Encyclopedia of Russian History

That achievement was soon diminished by postwar conflict. The Red Army’s occupation of a large part of Central Europe, and the agreements (Yalta and Potsdam) granting Soviet control of much of the area, resulted in a line across Europe, designated by Winston Churchill as the “Iron Curtain.” Instability across Europe and in the former colonial regions aggravated the divisions and produced a series of political and military conflicts: the Berlin blockade (1948-1949), Communist seizures of power in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and the Korean War (1950-1953). Western Europe, fortunately, was stabilized by the Marshall Plan (1948) and the establishment of NATO (1949). The postwar period was still dominated by a risky and unpredictable arms race escalating into enormous productions of nuclear, biological, and other weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed on both sides and resulted in the post-Stalin “spirit of Camp David” (Khrushchev and Eisenhower summit meetings). One important result of Khrushchev’s “peaceful coexistence” was the inauguration of cultural exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s that would continue without interruption and expand.

Unfortunately, additional frictions-the U-2 spy plane incident (1960), building of the Berlin wall (1961), the Cuban missile crisis (1962), Soviet suppression of the Czechoslovak “socialism with a human face” (1968), repression of internal dissent, the Vietnam War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979), and the Korean Airliner incident (1983)-kept the Cold War alive into the 1980s. The Brezhnev-era d?tente, however, had produced a number of softer, more realistic policies that led to expanded exchanges, arms limitations talks, additional Soviet-American summit meetings, and limited emigration of Jews and other voices of Soviet dissent.

Throughout the Cold War, mutual respect prevailed in regard to cultural and scientific achievements, creating pressure in both countries for more communication and efforts at understanding. This culminated in the Gorbachev-era relaxations of the once officially closed society. The rewriting of distorted history, the opening of archives, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the unification of Germany, and, finally, the breakup of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism seemed to herald the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era in Soviet-American relations. This conclusion, however, is clouded by an unfinished and indistinct search for new identity and purpose in both countries.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

See also: ALASKA; ALLIED INTERVENTION; ARMS CONTROL; COLD WAR; CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS; D?TENTE; GRAND ALLIANCE; JEWS; U-2 SPY PLANE INCIDENT; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Robert V. (1988). Russia Looks to America: The View to 1917. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Bohlen, Charles E. (1973). Witness to History, 1929-1969. New York: Norton. Bolkhovitinov, Nikolai. (1975). The Beginnings of Russian-American Relations, 1775-1815, tr. Elena Levin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dukes, Paul. (2000). The Superpowers: A Short History. London: Routledge. Foglesong, David S. (1995). America’s Secret War Against Bolshevism: U. S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Gaddis, John Lewis. (1978). Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States: An Interpretive History. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Gaddis, John Lewis. (1997). We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoff Wilson, Joan. (1974). Ideology and Economics: U S. Relations with the Soviet Union, 1918-1933. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Kennan, George F. (1956, 1958). Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kennan, George F. (1961). Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. Boston: Little, Brown. LaFeber, Walter. (1997). America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1996. New York: McGraw-Hill. Laserson, Max M. (1962). The American Impact on Russia, 1784-1917: Diplomatic and Ideological. New York: Collier. Saul, Norman E. (1991). Distant Friends: The United States and Russia, 1763-1867. Lawrence: University of Press Kansas. Saul, Norman E. (1996). Concord and Conflict: The United States and Russia, 1867-1914. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Williams, Robert C. (1980). Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, William Appleman. (1952). American-Russian Relations, 1781-1947. New York: Rinehart.

NORMAN E. SAUL

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