Cold War: causes, beginning, development, participants, result

The Cold War took a significant piece of history of the 20th century. Let's learn about this period in more detail

Content

Cold war is the confrontation that appeared in the second half of the 40s of the twentieth century. It arose not just between the two leading countries of the world-the USA and the Soviet Union, but spread to the military-political blocs they head. Fortunately, this confrontation was limited to the “cold” without going into the phase of open hostilities.

Causes of the Cold War

Historically, the Second World War became the point of counting the division of world space into two systems with different social devices. The USSR headed a bloc consisting of countries that formed a “socialist camp”, naturally trying to increase the number of those. Western countries, led by the United States, acted in the direction of “tugs” at their sphere of influence, which would strengthen their position in the world community.

Both the socialist and capitalist systems had the similarity in the fact that they sought to create an industrial society, growing industrially and consuming more and more resources. It was this total dispute for the possession of resources that became the basis of the confrontation.
At the same time, the strength of both blocks was approximately equal, moreover, the reality of the threat of the use of nuclear weapons, leading actually to the destruction of mankind, was aware of the whole world.
For these reasons, the confrontation of the two systems did not pass into the phase of direct hostilities, but became a “cold war”, which nevertheless provoked local armed conflicts and wars in individual countries.

How did the Cold War begin?

The growth of industry in the Soviet Union, which defeated not only Nazi Germany, but also devastating, caused by the Second World War, was an example for many European countries that also survived the war and needed restoration. This became the same guideline for the Asian and African countries, which at that time fought for their independence and also sought to raise the standard of living in them. The result of such an interest in the experience of the USSR was an increasing and quickly expansion of the sphere of its influence.

In March 1946, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the actions of the Soviet Union the world expansion, which threatens the territory of the so-called “free world” and turned to the leaders of the “Anglo-Saxon world” calling for this.
Churchill's performance actually laid the foundation for the Cold War. And her events of 1946-1947 were fixed, when the USSR appealed to Turkey with a demand to provide the possibility of placing his military base in the country. It was at this time that the so -called “doctrine of Truman” appeared, which consisted in the position of “restraining” the country of Soviets and the breakdown of relations.

The development of the Cold War

There were other prerequisites for confrontation, moreover, not only external, but also internal. A significant number of people in capitalist countries (Italy and France may be an example) welcomed the communist ideology, which contributed to the severity of post -war life in these countries.

The statement of US Secretary of State George Marshall Ghesilo that America will provide assistance to restore the economy, those European countries in which there will be no communists in the authorities, which was made by France and Italy, who signed the agreement in 1948, and called the Marshall plan, and Receiving help calculated by billions of dollars.
The countries of Eastern Europe, which made up the socialist camp and refused to participate in this regard, united next year into an organization called the CME (Council of Economic Mutual Assistance).
The split in Europe became even more obvious when in the same year several Western European countries, along with the USA and Canada, created NATO. In contrast to him, another military union of socialist countries was born - the organization of the Warsaw Treaty (1955).

The fate of the defeated in the Cold War

Germany was most difficult - it was here that the line that determines the boundaries was drawn: the east of the country - under the USSR, the West - under the influence of the Marshall plan. Inside this "boiler" West Berlin found himself.

Trying to subjugate this territory to its influence, the USSR organized a blockade, but the United States, through the "air bridge", brought it to naught. Later two Germany were formed: Germany, who was in the capitalist camp, and the GDR, which became part of the socialist. West Berlin remained self -governing autonomy, which was closer to Germany.

Such a confrontation between the two systems was accompanied by rapid weapons, and the main object was nuclear weapons, for the creation of which both military units began the creation of military-industrial complexes. Nuclear weapons, and then the atomic bomb - these means of mass destruction were not launched only because both sides were able to provide them in their arsenal, although both the USSR and the USA were carried out. Also almost simultaneously, both countries tested thermonuclear weapons.

The Far East was the arena of the struggle of the two superpowers, for which tips and America also opposed each other. A significant amount of valuable raw materials here and the large population played an important role in this. The first to be “between the hammer and the gravity” of China, in which the northeastern pro-communist part and the territory, subordinate to the Gomintan instead of elections, designed to determine who the people supported, agreed in the 1946-49 civil war. The victory in it was won by the Communists and their leader Mao Zedong.

A similar situation has developed in Korea, but here the division of the country into two systems lasts to this day, despite the full -scale war with a significant number of victims.

In the 50s of the last century, the Cold War also affected the inner life of the countries of the two camps. Repressions, low worship, titoism, witch hunt - all these are the terms of those times when people who had their own opinion, different from the official course of the country, were persecuted on both sides. Indicative processes over spies are also this time.

Thaw in the Cold War

After the death of Stalin in 1953, the tension began to subside. The new leadership of Khrushchev acted less radically. Korean and Vietnamese wars ceased, the Soviet Union established contacts based on equality with countries such as Germany and Yugoslavia. Troops from Austria were withdrawn.

The 1956th was marked by instability in some of the countries of the socialist camp and unrest in the Egyptian Suez Canal, where both countries behaved almost in the role of peacekeepers. And in 1959, the first visit to the United States Khrushchev took place.

The dispute for leadership moved to other technologies. Now, the design of the cosmic space was the scene of the struggle, and the fundamental victory of the socialist system was that it was the Soviet man who became the first cosmonaut in the history of mankind.

Crisis for the crisis

The US unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the communist leader of Cuba Fidel Castro, the Berlin crisis, which resulted in the famous Berlin Wall, a kind of symbol of the concept of “Cold War”. The Caribbean crisis began after installing Soviet missiles in Cuba. Such an escalation of the situation in the 60s after the first awareness of the inevitability and scale of the consequences of such conflicts led to the conclusion of the contract in 1963 that nuclear weapons should not be tested. But a few years later, the war broke out on the territory of Indochina, where the interests of the United States were affected, and in China, where the Soviet Union was drawn.

Again, the parties preferred to return to the policy of negotiations, not wars. This time is characterized by the term “discharge” when international agreements were signed on the restriction of the missile defense and strategic nuclear weapons. But, having made a reservation for the volume of weapons, the parties were silent about the rules for its placement. And it all started again: missiles of the average radius of action, modernized by the Soviet Union in Europe, Pershing and Tomagavka, established by NATO in Western Europe, the proposal of bilateral withdrawal of missiles from the American President Reagan and the rejection of the Secretary General of Brezhnev.

The introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan caused economic sanctions by the United States, and the deployment of American missiles in Europe is to terminate all kinds of negotiations from the USSR.

Protest moods of the 80s

The socialist system is weak. Strengthening the labor movement in Poland, growing dissatisfaction with the war in Afghanistan in the USSR, huge resource costs for creating the Buran space system in response to the idea of \u200b\u200bsoy (it is also called “star wars”) caused a real economic crisis in the country of Soviets. I had to distract from issues of foreign policy in order to focus on the state of affairs within the country.

Perestroika

The reforms of the mid-80s, when the country was headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, went down in history under the name "Perestroika", which implied the reform of all spheres of life, including foreign policy. Meetings with the American leader Ronald Reagan regarding the reduction of nuclear weapons in Europe at first were unsuccessful, since it was at that moment that the Soviet Union took the side of the last state in the US conflict and Libya. But a year later, the parties met again in Reikyavik, after which America gradually made concessions and abandoned soy, which, by and large, never existed.

The confrontation continued on the economic front. Under the pressure of the United States, the Saudi Arabia authorities significantly increased oil production, which led to a decrease in world prices for it. This blow plus a disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant hit the economic position of the USSR. And a year later, in 1987, all missiles were finally withdrawn from Europe.

Warming on all fronts

Following the disarmament, the turn of the human factor came. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan. The communist regime fell in the GDR, together with the Berlin Wall, abandoned the existing system in Poland. Excitements began in the republics of the Baltic. Most of the Eastern European states have already been oriented towards Western examples, and with a certain financial support of Western countries, former socialist formations still managed to move to a market economy.

Already in 1990, Soviet garrisons were withdrawn from the territories of all East European countries, and in the 91st the organization of the Warsaw Treaty and the CMEA broke up. By the end of the year, Belovezhsky agreements also confirmed the collapse of the USSR into independent states formed from the former Union republics.

Thus ended the era of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Cold War.