The Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan is widely seen as one of the most costly and misguided military decisions made in the 20th century, and it is often cited as one of the biggest reasons the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. In his book Russia: A History, Gregory Freeze notes that the “coup de grace for detente was the … Continue reading Aberration in Afghanistan
Tag: Cold War
The Illusion of Khrushchev
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Khrushchev started out his reign as an a ruler that was for the people. He worked to raise the standard of living for the people and increase agricultural production. He worked to revive and de-censor the arts. He started
Czechoslovakia Gets a Little too Western for Brezhnev
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On August 20th, 1968, Warsaw Pact tanks and soldiers invaded Czechoslovakia in order to put down peaceful protests inspired by Alexander Dubček’s attempts at reforming the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Dubček wanted to enact democratic reforms, including freedom of speech and assembly as well as economic reforms, in order to improve socialism. These reforms can be … Continue reading “Czechoslovakia Gets a Little too Western for Brezhnev”
Fight Night: Bear vs. Dragon
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Rising tensions between China and the Soviet Union boiled over in the late 1960s. Over the past decade relations between the two communist powers soured and led to a series of border skirmishes in 1969. Although initially the Soviet government and Communist government of China were friendly with one another, they took a turn after …
The Semipalatinsk Test Site: A Bomb on Nation
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The beginning of “destalinization” put an end to many things, but the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear weapons wasn’t one of them. Given priority by Stalin, nuclear arms development was also continued by his successors, including Nikita Khrushchev. The soviets considered the nuclear program of very high importance, and in 1953, the directors were even … Continue reading The Semipalatinsk Test Site: A Bomb on Nation
The first crack in the Iron Wall
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Soviet Tanks in Budapest (1956) The Hungarian Crisis was the first major threat to Soviet domination of half of Europe since the end of WWII. The Revolution began following several years of political infighting between different factions that led to the public’s grievances being ignored. Having seen some of the success that the Polish public …
The Soviet Super-Bomb
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According to the subject essay by Lewis Siegelbaum, three years before the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, work on the “super-bomb” began. Differing from the recent atomic bomb the world had been experimenting with at the time, the hydrogen bomb was a nuclear weapon which used fusion in a 2-step chain reaction rather than fission. The […]
Russia Launches Into The Final Frontier
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By the mid-1950s, the Cold War was in full swing in both the United States and the Soviet Union. The growing threat of nuclear weapons and an arms race the likes of which the world had never seen before fueled the conflict between the two nations. On October 4th, 1957, The Soviet Union launched itself … Continue reading Russia Launches Into The Final Frontier
Joe-4 Soviet H-Bomb
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The successful test of RDS-1 in August of 1949 inspired the Soviet government to institute a major, high-priority program to develop the hydrogen bomb. The Soviets, who received information from Klaus Fuchs regarding the American hydrogen bomb program throughout the late 1940s, knew that thermonuclear weapons were theoretically possible. They also knew that the hydrogen … More Joe-4 Soviet H-Bomb
