Following the end of World War II a deep diplomatic and political rift developed between the Soviet Union on the one hand and the USA plus western countries on the other. The rift became known as the Cold War. It lasted about fifty years. Political drama and defections, diplomatic intrigue, ambassadorial trickery, international spying and military tensions riddled the period, providing an abundance of material for writers of fiction or history. A writer who concentrates on this period is known as a Cold War author.
The Soviet Union fought against Nazi Germany as an ally of the British-French-USA military axis during World War 2, In spite of that alliance, the relationship between the Soviet and western countries was very fragile and brittle. This is perhaps not surprising given the huge difference in the political ideology that divided the two sides at that time. After all, communism and capitalism are far from easy bedfellows.
The war brought the Soviets closer to the West. A reasonable diplomatic dialogue existed during the war years. However, once the war ended, the Soviets almost totally closed their economy to foreign trade, diplomatically withdrew back within themselves and severely limited their dialogue with the West.
Winston Churchill lamented this detente in a speech he gave at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Churchill said Soviet isolationism had caused a large Iron Curtain to descend upon the European continent. This status divided its west from its east.
Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia plus Romania were all under a high degree of Soviet influence if not control. They were puppets of the Soviet Union. Their communist parties were funded significantly by the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the Soviet Russia continually rejected normal diplomatic relationships with western nations. It remained deliberately distant. Its absence of dialogue created an information void. Lacking hard data, the West filled that void with doubt and uncertainty regarding Soviet military intentions. Nobody knows, Churchill said in his speech, if the Soviet and its global satellites have expansionist ambitions.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Throughout that five decades of Soviet detente, limited data about its economy and military were available to other nations. Western analysts grossly over-estimated Soviet economic wealth and military might. That misunderstanding greatly contributed to the arms race. Eventually, burdened by a crippling budget deficit, the Soviet Union moved to limit its military spending. Its President Gorbachev introduced Perestroika, a set of policies to strengthen the efficiency of the economy. He abolished bureaucratic constraints on individuals and businesses, introduced the market system to many sectors and opened it to global competition. Gorbachev also ended diplomatic detente with the West. As a result, a rich source of literary ideas, that any Cold War author had enjoyed for decades, dried up.
The Soviet Union fought against Nazi Germany as an ally of the British-French-USA military axis during World War 2, In spite of that alliance, the relationship between the Soviet and western countries was very fragile and brittle. This is perhaps not surprising given the huge difference in the political ideology that divided the two sides at that time. After all, communism and capitalism are far from easy bedfellows.
The war brought the Soviets closer to the West. A reasonable diplomatic dialogue existed during the war years. However, once the war ended, the Soviets almost totally closed their economy to foreign trade, diplomatically withdrew back within themselves and severely limited their dialogue with the West.
Winston Churchill lamented this detente in a speech he gave at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Churchill said Soviet isolationism had caused a large Iron Curtain to descend upon the European continent. This status divided its west from its east.
Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia plus Romania were all under a high degree of Soviet influence if not control. They were puppets of the Soviet Union. Their communist parties were funded significantly by the Soviet Union.
Similarly, the Soviet Russia continually rejected normal diplomatic relationships with western nations. It remained deliberately distant. Its absence of dialogue created an information void. Lacking hard data, the West filled that void with doubt and uncertainty regarding Soviet military intentions. Nobody knows, Churchill said in his speech, if the Soviet and its global satellites have expansionist ambitions.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Throughout that five decades of Soviet detente, limited data about its economy and military were available to other nations. Western analysts grossly over-estimated Soviet economic wealth and military might. That misunderstanding greatly contributed to the arms race. Eventually, burdened by a crippling budget deficit, the Soviet Union moved to limit its military spending. Its President Gorbachev introduced Perestroika, a set of policies to strengthen the efficiency of the economy. He abolished bureaucratic constraints on individuals and businesses, introduced the market system to many sectors and opened it to global competition. Gorbachev also ended diplomatic detente with the West. As a result, a rich source of literary ideas, that any Cold War author had enjoyed for decades, dried up.
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