"Now they often say" unipolar world ". This expression is absurd, since the word" pole "in its meaning is inextricably linked with the number two, with the presence of the second pole."
S. Kara-Murza, political scientist.
Story cold war is not only the history of the rivalry of two ideologies, but also the history of the rivalry of two economic systems, which in essence were antipodes to each other. What is remarkable this topic? It illuminates the beginning of what we will all witness in our lifetime.
What am I talking about?
Read between the lines. For he who has eyes, let him see...
Background.
"The Iron Curtain - this expression was given life by a device that was used earlier in the theater - an iron curtain, which, in order to protect the auditorium from fire, was lowered onto the stage in the event of a fire on it. This was very advisable in an era when people were forced to open fire was used - candles, oil lamps, etc. For the first time such an iron curtain began to be used in France - in the city of Lyon in the late 80s - early 90s XVIII in."
Vadim Serov.
It is generally accepted that the well-known "Iron Curtain" descended on the country of the Soviets in the 1920s, roughly speaking, as soon as the USSR was created, they immediately covered it with a curtain so that dirt from the west would not fly. I'm afraid to disappoint some, but it's not.
The country of the Soviets existed, developed, and there was no self-isolation, and it did not have closedness, on the contrary, the Soviet government made every effort to eliminate this closeness. For this, famous writers, artists and other figures from all over the world were invited to the USSR. The purpose of all this was to break the veil of lies that enveloped us in the West, and to give an opportunity to assess what is happening in our country more or less truthfully.
In addition to writers and artists, people came to the USSR ordinary people: some of them were invited as specialists for a large salary, and some came on their own, for ideological reasons (people wanted to build the society of the future with their own hands). Naturally, after some time, returning to their homeland, they all brought with them a baggage of information about the country of the Soviets.
But the Western powers did not attach any importance to this of great importance, they no longer saw Russia as a serious adversary for the coming decades, although they did not stop their attempts to snatch an extra piece from us (a campaign of 14 states).
"Russia, which was a civilization of the Western type - the least organized and most shaky of the great powers - is now a modern civilization in extremis (lat. with its last gasp - ed. note). ... History knows nothing like the collapse Russia is experiencing. If this process continues for another year, the collapse will be final. Russia will turn into a country of peasants; the cities will become empty and turn into ruins, the railways will overgrow with grass. With the disappearance of the railways, the last remnants of central power will disappear.
HG Wells, 1920
However, the explosive growth rates of the USSR greatly frightened the West, showing them that they had greatly miscalculated on our account, even taking into account the insertion of sticks into all our wheels and wheels.
Then, the trump ace of the West, Adolf Hitler, was pulled out of the sleeve (you can read more about this in the article - "") and a grandiose war was unleashed, hitherto unseen by mankind.
"If the Germans win, then the Russians must be helped, and if things turn out differently, then the Germans must be helped. And let them kill each other as much as possible."
G. Truman, " New York Times", 1941
As they say (they, in the West) - "nothing personal, just business."
Bear trap.
"Who controls the country's money is the absolute master of all industry and commerce."
James Abram Garfield, 20th President of the United States, 1881
In July 1944, at the very height of the war, the international Bretton Woods Conference was held in the United States (New Hampshire). The meaning of this conference boiled down to two main points: the dollar is the only currency that is now allowed to have a gold content, all other countries must refuse to back their currencies with gold, introducing dollar backing instead (buy the dollar to print their currency), and the second point - the dollar becomes the main settlement currency (all international trade should now only be conducted in dollars).
The USSR signs the enslaving Bretton Woods agreement, its ratification (approval) is scheduled for December 1945.
April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is assassinated. The reason for the murder was his friendly relations with the USSR and Stalin personally. This event shows once again that US presidents are just pawns in a big game.
"We were closest to equal cooperation when Roosevelt was in America, and Stalin was in our country."
S.E. Kurginyan, political scientist.
Here are the words of Roosevelt:
"Under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Stalin, the Russian people showed such an example of love for the motherland, firmness of spirit and self-sacrifice that the world has not yet known. After the war, our country will always be happy to maintain good-neighborly relations and sincere friendship with Russia, whose people, saving themselves, help to save the whole world from the Nazi threat."
Personal message to Stalin following the results Tehran Conference (passed: November 28-December 1, 1943):
"I believe that the conference was very successful and I am sure that it is a historic event, confirming our ability not only to wage war, but also to work for the cause of the world to come in full harmony."
"To put it plain language I got on very well with Marshal Stalin. This person combines a huge, unyielding will and a healthy sense of humor; I think the soul and heart of Russia have their true representative in him. I believe that we will continue to get along well with him and with the entire Russian people."
"Since the last meeting in Tehran, we have been working in really good cooperation with the Russians, and I think the Russians are quite friendly. They are not trying to swallow all of Europe and the rest of the world."
The quotes speak for themselves.
Exactly 2 hours and 24 minutes after the death of Roosevelt, his place is taken by US Vice President and ardent anti-communist Harry Truman. Literally into Russian, "Truman" is translated as "real man" (English "true man") =)) , but this is a joke.
The first thing Truman does is forbid the execution of any instructions from the previous Roosevelt administration.
"That's enough, we are no longer interested in an alliance with the Russians, and therefore, we may not fulfill the agreements with them. We will solve the problem of Japan without the help of the Russians."
From this moment on, any friendliness can be forgotten.
On the eve of the Potsdam Conference (held: July 17 - August 2, 1945), Truman receives a coded message: " The operation took place this morning. The diagnosis is not yet fully completed, but the results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations.". This was a message about the successful test of the atomic bomb. And on July 21, US Secretary of War Stimson, who accompanied the conference Truman , receives photographs of the tests carried out and shows them to the president.
And Truman goes on the offensive.
During the conference, he tries to hint to Stalin that the United States has nuclear weapons.
Churchill describes the scene this way: "We stood in twos and threes before dispersing. I was perhaps five yards away and followed this important conversation with keen interest. I knew what the president was going to say. It was extremely important to know what impression this would make on Stalin ".
A little later, Churchill would approach Truman: "How did everything go?" I asked. “He didn’t ask a single question,” the president replied..
And on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States carries out two nuclear attacks on Japanese cities - on the city of Hiroshima (up to 166 thousand dead) and on the city of Nagasaki (up to 80 thousand dead).
"Military and civilians, men and women, old and young, were killed indiscriminately by the atmospheric pressure and heat radiation of the explosion...
These bombs used by the Americans, in their cruelty and terrifying effects, are far superior to poison gases or any other weapon whose use is prohibited.
Japan protests against the US violation of internationally recognized principles of warfare, violated both by the use of the atomic bomb and by earlier incendiary bombings that killed the elderly, women and children, destroyed and burned Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, residential areas, etc. d..
Now they have used this new bomb, which has a much more destructive effect than any other weapon used hitherto. This is a new crime against humanity and civilization."
According to an American report from 1946, there was no military necessity for the use of atomic bombs:
"Based on a detailed examination of all the facts and after interviews with surviving Japanese officials, in the opinion of this Study, definitely before December 31, 1945, and most likely before November 1, 1945, Japan would have capitulated even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped. and the USSR would not have entered the war, and even if the invasion of Japanese islands not planned or prepared.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans planned subsequent atomic bombings of Japan, but later decided that it was more expedient not to waste bombs as they were created, but to start accumulating them.
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| Stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the world. |
On September 4, 1945, the United States Joint War Planning Committee prepared memorandum No. 329: " select approximately 20 most important targets suitable for strategic atomic bombing USSR and in the territory controlled by it"As the arsenal grew, the number of cities was planned to be increased. By that time, the USSR did not have not only such weapons, but even a strategic bomber capable of long-range flights.
December 1945 came. The USSR flatly refused to ratify the Bretton Woods agreement.
But there were no atomic strikes on the USSR. Stalin too well weighed all the pros and cons.
One of the important reasons for the failed attack was the Americans themselves, namely their supply to us under Lend-Lease.
And from the middle of 1944, approximately 2,400 R-63 Kincobra attack fighters were delivered to the USSR, the best American fighters at the end of the war, which were a modification of the aforementioned R-39s. The Kincobras failed to take part in the war with Germany, and practically the same in the war with Japan.
Thus, it turned out that by the end of the war we were armed with a full set of the latest American fighters (I think good relations with Roosevelt played a role here), and all atomic bombs, at that time, were delivered using long-range aviation, vulnerable to fighters.
So it turns out that the Americans protected us from themselves.
America did not have the opportunity tofight with us in a fair fight, even joining forces with Europe. The Soviet Union by this time was no longer too tough for them. So the West is beginning to build up its joint military power with all its might in order to bring it down on the USSR as soon as possible. The USSR, however, had only to strengthen its air defense and speed up work on its nuclear program.
The curtain falls.
"The most important thing is to choose the right enemy."Joseph Goebbels.
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton (USA), divided the world into two poles: those who are with us and those who are with them, the so-called bipolar world. President Truman also attended the speech.
This speech was the official start of the Cold War.
"Neither the effective prevention of war nor the permanent expansion of the influence of the World Organization can be achieved without the fraternal union of the English-speaking peoples. This means special relationship between the British Commonwealth and the British Empire and the United States.From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain descended on the continent. On the other side of the curtain are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia. All these famous cities and the populations in their districts fell within what I call the Soviet sphere, all of them, in one form or another, not only under Soviet influence, but also under the considerable and increasing control of Moscow.
Almost all of these countries are run by police governments,<...>there is no true democracy in them."
But Churchill was not the one who first introduced the concept of "Iron Curtain" in relation to the Soviet Union. He borrowed this expression from an article by the Reich Minister public education and German propaganda, Joseph Goebbels:
"If the Germans lay down their arms, the Soviets will occupy, according to the Yalta Conference, all the eastern and southeastern Europe, together with for the most part Reich. The iron curtain will descend gigantic territory, controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which the peoples will be exterminated.
<...>
All that will be left will be human raw materials, a dumb roaming mass of millions of desperate, proletarian working animals who will know only what the Kremlin will want about the rest of the world.
This article was written by Goebbels on February 25, 1945, immediately after the Yalta Conference, at which further fate peace.
With his article, Goebbels tried to bring seeds of discord into the ranks of the allies (anti-Hitler, of course) and desperately beg the West for the last chance for salvation, in the face of imminent death: “Now Bolshevism stands on the Oder. Everything depends on the steadfastness of the German soldiers. Whether Bolshevism will be pushed to the East or whether its fury will cover all of Europe.<...>Everything will be decided by us or will not be decided at all. That's all the alternatives."
Goebbels' article had its effect, but only after the fall of Germany and the death of its leadership. It was then that Churchill took the words of Goebbels for his speech in Fulton.
"If Churchill had dug deeper, he would have known that the term 'iron curtain' first came into use in Scandinavia, where workers in the early 1920s protested against their rulers' desire to fence them off from the 'heretical ideas' coming from the East."Valentin Falin, Dr. Sciences.
We were not at war with Hitler in order to transfer power to the Churchills.
Stalin immediately reacted to Fulton's speech:
“It should be noted that Mr. Churchill and his friends are strikingly reminiscent in this respect of Hitler and his friends. Hitler began the work of starting the war by proclaiming the racial theory, declaring that only people who speak German represent a complete nation.
Mr. Churchill begins the business of unleashing war also with racial theory, arguing that only nations that speak English language, are full-fledged nations, called to decide the fate of the whole world.
german race theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only full-fledged nation, should dominate other nations. The English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the nations that speak the English language, as the only full-fledged ones, should dominate the rest of the nations of the world.
<...>
In essence, Mr. Churchill and his friends in England and the United States are presenting to non-English-speaking nations a kind of ultimatum: accept our domination voluntarily, and then everything will be in order - otherwise war is inevitable.
Parable of the Good Samaritan.
The meaning of the Marshall Plan was to allocate financial assistance to countries affected during the Second World War.
Goodwill gesture, you say. Alas, no, in America "only business." Each of the countries that received aid had to sacrifice part of their sovereignty.
The Truman Doctrine, on the other hand, contained specific measures against the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence and the spread of communist ideology ("the doctrine of containment" of socialism), as well as aimed at returning the USSR to its former borders ("the doctrine of rejection" of socialism).
The father of the founder of the "doctrine of containment" is considered the American ambassador to Moscow (of that time). It was he who formulated and outlined in his telegram of February 22, 1946, even before Churchill's speech at Fulton, all the main trends of the future Cold War. The telegram was called "long", as it contained about 8,000 words.
Here are excerpts from the telegram:
You can read the full text of the telegram here (link) or at the end of the article, in the additional section. materials.
It was George Kennan who formulated the idea that the Soviet Union should be defeated without entering into a direct military conflict with it. The bet here was on the depletion of the Soviet economy, because the economy of the West was much more powerful (why was it more powerful? Yes, because it developed while we were at war, and ate our gold).
Thus, by the middle of 1947, two types of foreign policy orientation were finally formed on the world map: pro-Soviet and pro-American.
And on April 4, 1949, countries that received economic assistance from the United States under the Marshall Plan sign the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO). Here's a combination in two moves.
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| RDS-1. |
A little about our bomber.
On August 3, 1947, an air parade in Tushino was opened by three Tu-4 aircraft, which was attended by foreign military representatives. At first, foreigners did not believe that Soviet planes were flying in the sky, because only the United States had such bombers, it was theirs. latest development. But, as much as they would not like to admit it, the planes were Soviet. And the reason for the distrust of foreigners was the similarity - the planes were exact copies of the American B-29 "Superfortress" (superfortress).
In 1949, the Tu-4 was put into service and became the first Soviet aircraft to carry nuclear weapons.
Thus, the position of the two forces in the world was relatively equalized. Now, with bare hands, it was no longer possible to take us.
"Truman started the Cold War. And he started it out of fear, out of weakness, not out of strength. And why? After the Second World War, capitalism as a system turned out to be very battered. It was discredited in the eyes of millions of people. war It gave rise to fascism and the gas chambers.
The Soviet Union was in this sense a real alternative. And this happened against the background when Europe was in ruins.
The Greek communists are about to come to power.
The Italian communists in 1943 had 7,000 people. In 1945 they had 1.5 million people.
And so Truman and his entourage had a fear that Stalin would take advantage of the opportunities that were opening up before him. Moreover, there was a civil war in China, where the communists won. India continued to fight for independence. There were wars of liberation already in Indonesia and Vietnam, or they were ready for it.
That is, the Soviet Union, as the Americans believed, could take advantage of this situation in order to create a real threat to American capitalism, the American way of life. The Soviet Union had to be stopped. That was the reason why the Americans started the Cold War."A.L. Adamashin, Russian diplomat.
The Soviet system was dangerous for the West not so much from an ideological point of view as from a methodological one. This mainly concerned the economic component.
"The principle of state policy (Soviet - ed.) was made a constant, albeit modest, improvement in the well-being of the population. This was expressed, for example, in large and regular price cuts (13 times in 6 years; from 1946 to 1950 bread fell in price three times, and meat - 2.5 times).It was then that specific stereotypes enshrined in the state ideology arose mass consciousness: confidence in the future and the belief that life can only get better.
The condition for this was the strengthening of the financial system of the state in close connection with planning. To preserve this system, the USSR went to important step: refused to join the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and on March 1, 1950, he left the dollar zone altogether, transferring the definition of the ruble exchange rate to a gold basis. Large gold reserves were created in the USSR, the ruble was inconvertible, which made it possible to maintain very low domestic prices.
In each country there is a certain amount of goods and services (commodity equivalent, TE), the number of these goods and services is constantly growing or decreasing (depending on the situation in the country, but definitely not standing still) and there is a money supply, the purpose of which is to serve the universal equivalent of the exchange (DE - cash equivalent). The money supply is always attached to goods and should approximately correspond to their quantity (that is, TE = DE). If there is more money than goods, this is called inflation ( TE< ДЭ = инфляция ); if there is less money than goods, then this is called deflation ( TE > DE = deflation).
But the Central Bank (in this particular case, I mean the Fed) is constantly printing extra money, in other words, it creates inflation (TE< ДЭ ) и для того, чтобы уровнять соотношение "товар-деньги", цены на товары и услуги растут. Вот и вся математика.
What happened in Stalin's USSR?
And there it was exactly the opposite: the number of goods grew, and the Central Bank, on the contrary, did not print more money, that is, it created deflation (TE > DE), and in order to equalize the "goods-money" ratio, the prices of goods were reduced (i.e. the solvency of money increased).“The essential features and requirements of the basic economic law of socialism could be formulated approximately as follows: ensuring the maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the whole society through the continuous growth and improvement of socialist production on the basis of higher technology. Consequently: instead of ensuring maximum profits, - ensuring maximum satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of society; instead of the development of production with interruptions from rise to crisis and from crisis to rise, - continuous growth of production ... "Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States.
But why did the US choose such an illogical and highly unsustainable financial system? The answer is not complicated - "just business." the Fed is private company, and the inflationary financial system is just a way for this company to make a profit.
"The main features and requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism could be formulated approximately as follows: ensuring the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of a given country..."
And now I will explain what inflation is, as many do not understand the essence of this term.
For example: 10 people live in the country, each of them has 100 rubles (that is, the total turnover of the country is 1000 rubles), but then the Central Bank prints another 1000 rubles. And I have a question for you - how much money did these people have? Yes, they still have all the money, but their price (solvency) has been halved. In other words, the population of the country was simply robbed of 1,000 rubles. This is the inflation system - by producing extra money, the Central Bank simply robs its population. But here again we recall that the FRS is a private office, and therefore it turns out that it is not robbing "its own population", but simply "the population" (and it does not matter which country). " Nothing personal just business".
"Goods and services that could be bought for $1 in 1913 are now worth $21. Let's look at it in terms of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. It's now less than 0.05% of its value in 1913. You could say, that the government and its banking cartel, as a result of the incessant inflationary policy, stole from us 95 cents out of every dollar.Ron Paul, American politician, 2009
With the death of Stalin, the practice of lowering prices in the USSR was discontinued. Khrushchev abolished the gold content of the ruble, transferring the Soviet currency, following the example of all countries, to dollar backing.
“The success of the Soviet system as a form of power within the country has not yet been conclusively proven. It must be clearly demonstrated that it can withstand the decisive test of a successful transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to another.
Lenin's death was the first such transition, and its consequences had a devastating effect on the Soviet state for 15 years. After the death or resignation of Stalin, there will be a second transition. But even this will not be a decisive test. Due to the recent territorial expansion Soviet power inside the country will experience a number of additional difficulties, which once already subjected the tsarist regime to severe tests. Here we are convinced that never since the end of the civil war has the Russian people been so far emotionally from the doctrines of the Communist Party as at the present time.
In Russia, the party has become a gigantic and now prosperous apparatus of dictatorial rule, but has ceased to be a source of emotional inspiration. Thus, the internal strength and stability of the communist movement cannot yet be considered guaranteed."What was the genius of Stalin? He understood that the ideological component needed to be constantly changed to meet the changing needs of the country, that is, to be flexible, but his followers no longer understood this, which is what Kennan was talking about.
With collapse Soviet Union, many thought that the United States emerged victorious in the Cold War, but the collapse of the USSR was not the end of the war, it was only the end of the battle. Today we can observe the information war - a new round, a new battle in one big war- battle of empires...
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And her allies. It seemed that victory over a common enemy should unite the states of Europe and the world, which together withstood the ordeal of a terrible war. However, relations between the USSR and its allies (USA, Great Britain and other countries) only worsened. The leaders of the USSR tried to "protect the country from the pernicious influence of the West", and the Western powers - from the USSR. As a result, the expressions "iron curtain" and "cold war" arose, defining the relations of the most powerful state in Europe with some countries of the world.
Few people remember that the Iron Curtain once really existed. Such a curtain began to be used in theaters at the end of the 18th century. The fact is that flammable candles and lamps were then used to illuminate the stage, so fires often occurred in the theater. The iron curtain was lowered in the event of a fire on the stage, which through it was tightly separated from the audience, which allowed them to safely leave the room. It is unlikely that anyone thought then that the expression "Iron Curtain" would soon acquire a political connotation.
For the first time, the expression "Iron Curtain" was used in a new capacity by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, speaking on March 5, 1946 in the city of Fulton (USA). Summing up the political results of the Second World War, he said that “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended on the continent, implying the policy of the Soviet Union to limit the influence of the capitalist powers.
Before Churchill, this expression was used in the same context by the Minister of Propaganda Nazi Germany Joseph Goebbels (February 23, 1945). He declared that if the Soviet Union won the war with Germany, it would fence off Eastern and South-Eastern Europe with an "iron curtain" from the rest of it. In the USSR, this expression was also familiar: back in 1930, Lev Nikulin used it in Literaturnaya Gazeta.
Indeed, the relations of the USSR with the capitalist countries of Europe and the USA after 1945 deteriorated sharply. The fact is that the states were too different policies, not wanting to make any mutual concessions. The Soviet Union tried to expand its sphere of influence in Europe, which was very painful for the United States. In the end, the conflict between the two leading powers of the world at that time led to the so-called "cold war".
"Cold War"
The term "cold war" meant the political conflict between the USSR and the USA in the period from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. During this period, the two superpowers fought for their influence in the world. It was a struggle not only between two states, but also between two ideologies. The main stages of the Cold War are considered to be the arms race, the struggle for supremacy in space and the nuclear confrontation between the USSR and the USA.
The United States did not like the growing influence of the USSR in Europe and American politicians tried their best to limit it. A so-called policy of "containment" was developed, that is, restrictions on the spread of communist ideology in the countries of Western Europe. It was expressed in economic, financial and military assistance to non-communist regimes. Fundamentals of the new foreign policy The USA was introduced by President Harry Truman on March 12, 1947 in the American Congress. Some politicians consider this date to be the official date for the beginning of the Cold War, others are of the opinion that it began after Churchill's speech in Fulton.
The first stage of the Cold War remained with the Americans. Already in July 1945 (even before the start of the Cold War), the world's first atomic bomb was tested, and in early August the United States demonstrated its military might to the USSR on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was clear that it was necessary to restore the nuclear balance in the world, so work on the creation of an atomic bomb in the USSR was accelerated, but it appeared only in 1949. After that, both countries began to actively build up their nuclear potential. In an effort to overtake the enemy, both states spent huge amounts of money on the production of weapons and military equipment. Over the years of rivalry, technical solutions have been found that have found applications in civilian life. This is how nuclear power plants, jet passenger planes, the Internet and much more appeared.
At another stage of the Cold War - dominance in space - the rivalry was conducted with varying success, with the overall advantage of the USSR. In 1957, the first artificial earth satellite was launched, and in 1961, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, went into space. First exit to outer space also carried out by Soviet cosmonauts. Having outright lost the first stage of the space rivalry, the Americans rehabilitated themselves a little by being the first to set foot on the surface of the moon.
However, the main stage of the rivalry took place on the ground. One of the tasks of the Cold War, like the conventional war, was the task of winning over as many allies as possible. One of the most notable conflicts on this ground occurred in Germany, which was divided into East and West. Thanks to the support of the United States, the latter developed faster economically, so the inhabitants of East Germany (GDR) began to move to the West. The capital of Germany, Berlin, was also divided into Western and Eastern parts. To limit the outflow of residents from Soviet-controlled East Germany, the Berlin Wall was erected on August 13, 1961, dividing West and East Berlin. The creation of the Berlin Wall not only allowed the GDR government to stop the outflow of the population, but also to create more favorable conditions for the independent development of the republic. In October, the Americans attempted to destroy the Berlin Wall, but Soviet intelligence was aware of these plans and took countermeasures. Against three jeeps, ten tanks and bulldozers from East Germany, a whole regiment of tanks and a battalion of infantry came out. As a result, the Americans had to retreat.
With the coming to power in the USSR of Mikhail Gorbachev, who proclaimed "socialist pluralism", the conflict was practically settled. In the course of negotiations between the warring countries, agreements began to be concluded on the reduction of weapons, which both countries had accumulated over the long years of the Cold War. In the late 80s, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, and East and West Germany became a single state. The economic and political crisis in the USSR no longer made it possible to fight the United States. On December 26, 1991, the Union Treaty was terminated, which ended the Cold War.
As a result, the United States achieved its main goal: the destruction of its main opponent in the struggle for influence in the world. The USSR broke up into several independent states, and even the largest of them, Russia, could no longer dictate its terms to the Americans. In addition, the communist countries that were left without the support of the USSR either completely ceased to exist, or found themselves in a deep crisis.
Alexander Podrabinek: On March 5, 1946, the leader of the British Conservatives, Winston Churchill, delivered a speech at Westminster College in the American city of Fulton, in which he said: "From Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended on the continent." Then, from that day, the countdown of the Cold War began, and the term "Iron Curtain" itself entered the international political lexicon and firmly entrenched in it, denoting a means of self-isolation of the Soviet Union from the free world. True, it should be noted that HG Wells wrote about the Iron Curtain in 1904 in his science fiction novel Food of the Gods, and in 1919 French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau spoke about the Iron Curtain at the Paris Peace Conference.
The "Iron Curtain" is one of the brightest signs of a totalitarian regime. Not the only one, but very revealing. The ban on leaving the country is a safety net for the totalitarian dictatorship in case of mass dissatisfaction of the people with the existing regime. In the Soviet Union, this system lasted until 1991, when the law "On the procedure for leaving the USSR" was adopted, abolishing the need to obtain exit visas at OVIRs - the visa and registration departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the Soviet Union, as, indeed, in other countries of the socialist bloc, there was a system of exit visas. That is, in order to travel to another country, it was necessary to obtain not only an entry visa from the embassy of this country, as in many cases it is still necessary today, but also an exit visa from their own authorities. It was put in the Soviet passport, and before perestroika, it was almost impossible for an ordinary person to get it. This was the privilege of the Soviet and party nomenklatura, and the issue of issuing exit visas to all Soviet citizens was also resolved with it.
The Soviet government considered the intention to emigrate from the country as a betrayal of the motherland. True, this did little to embarrass those who set themselves the goal of leaving the socialist paradise. Few have been able to do it legally.
The most massive category of Soviet emigrants were Jews who declared their intention to repatriate to their historical homeland to Israel. AT different years this was more difficult or easier to do, but almost always the declaration of the intention to repatriate entailed undesirable consequences. What troubles awaited people who applied for immigration to Israel?
Roman Spektor, Head of the PR and Mass Media Department of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, tells the story.
Roman Spector: The first is job loss. And this is probably the scariest thing. The second is arrest. This did not depend in any way on the quality of participation in any movement, it had nothing to do with the actual category of refusal. The Jews were by that time hostages, nothing depended on their desire. Some kind of strong KGB power decided how many Jews, when and for what reason to let them go. The very idea of the vacation was, of course, a reaction to the desire of the Jews to leave the country. At first, it was the expressed, deeply tempered Zionist will, which, with such heroes as Yasha Kazakov, now Yasha Kedmi, ignited the Jews of the whole world, which began to fight for the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel. Since there was some procedure that depended on the filing, people served and fell into two traps. One of them was called a ban on leaving the country due to secrecy at work - these are the so-called "secrets", the second is the relatives of those who were banned, the category of the so-called "poor relatives". And the quantity, the region, all this was planned by the authorities only in order to somehow show somewhere that Jews still have the right to leave, but there were very few such "lucky ones". People fell under arrest and under the Gulag when there was some kind of order, everything worked for us for the sake of some inflated figure, especially when such a department ordered it. The current speaker of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Yuli Edelstein, was imprisoned because he taught Hebrew. But Hebrew was taught by many other people, why Yulik ended up behind bars - this is a question that should be addressed not to me, but to those KGB officers who determined this.
A significant number of people who received permits went to non-Israeli or used Israeli visas to end up in Austria, Germany, American states etc. The reverse flow, or re-emigration, as we call it, has always existed. This is, in general, a fairly small stream, which did not rise above 7-10%, depending on some circumstances. Since not all Jews were equally ideologically infected and in their behavior the craving for the Promised Land was not so pronounced, in search of a better life, they first went to Israel and some other countries, not having acquired the necessary social status there, not finding the necessary work there and the necessary income, they returned enriched with language and new realities. And the smallest part of them joined the ranks of activists and by that time already established Jewish institutions here in Russia.
Alexander Podrabinek: Another category of legal emigrants were dissidents, more precisely, a small part of them, whom the Soviet authorities let go abroad. Why did she do it? Says human rights activist Pavel Litvinov.
Pavel Litvinov: I think it's just that they don't stay in Russia. It was believed that they would bring less harm to Soviet power abroad, that they would be heard less there. They had a contradiction all the time: on the one hand, they wanted to get rid of dissidents, on the other hand, they did not want to be easy way emigrate, less degree of freedom. Were different periods. When the democratic movement began in 1967-1968, emigration was a pure abstraction, that is, no one left, we did not hear that anyone left, no one returned. Communists could leave, and then not leave, but go, sometimes remain defectors. I remember we said that in principle there should be freedom of emigration, but all this had nothing to do with the matter. Then the KGB decided to use the Jewish emigration in order to push out one of the dissidents. But it was a completely new phenomenon, it began in 1970-71. I think that political emigrants played a big role, I, in particular, together with Valery Chelidze, we published the magazine "Chronicle in Defense of Human Rights", republished "Chronicle of Current Events", published books. I spoke on Radio Liberty, Voice of America. Corresponded with people in Moscow. Thus, we have created additional channels of information, the movement has become truly international. I think that it is unlikely to return to past practice, but it is impossible to predict, the regime may become so worse that these will be the details of additional fascistization of the regime. This seems unlikely to me.
Alexander Podrabinek: Ethnic Germans and Pentecostals achieved some success in the struggle to leave the country, but in general, for the majority of Soviet citizens, the border remained closed. However, there is no lock that cannot be picked. craftsmen. Escape across the border was dangerous, but not uncommon.
The simplest method was used by "defectors" - people who did not return from the West from tourist trips and business trips. It should be noted that defectors are an older concept than Soviet power. Also in early XIX centuries after the victory over Napoleon, more than 40 thousand lower ranks became defectors and remained in the West Russian army. Alexander I even wanted to return them to Russia forcibly, but nothing happened.
Of the Soviet "defectors" can be called such famous people, as world chess champion Alexander Alekhin and USSR chess champion Viktor Korchnoi, director Alexei Granovsky, singer Fyodor Chaliapin, geneticist Timofeev-Resovsky, Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, ballet dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev, historian Mikhail Voslensky, actor Alexander Godunov, pianist Maxim Shostakovich, soviet ambassador at the UN Arkady Shevchenko, film director Andrei Tarkovsky, Olympic medalist and three-time world champion hockey player Sergei Fedorov, writer Anatoly Kuznetsov. This is one of the most famous.
And there were many people who, at their own peril and risk, fled from the Soviet paradise in a variety of ways. Oceanographer Stanislav Kurilov, who was allowed by the Soviet authorities to explore the depths of the sea exclusively in the territorial waters of the USSR, took a ticket for an ocean cruise from Vladivostok to the equator and back without calling at ports. It did not require an exit visa. On the night of December 13, 1974, he jumped from the stern of the ship into the water and, with flippers, a mask and a snorkel, without food, drink or sleep, swam about 100 km for more than two days to one of the islands of the Philippine archipelago. After an investigation by the Philippine authorities, he was deported to Canada and granted Canadian citizenship. And in the Soviet Union, Kurilov received a 10-year prison sentence in absentia for treason.
Vladimir Bogorodsky, who was sitting with me in the same camp in the early 80s, to whom the Soviet authorities did not give permission to repatriate to Israel, told how he spat on legal ways to emigrate and simply crossed the Soviet-Chinese border. He demanded from the Chinese to give him the opportunity to fly to Israel or meet with American diplomats in Beijing, but the Chinese communists turned out to be no better than the Soviet ones. They offered him an alternative: either stay in China or return to the Union. So instead of Israel or America, Volodya spent three years in Shanghai, and then relations between Moscow and Beijing warmed up, the fugitive was brought to the Soviet-Chinese border and handed over to Soviet border guards. He received three years in the camp for illegally crossing the border and was happy that it was not 15 years for treason.
The plane has always been the fastest and most convenient means of transportation. including from socialist camp to the free world. Daredevils, one way or another involved in aviation, fled abroad on planes, usually military ones.
Most of these escapes took place after the Second World War, but there were cases before. So, for example, on May 1, 1920, four aircraft from the 4th Fighter Air Group of the First Aviation Squadron of the Red Army took off from the Slavnoye airfield near Borisov to scatter leaflets over the territory of Poland, against which the Bolsheviks fought then. Only three fighters returned. Former lieutenant colonel tsarist army Pyotr Abakanovich flew on his "Nieuport-24-bis" to the Poles, landing at the airfield in Zhodino. Then he served in the Polish Air Force, twice got into a plane crash, during World War II he was in the resistance, fought against the Nazis, participated in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and after the war he continued to fight the communist regime in Poland. In 1945 he was arrested, in 1946 he was sentenced to death, but then he was replaced death penalty life imprisonment. In 1948, he died in the Vronka prison from beatings by a guard.
In 1948, the Yak-11 training aircraft was hijacked to Turkey directly from the flight school in Grozny. It must be assumed that the cadet went to study as a military pilot, already having clear intentions.
In the same 1948, pilots Pyotr Pirogov and Anatoly Barsov flew on a Soviet Tu-2 military aircraft from the Kolomyia airbase to Austria. The American occupation authorities in Germany granted them political asylum. A year later, Anatoly Barsov, for some unknown reason, returned to the USSR, where six months later he was shot.
On May 15, 1967, pilot Vasily Yepatko flew on a MiG-17 aircraft from a Soviet air base in the GDR to West Germany. He did not land, but ejected near the city of Augsburg. He later received political asylum in the United States.
On May 27, 1973, aircraft engineer Lieutenant Evgeny Vronsky took off on a Su-7 combat aircraft from the Grossenhain Group airbase Soviet troops in Germany. Having minimal piloting skills obtained on the simulator, Vronsky flew the entire flight in afterburner mode and did not even remove the landing gear after takeoff. After crossing the German border, Vronsky ejected. His car crashed into a forest near the city of Braunschweig and soon the wreckage of the plane was returned to the Soviet side, and Lieutenant Vronsky received political asylum.
On September 6, 1976, Senior Lieutenant Viktor Belenko fled in a MiG-25 to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. After the study of the aircraft by American specialists, the aircraft was returned to the Soviet Union in a disassembled state. After this escape, a button appeared in the missile launch system from the fighter, which removed the lock on firing at its aircraft. She received the nickname "Belenkovskaya".
But they fled from the Soviet Union not only on military aircraft. In 1970, 16 Jewish refuseniks from Leningrad planned to hijack a civilian AN-2 aircraft, having bought all the tickets for this flight. It was supposed to land the plane in Sweden, but all the participants in the operation were arrested by the KGB at the airport, that is, before they had time to do anything. Ultimately, all were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
What the Jewish refuseniks failed to do, 30 years later, the Cuban refugees managed to do. On September 19, 2000, 36-year-old pilot Angel Lenin Iglesias, with his wife and two children, flew exactly the same AN-2 from the airport in the Cuban city of Pinar del Rio. All other passengers and the co-pilot were also relatives of Iglesias. There were 10 people on board. The plane headed for Florida, but ran out of fuel and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. During a hard landing on the water, one of the passengers died. The rest were picked up by a passing Panamanian cargo ship, which delivered the rescued to Miami.
The joint Russian-French film "East-West" tells about the fate of a family that returned from emigration to the Soviet Union and faced the realities of Stalin's dictatorship here. The prototype of the main character was Nina Alekseevna Krivosheina, a Russian emigrant of the first wave, the wife of the White Guard officer Igor Krivoshein, who was imprisoned under the Nazis in Buchenwald, and under the Communists in the Gulag. Unfortunately, the authors of the film did not bother to mention in the credits that the script was written based on Nina Krivosheina's book "Four Thirds of Our Life". Nina Alekseevna's son Nikita Krivoshein, a former Soviet political prisoner who was sentenced to a camp term in 1957 for an article in the French newspaper Le Monde condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary, recalls his fellow prisoners who tried to escape from the Soviet Union.
Nikita Krivoshein: I knew Vasya Saburov, who served in the border troops, got off the tower on the Turkish border and went to Turkey. Then he ended up in the United States. Then he was told that his homeland forgives him, cannot live without him, he returned and received 10 years. I knew Lyova Nazarenko, a resident of Minsk, who took a train, went to Batumi station, had breakfast and walked to the Turkish border on foot. There he was met by two shepherd dogs. He got 10 years. I knew a Moscow student who, in those days it was possible, agreed with the Scandinavian crew that they would take him on board the plane. But being a good son, before leaving, he said to his father: "Dad, goodbye. I want to go to Scandinavia in this way." Dad played Pavlik Morozov in reverse and immediately called the right place. The plane landed in Riga, and he received 10 years. Here are a few examples for you, such examples are still abundant, starting with the Solonevich brothers, who managed to escape from the Solovetsky camps and move to Finland, and then to Latin America, not to mention countless defectors.
Alexander Podrabinek: In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the international communist system, the "Iron Curtain" also collapsed. Departure became free, exit visas were canceled, those who wanted to emigrated, the rest could freely travel to other countries to visit, study, work or relax during their holidays. Article 27 of the Russian Constitution, which states that "everyone can freely travel outside the Russian Federation," did not remain only on paper - it actually operated and guaranteed the right to freedom of movement.
The clouds began to thicken a few years ago. In 2008, regulations were issued in the country prohibiting free travel abroad for certain categories of persons - debtors for administrative fines and taxes, non-payers of alimony, defendants in lawsuits. In all these cases, mechanisms of recovery and coercion already existed in the legislation - from the seizure of property to administrative and criminal cases. The issue of "closing the border" for a citizen began to be decided by a judicial act, but not in a court session with a fair competition of the parties, but personally by a bailiff. For example, in 2012 bailiffs banned 469,000 citizens from leaving the country. In the first quarter of 2014, 190,000 Russians, mostly bank debtors, were banned from leaving the country.
Behind all these decisions, the shadow of the Soviet Union looms: the authorities regard travel abroad as a gift to citizens, and not as their inalienable right. Indeed, why can't a person who has monetary debts to organizations or citizens temporarily go abroad, say, for medical treatment or to visit a dying relative? Will he definitely become a defector? Run away from debt and ask for political asylum? What else can our government suspect him of? That he will spend money on himself that he could return to pay off debts? How does it look from the point of view of the law and the right of citizens to freedom of movement?
Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov shares his impressions.
Vadim Prokhorov: Article 27 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, namely the first part of it, guarantees freedom of exit and entry from the Russian Federation. In development of this provision of the constitution, a federal law was adopted on the procedure for leaving the Russian Federation and entering the Russian Federation. In this law, article 15 establishes whole line grounds on which the departure of Russian citizens from the Russian Federation may be restricted. What are these grounds? There are 7 bases. The first reason is access to information constituting state secrets or top secret information. The second ground is the passage of urgent military or alternative civilian service. The third reason is the involvement as an accused or suspected of committing a crime, from my point of view, the most obvious reason for restricting travel, this is generally quite fair. The fourth ground is those held in places of deprivation of liberty by a court sentence until the sentence is served. Fifth - this is the most slippery, delicate basis, as having some obligations of a civil law nature, as a rule, imposed by a court decision, including debt obligations, credit obligations, unfulfilled obligations. The sixth ground is when they knowingly provided false information when applying for a passport. And finally, the seventh is the employees serving in the body Federal Service security, respectively, until the end of the contract. These are the grounds on which travel may be restricted. If we look at these grounds in more detail, it is clear that there is a certain conflict between the constitutional norm, which allows you to freely leave the country and enter it, and the requirements of the federal law, which allow you to restrict the corresponding exit. Some reasons seem logical enough to me. For example, those held in custody or suspected or accused of committing crimes. Another thing is how our law enforcement and judicial system works - a separate conversation. But in general, criminals or potential criminals should be appropriately restricted in travel until the issue is resolved. The most slippery grounds are those who have obligations of a civil law nature, that is, they do not comply with the relevant court decisions, evade, including maliciously, from paying alimony, and so on. There really is a certain subtle balance here, because on the one hand it is a constitutional right to enter and exit. Why is it necessary to limit a person in this? On the other hand, for example, as a practicing civil lawyer, I understand perfectly well that, unfortunately, the legal and economic situation in Russia is such that often people quite deliberately evade the fulfillment of their civil obligations. There is really a problem here, whether it is possible to restrict the constitutional right of a citizen to leave by protecting the rights of his claimants, his creditors. It seems to me that the question is not obvious, it does not have a clear answer, from my point of view. It is necessary to protect constitutional rights, on the one hand, on the other hand, unfortunately, the level of legal awareness of society is such that for some reason debts are often not considered debts for some reason. Yes, travel restrictions, as a kind of debt hole, can be called differently.
Alexander Podrabinek: Perhaps such a system of debt collection is really effective. In the same way, for example, torture inquiry against arrested criminals is effective - under torture, they quickly betray their accomplices. Even more effective is the blackmail of their loved ones arrested by fate - here few people can resist not to confess to committed crimes, and to imperfect ones too. However general question sounds like this: is it possible to protect the rights of some citizens, violating the rights of others for this? And if it is possible, then to what extent, and where is the border that cannot be crossed in a state of law?
In 2010, the ban on leaving the country affected the FSB. They were allowed to travel abroad only by special decision and only in the event of the death of close relatives or urgent treatment, which is impossible in Russia. The exact number of FSB officers is not known to the public, but different estimates this is at least 200 thousand people.
In April 2014, by interdepartmental orders, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Federal Drug Control Service, the prosecutor's office, the Federal Bailiff Service, the Federal Migration Service, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations were banned from leaving for most countries. That is, those who are usually referred to as " power block". In total, this is about 4 million people. And no matter what, but these are also citizens of Russia, who have the same constitutional rights as everyone else.
Why the authorities needed such measures against the backbone of their regime is not entirely clear. These normative acts have not been published, there are no official comments. Some believe that this is a kind of revenge of the leaders of law enforcement agencies, many of whom fell under Western sanctions in connection with Russia's interference in the events in Ukraine. Others believe that this is only the first step towards a total travel ban for all Russian citizens. A kind of courtesy sign for society: we start with our own, and then it will be your turn!
Former Soviet political prisoner Nikita Krivoshein, who lives in France, does not believe in the return of the Iron Curtain.
Nikita Krivoshein: I read that there are restrictions on civil servants, certain categories of civil servants, people working in the defense industry who have access to state secrets, but the same restrictions may not be the same, but similar restrictions still exist in France for similar categories. I read that restrictions are being introduced for alimony defaulters and people who have not paid off their loans - this already seems ridiculous to me, but anyway I am convinced that the resorts of Turkey and Spain will not be empty.
Alexander Podrabinek: The assumption that the "Iron Curtain" may well return and cover the continent again is not as absurd as it might seem at first glance. In neighboring Belarus, for example, some oppositionists have been banned from leaving the country for several years.
In our country, after the capture of Crimea this year, everyone who wanted to retain Ukrainian citizenship and did not want to take Russian citizenship suddenly became foreigners. Now they must obtain a residence permit and cannot spend more than 180 days a year at home. To the leader of the Crimean Tatars, former Soviet dissident and political prisoner Mustafa Dzhemilev Russian authorities generally banned from entering Russia and the Crimea. Now he cannot return to his home in Bakhchisarai, to his family and to his homeland, which he and his people managed to defend under Soviet rule.
So, the prototype of the future "Iron Curtain" operates in both directions: as always, someone is not allowed to leave here, and someone is not allowed to come here.
The issue of freedom of movement, the right to leave the country and return is by no means an idle one. Today, for many people, it has a clear practical meaning. One question: leave or stay? Another question: if you leave, then when?
If you ask the younger generation what the Iron Curtain is, it can be difficult. Of course, when you have not witnessed certain events, it is difficult to imagine them. However, if you ask the same question to people born in the era of the late USSR, the answer will immediately follow. After all, they lived during this period, they know firsthand what the notorious Iron Curtain is. We will also try to reveal the veil of secrecy and tell in more detail why it arose when it ceased to exist, and we will also try to answer the rhetorical question - was it even needed?
Background of the Iron Curtain
In 1945 the Second World War. Germany was defeated - fascist troops were pursued from all sides - by the Americans and the British from the west, by Soviet soldiers from the east. The countries occupied by the Germans at the very beginning of hostilities were liberated, and not by anyone, but by the Red Army. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary - the peoples received their freedom and the right to life thanks to Russian soldiers. Undoubtedly, the Soviet leadership pursued its own goals in the liberation of these states - it was necessary to create puppet governments that were entirely subordinate to Moscow, but apparently pursued a policy pleasing to citizens.
For the whole world, these countries were democratic, but in reality they were not. In most cases, coming to power the right people either through a coup or rigged elections. Soviet agents, "gray cardinals", who were appointed advisers, were in fact scammers, executors of all the "dirty" work to eradicate dissent in the country. All parties, with the exception of the communist party, were dissolved and their activities were strictly prohibited. Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the whole of Eastern Europe was separated from the rest of the European part by the so-called Iron Curtain.
So what is it?
Of course, this should not be taken literally - there was no metal barrier between the states. For the first time the term "Iron Curtain" was used by the British Prime Minister in his speech in Fulton in 1946. However, in fact, this phrase was used much earlier - after the revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War in Russia. The philosopher Vasily Rozanov compared the revolution and the establishment of Soviet power with a theatrical action, after which an iron curtain falls with a creak and clang. There was some truth in his words.
Just the period of the Civil War marked the beginning of the isolation of the young Soviet state (it intensified by the end of the 1930s). In addition, it was believed that the USSR itself contributed to its isolation, because it wanted to develop internally and not depend on external factors. Western countries believed that the life of Soviet Russia was short-lived, so you should not waste your time and energy on it.
However, they miscalculated - the USSR not only did not collapse after the end of the Civil War, but also began to develop at a rapid pace, which could not but disturb the United States and Great Britain. And the Soviet leadership, trying to show that life in the country is good and comfortable, invited many intellectuals from abroad, offering them housing and benefits. So to speak, throw dust in the eyes. But the enemy was not a bastard - the United States did everything to suppress the opponent.
In 1944, the country declares its currency - the dollar - the only settlement, and after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, who was always loyal to the USSR and Joseph Stalin in particular, became president, who said that there could be no joint decisions with the USSR. Of course, such provocations could not go unnoticed by the Russian leadership. And in retaliation, an iron curtain descended on the USSR and its friendly countries (read - conquered again).
What did he represent
To a greater extent, these were restrictions on citizens in one case or another. In 1946, Eastern Europe is called the Eastern bloc (Soviet), which was subject to Moscow's policy (unofficially, of course). What was it? First of all, there were restrictions on leaving the communist country. It was incredibly difficult to go even on vacation to a capitalist country - in most cases, a refusal sounded for a person. The same was true of work in the Soviet bloc - foreign journalists were not allowed or were carefully checked, and the diplomatic corps was minimal.
Stalin went further and emphasized in one of his speeches that communism is superior to capitalism in many ways. In response, Churchill delivered his famous speech in Fulton, USA, where he noted that “the whole of Eastern Europe, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, is hidden behind an iron curtain. All the ancient capitals with world history - Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest, Sofia - were again conquered by Moscow. This is not the liberated Europe we fought for.”
Of course, the USSR benefited from the communization of the liberated countries - the countries supplied raw materials and industrial resources to Moscow. It was especially difficult for those who participated in the war on the side of Germany - Romania and Hungary. They were forced to sign a humiliating armistice agreement with the Soviet leadership. The already poor countries were plundered. Cars, tons of grain were exported to the USSR. Sometimes entire factories were dismantled and moved to the territory of Russia.
Moreover, the Iron Curtain is not only an entry and exit blockade, but also a cultural one. The Soviet Union carefully monitored what information came to citizens, from where, who was the source. Do not think that it was different in the West - countries also sought to protect residents from the pernicious influence of the communist infection. Any contacts with foreign citizens must be controlled by the authorities. If something did not go according to plan, the Soviet citizen was punished, and quite severely. Let us recall at least the example of the legendary Soviet actress Zoya Fedorova, who paid for love with her career and health.
In 1945, she met the American diplomat Jackson Tate. I got to know each other quite closely. So much so that in January of the following year she gave birth to a daughter from him. Of course, it would be a scandal, and the actress married another (a Soviet citizen, of course) so that the child would be recorded on him. However, everything secret becomes clear, and Fedorova was sentenced to 25 years in the camp for "espionage". The term was reduced, but health was already undermined. The career was never restored.
If someone was able to overcome the Iron Curtain and go abroad, then the Soviet leadership worked out its own answer - deprivation of citizenship and the inability to return to the USSR for the rest of their lives. Thus, many cultural figures - writers, poets, directors, actors - became "defectors". And, of course, the leadership carefully concealed the true state of affairs in the country, showing those foreigners who come to the country a beautiful picture of the good, well-fed life of the Soviet Union.
How long could the curtain exist? It is difficult to say, but it fell already in the late 1980s, when the policy of glasnost was announced in the Union. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and this event, one might say, was the turning point that finally destroyed the Iron Curtain. It became a thing of the past with the fall of the USSR, a country that claimed communism was invincible. However, it only lasted 70 years. But after so many decades of isolation, the new Russia was free. In all senses.
Was he needed? The question is rhetorical. On the one hand, the USSR developed successfully, relying only on its own strength, people lived in equal (if possible) conditions, not knowing what was happening "over the hill". But there were also many restrictions. How many broken destinies and broken families happened because of the Iron Curtain. Therefore, let everyone answer for himself - was he needed, or is this another whim of the Soviet leadership?
The history of the Cold War is not only the history of the rivalry of two ideologies, but also the history of the rivalry of two economic systems, which in essence were antipodes to each other. What is remarkable about this topic ?, it illuminates the beginning of what we will all witness in our lifetime. “Iron Curtain” - this expression was given life by a device used earlier in the theater - an iron curtain, which, in order to protect the auditorium from fire, was lowered onto the stage in the event of a fire on it. This was very advisable in an era when open fire was forced to be used on the stage to illuminate it - candles, oil lamps, etc. For the first time, such an iron curtain began to be used in France - in the city of Lyon in the late 80s - early 90s gg. 18th century."
Vadim Serov.
Let's remember how it was...
"AT. I. Lenin proclaims Soviet power. V.A. Serov, 1962
It is generally accepted that the well-known "Iron Curtain" descended on the country of the Soviets in the 1920s, roughly speaking, as soon as the USSR was created, they immediately covered it with a curtain so that dirt from the west would not fly. I'm afraid to disappoint some, but it's not.
The country of the Soviets existed, developed, and there was no self-isolation, and it did not have closedness, on the contrary, the Soviet government made every effort to eliminate this closeness. For this, famous writers, artists and other figures from all over the world were invited to the USSR. The purpose of all this was to break the veil of lies that enveloped us in the West, and to give an opportunity to assess what is happening in our country more or less truthfully.
In addition to writers and artists, ordinary people also came to the USSR: some of them were invited as specialists for a large salary, and some came on their own, for ideological reasons (people wanted to build the society of the future with their own hands). Naturally, after some time, returning to their homeland, they all brought with them a baggage of information about the country of the Soviets.
But the Western powers did not attach much importance to this, they no longer saw Russia as a serious adversary for the coming decades, although they did not stop their attempts to snatch an extra piece from us (a campaign of 14 states).
“Russia, which was a civilization of the Western type - the least organized and most shaky of the great powers - is now a modern civilization in extremis (lat. with its last gasp - ed. note). … History knows nothing like the collapse experienced by Russia. If this process continues for another year, the collapse will be final. Russia will turn into a country of peasants; cities will be deserted and turned into ruins, railroads will be overgrown with grass. With the disappearance of the railroads, the last remnants of the central government will disappear.”
HG Wells, 1920
A. Hitler. 1924
However, the explosive growth rates of the USSR greatly frightened the West, showing them that they had greatly miscalculated on our account, even taking into account the insertion of sticks into all our wheels and wheels.
Then, the trump ace of the West, Adolf Hitler, was pulled out of his sleeve (you can read more about this in the article “The Shock USSR. Chronicles of Stakhanov”) and a grandiose war was unleashed, hitherto unseen by mankind.
“In the event that the Germans gain the upper hand, then the Russians must be helped, and if things turn out differently, then the Germans must be helped. And let them kill each other as much as possible."
G. Truman, New York Times, 1941
As they say (they, in the West) - "nothing personal, just business."
Bear trap
"Who controls the country's money is the absolute master of all industry and commerce."
James Abram Garfield, 20th President of the United States, 1881
In July 1944, at the very height of the war, the international Bretton Woods conference was held in the United States (New Hampshire). The meaning of this conference boiled down to two main points: the dollar is the only currency that is now allowed to have a gold content, all other countries must refuse to back their currencies with gold, introducing dollar backing instead (buy the dollar to print their currency), and the second point - the dollar becomes the main settlement currency (all international trade must now be conducted only for dollars).
The USSR signs the enslaving Bretton Woods agreement, its ratification (approval) is scheduled for December 1945.
Here we will deviate a little from the main topic, since it is worth mentioning one more important fact.
April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is assassinated. The reason for the murder was his friendly relations with the USSR and Stalin personally. This event shows once again that US presidents are just pawns in a big game.
“We were closest to equal cooperation when Roosevelt was in America, and Stalin was with us.”
S.E. Kurginyan, political scientist.
Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran
Here are the words of Roosevelt:
“Under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Stalin, the Russian people showed such an example of love for the motherland, firmness of spirit and self-sacrifice, which the world has not yet known. After the war, our country will always be happy to maintain relations of good neighborliness and sincere friendship with Russia, whose people, saving themselves, help to save the whole world from the Nazi threat.
Personal message to Stalin on the results of the Tehran conference (held: November 28-December 1, 1943):
"I believe that the conference was very successful, and I am sure that it is a historic event, confirming our ability not only to wage war, but also to work for the cause of the world to come in full harmony."
“In simple terms, I got on very well with Marshal Stalin. This person combines a huge, unyielding will and a healthy sense of humor; I think the soul and heart of Russia have their true representative in him. I believe that we will continue to get along well with him and with the entire Russian people.
“Since the last meeting in Tehran, we have been working in really good cooperation with the Russians, and I think the Russians are quite friendly. They are not trying to swallow all of Europe and the rest of the world.”
The quotes speak for themselves.
Exactly 2 hours and 24 minutes after the death of Roosevelt, his place is taken by US Vice President and ardent anti-communist Harry Truman. Literally into Russian, "Truman" is translated as "real man" (English "true man") =)) , but this is a joke.
The first thing Truman does is forbid the execution of any instructions from the previous Roosevelt administration.
On April 23, 1945, at a meeting of the White House, Truman would say: “Enough, we are no longer interested in an alliance with the Russians, and therefore we may not fulfill the agreements with them. We will solve the problem of Japan without the help of the Russians.”
From this moment on, any friendliness can be forgotten.
On the eve of the Potsdam Conference (held: July 17 - August 2, 1945), Truman receives a coded message: “The operation took place this morning. The diagnosis is not quite complete yet, but the results seem to be satisfactory and already exceeding expectations.” It was a message about the successful test of the atomic bomb. And on July 21, US Secretary of War Stimson, who accompanied Truman to the conference, receives photographs of the tests and shows them to the president.
And Truman goes on the offensive.
The Big Three in Potsdam
During the conference, he tries to hint to Stalin that the United States has nuclear weapons.
Churchill describes the scene this way: “We stood in twos and threes before dispersing. I was perhaps five yards away and followed this important conversation with keen interest. I knew what the president was going to say. It was extremely important to know what impression this would make on Stalin.
A little later, Churchill would approach Truman: "How did it go?" I asked. "He didn't ask a single question," the president replied.
And on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States carries out two nuclear attacks on Japanese cities - on the city of Hiroshima (up to 166 thousand dead) and on the city of Nagasaki (up to 80 thousand dead).
“Military and civilians, men and women, old men and youth, were killed indiscriminately by the atmospheric pressure and heat radiation of the explosion ... The said bombs used by the Americans, in their cruelty and terrifying effects, far exceed poison gases or any other weapon, the use of which forbidden.
Japan protests against the US violation of internationally recognized principles of warfare, violated both by the use of the atomic bomb and by earlier incendiary bombings that killed the elderly, women and children, destroyed and burned Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, residential areas, etc. d..
Now they have used this new bomb, which has a much more destructive effect than any other weapon used hitherto. This is a new crime against humanity and civilization.”
According to an American report from 1946, there was no military necessity for the use of atomic bombs:
“Based on a detailed examination of all the facts and after interviews with surviving Japanese officials, in the opinion of this Study, definitely before December 31, 1945, and most likely before November 1, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped. and the USSR would not have entered the war, and even if the invasion of the Japanese islands had not been planned and prepared.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans planned subsequent atomic bombings of Japan, but later decided that it was more expedient not to waste bombs as they were created, but to start accumulating them.
The bombings were an act of intimidation. The message to Stalin here is unambiguous: ratify the Bretton Woods agreement or the bombs may fly into you, by accident.
On September 4, 1945, the US Joint Military Planning Committee prepared memorandum No. 329: "to select approximately 20 of the most important targets suitable for strategic atomic bombing of the USSR and in territory controlled by it." As the arsenal increased, the number of cities was planned to increase. By that time, the USSR did not have not only such weapons, but even a strategic bomber capable of long-range flights.
December 1945 came. The USSR flatly refused to ratify the Bretton Woods agreement.
But there were no atomic strikes on the USSR. Stalin too well weighed all the pros and cons.
One of the important reasons for the failed attack was the Americans themselves, namely their supply to us under Lend-Lease.
From 1941 to 1943, more than 4,500 Bell P-39 Airacobra fighters were delivered to the USSR by the Allies.
And since the middle of 1944, approximately 2,400 R-63 Kincobra attack fighters, the best American fighters at the end of the war, were delivered to the USSR, which were a modification of the aforementioned R-39s. The Kinkobrams failed to take part in the war with Germany, and practically the same in the war with Japan.
Thus, it turned out that by the end of the war we were armed with a full set of the latest American fighters (I think good relations with Roosevelt played a role here), and all atomic bombs, at that time, were delivered using long-range aviation, vulnerable to fighters.
So it turns out that the Americans protected us from themselves.
R-63 "Kinkobra"
America did not have the opportunity to fight us in a fair fight, even joining forces with Europe. The Soviet Union by this time was no longer too tough for them. So the West is beginning to build up its joint military power with all its might in order to bring it down on the USSR as soon as possible. The USSR, however, had only to strengthen its air defense and speed up work on its nuclear program.
The curtain falls
"The most important thing is to choose the right enemy."
Joseph Goebbels.
W. Churchill, 1940
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton (USA), divided the world into two poles: those who are with us and those who are with them, the so-called bipolar world. President Truman also attended the speech.
This speech was the official start of the Cold War.
Speech at Fulton
“Neither the effective prevention of war nor the permanent expansion of the influence of the World Organization can be achieved without the fraternal union of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and the British Empire and the United States.
[...]
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain descended on the continent. On the other side of the curtain are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia. All these famous cities and the populations in their districts fell within what I call the Soviet sphere, all of them, in one form or another, not only under Soviet influence, but also under the considerable and increasing control of Moscow.
Almost all of these countries are run by police governments and have no true democracy.”
But Churchill was not the one who first introduced the concept of the "Iron Curtain" in relation to the Soviet Union. He borrowed this expression from an article by the Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of Germany, Joseph Goebbels:
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
“If the Germans lay down their arms, the Soviets will occupy, according to the Yalta Conference, all of eastern and southeastern Europe, together with most of the Reich. An iron curtain will descend on the entire gigantic territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which the peoples will be exterminated.
[...]
All that will be left will be human raw materials, a dumb roaming mass of millions of desperate, proletarian working animals who will know only what the Kremlin will want about the rest of the world.
This article was written by Goebbels on February 25, 1945, immediately after the Yalta Conference, at which the fate of the world was decided.
With his article, Goebbels tried to bring seeds of discord into the ranks of the allies (anti-Hitler, of course) and desperately beg the West for the last chance for salvation, in the face of imminent death: “Now Bolshevism stands on the Oder. It all depends on the resilience of the German soldiers. Will Bolshevism be pushed to the east or will its fury cover all of Europe. Everything will be decided by us or will not be decided at all. That's all the alternatives."
Goebbels' article had its effect, but only after the fall of Germany and the death of its leadership. It was then that Churchill took the words of Goebbels for his speech in Fulton.
"If Churchill had dug deeper, he would have known that the term 'iron curtain' first came into use in Scandinavia, where workers in the early 1920s protested against their rulers' desire to fence them off from the 'heretical ideas' coming from the East."
Valentin Falin, Dr. Sciences.
We didn’t fight Hitler to transfer power to the Churchills
Caricature of Churchill in FultonStalin immediately reacted to Fulton's speech:
“It should be noted that Mr. Churchill and his friends are strikingly reminiscent in this respect of Hitler and his friends. Hitler started the business of starting the war by proclaiming the racial theory, declaring that only people who speak German constitute a full-fledged nation. are full-fledged nations, called to decide the fate of the whole world.
German racial theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only complete nation, should dominate other nations. The English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the nations that speak the English language, as the only full-fledged ones, should dominate the rest of the nations of the world.
In fact, Mr. Churchill and his friends in England and the United States are presenting to the non-English speaking nations something like an ultimatum: accept our domination voluntarily, and then everything will be in order - otherwise war is inevitable.
Parable of the Good Samaritan
Good Samaritan. Artist: S.V. Bakalovich
The Cold War has been declared. The two next steps for the West were the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947) and the US Secretary of State George Marshall's Plan (1947-1948).
The meaning of the Marshall Plan was to provide financial assistance to countries affected during the Second World War.
Goodwill gesture, you say. Alas, no, in America "only business." Each of the countries that received aid had to sacrifice part of their sovereignty.
The Truman Doctrine, on the other hand, contained specific measures against the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence and the spread of communist ideology (the "doctrine of containment" of socialism), as well as aimed at returning the USSR to its former borders ("the doctrine of rejection" of socialism).
The father of the founder of the "doctrine of containment" is the American ambassador to Moscow (of that time) George Kennan. It was he who formulated and outlined in his telegram of February 22, 1946, even before Churchill's speech at Fulton, all the main trends of the future Cold War. The telegram was called "long" because it contained about 8,000 words.
Here are excerpts from the telegram:
"Many foreign countries, especially the countries of Europe, are exhausted and intimidated by the experience of the past and are less interested in general freedom than in their own security. They seek advice, not responsibility. We must be able to offer them such assistance in a better way than the Russians. And if we don't do it, the Russians will.[...]
The Soviet regime is essentially a police regime, originating from the time of tsarist political intrigues and accustomed to thinking primarily in terms of police categories. This must not be overlooked when assessing the motives of the USSR. (Here we see an example of a myth so actively imposed by the West that it has already become a dogma that does not require proof - "Russia is a prison of peoples" - ed.)
It was George Kennan who formulated the idea that the Soviet Union should be defeated without entering into a direct military conflict with it. The bet here was on the depletion of the Soviet economy, because the economy of the West was much more powerful (why was it more powerful? Yes, because it developed while we were at war, and ate our gold).
Thus, by the middle of 1947, two types of foreign policy orientation were finally formed on the world map: pro-Soviet and pro-American.
Division of the world Cold war, mapAnd on April 4, 1949, countries that received economic assistance from the United States under the Marshall Plan sign the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO). Here's a two-move combo.
RDS-1 atomic bomb of the USSRBut already in August (29th) 1949, the USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb - RDS-1. And two years before that, at the beginning of 1947, a long-range bomber capable of delivering nuclear charges was created in the USSR. It was the famous Tu-4.
A little about our bomber.
On August 3, 1947, an air parade in Tushino was opened by three Tu-4 aircraft, which was attended by foreign military representatives. At first, foreigners did not believe that Soviet planes were flying in the sky, because only the United States had such bombers, it was their latest development. But, as much as they would not like to admit it, the planes were Soviet. And the reason for the disbelief of foreigners was the similarity - the planes were exact copies of the American B-29 "Superfortress" (superfortress).
Tu-4 and B-29 bombers. Tu-4 (left) and B-29 (right)In 1949, the Tu-4 was put into service and became the first Soviet aircraft to carry nuclear weapons.
Thus, the position of the two forces in the world was relatively equalized. Now, with bare hands, it was no longer possible to take us.
Dangerous Soviet Union
Bear hurts Uncle SamTruman started the Cold War. And he began it out of fear, out of weakness, not out of strength. And why? After the Second World War, capitalism as a system was badly battered. He was discredited in the eyes of millions of people. He created the Great Depression. He created a terrible war. It gave rise to fascism and gas chambers. The Soviet Union was in this sense a real alternative. And this happened against the background when Europe was in ruins.
The Greek communists are about to come to power.
The Italian communists in 1943 had 7,000 people. In 1945 they had 1.5 million people.
And so Truman and his entourage had a fear that Stalin would take advantage of the opportunities that were opening up before him. Moreover, there was a civil war in China, where the communists won. India continued to fight for independence. There were wars of liberation already in Indonesia and Vietnam, or they were ready for it.
That is, the Soviet Union, as the Americans believed, could take advantage of this situation in order to create a real threat to American capitalism, the American way of life. The Soviet Union had to be stopped. That was the reason why the Americans started the Cold War."
A.L. Adamashin, Russian diplomat.
The Soviet system was dangerous for the West not so much from an ideological point of view as from a methodological one. This mainly concerned the economic component.
“The principle of state policy (Soviet - author's note) was made a constant, albeit modest, improvement in the well-being of the population. This was expressed, for example, in large and regular price reductions (13 times in 6 years; from 1946 to 1950, bread fell three times, and meat 2.5 times). It was then that the specific stereotypes of mass consciousness, enshrined in the state ideology, arose: confidence in the future and the belief that life can only improve. The condition for this was the strengthening of the financial system of the state in close connection with planning. To preserve this system, the USSR took an important step: it refused to join the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and on March 1, 1950, it left the dollar zone altogether, transferring the definition of the ruble exchange rate to a gold basis. Large gold reserves were created in the USSR, the ruble was inconvertible, which made it possible to maintain very low domestic prices.”
S. Kara-Murza.
And now a little about the price reduction.
Today's youth probably thinks that it can't be that prices are constantly falling, because everyone knows that prices should rise - because inflation and a lot of other things, with complicated names that a simple person cannot pronounce.
But I have a question - who said that prices should constantly rise?
Let me explain why prices are going up.
Explanation on the fingersIn each country, there is a certain amount of goods and services (commodity equivalent, TE), the number of these goods and services is constantly growing or decreasing (depending on the situation in the country, but definitely not standing still) and there is a money supply, the purpose of which is to serve universal exchange equivalent (DE - cash equivalent). The money supply is always attached to goods and should approximately correspond to their quantity (that is, TE = DE). If there is more money than goods, this is called inflation (TE DE = deflation).
But the Central Bank (in this particular case, I mean the Fed) constantly prints extra money, in other words, it creates inflation (TE DE), and in order to equalize the “goods-money” ratio, the prices of goods were reduced (i.e., the solvency of money grew ).
“The essential features and requirements of the basic economic law of socialism could be formulated approximately as follows: ensuring the maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the whole society through the continuous growth and improvement of socialist production on the basis of higher technology. Consequently: instead of ensuring maximum profits, - ensuring maximum meeting the material and cultural needs of society; instead of the development of production with interruptions from rise to crisis and from crisis to rise, - continuous growth of production ... "
Here it is clear even to the donkey that the Soviet model, from the time of Stalin, is out of competition, and therefore the only way to fight the Soviet system is to silence it, that is, the same notorious iron curtain.
Nothing personal, just business
“If the American people ever allow banks to control the issuance of money, the banks and corporations that grow up around it will take all their property from people until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States.
But why did the US choose such an illogical and highly unsustainable financial system? The answer is not complicated - "just business." The Fed is a private company, and the inflationary financial system is just a way for this company to make a profit.
“The main features and requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism could be formulated approximately as follows: ensuring the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of a given country ...”
And now I will explain what inflation is, as many do not understand the essence of this term.
For example: 10 people live in the country, each of them has 100 rubles (that is, the total turnover of the country is 1000 rubles), but then the Central Bank prints another 1000 rubles. And I have a question for you - how much money did these people have? Yes, they still have all the money, but their price (solvency) has been halved. In other words, the population of the country was simply robbed of 1,000 rubles. This is the system of inflation - by producing extra money, the Central Bank simply robs its population. But here again we recall that the FRS is a private office, and therefore it turns out that it does not rob “its own population”, but simply “the population” (and it doesn’t matter which country). "Nothing personal, just business."
Ron Paul, dollar depreciation, trend“Goods and services that in 1913 could be purchased for $1 are now worth $21. Let's look at this in terms of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. Now it is less than 0.05% of its value in 1913. We can say that the government with its banking cartel, as a result of the ongoing inflationary policy, stole from us 95 cents out of every dollar.
Ron Paul, American politician, 2009
With the death of Stalin, the practice of lowering prices in the USSR was discontinued. Khrushchev abolished the gold content of the ruble, transferring the Soviet currency, following the example of all countries, to dollar backing.
“Now that the documents of the first period of the Cold War have been published in the United States, it is obvious that this was a war aimed at destroying the USSR and the Soviet state. The doctrine of war prescribed the conduct of two parallel programs: an arms race to deplete the Soviet economy and the indoctrination of the top of the party-state nomenklatura.
S. Kara-Murza
As we can now see from history, the second program was a success.
Those who have eyes, let them see. findings
Wheel of SamsaraThe topic of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War as a whole is relevant today more than ever. As you know, history always repeats itself, it spins in a circle, like the wheel of Samsara, which is why it is important to know history - knowing the past is able to foresee the future.
In conclusion, I would like to quote one more excerpt from D. Kennan's "long telegram" (February 22, 1946):
“The success of the Soviet system as a form of power within the country has not yet been definitively proven. It must be demonstrated that it can stand the decisive test of a successful transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to another.
Lenin's death was the first such transition, and its consequences had a devastating effect on the Soviet state for 15 years. After the death or resignation of Stalin, there will be a second transition. But even this will not be a decisive test. As a result of recent territorial expansion, Soviet power within the country will experience a number of additional difficulties that once already subjected the tsarist regime to severe tests. Here we are convinced that never since the end of the civil war has the Russian people been so far emotionally from the doctrines of the Communist Party as at the present time.
In Russia, the party has become a gigantic and now prosperous apparatus of dictatorial rule, but has ceased to be a source of emotional inspiration. Thus, the internal strength and stability of the communist movement cannot yet be considered guaranteed.
What was the genius of Stalin? He understood that the ideological component needed to be constantly changed to meet the changing needs of the country, that is, to be flexible, but his followers no longer understood this, which is what Kennan was talking about.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many thought that the US emerged victorious in the Cold War, but the collapse of the USSR was not the end of the war, it was only the end of the battle. Today we can observe the information war - a new round, a new battle in one big war - the battle of empires ...
Let me remind you a couple more historical moments: Remember these moments: and just recently The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -