Following the end of World War II a deep diplomatic and political rift developed between the Soviet Union on the one hand and the USA plus western countries on the other. The rift became known as the Cold War. It lasted about fifty years. Political drama and defections, diplomatic intrigue, ambassadorial trickery, international spying and military tensions riddled the period, providing an abundance of material for writers of fiction or history. A writer who concentrates on this period is known as a Cold War author.
During World War II, Soviet Russia fought fiercely against Nazi Germany as a valued ally with the West. Despite that alliance, the relationship between the Soviet Union and western countries was, even at that time, brittle. The relationship was burdened with distrust born out of ideological disdain. Communism and capitalism are not natural bedfellows.
During the war, Soviet Russia maintained some dialogue with western allies. However, once the war ended, it withdrew. It severely limited its diplomatic dialogue and established a deep and wide ideological gulf with the western countries.
Less than a year after the war ended, Sir Winston Churchill bemoaned Soviet detente in a speech he delivered at Westminster College in Missouri, in March 1946. Churchill described how isolationist Soviet foreign policy had brought down an Iron Curtain across Europe, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, dividing western nations from those in the east.
Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, as well as Romania were all subject to Soviet influence or control. In effect, they were nation satellites of the Soviet. The communist parties in these countries were significantly funded and otherwise bolstered by the Soviets. Churchill noted that the power and preeminence of these parties were raised well beyond their underlying support base and that police governments seeking totalitarian control. This Soviet sphere of influence was seen as expansionist and served to destabilize peace in Europe and the West more generally.
Similarly, the Soviet Russia continually rejected normal diplomatic relationships with western nations. It remained deliberately distant. Its absence of dialogue created an information void. Lacking hard data, the West filled that void with doubt and uncertainty regarding Soviet military intentions. Nobody knows, Churchill said in his speech, if the Soviet and its global satellites have expansionist ambitions.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Limited information about conditions in the Soviet Union was available to western analysts. As a result, the Central Intelligence Agency and many other analysts in the West seriously overestimated the economic wealth and military power of Soviet Russia. That serious miscalculation persisted until the 1990s when Soviet President Gorbachev introduced a set of progressive policies known collectively as Perestroika. Those policies fundamentally changed the country. They opened up the economy, dismantled many of the old communist bureaucracies and constraints and introduced market mechanisms to determine prices and guide resource allocation by decision makers. In short, Perestroika marked the beginning of the end of the intense detente that provided so much literary fodder for a Cold War author.
During World War II, Soviet Russia fought fiercely against Nazi Germany as a valued ally with the West. Despite that alliance, the relationship between the Soviet Union and western countries was, even at that time, brittle. The relationship was burdened with distrust born out of ideological disdain. Communism and capitalism are not natural bedfellows.
During the war, Soviet Russia maintained some dialogue with western allies. However, once the war ended, it withdrew. It severely limited its diplomatic dialogue and established a deep and wide ideological gulf with the western countries.
Less than a year after the war ended, Sir Winston Churchill bemoaned Soviet detente in a speech he delivered at Westminster College in Missouri, in March 1946. Churchill described how isolationist Soviet foreign policy had brought down an Iron Curtain across Europe, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, dividing western nations from those in the east.
Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, as well as Romania were all subject to Soviet influence or control. In effect, they were nation satellites of the Soviet. The communist parties in these countries were significantly funded and otherwise bolstered by the Soviets. Churchill noted that the power and preeminence of these parties were raised well beyond their underlying support base and that police governments seeking totalitarian control. This Soviet sphere of influence was seen as expansionist and served to destabilize peace in Europe and the West more generally.
Similarly, the Soviet Russia continually rejected normal diplomatic relationships with western nations. It remained deliberately distant. Its absence of dialogue created an information void. Lacking hard data, the West filled that void with doubt and uncertainty regarding Soviet military intentions. Nobody knows, Churchill said in his speech, if the Soviet and its global satellites have expansionist ambitions.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Limited information about conditions in the Soviet Union was available to western analysts. As a result, the Central Intelligence Agency and many other analysts in the West seriously overestimated the economic wealth and military power of Soviet Russia. That serious miscalculation persisted until the 1990s when Soviet President Gorbachev introduced a set of progressive policies known collectively as Perestroika. Those policies fundamentally changed the country. They opened up the economy, dismantled many of the old communist bureaucracies and constraints and introduced market mechanisms to determine prices and guide resource allocation by decision makers. In short, Perestroika marked the beginning of the end of the intense detente that provided so much literary fodder for a Cold War author.
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