The post-war structure of the world, the cold war and its consequences. Methodical development of the lesson “Post-war structure of the world. Beginning of the Cold War Post-war world order

1. Changes in international relations in the post-war period. Beginning of the Cold War.

2. The formation of a socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. The beginning of the fall of the colonial system.

The Second World War led to serious changes in the balance of power in the international arena. After the defeat, Germany, Italy and Japan dropped out of the ranks of the great powers for a while and lost their colonies. France and even Great Britain were greatly weakened. But the United States of America emerged from the war strengthened. Far ahead of all other countries in the field of economics, they have become a gigantic "superpower" that has occupied the main place in the capitalist world.

The other superpower was the Soviet Union. Despite heavy losses, the victory of the USSR in the war, its huge economic potential, the presence of a powerful army, the formation of a bloc of people's democratic states under the leadership of the USSR, turned the Soviet Union into the greatest power in the world. The international prestige of the USSR increased significantly. Without his participation, not a single serious issue of world politics was now resolved. The confrontation between the "superpowers" of the USA and the USSR and, in connection with this, the formation of a "bipolar world" left a deep imprint on the entire post-war history.

After World War II, the unity of the victorious countries could not be maintained for long. The USSR, on the one hand, and the USA, Great Britain and France, on the other, represented different social systems. The Soviet Union is socialist, and its former allies are capitalist. Both sides sought to expand the territory in which their social orders were prevalent. The USSR sought to gain access to resources that were previously controlled by the capitalist countries. Pro-communist and pro-Soviet partisan movements unfolded in Greece, Iran, China, Vietnam and other countries. The US and its allies sought to maintain their dominance in Western Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The war-torn inhabitants of Europe and Asia were very interested in the experience of rapid industrial construction in the USSR, millions of people hoped that the replacement of the capitalist system, which was going through hard times, with a socialist one, could quickly overcome the devastation.

The difficult relationship between the former allies was called the "cold war". In general, this term refers to the state of military-political, economic and ideological confrontation of states and groups of states, in which an arms race is conducted, economic pressure measures are applied (embargo, economic blockade, etc.), military-strategic bridgeheads and bases are being organized. The Cold War began shortly after World War II and ended in the early 1990s. mainly in connection with the democratic transformations in many countries of the former socialist system.

The Cold War caused the world to split into two camps, gravitating towards the USSR and the USA. The conflict between the USSR and the former allies took place gradually. The Fulton Speech was the first step in this direction. On March 5, 1946, speaking in the presence of US President H. Truman in Fulton, W. Churchill accused the USSR of deploying world expansion, of attacking the territory of the "free world", that is, that part of the planet that was controlled by the capitalist countries. Churchill called on the "Anglo-Saxon world", namely the United States, Great Britain and their allies, to repulse the Soviet Union. His words about the division of Europe by the "Iron Curtain" became winged. The Fulton speech became a kind of declaration of the Cold War.

In 1946-1947. The Soviet Union stepped up pressure on Greece and Turkey. There was a civil war in Greece, and the USSR demanded from Turkey the provision of territory for a military base in the Mediterranean. Under these conditions, US President Harry Truman announced his readiness to "contain" the USSR throughout the world. This position was called the "Truman Doctrine" and meant the end of cooperation between the victors of fascism.

Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United States

However, the Cold War front ran not between countries, but within them. About a third of the population of France and Italy supported the Communist Party. In a number of Western European states, socialists and communists were part of the governments. In 1947, the United States put forward the Marshall Plan to provide material assistance to European countries. Its main goal was to improve the difficult economic situation of post-war Europe in order to prevent the leftist forces from coming to power and the transition of European countries to the camp of socialism. In this regard, the Marshall Plan is closely connected with the "Truman Doctrine", aimed at counteracting the expansion of the USSR's zone of influence in the world. The main provisions of the plan were put forward by US Secretary of State George Marshall on June 5, 1947, at a speech at Harvard University. Its goal was to provide economic assistance to war-torn Europe. The American side did not specify which countries could count on financial support. At the same time, George Marshall was well aware that the US Congress would not support the aid program, one of the recipients of which would be the Soviet Union.

At a conference in Paris in July 1945, the USSR refused to take part in the Marshall Plan. The Soviet leadership considered that with its help the United States would gain control over the economies of countries to which it would provide financial support. Along with the Soviet Union, the young socialist states of Eastern Europe did not join the plan either.

The Marshall Plan began to be implemented in April 1948, when the law on the four-year "foreign aid" program came into force in the United States, which provided for the provision of assistance to Western European countries on the basis of bilateral agreements. Participating countries pledged to promote the development of free enterprise, encourage private American investment, cooperate in reducing customs tariffs, supply certain scarce goods to the United States, ensure financial stability, create special funds in the national currency released as a result of receiving American aid, the spending of which would be controlled by the United States. submit regular reports on the use of funds received. To control the execution of the Marshall Plan, the Economic Cooperation Administration, headed by major American financiers and politicians, was created. Assistance was provided from the US federal budget in the form of grants and loans. From April 1948 to December 1951, the United States spent about $17 billion under the Marshall Plan, with Great Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany receiving the bulk (about 60%) of it. On December 30, 1951, the Marshall Plan officially ended and was replaced by the Mutual Security Act, which provided for the possibility of simultaneous military and economic assistance.

Countries that received Marshall Plan assistance

(the height of the red bar corresponds to the relative amount of help)

During the implementation of the Marshall Plan, all primary and secondary goals were achieved. The United States and Canada received an excellent market for surplus production, the economies of Western European countries were restored, backward industries were modernized, the total level of GDP in 1947-1951 showed an increase of almost 33%, industry and agriculture exceeded the pre-war level by 40 and 11% respectively. In addition, this consolidated the split of Europe into regimes that accepted American conditions and entered the sphere of influence of the USSR.

One of the symbols of a divided Europe was the fate of Germany. In 1945, its territory was occupied by the allied forces. Measures were taken to demilitarize the German economy and democratize society. The USSR and the Western powers saw the further fate of Germany in different ways. As a result, on May 23, 1949, under US control. Great Britain and France territory was formed the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In response to this, on October 7, 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was formed from the East German regions, which entered the sphere of influence of the USSR. The division of Germany has become one of the most complex international problems in post-war history.

The Cold War required the strengthening of the communist movement, which during the war brought new people, often democratically minded. In 1947, instead of the Comintern, the largest European communist parties created the Cominform, which was supposed to coordinate the activities of the communists in different countries. However, the Cominform was used to condemn the attempts of the Eastern European communist regimes to seek their own development options. This policy led, in particular, to the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict. In 1948, repressive campaigns were launched in the USSR against anyone who could have cultural contacts with the outside world. However, repressions directed against dissidents also took place in Western countries, primarily in the United States. These events became known as the "witch hunt".

The rivalry between the USSR and the USA inevitably led to the buildup of armaments by both blocs - socialist and capitalist. The goal of the adversaries was to achieve superiority, especially in the field of atomic weapons, as well as in their means of delivery. Soon, rockets became such means in addition to bombers. The nuclear arms race has begun. Initially, the United States was the leader in the race. They had atomic weapons, first tested back in August 1945 during the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The plans of the American General Staff provided for the use of atomic weapons against the USSR and its allies in the event of a military conflict.

The Soviet military-industrial complex made every effort to create its own atomic bomb. Soviet scientists worked on this task together with intelligence services. Some engineering solutions were obtained through intelligence channels from secret American institutions, but these data could not have been used if Soviet scientists had not come close to creating atomic weapons on their own. Thus, the creation of new weapons in the USSR was a matter of time, which we did not have at that time.

In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb. This news shocked the American leadership. The presence of the bomb in the USSR kept the US from using nuclear weapons in Korea, although such a possibility was discussed by high-ranking US military officials. In 1953, the USSR tested a thermonuclear bomb. From this time the United States until the 1960s. overtook our country only in the number of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, but not in quality. The USSR had almost every weapon that the United States had.

In April 1949, the United States, Canada and most of Western Europe created a military alliance - the North Atlantic bloc (NATO). According to the obligations assumed, each of the countries participating in this pact was obliged to provide immediate assistance, including the use of armed force, in the event of an armed attack on one or more of them in Europe or North America. The USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe in 1955 responded to this by creating their own military alliance - the Warsaw Pact Organization. Thus, the compromise between the two political systems that had developed as a result of the war against fascism was finally destroyed.

States of Europe included

in NATO (marked in blue) and ATS (red)

A significant historical event of the post-war period was the people's democratic revolutions in a number of European countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Asia: Vietnam, China, Korea and a little earlier - the revolution in Mongolia. To a large extent, the political orientation in these countries was determined under the influence of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of most of them, carrying out a liberation mission during the Second World War. This also largely contributed to the fact that in most countries cardinal transformations began in the political, socio-economic and other spheres in accordance with the Stalinist model.

The emergence of the socialist model beyond the framework of one country and its spread to South-Eastern Europe and Asia laid the foundation for the emergence of a community of countries, called the "world socialist system". In 1959 Cuba and in 1975 Laos entered the orbit of a new system that lasted more than 40 years. At the end of the 80s. The world system of socialism included 15 states occupying 26.2% of the earth's territory and numbering 32.3% of the world's population. Taking even just these quantitative indicators into account, one can speak of the world system of socialism as an essential factor in post-war international life.

As noted above, an important prerequisite for the formation of the world socialist system was the liberation mission of the Soviet Army in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Today there are quite heated discussions on this issue. A significant part of researchers tend to believe that in 1944-1947. there were no people's democratic revolutions in the countries of this region, and the Soviet Union imposed the Stalinist model of social development on the liberated peoples. One can only partly agree with this point of view, since it should be borne in mind that in 1945-1946. broad democratic transformations were carried out in these countries, and bourgeois-democratic forms of statehood were often restored. This is evidenced, in particular, by the bourgeois orientation of agrarian reforms in the absence of nationalization of land, the preservation of the private sector in small and medium-sized industry, retail trade and the service sector, and finally the presence of a multi-party system, including the highest level of power. If in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia immediately after liberation a course was taken for socialist transformations, then in the rest of the countries of South-Eastern Europe the new course began to be implemented from the moment the essentially undivided power of the national communist parties was established, as was the case in Czechoslovakia (February 1948), Romania (December 1947), Hungary (autumn 1947), Albania (February 1946), East Germany (October 1949), Poland (January 1947).

The year 1949 can be considered a kind of pause that drew a line under the prehistory of the world socialist system, and the 1950s can be singled out as a relatively independent stage of the forced creation of a “new” society, modeled on the USSR. This is a comprehensive nationalization of industrial sectors of the economy, forced cooperation, and in essence the nationalization of the agrarian sector, the displacement of private capital from the sphere of finance, trade, the establishment of total control of the state, the supreme bodies of the ruling party over public life, in the field of spiritual culture, etc.

However, there was another model of socialist construction that was carried out in those years in Yugoslavia - the model of self-governing socialism . It assumed in general terms the following: the economic freedom of labor collectives within the framework of enterprises, their activity on the basis of cost accounting with an indicative type of state planning; renunciation of coercive cooperation in agriculture, rather extensive use of commodity-money relations, etc., but on the condition that the Communist Party's monopoly is maintained in certain spheres of political and public life.

The departure of the Yugoslav leadership from the "universal" Stalinist construction scheme was the reason for its practical isolation for a number of years from the USSR and its allies. Only after the condemnation of Stalinism at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, only in 1955 did relations between the socialist countries and Yugoslavia begin to gradually normalize.

Josip Broz Tito, leader of post-war Yugoslavia

The creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in January 1949 can be considered an important milestone in the history of the formation of the world socialist system. national economy, accelerating economic and technological progress. By raising the level of industrialization of countries with less developed industry, it was supposed to achieve a continuous increase in labor productivity, a gradual convergence and leveling of levels of economic development, and a steady rise in the well-being of the population of the CMEA member countries.

CMEA building in Moscow

As a result of the reforms carried out and with the active participation of the CMEA, by the mid-1950s, the Eastern European countries had achieved significant success in post-war economic recovery. An impressive breakthrough was made in building up the economic potential and modernizing the social structure. On a regional scale, the transition from an agrarian to an agrarian-industrial type of society was completed. However, the rapid growth of production was accompanied by an increase in sectoral disproportions. The created economic mechanism was largely artificial, not taking into account regional and national specifics. Economic growth was carried out on an extensive basis, due to the ever greater involvement of labor, energy, and raw materials. A "mobilization" system of economic relations was formed, in which the vertical command-administrative structure replaced the action of horizontal market relations. Its inevitable product was the bureaucratization of economic management.

Nevertheless, the socialist countries of Europe remained a relatively dynamically developing part of the world socialist system. At its other extreme were Mongolia, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. These countries most consistently used the Stalinist model of building socialism, namely: within the framework of a rigid one-party system, they resolutely eradicated elements of market, private property relations.

Mongolia was the first to embark on this path. In 1921, the power of the people's government was proclaimed, and in 1924, the People's Republic. Transformations began in the country under the strong influence of the northern neighbor of the USSR. By the end of the 40s. In Mongolia, there was a process of moving away from the primitive nomadic life through the construction of mainly large enterprises in the field of the mining industry, the spread of agricultural farms. Since 1948, the country began to accelerate the construction of the foundations of socialism on the model of the USSR, copying its experience. The party in power set the task of turning Mongolia into an agrarian-industrial country, regardless of its peculiarities, its essentially different civilizational base from the USSR, religious traditions, and so on.

China remains the largest socialist country in Asia to this day. After the victory of the revolution, the defeat of the army of Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) on October 1, 1949. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was proclaimed. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and with the great help of the USSR, the country began to restore the national economy. At the same time, China most consistently used the Stalinist model of transformation. And after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, which condemned some of the vices of Stalinism, China opposed itself to the new course of the Soviet Union, turning into an arena of an unprecedented scale experiment called the “great leap forward”. The concept of the accelerated construction of socialism by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was essentially a repetition of the Stalinist experiment, but in an even tougher form. The most important task was to overtake and overtake the USSR by drastically breaking social relations, using the labor enthusiasm of the population, barracks forms of work and life, military discipline at all levels of social relations, etc. As a result, already at the end of the 50s, the country's population began to experience hunger. This caused unrest in society and among the leadership of the party. The response of Mao and his supporters was the "cultural revolution". This was the name given to the large-scale campaign of repression against dissidents that stretched until the death of Mao. Until that moment, the PRC, being considered a socialist country, was nevertheless, as it were, outside the boundaries of the world socialist system, as evidenced, in particular, even by its armed clashes with the USSR in the late 1960s.

In addition to China, the socialist camp included such Asian states as Vietnam and North Korea. The most authoritative force that led the struggle for the independence of Vietnam was the Communist Party. Its leader Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) headed the provisional government of the proclaimed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in September 1945. These circumstances determined the Marxist-socialist orientation of the subsequent course of the state. It was carried out in the conditions of an anti-colonial war, first with France (1946-1954), and then with the United States (1965-1973) and the struggle for reunification with the south of the country until 1975. Thus, the construction of the foundations of socialism for a long time proceeded under military conditions, which had a considerable influence on the features of the reforms.

Countries of the world in 1959

A similar picture was observed in Korea, which gained independence from Japan in 1945 and was divided in 1948 into two parts. North Korea was in the zone of influence of the USSR, and South Korea - the United States. In North Korea (DPRK), the dictatorial regime of Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) was established, which carried out the construction of a barracks society closed from the outside world, based on the most severe dictatorship of one person, total nationalization of property, life, etc. Nevertheless, the DPRK managed to achieve in the 50s. certain positive results in economic construction due to the development of the foundations of the industry, laid down under the Japanese conquerors and a high work culture, combined with the most severe production discipline.

At the end of the 50s. Cuba joined the camp of socialist states. In January 1959, an anti-colonial revolution took place there. The hostile US policy towards the young republic and the Soviet Union's resolute support for it determined the socialist orientation of the country's leadership.

Late 50s, 60s, 70s. most of the socialist countries have succeeded in achieving certain positive results in the development of the national economy, ensuring an increase in the standard of living of the population. However, during this period, negative trends were also clearly identified, primarily in the economic sphere. The model of development, which had become stronger in all countries of the world socialist system without exception, fettered the initiative of economic entities and did not allow an adequate response to new phenomena and trends in the world economic process. This became especially evident in connection with the beginning of the 1950s. scientific and technological revolution. As it developed, the countries of the socialist camp more and more lagged behind the advanced capitalist powers in terms of the rate of introduction of scientific and technological achievements into production, mainly in the field of electronic computers, energy and resource-saving industries and technologies. Attempts to partially reform this model, undertaken at that time, did not give positive results. The reason for the failure of the reforms was the strongest resistance to them by the party-state nomenklatura, which basically determined the extreme inconsistency and, as a result, the failure of the reform process.

The victory of democratic forces over fascism in World War II and the growing influence of the USSR created favorable conditions for the fall of the colonial system. The question of the system of international trusteeship (in other words, the colonial problem), in accordance with the agreement between the heads of government of England, the USSR and the USA, was included in the agenda of the conference in San Francisco, which established the UN in 1945. The Soviet representatives persistently advocated the principle of independence for the colonial peoples, their opponents, and above all the British, who at that time represented the largest colonial empire, sought to ensure that the UN Charter spoke only of movement "in the direction of self-government." As a result, a formula was adopted that was close to that proposed by the Soviet delegation: the UN trusteeship system should lead the trust territories in the direction "towards self-government and independence."

In the ten years that followed, more than 1.2 billion people freed themselves from colonial and semi-colonial dependence. 15 sovereign states appeared on the world map, in which more than 4/5 of the population of the former colonial possessions lived. The largest British colonies of India (1947) and Ceylon (1948), French mandated territories of Syria and Lebanon (1943, withdrawal of troops - 1946) achieved liberation, Vietnam freed itself from Japanese colonial dependence, having won independence from France during the eight-year war (1945-1954). ), defeated socialist revolutions in North Korea and China.

Since the mid 50s. the collapse of the colonial system in its classical forms of direct subordination and diktat began. In 1960, the UN General Assembly, at the initiative of the USSR, adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to the Former Colonial Countries.

By the end of World War II, about 200 million people lived in 55 territories of the African continent and a number of adjacent islands. Formally independent were considered Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and the dominion of Great Britain - the Union of South Africa, which had their own governments and administrations. A huge part of the territories of Africa was divided between England, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy. 1960 went down in history as the "Year of Africa". Then the independence of 17 countries of the central and western parts of the continent was proclaimed. In general, the process of African liberation was completed by 1975. By this time, 3.7% of the planet's population lived in the surviving colonies all over the world on a territory that was less than 1% of the globe.

In total, more than 2 billion people were freed from the colonial yoke after the Second World War. The collapse of the colonial system, of course, is a progressive phenomenon in the modern history of mankind, since for a huge mass of the planet's population the possibilities of independent choice of a path, national self-expression, and access to the achievements of civilization have opened up.

International relations after World War II became an era of confrontation between two socio-political systems: capitalism and socialism. This confrontation became known as the Cold War. Its first stage refers to 1949-1953.

Background of the Cold War

At the Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945) conferences, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill managed to find a common language. At the same time, controversial questions arose regarding the post-war structure of the world:

the procedure for creating an international organization to maintain peace and security (future UN);
the fate of colonial possessions;
the post-war situation of Germany and France;
western borders of the USSR, etc.

The Allied heads of state and government met for the last time at the Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945).

Rice. 1. Churchill, Truman and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. 1945.

As a result, decisions were made on the post-war structure of Europe:

restructuring the political life of Germany on a democratic basis;
securing zones of occupation for the allies;
recognition of the influence of the USSR in Central and Eastern Europe.

The unity of the Allies at the Potsdam Conference was maintained only through the ongoing war with Japan.

Nuclear weapon

Since the end of the 30s. The USA, Germany, Great Britain and the USSR are actively developing nuclear weapons. In the United States, these works are called the "Manhattan Project".

Stages of increasing confrontation

When did the Cold War start? On March 5, 1946, in Fulton, W. Churchill, in the presence of the American President G. Truman, delivered a speech on the need to destroy the USSR as an “Evil Empire”.

This speech and the date of its delivery are considered the beginning of the Cold War.

economic, financial and military assistance to all non-communist regimes;
the US right to intervene in events anywhere in the world.

In April 1949, the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) was formed, led by the United States. In response, in 1955, the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe created a military-defensive alliance, called the Warsaw Pact.

Korean War

The first "hot spot" of the Cold War was the war in Korea. The peace settlement resulting from World War II divided the country into northern (pro-Soviet) and southern (pro-American) halves.

Rice. 3. Tanks of the UN forces in Seoul. 1950.

Until now, there are disputes about who unleashed the war. In 9th grade, you need to remember the following:

the war began in June 1950;
15 UN countries sent their troops to South Korea;
China took the side of North Korea;
The Soviet Union provided assistance to the North with equipment and military specialists.

In the summer of 1953, a peace agreement was signed, which fixed the division of the country into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel.

Briefly about the beginning of the Cold War 1945-1953 it can be said that both camps were equally guilty. The USA and the USSR made every effort to establish a bipolar world.

What have we learned?

During 1945-1949. contradictions accumulated in the relations of the former allies. The creation of NATO consolidated the division of the world into two distinct systems. The first armed clash between the countries of capitalism and socialism was the Korean War (1950-1953).

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Foreign and domestic policy of the USSR.

The end of the Second World War gave rise to a new situation on the planet. The first place in the foreign policy of European countries was taken by the issues of peaceful settlement, starting with the definition of borders and establishing relationships and ending with the solution of internal social and economic problems.

The main issue of the post-war settlement was the question of the creation of international organizations.

In April 1945, a conference on the security of nations in the post-war period opened in San Francisco. The conference was attended by delegations from 50 countries headed by foreign ministers. It was characteristic that among the conference participants there were representatives of Ukraine and Belarus, on which the issue was resolved at the Crimean meeting of the heads of state of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. Since in Poland the government was created in the course of the struggle against Nazi Germany, and in London there was another government in exile, at the initiative of England and the United States, it was decided in relation to Poland that after the decision on the Polish government of this country, she would be given a place at the UN.

At the conference, the United Nations was created and, after heated discussions, the Charter was adopted, which was signed in a solemn atmosphere on June 26, 1945 and entered into force on October 24, 1945. This day is considered the birthday of the United Nations. The Charter for the first time enshrined the principle of equality and self-determination of peoples as the basis of international relations. The Charter obliged UN members to take effective collective measures to prevent and eliminate threats to peace and suppress acts of aggression, to resolve international disputes "by peaceful means, in accordance with the principles of justice and international law."

The main political body of the UN is the Security Council, which consists of permanent members. The USSR received a seat as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, along with the United States, Britain, France and China.

The main deliberative body of the UN is the General Assembly, in which representatives of all member countries of the organization participate. Non-permanent members are elected by the UN General Assembly for a two-year term.

Unlike the United States, which significantly strengthened its position, European countries from the camp of the winners emerged from the war with a weakened economy. Things were even more complicated in the USSR. On the one hand, the international prestige of the Soviet Union has increased unprecedentedly, and without its participation not a single major problem of international relations was now resolved. At the same time, the economic situation of the USSR was severely undermined. In September 1945, the amount of direct losses caused by the war was estimated at 679 billion rubles, which was 5.5 times the national income of the USSR in 1940.

The USSR became a recognized great power in the international arena: the number of countries that established diplomatic relations with it increased from 26 in the pre-war period to 52.

Foreign policy. The warming of international relations that emerged after the war turned out to be short-lived. In the first months after the defeat of Germany and the capitulation of Japan, the Soviet government did its best to create the image of the USSR as a peace-loving state, ready to seek compromises in solving complex world problems. It emphasized the need to ensure favorable international conditions for peaceful socialist construction in the USSR, the development of the world revolutionary process, and the preservation of peace on Earth.

But this did not last long. Internal processes, as well as cardinal changes in the international situation, led to the tightening of the political and doctrinal guidelines by the Soviet leadership, which determined the specific goals and actions of domestic diplomacy, the direction of ideological work with the population.

After the end of the war, people's democratic states were formed in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. 11states took the path of building socialism. The world system of socialism united 13 states and covered 15% of the territory and about 35% of the world's population (before the war - 17% and 9%, respectively).

Thus, in the struggle for influence in the world, the former allies in the war with Germany were divided into two opposing camps. An arms race and political confrontation began between the USSR and the USA, East and West, which became known as the Cold War.

In April 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the preparation of a war plan against the USSR. Churchill presented his conclusions in his memoirs: since the USSR has become a mortal threat to America and Europe, it is necessary to immediately create a front that goes as far as possible to the East, against its rapid advance. The main and true goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin with the liberation of Czechoslovakia and entry into Prague. Vienna and all of Austria must be ruled by the Western Powers. Relations with the USSR should be based on military superiority.

Cold War - a global geopolitical, economic and ideological confrontation between the Soviet Union and its allies, on the one hand, and the United States and its allies, on the other, which lasted from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s. The confrontation was not a war in the literal sense - one of the main components was ideology. The deep contradiction between the capitalist and socialist models is the main cause of the Cold War. The two victorious superpowers in World War II tried to rebuild the world according to their ideological guidelines.

The speech of W. Churchill in Fulton (USA, Missouri), in which he put forward the idea of creating a military alliance of the Anglo-Saxon countries in order to fight world communism, is often considered the formal beginning of the Cold War. W. Churchill's speech outlined a new reality, which the retired British leader, after assurances of deep respect and admiration for "the valiant Russian people and my wartime comrade Marshal Stalin", defined as the "Iron Curtain".

A week later, J.V. Stalin, in an interview with Pravda, put Churchill on a par with Hitler and stated that in his speech he called on the West to go to war with the USSR.

The Stalinist leadership sought to create an anti-American bloc in Europe and, if possible, in the world, in addition, the countries of Eastern Europe were perceived as a "cordon sanitaire" against American influence. In these interests, the Soviet government in every possible way supports the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, where "socialist revolutions" took place by 1949, the communist movement in Greece (an attempt to organize a communist coup here failed in 1947), tacitly gets involved in the Korean War (1951-1954 gg.) on the side of pro-communist North Korea.

In 1945, the USSR presented territorial claims to Turkey and demanded a change in the status of the Black Sea straits, including recognition of the USSR's right to establish a naval base in the Dardanelles. In 1946, at the London meeting of foreign ministers, the USSR demanded that it be granted the right to protectorate over Tripolitania (Libya) in order to secure a presence in the Mediterranean.

On March 12, 1947, US President Harry Truman announced his intention to provide Greece and Turkey with military and economic assistance in the amount of 400 million dollars. dollars. At the same time, he defined the content of the rivalry between the USA and the USSR as a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism.

In 1947, at the insistence of the USSR, the socialist countries refused to participate in the Marshall Plan, which involved the provision of economic assistance in exchange for the exclusion of the Communists from the government.

After the war, the USSR provided substantial economic assistance to all countries of the socialist bloc. So, in 1945, Romania received 300 tons of grain as a loan, Czechoslovakia - 600 thousand tons of sarn, Hungary - three loans, etc. By 1952, such assistance was already estimated at over $3 billion.

Created after the war by the decision of the Potsdam Conference, the Control Council for managing Germany as a "single economic entity" proved to be ineffective. In response to the US decision to carry out a separate monetary reform in 1948 in the western zones of occupation and West Berlin in order to give the German economy a hard currency, the USSR imposed a blockade of Berlin (until May 1949). In 1949, the conflict between the USA and the USSR led to the split of Germany into the FRG and the GDR, where the problem of West Berlin remained unresolved.

The Soviet Union launched large-scale assistance to the people's democracies, creating for this purpose a special organization - the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (1949).

1949-50s became the apogee of the Cold War - a military-political bloc of Western countries - NATO was created, as well as other blocs with the participation of the United States: ANZUS, SEATO, etc.

A few years later, the USSR united part of the countries of people's democracy into a military-political union - the Warsaw Pact Organization: (1955-1990 - Albania / until 1968 /, Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, Poland, Romania, the USSR, Czechoslovakia). The USSR actively promoted the communist parties and movements in the Western states, the growth of the liberation movement in the "third world" and the creation of countries of "socialist orientation".

For its part, the US leadership sought to pursue a policy from a "position of strength", trying to use all its economic and military-political power to put pressure on the USSR. In 1946, US President G. Truman proclaimed the doctrine of "limitation of communist expansion", reinforced in 1947 by the doctrine of economic assistance "to free peoples."

The United States provided large-scale economic assistance to Western countries (“Marshall Plan”), created a military-political alliance of these states led by the United States (NATO, 1949), deployed a network of American military bases (Greece, Turkey) near the borders of the USSR, supported anti-socialist forces within the Soviet bloc.

In 1950-1953. During the Korean War, there was a direct clash between the USSR and the USA.

Thus, the formation of the camp of socialism, which economically, politically and culturally became more and more isolated from the capitalist countries, and the tough political course of the West led to the split of the world into two camps - socialist and capitalist.

8.3. Post-war structure of the world in 1946–1953.

The post-war world did not become more durable. In a short time, relations between the USSR and its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition deteriorated significantly. To characterize them, the metaphor “cold war” began to be used more and more often, which first appeared on the pages of the English Tribune magazine in the autumn of 1945 in an international commentary by the famous writer J. Orwell. Later, in the spring of 1946, the prominent American banker and politician B. Baruch used this term in one of his public speeches. At the end of 1946, the influential American publicist W. Lippman published a book, the title of which was these two words.

However, two historical facts are traditionally considered a "declaration" or proclamation of the "cold war": speech At Churchill (March 1946) in Fulton (Missouri) in the presence of US President G. Truman about the Iron Curtain and the Soviet threat, as well as promulgation of the "Truman Doctrine" (March 1947) - an American foreign policy concept that proclaimed the main task facing the United States to counter communism and its "containment". The post-war world split into two antagonistic blocs, and The Cold War entered its active phase in the summer of 1947, eventually leading to the formation of opposing military-political blocs.

Each side made its own specific contribution to the post-war confrontation. The West was frightened by the increased military power of the Soviet Union, the unpredictability of Stalin's actions, and the increasingly insistent promotion of communist influence in the countries of Eastern Europe and Asia. During 1945-1948. a number of Eastern European countries were drawn into the orbit of Soviet influence (Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the eastern part of dismembered Germany), in which, under pressure from the USSR, first coalitions were formed, with the decisive influence of the communist parties, and then purely communist in terms of the composition of the government.

At the end of September 1947 under pressure from the Stalinist leadership from representatives of six communist parties in Eastern Europe and the two largest Western European communist parties (France and Italy) was The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties (Cominformburo) was created with headquarters in Belgrade. This body contributed to the increased pressure of the USSR on the countries of the so-called "people's democracy", along with the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of some of these countries and the treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance concluded with them. Established in 1949, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) with headquartered in Moscow, economically tied the countries of "people's democracy" to the USSR even more, since the latter were forced to carry out all the necessary transformations in culture, agriculture and industry according to the Soviet scenario, relying solely on Soviet, not entirely positive experience.

In Asia, into the orbit of the influence of the USSR throughout the period under review North Vietnam, North Korea and China were drawn in, after the peoples of these countries were able to win the national liberation wars led by the communists.

The influence of the USSR on the domestic and foreign policy of the Eastern European countries, despite all the efforts made by Stalin, was not unconditional. Not all leaders of communist parties here have become obedient puppets. The independence and certain ambition of the leader of the Yugoslav communists, I. Tito, his desire to create a Balkan federation with Yugoslavia in the lead, caused discontent and suspicions of I.V. Stalin. In 1948, the Soviet-Yugoslav crisis arose and soon escalated sharply , which led to the condemnation of the actions of the Yugoslav leaders by the Cominformburo. Despite this, the Yugoslav communists retained the unity of their ranks and followed I. Tito. Economic relations with the USSR and Eastern European countries were severed. Yugoslavia found itself in an economic blockade and was forced to turn to the capitalist countries for help. The peak of the Soviet-Yugoslav confrontation was the rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries on October 25, 1949. The consequence of this rupture and the desire to achieve unity in the communist movement were the past in the countries of "people's democracy" under the control and with the active participation of the Soviet special services two waves of communist purges, accused of "titoism". During the period 1948–1949. were repressed in Poland - V. Gomulka, M. Spychalsky, Z. Klishko; in Hungary, L. Raik and J. Kadar (the first was executed, the second was sentenced to life imprisonment), in Bulgaria, T. Kostov was executed, in Albania, K. Dzodze, and many others. In 1950–1951 practically in all Eastern European countries there were trials against "Yugoslav spies". One of the last in time was the trial in Prague in November 1952 against the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia R. Slansky and thirteen prominent Czechoslovak communists, the vast majority of whom were executed after the end of the trial. Demonstrative political trials, as in their time of the same kind of "events" that took place in the late 1930s. in the USSR, were supposed to frighten all those who were dissatisfied with the policy pursued by the Soviet Union in relation to the countries of "people's democracy" and consolidate the only path already paved by the USSR to so-called "socialism".

Despite the rather serious influence of the Communists in a number of Western European countries (in the first post-war years, their representatives were part of the governments of France, Italy, etc.), the authority of the Western European Communist Parties declined in Europe after the adoption "Marshall Plan" named after US Secretary of State J. Marshall - one of the "fathers" of the idea of American economic assistance to the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The Soviet government not only itself refused to participate in this plan, but also influenced the corresponding decisions of the Eastern European countries, including Czechoslovakia and Poland, which initially managed to express their readiness to participate in it.

After that, 16 Western European countries became participants in the Marshall Plan. The division of Europe into two hostile camps completed the creation in April 1949 of the North Atlantic Pact (NATO), united by 1953 under the auspices of the United States 14 states of Europe. The creation of this military-political bloc was largely facilitated by the events associated with the blockade of West Berlin by the Soviet side in the summer of 1948. The United States organized an "air bridge" that supplied the city for about a year. Only in May 1949 was the Soviet blockade lifted. However, the actions of the West and the intransigence of the USSR led ultimately to the creation in 1949 of two countries on German soil: on May 23 the Federal Republic of Germany and on October 7 the German Democratic Republic.

Late 1940s - early 1950s were the culmination of the Cold War.

In August 1949, the USSR tested the first Soviet atomic bomb, the creation of which is associated with the name of the outstanding Soviet scientist I.V. Kurchatov. The most serious international problem for the USSR was the war of North Korea against the pro-American regime of South Korea (1950-1953) unleashed with the direct consent of Stalin. It cost the lives of several million Koreans, Chinese and other peoples who took part in this largest conflict since the Second World War. Soviet pilots fought in Korea.

Death of I.V. Stalin, which happened at the height of the Cold War, helped to reduce tension in international relations, although it did not remove the question of the further continuation of the struggle between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and the USSR, the vanguard of the commonwealth of the so-called "socialist" states of Europe and Asia , on the other hand, for world domination.

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