The Soviet Union in World Politics provides an introductory history of Soviet foreign policy and international relations from 1945 to the end of the Cold War and the break up of the USSR. The book ...summarizes historical and political controversies about Soviet foreign policy and brings the latest research to bear on these debates. The Soviet Union in World Politics interprets the latest evidence available from the Soviet archives and includes * summaries of the main events in Soviet Policy from 1917-1945 * a framework for student discussion of relevant issues * guides to further reading and research * exploration of the role of ideology in the Cold War * discussion of Stalin's role in the formulation of policy.
1. History: A Revolutionary State in World Politics 2. Diplomacy: The Soviet Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1947 3. Ideology: Stalin and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1948–1953 4. Decision-Making: Khrushchev, Crisis and the Cold War, 1953–1964
In the 1940s and 1950s, Soviet musicians and ensembles were acclaimed across the globe. They toured the world, wowing critics and audiences, projecting an image of the USSR as a sophisticated ...promoter of cultural and artistic excellence. InVirtuosi Abroad, Kiril Tomoff focuses on music and the Soviet Union's star musicians to explore the dynamics of the cultural Cold War. He views the competition in the cultural sphere as part of the ongoing U.S. and Soviet efforts to integrate the rest of the world into their respective imperial projects.
Tomoff argues that the spectacular Soviet successes in the system of international music competitions, taken together with the rapturous receptions accorded touring musicians, helped to persuade the Soviet leadership of the superiority of their system. This, combined with the historical triumphalism central to the Marxist-Leninist worldview, led to confidence that the USSR would be the inevitable winner in the global competition with the United States. Successes masked the fact that the very conditions that made them possible depended on a quiet process by which the USSR began to participate in an international legal and economic system dominated by the United States. Once the Soviet leadership transposed its talk of system superiority to the economic sphere, focusing in particular on consumer goods and popular culture, it had entered a competition that it could not win.
Between 1945 and 1964, six to seven million members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were investigated for misconduct by local party organizations and then reprimanded, demoted from full ...party membership, or expelled. Party leaders viewed these investigations as a form of moral education and used humiliating public hearings to discipline wrongdoers and send all Soviet citizens a message about how Communists should behave. The High Title of a Communist is the first study of the Communist Party's internal disciplinary system in the decades following World War II. Edward Cohn uses the practices of expulsion and censure as a window into how the postwar regime defined the ideal Communist and the ideal Soviet citizen. As the regime grappled with a postwar economic crisis and evolved from a revolutionary prewar government into a more bureaucratic postwar state, the Communist Party revised its informal behavioral code, shifting from a more limited and literal set of rules about a party member's role in the economy to a more activist vision that encompassed all spheres of life. The postwar Soviet regime became less concerned with the ideological orthodoxy and political loyalty of party members, and more interested in how Communists treated their wives, raised their children, and handled their liquor. Soviet power, in other words, became less repressive and more intrusive. Cohn uses previously untapped archival sources and avoids a narrow focus on life in Moscow and Leningrad, combining rich local materials from several Russian provinces with materials from throughout the USSR. The High Title of a Communist paints a vivid portrait of the USSR's postwar era that will help scholars and students understand both the history of the Soviet Union's postwar elite and the changing values of the Soviet regime. In the end, it shows, the regime failed in its efforts to enforce a clear set of behavioral standards for its Communists—a failure that would threaten the party's legitimacy in the USSR's final days.
What did it mean to be a Soviet citizen in the 1970s and 1980s? How can we explain the liberalization that preceded the collapse of the USSR? This period in Soviet history is often depicted as ...stagnant with stultified institutions and the oppression of socialist citizens. However, the socialist state was not simply an oppressive institution that dictated how to live and what to think—it also responded to and was shaped by individuals’ needs. In Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–85, Neringa Klumbyte and Gulnaz Sharafutdinova bring together scholarship examining the social and cultural life of the USSR and Eastern Europe from 1964 to 1985. This interdisciplinary and comparative study explores topics such as the Soviet middle class, individualism, sexuality, health, late-socialist ethics, and civic participation. Examining this often overlooked era provides the historical context for all post-socialist political, economic, and social developments.
One of the greatest ironies of the history of Soviet rule is that,
for an officially atheistic state, those in the political police
and in the Politburo devoted an enormous amount of time and
...attention to the question of religion. The Soviet government's
policies toward religious institutions in the USSR, and toward
religious institutions in the non-Communist world, reflected this,
especially when it came to the Vatican and Catholic Churches, both
the Latin and Byzantine Rite, in Soviet territory. The KGB and
the Vatican consists of the transcripts of KGB records
concerning the policies of the Soviet secret police towards the
Vatican and the Catholic Church in the Communist world, transcripts
provided by KGB archivist and defector Vasili Mitrokhin, from the
Second Vatican Council to the election of John Paul II. Among the
topics covered include how the Soviet regime viewed the efforts of
John XXIII and Paul VI of reaching out to eastern side of the Iron
Curtain, the experience of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuanian
Soviet Socialist Republic and the underground Greek Catholic Church
in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the religious
underground in the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow, and finally
the election of John Paul II and its effect on the tumultuous
events in Poland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This valuable
primary source collection also contains a historical introduction
written by the translator, Sean Brennan, a professor of History at
the University of Scranton.
Originally published in 1970. This volume presents a study of American foreign policy during the Cold War period, investigating the United States' involvement with the U.S.S.R., China, and communist ...parties throughout the world.
