COLD WAR WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS THREAT.

COLD WAR WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS THREAT.

The cold war affected the internal policies of the Soviet Union and its Eastern satellites.

By the mid -1950s, both American and soviet leaders were interested in reducing cold- war tensions. Khrushchev called for a policy of peaceful coescistance in the soviet would compete with the west but a void war. He stated that Soviet Union would surpass the west economically and encouraged other countries to follow the communist model. He sought to improve housing and increase the production o f consumer goods, put new emphasis on technological research. This paid off in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet Union and its leader.

In the last 1950s the Americans and Soviets successfully tasted long range rockets known as intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBM. Summit meetings where the most visible of many contacts between soviets and the United States. US president Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet premier Khrushchev met Geneva, Switzerland, in 1955 and again in 1959 Camp David, in Maryland. They recognized the deadly threat of nuclear war and agreed on the need to end the arms race. But later on, the soviet shot down an American U-2 spy plane over their territory and captured its pilot.  Facing criticism from the soviet military, Khrushchev strongly denounced the United States and canceled Eisenhower’s visit. Relations soon worsened further.

Testing Kennedy’s resolve Khrushchev used pressure to try to remove the Allies from Berlin. Then in 1962 he secretly began to install nuclear missile on Cuba 90 miles (145km) from Florida.

In his gamble, the soviet leader hoped to offset American missiles based in Turkey that were aimed at the Soviet Union. He also wanted to get from Kennedy a promise not to over throw Cuba’s communist government. Cuban miscible crisis was one of the most significant events in the cold war.

Cuba's L.Fidel Castro

In 1963, a telephone “hot line” unlinked Washington and Moscow to provide instant communication. The same year, the soviets in the Western allies signed a treaty banning weapons tests in the atmosphere.

In 1970s, Brezhrews reversed Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policies. But two prominent dissidents refused to be silenced. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of many works including The Gulag Archipelago, an account of the horrors of the soviet prison camps was deported and settled in the United States. Dr. Andrei Sakharov, scientist and developer of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, later denounced the arms race and was sentenced to the internal exile in Gorki

In 1972, US were ready for Brezhnev’s policy of détente [relaxation]-an improvement of American-soviet relations.

In 1972, the Brezhnev- Nixon Summit led to the signing of the strategic Arms limitation Agreement (SALT) Treaty-agreed to limit the number of nuclear warheads and missiles each Country could maintain, just did slow it significantly.

In 1979, The Soviet invaded neighboring Afghanistan to reinforce local communist control. The ten years occupation of Afghanistan drained the National treasury, brought about the deaths of thousands of young soviet Soldiers, and became extremely unpopular at home.

For most of the cold war, the Soviet Union maintained tight control other its Eastern European satellites. The peoples of these nations resented soviet domination, but were largely powerless against the secret policy and Soviet troops.

After Hungary’s Prime minister announced Hungary’s Neutrality in 1956, and it’s withdraw from the Warsaw pact, soviet tanks and troops poured into Hungary crush the revolt. Realising that intervention could cause the World war III, the West sympathized with the Hungarians, but did nothing to help. Order in Hungary was restored under a Soviet-controlled government led by Janos Kadar. More than 200,000Hungarian refugees fled to the west.

After the communist takeover in 1948, the country was forced to conform to the Soviet model, like Hungary. A liberal Communist reformer, Alexander Dubcek replaced Novotny as a leader in 1968 when the Brezhnev signaled his approval. For a brief time, known as the Prague spring, reform was allowed. Dubcek eased press Censorship and began to allow some political groups to meet freely.

Nov 22, 1963: President Kennedy's motorcade route through Dallas was planned to give him maximum exposure to Dallas crowds before his arrival

On August 20^th 1968, about 500,000 troops from the Soviet Union and its Warsaw pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia. They took control of Prague and sent Dubcek and other Czechoslovakia leaders to Moscow. In April 1969, Dubcek was replaced as a party leader and in 1970; he was expelled from the party entirely.

The Soviet Union declared its right to intervene in communist states to counter any opposition that threatened communism or the unity of the soviet bloc. This principle, called the Brezhnev Doctrine, was the basis for the relations between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European Satellites for the next 20 years.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

Departing from rigid state controls, Gorbachev also pushed for a rebuilding of the Soviet economy, a policy the Soviets called Perestroika. Gorbachev encouraged limited moves towards free enterprise. He began to dismantle the national bureaucracy that controlled, industrial production, allowing more decision making at local levels. 

Facing the enormous American military buildup under President Reagan, Gorbachev needed to negotiate new Arms-reduction agreements with us. Since soviet economic progress depended on military cutbacks Gorbachev made large concessions to settle long-stalled treaty negotiations. His offers to Cancel Nuclear tests and to withdraw Soviet missiles from Eastern Europe were so sweeping that they took western leaders by surprise.

 To further ease global tensions, Gorbachev withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

In 1990 Latria, Lithuania and Estonia became the first republics to declare their independence from the Soviet Union. To appease the conservatives who feared to a breakup of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev began a rollback a glasnost in the early 1990s and adopted new hard-line positions. Among them where the tightening of controls in the Soviet Press to curb dissent and restoration of powers to secrete police. Some of Gorbachev’s a reform minded political aides resigned in protest, and Soviet citizens, led by Yeltsin, called for Gorbachev to step-down.