For more than forty years, the confrontation between the capitalist West and the communist East lasted. Entire generations have grown up in a phenomenon called the Cold War. Imbued with its meanings and cliches, once and for all defining a clear world enemy for themselves. And they raised their children in the same ideological paradigm. Now, after a little over twenty years, it has turned out that the thinking embedded in consciousness, in the subcortex has not disappeared anywhere: not on either side.
After World War II, the always implied confrontation between the countries of the capitalist West and the communist East developed naturally. The end of the war, with the moral superiority of the Soviet Union and new territorial boundaries in Europe, exacerbated ideological contradictions in the post-war world. The West considered it necessary to develop a system of checks and balances so that the communist - Stalinist - ideology could not find new allies in the world. In turn, the USSR, as a victorious country, could not help but be offended by the snobbish arrogance of the West.
"And let's quickly invent some other calendar so that now is not the twentieth century?"
Stanislav Jerzy Lec
One day in March
One day Winston Churchill went on vacation. The war had already ended six months ago, his party lost the elections, so he was no longer prime minister and calmly went into opposition. Having gone through several stressful years before, he finally allowed himself to rest and decided that it was best to go to a country that he loved almost as much as England and where, according to him, he would like to be born in his next life - in the USA. He went to the small town of Fulton, Missouri. The weather in Fulton in early March was rainy and windy. That did not stop the politician from communicating a little with young people, numbering just over 2,800 thousand, speaking on March 5, 1946 at the local Westminster College.
“I’m afraid I haven’t come to a final conclusion about the title of the speech, but I think it might be“World Peace”.
from Churchill letter to McClure, February 14, 194
The former prime minister, speaking exclusively on his own behalf, as a private person, and by no means on behalf of Great Britain, delivered a very beautiful speech, built according to all the criteria of oratory, where, among other things, the phrase "iron curtain" was sounded.
In short, the essence of his speech was that he openly said, as a self-evident fact, about the confrontation formed by the end of World War II between the former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition: the countries of the West and the Soviet Union.
His short and simple speech, in addition to a brief description of the world order that had developed by the end of the war, contained a prediction of the relationship between the countries of the West and the eastern camp for a long 40 years. In addition, it was in her that he planted the idea of organizing a Western military bloc, later called NATO, and endowed the United States with a special mission as a traffic controller and world restorer of the status quo.
For the sake of fairness, it must be said that before Mr. Churchill, many politicians raised the topic of the confrontation between the West and the communist East that had gained strength and power. Churchill excellently formulated and voiced what had been prepared and spoken for many years before March 5, 1946.
“Power passes from hand to hand more often than from head to head,” - Stanislav Jerzy Lec.
And then there was the life of countries and people - entire generations - who lived in this confrontation for more than forty years. A confrontation reminiscent of the state of a woman in menopause: with ebb and flow, with nervous irrational seizures and apathetic confusion.
Main steps
1946-1953 - Stalin refused to withdraw Soviet troops from Iran, which allowed Winston Churchill to deliver the speech that was long expected of him - codenamed "Muscles of the World" or "Iron Curtain". A year later, US President Harry Truman announced the provision of military and economic assistance to Greece and Turkey. At the same time, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, at the insistence of Stalin, refused to participate in the Marshall plan, i.e. from the economic aid provided by the United States to countries affected by the war, but in exchange for the exclusion of the communists from the government. Despite the complete collapse of the economy, the USSR was rapidly developing its military-industrial complex, and by the beginning of the 50s it managed to achieve some superiority in aircraft construction: military aviation began to use jet fighter-interceptors, which for some time changed the situation of confrontation in favor of the USSR. The most acute period between the two warring parties fell on the years of the Korean War.
1953 - 1962 - on the one hand, the escalation of armed confrontation and the threat of a nuclear war, the anti-communist uprising in Hungary, the anti-Soviet events in Poland and the GDR, the Suez crisis, on the other hand, the Khrushchev thaw somewhat weakened, if not military, then moral confrontation between the warring parties, which helped in solving one of the most explosive situations of those years - the Cuban missile crisis. A personal telephone conversation between Khrushchev and Kennedy contributed to the successful resolution of the conflict and, subsequently, allowed the signing of a number of agreements on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
“In the land of the Lilliputians, it is allowed to look at the head of state only through a magnifying glass,” - Stanislav Jerzy Lec.
1962-1979 - on the one hand, a new round of the arms race, exhausting for both sides, contributed to the development of new technologies, on the other hand, it undermined the economies of rival countries. By the end of the 70s, despite the obvious successes in the space industry, it became obvious that the USSR, with a commitment to a planned economy, was losing to the market system: in terms of modern equipment and the combat capability of the army.
1979 - 1987 - The entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan exacerbated the permanent conflict. NATO countries have established military bases in close proximity to the borders of the Warsaw Pact countries, the United States has deployed ballistic missiles in Europe and England.
1987 - 1991 - the period of stagnation in the Soviet Union was replaced by Perestroika. Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power, made radical changes both in his country and in foreign policy. At the same time, the spontaneous economic reforms introduced by him contributed to the early collapse of the USSR, since by the middle of his reign the economy was completely destroyed.
“When the people do not have a voice, you can feel it even when singing the anthem,” - Stanislav Jerzy Lec.
November 9, 1989 - the date of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It did not take long to wait for the final: German reunification in 1990 marked the victory of the West in a long-term confrontation. On December 26, 1991, the USSR ceased to exist.
The USSR was defeated on all fronts: economic, ideological, political. This was facilitated by ideological and socio-cultural stagnation, economic decline and scientific and technological degradation.
