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Chapter 38
The Bipolar World
THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE
No sooner had World War II reached its bloody finish than the world was thrust into an
even more frightening conflagration. The United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and
its allies faced off in a fundamental struggle to shape the postwar world. It was a contest based
on power politics, competing social and economic systems, and differing political ideologies
that lasted over fifty years and touched every corner of the globe. A spiraling arms race
eventually brought the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. While the war remained
technically cold, the fear of a nuclear disaster made it feel very different to the peoples of the
world.
OVERVIEW
The Formation of a Bipolar World
Despite the lingering general animosity and mistrust that the Soviets and Americans
shared, at the heart of the cold war was a fundamental disagreement between political,
economic, and social systems. Capitalism and communism, at least in the minds of the
superpowers, remained mutually exclusive. The United States attacked communism and
backed, at least in theory, liberalism. Consequently, the United States criticized the Soviet
record on human rights and the suppression of civil and religious institutions. In turn the
Soviets, led by Nikita Khrushchev, were critics of the failings of laissez-faire capitalism and the
wide gulf between rich and poor in western European and especially the United States.
Further, the Soviets recognized the shortcomings of the collectivization and the brutal use of
terror during the Stalinist years. In reality, both the Russians and Americans increasingly were
practitioners of reformed versions of communism and capitalism.
The heart of the American policy, as expressed clearly in the Truman Doctrine, was to
limit the spread of communism through a policy of containment. This policy resulted in a plan
to give military and financial aid to any nation facing a threat of a communist takeover—or
even of the rise of a legitimate leftist party. In response the Soviets supported wars of national
liberation or colonial revolution and tried to achieve military parity with the United States. In
Europe these competing goals resulted in an east-west split along, to use Churchill’s words, the
“iron curtain.” The most important element in this split was the division of Germany and
Berlin. By 1949 the division of Germany was final with the formation of the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). In
1961 the Soviets constructed the Berlin Wall in an attempt to stop the migration of over three
million Germans from east to west. The cold war would have its greatest symbol. The division
became more militarized with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
and the Warsaw Treaty Organization.
While the Soviets and Americans managed to avoid direct confrontation, they almost
always found themselves on opposite ends of every international struggle. By 1948 Korea had
split into communist North Korea under Kim Il Sung and anticommunist South Korea under
Syngman Rhee. An attempt by North Korea to ignore treaty agreements, cross the 38th parallel,
and occupy the entire Korean peninsula brought U.S. troops into the fight. While the
Americans pushed the North Koreans back, they also quickly attempted to occupy the entire
Korean peninsula. Quickly, three hundred thousand Chinese troops poured across the border,
and the war turned into a stalemate along the 38th parallel. Korea suffered the devastating loss
of three million people, mainly Korean civilians, and lingering hostilities that left future
unification almost impossible. In relation to the cold war, the Korean War signified an
increasing globalization of the conflict. For all its destruction and loss of life, in the end the
Korean War would almost pale in comparison to the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile
crisis. Soviet aid to Castro and the remarkably clumsy failed Bay of Pigs invasion left the Cuban
situation volatile at best. The October 1962 U.S. discovery of Soviet-assembled launch sites for
medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba ratcheted up the pressure, and the resulting stare-down
left the world holdings its breath. In the end the Soviets backed down, but the enormity of the
nuclear gamble on both sides left the world terrified.
The rise of a bipolar world made for a confused political system as nations struggled to
adapt to the new arrangement. In stark black and white the Soviets and Americans viewed
every nation in the world as a potential ally or enemy. Some alliances, such as China’s
relationship with the Soviets, were not what they appeared to the outside world. Other leaders,
most notably Jawaharlal Nehru from India and Achmad Sukarno from Indonesia, organized the
Bandung Conference in an attempt to create the nonalignment movement as a third option
beyond Soviet or American dominance. The nonalignment option was a difficult one simply
because the Americans and Soviets were always ready to intervene to back a revolution or prop
up a regime.
The Soviets and especially the Americans were also facing internal challenges. Senator
Joseph McCarthy and his allies pursued communists inside America with such a dangerous
fervor that conformity became the only option for many. Others would not be bowed so easily.
Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, and Betty Friedan, in The Feminine Mystique, expressed
the growing dissatisfaction of women in Europe and America. The ideas of black nationalism
would reverberate through Africa and the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for civil
rights and Brown v. the Board of Education ruled segregation illegal. In the Soviet Union, Nikita
Khrushchev’s call for de-Stalinization often inspired more criticism than the Soviets were
prepared to accept. The crushing of Hungary’s rebellion in 1956 showed clearly that there were
definite limits to change in the Soviet Union.
Challenges to Superpower Hegemony
Both the Soviet Union and United States faced challenges to their position atop the
bipolar political structure. The first challenge would come from Charles de Gaulle, who felt
that France, and all of Europe for that matter, would never regain great power status if they
depended on the United States for military protection. Consequently, de Gaulle pursued
independent actions such as rejecting a partial nuclear test ban treaty that the Soviets and
Americans had signed. His vision of a unified, independent Europe would survive after his
death in the form of the European Community, which stood for the elimination of barriers to
free trade. The signing of the Maastricht Treaty and creation of the European Union in 1993
carried the dream of European integration and power to a new level. Eastern Europe would
provide the Soviet Union with similar but more serious challenges. In Yugoslavia Marshall Tito
was expelled from the Soviet bloc for following an independent foreign policy. Nikita
Khrushchev began an active program of de-Stalinization that led to the release of millions of
political prisoners. The air of openness also led to more criticism of the traditional Soviet
system than the Russians were prepared to accept. Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary in 1956, to
topple Imre Nagy and install János Kádár, and Czechoslovakia in 1968, to bring an end to
Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring. Leonid Brezhnev’s Doctrine of Limited Sovereignty, also
known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, clearly displayed the limits of reform. Relations with China
weren’t going any better for the Soviets and grew much more troubled after Meo Zedong was
forced to sign the one-sided treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. By the mid1960s the Chinese were accusing the Soviets of being “revisionists” for not more actively
challenging the Americans. Instead, the Soviets were practicing detenté with the Americans
and agreed to the Strategic Arts Limitations Talks. American-Soviet relations took a turn for the
worse in 1979 when the Unites States established full diplomatic relations with China. The
beginning of the end of the bipolar world was obvious after the American defeat in Vietnam
and the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan.
The End of the Cold War
Communism, because it had been imposed from the outside by the Soviet Union, never
truly came to grips with nationalism in eastern Europe. Any good will that the Soviets had
accrued from their valiant fight against the Nazis was wasted on totalitarian regimes and
blatant acts of militaristic oppression in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. By the
time of Mikhail Gorbachev’s arrival and the corresponding death of the Brezhnev Doctrine,
eastern Europe was a time bomb waiting to explode. Beginning with Poland and the efforts of
the Solidarity leader Lech Wallesa, the eastern European states destroyed decades of communist
rule and cut ties with the Soviet Union. Bulgaria (including the longest-lasting communist
dictator, Todor Zhivkov) and Hungary followed suit. A “velvet revolution” swept the
communists out of power in Czechoslovakia (followed by the “velvet divorce” that resulted in
the split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Nicolae Ceauşescu’s brutal regime in Romania
came to an end in 1989 with his overthrow and death. East Germany’s Erich Honecker,
personifying a system that had lost touch with the people and with reality, denounced
Gorbachev’s reforms and was astonished when he was swept out of power. On 9 November
1989 the Berlin Wall, the greatest symbol of the cold war, was breached for good.
It is impossible to comprehend the events in eastern Europe without understanding the
career and philosophy of Mikhail Gorbachev. Like most revolutionary figures, Gorbachev did
not initially intend to abolish the existing political and economic system of the Soviet Union.
His calls for uskorenie (“acceleration”) went nowhere, and he realized that the Soviet system was
so firmly entrenched that any subtle changes would move at glacial speed without a radical
kick start. Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika (“restructuring”) and glasnost (“openness”)
shook the Soviet union and the Soviet bloc to its core. Unfortunately, as is also so often the case,
reformers can lose control of the revolution and it can spin out of control—and inspire drastic
actions to protect the status quo by military officers or conservative officials. The problem that
Gorbachev faced was that because the Soviet Union was only half Russian, there was the very
real potential for ethnic and political meltdown. When the Baltic states and then the rest of the
Soviet republics declared independence, a conservative coup imprisoned Gorbachev. Boris
Yeltsin, the popular leader of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, defeated the coup
and saved Gorbachev but also essentially ended his tenure in office. It would be left for Yeltsin
to dismantle the Russian communist party and move toward market reforms. The bipolar cold
war world collapsed overnight, and millions around the globe enjoyed a breathtaking (and
terrifying) taste of freedom.
Thought Questions: due 5/10 (five points per)
1. Nikita Khrushchev predicted that eventually people “will give their preference to the truly
free world of communism and turn their back on the so-called `free world’ of capitalism.”
What was his definition of “free”? What were the foundations of the cold war? Could it be
argued that in the cold war the Americans and Soviets ensured that no one was truly free?
2. Examine the political and social philosophy of Mikhail Gorbachev. How did he try to bring
about changes in the Soviet Union? Did he go too far and too fast? Why do you think he
doesn’t get the credit he deserves?
3. Discuss the origins of the cold war. What were the fundamental differences between the
Soviet Union and the United States? What role did ideology play in the cold war? Examine
the contrasting ideologies of the superpowers.
4. Examine the situations in Korea and Cuba in relation to the cold war competition between
the Soviet Union and the United States. Who, if anyone, was victorious in these
confrontations?
5. Examine the role played by eastern Europe in the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
6. Compare and contrast the American experiences in Vietnam to that of the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan. What was the lesson each superpower learned? Have other imperial powers
met their Vietnams?
7. How did the division and occupation of Germany represent the conflicting goals of the
Soviet Union and United States in the cold war? What was the significance of the Berlin
Wall?
8. Examine the nonalignment movement of Jawaharlal Nehru and Achmad Sukarno. What
were their goals? Were other leaders trying to chart a new path in the bipolar world of the
cold war?
9. What role did the fear of nuclear annihilation play in the cold war? Did the threat of the
atomic bomb, strangely enough, keep the cold war cold?