Transcript From World War I through the Cold War

From World War I
through
the Cold War
What is a cold war?
 An intense, prolonged political confrontation between
countries, involving all spheres of relations (a war)
 But without a direct armed clash (cold) – though it may
escalate into a “hot” war
 The Cold War





1946-1991
East-West
Communism – capitalism
Soviet Union – United States
Minor cold wars (examples):





US-Iran: 1979-…
US-Iraq: 1991-2003
US-North Korea: 1953-…
India-Pakistan: 1960s-2000s
Soviet Union-China: 1960s-1980s
The historical context
 the Cold War was the third period of the era of
global warfare which started in 1914
 The summer of 1914 marked a watershed in world
history:
 For the first time ever, a world war began
 Since 1914, we’ve lived through 4 world wars
 And, they are connected with each other – like links
of a chain
 Historian Eric Hobsbawm: 4 stages of one world
war, which has already gone on for 90 years, and
there’s no end in sight yet

What made world wars possible:
1. An integrated world – globalization
 2. Struggle for power within countries acquires
international dimensions
 3. Availability of economic resources
 4. Development of military technologies
 5. The culture of war
 New rationalizations of war
 The idea of total war

World War I: 1914-1918
Resulted from:
-Rivalries between states (Germany-Britain, FranceGermany, Russia-Austria, Russia-Turkey, etc.)
-Social tensions within states
-Nationalist struggles against empires
The war for power and influence inside the global capitalist
system
 Expected to be brief
 The reality: a bloody 4-year stalemate
 Ended by revolutions in Russia (1917) and Germany (1918)
 15 mln. deaths, incl. 9 mln. combat
 The flu pandemic of 1918-1919: 20-40 mln. deaths: a direct
environmental effect of “the Great War”
EUROPE, 1914
Australian
World War I
poster
WWI: British soldiers blinded by poison gas
Russian soldiers pledge allegiance to the Tsar: World War I
The Russian Revolution, 1917
WWI triggered off a global crisis of capitalism and a search for
alternatives to world war
Radical alternative (Russia)
 Created a base for world revolution – Soviet Russia (the
Soviet Union, USSR)
 Created new cultures of mass political violence:
communism and fascism

The Russian Civil War (1917-1922): 9 million deaths, of them
7 mln. civilians
Liberal alternative (USA)
 Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points ( a democratic peace),
creation of institutions of global governance (League of
Nations), first disarmament treaties
 Set the stage for WW2
Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Communist Revolution in Russia
Woodrow Wilson, US President in 1913-1920
The Russian Civil
War: Communist
poster urging
people to
volunteer for the
Red Army
World War 2: 1939-1945
 The crisis of capitalism
 The rise of the Left in Europe and Asia, fears of new
revolutions
 The Great Depression, 1929-1933
 Rise of fascism
 Renewal of imperialist rivalries: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,
the Japanese Empire challenge Britain, France, USA
 But also: the idea of destroying communism
 Hitler could have been stopped
 The Global Right confronting the Global Left and the Global
Centre
 50-80 mln. dead (36 mln. combat)
 Global capitalism was shattered even more than by WWI
 The stage is set for WW3
September 1, 1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland
German troops in occupied Poland, 1939
Fascist dictators: Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, June 1940
Japanese attack on US Navy at Pearl Harbor, Dec.7, 1941
Nazi
propaganda
poster: SS
forces kill the
Red beast of
communism
German soldiers celebrating success in “Lightning War” against Russia, 1942
German reign of terror in occupied Russia
Defenders of Moscow, October 1941
he turning point of WWII 1943: German army’s defeat at Stalingrad, Russia
German POWs, Russia, 1944
German POWs outside Moscow, 1944
The victorious Allies: British PM Churchill, US President Roosevelt
and Generalissimo Stalin at Yalta Conference, Russia, Feb.1945
The Red Army takes Berlin, May 1945
Buchenwald concentration camp, 1945: Survivors of Hitler’s “Final Solution”
World
War II
losses,
military
and
civilian
50-80 mln. dead (36 mln. in combat)
Global capitalism shattered even more than by WWI
The stage is set for WW III
The war took
all nine of her
sons
Alexander
Solzhenitsyn,
1953, upon
release from
prison camp

WW3 (the Cold War) – 1946-1991

The three dimensions of the war:
ideological (global capitalism challenged by the
Global Left)
 Geopolitical (competition between states)
 Military (wars and arms races)


In late 1940s, conflicts in the three areas
converged to produce a rapid shift from the peace
of 1945 to a 45-year-long period of confrontation
The ideological dimension:
global conflict between the two political-economic
systems, capitalism and communism
 The Three Worlds of the Cold War
 The capitalist West, the communist East, and the
Third World (now called the Global South)
 East-West conflict:


Will capitalism survive – or will be replaced by some
forms of socialism or communism?
In the Third World, massive struggles for national
independence from Western colonial domination

The Global Left consisted of:
Communist states (the Soviet Union, People’s
Republic of China, and others)
 Communist parties around the world, most of them
supported by the USSR (Italy and France having
the biggest)
 Moderate Left forces (social democrats, labour
movements, movements for democracy, etc.)
 Anti-colonial forces in the 3d world

Red dictators: Russia’s Stalin and China’s Mao, 1950
First American Cold
War President: Harry S.
Truman (in office from
1945 to1952)
George
Kennan,
American
diplomat,
architect of
the policy of
Containment
of
Communism
The US acted as the global force to save and rebuild
capitalism
To defeat the Global Left
Use of force
Cooptation
Rebuilding a global capitalist economy based on
US dominance
Ideological wars: liberal democracy vs. communist
dictatorship
Construct a world order
Alliances
International organizations
International law
The geopolitical dimension
The end of WWII saw
the rise of the two superpowers:
USA and USSR
A bipolar world – something unique in world history
Challenging each other
Containing each other
Trying to control other states to follow them
But also: cooperating with each other to keep their
power
Each needed the other as “The Other”
But both wanted to survive
The Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War division of Europe
The military dimension
The 2 giants never had a significant direct armed
conflict between them
They fought wars by proxy (Korea, Vietnam, Angola,
etc.)
But they prepared for total military confrontation
Nuclear arms
Conventional armies and navies
Military alliances – NATO, the Warsaw Pact
Spy wars
New structures of militarism
The military-industrial complex
The national security state
Several moments when the world was within a few
steps from nuclear war
Nuclear weapons: can you use them to win a war?
War-fighting vs. deterrence
The balance of terror
The nuclear stalemate
From an uncontrolled arms race to arms control and
disarmament
The era of arms control began in 1963 with the USSoviet-British treaty to ban all, except
underground, tests of nuclear weapons
A system of treaties was developed in the 1960s1990s to make nuclear war less likely
Losses in the Cold War (estimates):
 - Over 20 mln. died in local wars, mostly between
the Global Left and the West
 - Victims of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union
(1929-1953), Communist China (1950s-1970s),
other communist states :







60 mln. people died as a result of policies of forced
modernization and political repression
Total: 80 mln. lives
80% of the human losses were civilian
Massive waste of resources
Unprecedented growth of technologies of
destruction
The degradation of natural environment
Stymied democracy and economic development
Korea, 1950: US forces in battle with Communist troops
1960, the Cuban revolution: Fidel Castro challenges the US
1972,
Vietnam:
Communist
soldiers
1972: Vietnamese villagers massacred by American GIs
Sept.1973: General Augusto
Pinochet overthrows a socialist
government in Chile and
establishes a military dictatorship
Soviet helicopter gunships over Afghanistan, 1980
Afghan mujahid fighter against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 1980s