washington that the USSR could not be intimidated. In an extreme case, the Soviet leadership has something to answer militarily. It was the successes of the USSR that contributed to the transition of the Cold War to another plane.

But more on that next time ...

Comments

[NDR-791]

Article "gallop across Europe". Only on the basis of the information that the article can write a multi-volume. So the intrigue is in the sequel?

[Civil]

Author, will there be an article about the Cold War -2? This article would be more relevant.

[Vladimir_2U]

Quote: NDR-791

Article "galloping across Europe"

Yes, rather "at a gallop in ev ..." to be continued ... A stub of a preface of some sort.

[Overlock]

It was the successes of the USSR that contributed to the transition of the Cold War to another plane.

Which was not pulled by the economy of the USSR.

[Vladimir_2U]

Quote: Overlock

Which was not pulled by the economy of the USSR.

The country's leadership did not do it, either intellectually or morally, the economy here itself became a victim of weakness.

[Knell wardenheart]

In all fairness, the Cold War began in the 1920s, but it finally took shape after WW2. Just before the end of WW2, the Western world and the capitalist world in general were not even close, which, in general, was proved by the very fact of the survival of the Soviet state, as well as the fact that he was given the opportunity to buy enterprises / technologies / create a modern army with the participation of foreign production specialists and the fact that the country entered the League of Nations.
The cause of the Cold War as a whole is the unconformable policy of the USSR (from the point of view of the West), as well as its methods, which are sharply at odds with its rhetoric and the values ​​of Western democracies. The West was also not a beacon of negotiability, but the methodical violation of property rights, electivity and basic human rights by the USSR (until the 1950s) made the USSR, to put it mildly, a shitty partner for any government based on elected institutions and forced to take into account the opinion and sympathies of the free press, the middle class, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. And these people did not see anything good (for the most part) in the USSR, on the contrary, they saw how the communists take property, terrorize the functionaries of the old world, forcibly move people from their places of residence, break the established economy, and so on.

In 1920-1930, the West was firstly split into competing capitalisms with colonial zagashniki and the idea of ​​blindly making a profit without thinking about the consequences, on the other hand, many people there shared the point of view that the regime in the USSR was gradually evolving to a "type of capitalism" and the whole aggressive demagoguery will remain in a fiery revolutionary past - in the end, they themselves had revolutions and seething masses, so to speak. The formation of the NEP and the rejection of a number of odious Bolshevik practices in the 20s and 30s seemed to demonstrate the correctness of this point of view. But then we start to tighten the screws and Adolf Aloizovich appears in the West - and the evolutionary point of view on the USSR is replaced by distrust. The union of systems and the victory in BB2 showed the West that no, the USSR will not change evolutionarily, its formation is more stable than it was previously thought, moreover, its ideas pose a danger to colonial systems and the balance of power between cap. countries in European and international politics. Weakened by the war, the capitalists were forced to unite around the United States - the antagonism of the USSR was predetermined by its consistent foreign policy and not by some mythical Western Russophobia.