Category Archives: Cold War

Death of Stalin

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Joseph Stalin died 5 March 1953, aged 73, a victim of his own power. So frightened were his staff, that having suffered a stroke he was left to fester for hours before anyone plucked up the courage to check on him.

“I don’t even trust myself.”

In his latter years Stalin’s health had deteriorated and towards the end of 1952 he suffered several blackouts and losses of memory. His sense of paranoia had reached absurd proportions. “I’m finished”, he said in his final days, “I don’t even trust myself.”

Stalin was almost nocturnal, often going to bed in the early hours, obliging his Politburo colleagues to do likewise, and rising around noon. But on 1 March 1953, there was no sign of life all day at the great man’s dacha. His personal staff although increasingly concerned were too fearful to check up on him. Finally, at 11 p.m. they did.

They found Stalin lying on the floor, unconscious and his pyjama bottoms soaked in urine. They rang Lavrentii Beria, Stalin’s Chief of Police, who arrived and bellowed at the staff, “Can’t you see Comrade Stalin is deeply asleep. Get out of here and don’t wake him up.”

But Stalin had suffered a severe stroke. Finally, next morning, on Beria’s orders, a team of doctors arrived, but by then Stalin had been left unattended for twelve hours since the stroke.

“Extremely serious.”

Stalin had become distrusting of doctors and had had most of his personal physicians arrested. So the doctors now on the scene examined their patient in extreme nervousness. They asked Beria’s permission before proceeding with each part of the examination, even asking authorization to unbutton Stalin’s shirt. They wrote a detailed report, summarising, “The patient’s condition is extremely serious.”

Cold compresses were applied, leeches placed behind the ears, various injections made, and medical staff placed on constant watch. Stalin’s colleagues also stayed: Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov and others, pacing the anterooms worried whether their boss would ever wake up and probably more worried that he should wake up and their actions would have to be accounted for.

Stalin’s son, Vasili, appeared briefly, screaming at Beria and the others, “You bastards, you’re killing my father.”

By 5 March, Stalin’s condition had worsened. His breathing had become erratic, his pulse and heartbeat weak, his complexion extremely pale.

The last moments

Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, described in almost religious terms, the last moments: “He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death… Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened. … He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. … The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.”

Despite injections of adrenalin and the application of artificial respiration, at 21.50 Stalin was declared dead.

Everyone present knelt down and kissed the old man’s hand.

The beaming Chief of Secret Police

Beria could not hide his glee and, having made sure the old man was really dead, spat on the body and bounced out of the dacha “beaming”, according to Khrushchev. Stalin had not named or recommended a successor and Beria felt this was his moment. The fight to succeed Stalin had begun.

Rupert Colley
Read about the Cold War, see The Cold War In An Hour

Mikhail Gorbachev

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Born 2 March 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union. Rupert Colley offers a summary of Gorbachev’s role in ending the Cold War.

The Youngest First Secretary

Gorbachev was an up and coming star in the Communist Party and, following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, became a protégé of the new Party leader, Yuri Andropov. But on Andropov’s death in February 1984, the post of First Secretary fell, not to Gorbachev, but to the ageing Konstantin Chernenko. However, Gorbachev spread his influence further so when Chernenko died after only thirteen months as leader, the post finally fell to him. Aged 54, Gorbachev was the youngest First Secretary in Soviet history, and the first to be born after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

His youth and progressive ideas alarmed the Communist hardliners, whose fears were confirmed when Gorbachev ushered in a reformist programme, and introduced into the political lexicon the wordsperestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness). The Soviet’s system inept handling of the Chernobyl crisis highlighted the need for reform.

“I like Mr Gorbachev”

The international community welcomed the appointment of a man who seemed open and not ruled by cloak and dagger diplomacy and mistrust. Margaret Thatcher said of him, “I like Mr Gorbachev, we can do business together.”

Immediately on coming to power Gorbachev was proposing a reduction in the number of nuclear arms held between the superpowers. In November 1985 Gorbachev met US president, Ronald Reagan, for the first time. Reagan, who had referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, was also impressed by the new man in the Kremlin.

In January 1986 Gorbachev made what is known as his ‘January Proposal’ by proposing a radical strategy for removing all nuclear weapons by 2000. Another meeting with Reagan in October 1986 brought this deadline forward to 1996.

Through their several meetings Reagan and Gorbachev helped ease international tension. Despite their ideological and cultural differences, the two men build a rapport that was to have a real and lasting effect on the ending of the Cold War.

“We can’t go on living like this”

“We can’t go on living like this,” was Gorbachev’s considered summary of life in 1980s Soviet Union. The economy lagged behind that of the West, the people lived in poverty and without hope. The cost of being a superpower was crippling – the commitment to conventional and nuclear arms, the funding of communist regimes elsewhere in the world, and the costly and unpopular war in Afghanistan were all taking its toll on the economy and the everyday lives of the Soviet citizen.

Initially, Gorbachev increased spending on Afghanistan, hoping that a deeper commitment would bring about a decisive outcome and shorten the war. Although Soviet troops did benefit in the short term by penetrating deeper into the Mujahedeen heartlands, they were unable to sustain the initiative and would subsequently lose the ground they fought so hard to win.

Referring to Afghanistan as a “bleeding wound”, Gorbachev admitted defeat and in 1988 announced the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from a conflict that had become their ‘Vietnam’. A year later, in February 1989, the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan.

At home Gorbachev toured the country, met its workers and, as no Soviet leader had done before, listened.

An “instrument of foreign policy”

On the eve of 1989 Gorbachev delivered a speech to the UN that acted as the starting pistol for the tumultuous change in Eastern Europe. He talked of nations having the right to a freedom of choice: “the threat of force cannot be and should not be an instrument of foreign policy.” As a backup to his words, he promised the withdrawal of troops from the Soviet satellites.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Eastern Bloc, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (unwilling and resentful Soviet satellites since Stalin’s annexation at the start of the Second World War) all declared themselves independent. But Gorbachev, not wanting to see the break-up of the union, resisted.

In Russia demonstrations in Moscow called for the end of one-party rule. In June 1990 Boris Yeltsin, recently elected Mayor of Moscow, was also elected president of the Russian Federation, stating that Russian legality took precedence over the Soviet Union’s. Yeltsin was determined to finish off the Communist Party, and with it the Soviet Union.

On August 19, 1991, the remaining communist hardliners within the Kremlin decided that Gorbachev was no longer the man to lead the Communist Party. Gorbachev, on holiday on the Black Sea, was declared too ill to perform his duties and placed under house arrest. The hardliners imposed emergency rule but lacked the support to succeed in their coup.

On December 8, 1991, Yeltsin, on behalf of Russia and with other former Soviet republics, formed the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CIS. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had ceased to exist. On Christmas Day the hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time as Gorbachev delivered his farewell speech: “The threat of a world war is no more.”

Rupert Colley
Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour and The Afghan Wars In An Hour 

Ronald Reagan and The Cold War: a summary

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Ronald Reagan was born 100 years ago on February 6th, 1911.

Reagan’s first career was as a successful b-movie actor, appearing in over twenty-five largely forgettable films during a period of 25 years up to 1964.

The Oldest President

In January 1981, a few days short of his seventieth birthday, Ronald Reagan became the fortieth and oldest president in America’s history. No believer in detente, which he considered a mere continuation of the status quo, Reagan immediately went on the offensive, increasing military spending, and calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”

The ash-heap of history

In 1983 Reagan predicted “Communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written,” and that the ” forward march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history.” He considered negotiations with the Russians a sign of feebleness, and criticized the lack of free elections in Eastern Europe: “Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.” Reagan initiated a defensive anti-missile system in space, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or, as nicknamed, ‘Star Wars’).

The ‘Reagan Doctrine’

Unlike his predecessors, containment of communism wasn’t enough for Reagan – he wanted to destroy it wherever possible. The ‘Reagan Doctrine’ provided support for anti-communist fighters in an attempt to “roll back” Communism throughout the world.

In 1979 the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and became embroiled in a ‘Soviet Vietnam’. Reagan provided the Mujahedeen, fighting the Soviets, cash, arms and training.

Reagan and Gorbachev

Following the deaths of three aging Soviet leaders in quick succession (Brezhnev in 1982, Andropov in 1984 and Chernenko in 1985), Reagan quipped how could he meet with the Russians if “they keep dying on me?” But with the appointment in March 1985 of 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan saw the possibility of a rapprochement with the Soviet Union.

As Gorbachev introduced domestic reform and greater openness, Reagan’s bullish stance softened. He began to see the Cold War in terms of the ordinary citizen, ‘the Ivan and Anya and the Jim and Sally’ who, through their ordinary lives, had more in common within their domestic lives than to worry about their respective governments and their differing ideologies.

Reagan and Gorbachev first met in Geneva in 1985 and over the next three years, despite their ideological differences, the two men found a diplomatic and personal meeting of the minds.

Visiting Berlin in June 1987 Reagan delivered a speech at the Berlin Wall in which he urged the Soviet leader, “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

He met several times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and a new period of understanding and greater understanding was entered, which led, ultimately, to the ending of the Cold War.

Reagan died on June 5, 2004, aged 93.

Rupert Colley.

Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour.
and The Afghan Wars In An Hour

The Kitchen Debate: Cold War: Hot Kitchen

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The Cold War and its ongoing ideological, political, cultural battle was, 51 years ago, encapsulated by two men, both seemingly polite, arguing in a showroom kitchen in what has become known as the kitchen debate.

The two men were Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet Premier, and Richard Nixon, the US Vice President. The occasion, on July 24, 1959, was the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park in Moscow, part of a cultural exchange between the two superpowers. Although in Moscow, this was an American exhibition and Nixon, for the benefit of Khrushchev, its proud host.

Communism v. Capitalism

At times polite, at times restrained, mocking, jibing, or heated, the two men debated the relative merits of Communism and Capitalism, from nuclear weapons to washing machines, over several hours across many venues. At one point Nixon makes his point by jabbing his finger into Khrushchev’s chest whilst the Soviet leader listens, his bottom lip jutting out in anger.

But it was the image of Nixon and Khrushchev leaning on the railing in front of the model General Electric kitchen, surrounded by interpreters and reporters that captured the moment. The Cold War in a make-believe kitchen. Standing behind Nixon, looking somewhat distracted, is future Soviet premier and Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev.

The make-believe kitchen

The kitchen was part of a showroom house which, according to Nixon, almost any worker in America could afford. “We have such things,” said Khrushchev, adding that they had much the same for the Russian worker, but better built.

Nixon boasted of the processes and appliances available to the modern American housewife, “In America, we like to make life easier for women”. Khrushchev shot back, “Your capitalistic attitude toward women does not occur under Communism.”

Khrushchev, exasperated and perhaps intimidated by the display of modernity, asked, “Don’t you have a machine that puts food into the mouth and pushes it down? Many things you’ve shown us are interesting but they are not needed in life. They have no useful purpose. They are merely gadgets.”

“We will wave to you.”

In one notable exchange Khrushchev asks Nixon how long America had been in existence, “Three hundred years?” he asks, making the mistake to emphasis a point.150 years, Nixon corrects him.

Khrushchev’s answer captured the essence of the Soviet Union’s paranoia and jealousy of the USA: “One hundred and fifty years? Well then we will say America has been in existence for 150 years and this is the level she has reached. We have existed not quite 42 years and in another seven years we will be on the same level as America. When we catch you up, in passing you by, we will wave to you.”

Of course it didn’t quite work out that way.

Rupert Colley
See also Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour

Richard Nixon

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Born to Quaker parents in California on 9 January 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon practised as a lawyer and served in the US Navy during World War Two. As a Republican Congressman, Nixon showed great zealous and deep patriotism in unmasking ‘Un-American activities’ during the 1950s McCarthy era of communist witchhunts. He made his name in his rigorous prosecution of Alger Hiss, a high-ranking State Department official accused of passing information to the Soviets.

The Vice-President

Nixon was elected to the Senate in 1950, aged 36, and from 1953 to 1961 Nixon served as Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice-President. But allegations of financial irregularity almost finished his career and Nixon had to defend himself on television – at the time a revolutionary use of this new medium. He survived and, in 1960, stood for President. The campaign saw the first televised US presidential debate between Nixon and his Democrat rival, John F Kennedy. Those that listened on the radio put Nixon ahead but for most, who saw the four debates on television, decided less by what was said, and more by what they saw – a smooth, confident Kennedy versus an underweight, sweaty Nixon with a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow. In the end, Kennedy narrowly won, winning the popular vote 49.7 percent to Nixon’s 49.5 percent.

The President

Failure two years later in his bid for Governor of California marked the low-ebb of Nixon’s pre-presidential career. However, in November 1968, Nixon re-emerged and stood again for president, promising to “bring us together”, and pledging the gradual withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. This time he was successful and, true to his promise, gradually handed back the organisation of the day-to-day military operations to the South Vietnamese in what he called a policy of ‘Vietnamization’. Following the Paris Accords of January 1973, the last American soldiers left Vietnam by March.

Détente

Nixon advanced the Cold War period of détente, an acknowledgement of the differences between the East and the West and an attempt to make the world a more secure place. He exchanged visits with both China and the Soviet Union and oversaw the SALT agreements (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks).

Watergate

Nixon won a landslide election in 1972 with 61% of the popular vote. But the Nixon era came to a premature end when a bungled burglary on the Democratic Party’s HQ in Washington DC started a trail that led right to the White House and heart of government. Nixon’s attempt to cover-up his involvement only led to his downfall. His claim that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” did not wash. Public opinion put legality above state brinkmanship and in August 1974 Nixon resigned, the only president in American history to do so.

“A nation I so deeply love.”

His successor, Gerald Ford, unconditionally pardoned the disgraced ex-president. In reply, Nixon said, ”No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish of my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and presidency, a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.”

He died, aged 81, on 22 April 1994.

Rupert Colley.
See also Nixon and Khrushchev and the Kitchen Debate, and Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Read more about Nixon and his involvement in the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour

Reds Under the Beds: Joseph McCarthy and the Cold War

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Aggressive, intimidating, and unfazed by the truth, Joe McCarthy single-handedly whipped 1950s USA into a frenzy of anti-communist fear and paranoia.

It was near the beginning of the Cold War: the Soviet Union had surged ahead of America in the arms race, Chairman Mao had not long come to power in China, and Americans everywhere feared the presence of ‘Reds Under the Beds’ within their own communities. In stepped Joseph McCarthy to shock the nation with a sensational announcement that confirmed their worst fears.

McCarthy exposes the Reds

It was the evening of February 9, 1950, at a Republican Women’s Club meeting in West Virginia, when 41-year-old McCarthy declared that he had in his hand a list of 205 names of State Department employees known to be members of the American Communist Party. (A month later, McCarthy had reduced the figure to fifty-seven.)

These informants, said McCarthy, were passing on information to the Soviet Union: “The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because the enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer.”

And so began the era of the Communist witch-hunts. The eruption of the Korean War four months later with the Communist North invading the democratic South Korea, merely confirmed the aggressiveness of global communism.

McCarthy’s rise

A Republican, Joseph McCarthy slandered his opponents on his way up the political pole, accusing them in turn of senility, financial irregularity, draft-dodging, and war profiteering. But when his own political career came under threat with claims that he had lied about his role during the war, McCarthy played on American’s fear of Communism, and overnight became the most talked about politician in America.

Red Hollywood

Hollywood, already under suspicion, became the target of McCarthy’s intense scrutiny. From the struggling novice to the stars, actors were interrogated. Those who confessed could wipe the slate clean by repenting and providing names of others. One screenwriter named 162 Hollywood actors, writers or directors who were Communist, ex-Commie, or sympathetic to the socialist cause. Many were purged, not to work again for years. Others fled abroad rather than face their turn in the McCarthy spotlight.

The studios, desperate to claw back the trust of the American people, turned out a series of propagandist films, I Married a Communist, or I Was A communist for the FBI (which won the 1951 Oscar for Best Documentary).

Next in McCarthy’s glare came the universities, the “Reducators” of the impressionable American youth. Libraries were targeted and 30,000 anti-American titles banned from the shelves.

Joe and Ilk

Republican President candidate, Dwight Eisenhower, disliked McCarthy but needed his support to win the 1952 election. McCarthy had the gall to accuse George C. Marshall, originator of the post-Second World War Marshall Plan, of having communist leanings and being “part of a conspiracy so immense, an infamy so black, as to dwarf any in the history of man.” Eisenhower planned to defend Marshall but, concerned at losing McCarthy’s support at such a vital time, failed to do so.

Once in power Eisenhower still felt reluctant to pull in the increasing excesses of McCarthyism, which by now were targeting members of Eisenhower’s administration. “Attacking him,” said one purged victim, “is regarded as a certain method of committing suicide.”

In 1953 a young New York couple, the Rosenbergs, were executed for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. The case intensified still further the paranoia of mid-50s America. McCarthyism was rampant.

McCarthy takes on the US Army

In 1954 McCarthy decided to take on the US Army, right up to the Secretary of the Army, Robert Stevens. The army, according to McCarthy, was full of “dangerous spies”. The Republican Party tried to stop their renegade senator but too late – the subsequent investigations based on McCarthy’s allegations were televised throughout a 36-day hearing.

The nation watched aghast as McCarthy shouted, heckled and bullied his way through the hearing, with little regard for etiquette or procedure and failing to back up his wild claims with any substantial evidence.

Fall from grace

This time he had gone too far. The media, for so long in awe of McCarthy, attacked him for his “degrading travesty of the democratic process”. The Republican Party finally brought his misadventures to an end and in December 1954 stripped him of office, asking of McCarthy on live television: “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

McCarthy faded into obscurity. “McCarthyism,” said Eisenhower, “was now “McCarthywasm.”

Already an alcoholic, McCarthy drank himself into hospital and on May 2, 1957, aged only 48, died of an inflammation of the liver.

Rupert Colley
To learn more about the Cold War, see the History In An Hour ebook The Cold War In An Hour

The Marshall Plan – a summary

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George C. Marshall, the originator of the post-Second World War Marshall Plan, was born today, 31st  December, in 1880. US President, Harry S. Truman, once referred to Marshall as ”the greatest living American”, and in January 1947 appointed him as his Secretary of State where Marshall formulated his plan, the European Recovery Programme (ERP).

More commonly known as the Marshall Plan, the ERP aimed to revive Europe’s post-war economies, to alleviate the hardship, and to deprive communism its foothold in Europe just as the Cold War began taking shape. Once these economies were stabilized, America too would benefit as trade between Europe and America increased.

The offer was extended to the countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet Union had received huge loans from America during the war to help defeat Germany and now, during the immediate post-war years, further aid would have been hugely beneficial to a country still suffering economically from the consequences of its war effort.

But Stalin was never going to allow American / capitalist interference with the Soviet economy, and nor would he permit his satellites. However, Czechoslovakia and Poland saw the obvious benefits of American aid, and both accepted invitations to attend a conference, set for July 1947, to discuss the Marshall Plan. Furious, Stalin forbade them to go. Meekly, representatives of the Czechoslovakian and Polish governments traipsed to Moscow to face their dressing-down from Stalin, and returned home to politely decline the invitation to Paris.

In April 1948, Italy went to the polls. American Congress was worried: “If Italy goes red, Communism cannot be stopped in Europe,” and threatened to prohibit Italy from receiving Marshall Aid if the Communists won. They did not. The Marshall Plan, therefore, had the effect of reaffirming Churchill’s concept of the Iron Curtain by forcing countries to decide whether their loyalties lay to the west or east. Loyalties that would endure throughout the Cold War.

Sixteen countries finally accepted aid, which by 1951, had amounted to $13 billion.

Marshall was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his contribution to the recovery of Europe after the Second World War. He died in on October 16th, 1959.

Rupert Colley.
See also The Marshall Plan and the Cold War
Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour

Solidarity – the last nails in the coffin of communism

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A wonderful country Poland. Only a couple hours from London by plane. But it wasn’t always the case.When I was a sixth former in England during the early eighties and the era of the Cold War, Poland might as well have been on the other side of the world for all we knew about it. Apart from the occasional England v Poland football match, Poland could have been North Korea.

In September 1980, the workers formed Solidarity – the first trade union, of sorts, within the Eastern Bloc. When Lech Walesa, Solidarity’s leader, signed the charter, he did so with a large pen bearing the image of Pope John Paul II, the Polish pope, and such a figure of inspiration for the Poles living under communism. But at the time my friends and I were more interested that The Police had got to number one (‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’).I visited Gdansk, home of Solidarity, in 2005 and my souvenir mug is a treasured possession.

But on 13 December 1981, the Polish government, fearful of Solidarity’s increasing influence, clamped down on its people, proclaimed martial law, imposed curfews and sent in the tanks. Solidarity was banned, its leaders, including Lech Walesa, arrested. When they came for him, Walesa said: “This is the moment of your defeat. These are the last nails in the coffin of communism.”

I remember watching on TV at home: the tanks on the street, the scattering crowds, the frightened faces. Although 17, I could not understand what it all meant. My mother tried to explain, tried to tell me about “freedom” – this thing that I had and had no idea I had it.

I know now but I still don’t really appreciate it. No one can unless they’ve experienced the opposite. It’s similar to trying to explain the full meaning of hunger. We know we’re lucky; we just can’t fathom how lucky.

Rupert Colley
Read more about the Cold War in The Cold War In An Hour