DOCSLIB.ORG

THE SOVIET UNION 1967–1969 Part 1: Political, Governmental, and National Defense Affairs

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
THE SOVIET UNION 1967–1969 Part 1: Political, Governmental, and National Defense Affairs A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files THE SOVIET UNION 1967–1969 Part 1: Political, Governmental, and National Defense Affairs A UPA Collection from Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files THE SOVIET UNION 1967–1969 PART 1: POLITICAL, GOVERNMENTAL, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE AFFAIRS Subject-Numeric Categories: AID, CSM, DEF, and POL Project Coordinator Robert E. Lester Guide compiled by Joanna Claire Dubus A UPA Collection from 4520 East-West Highway • Bethesda, MD 20814-3389 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Confidential U.S. State Department central files. The Soviet Union, 1967–1969 [microform] / project coordinator, Robert E. Lester. microfilm reels ; 35 mm. Summary: Reproduces documents from Record Group 59, Records of the State Department, Subject-numeric files, 1967–1969, in the custody of the National Archives, College Park, MD. Accompanied by a printed guide compiled by Joanna Claire Dubus. ISBN 1-55655-978-X 1. United States—Foreign relations—Soviet Union—Sources. 2. Soviet Union—Foreign relations—United States—Sources. 3. Soviet Union—Politics and government—1953–1985— Sources. 4. United States—Foreign relations—1963–1969—Sources. I. Title: Confidential U.S. State Department central files. II. Title: Soviet Union, 1967–1969. III. Lester, Robert. IV. Dubus, Joanna Claire, 1981– V. United States. Dept. of State. VI. University Publications of America (Firm) E183.8.S65 327.73047'09'046—dc22 2004048545 CIP The documents reproduced in this publication are among the records of the U.S. Department of State in the custody of the National Archives of the United States. No copyright is claimed in these official records. Copyright © 2004 LexisNexis Academic & Library Solutions, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-55655-978-X. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Scope and Content Note ......................................................................................................... v Source Note............................................................................................................................. vii Editorial Note .......................................................................................................................... vii State Department Records Classification System, February 1963–July 1973 ..................... ix Subject File Outlines (with Secondary File Designations) .............................................. xv Country Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xvii Sample Reel Index Entries ..................................................................................................... xxvii Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................... xxix Reel Index Reel 1 Foreign Economic Assistance (AID) ................................................................................ 1 Communism (CSM) .......................................................................................................... 1 Defense Affairs (DEF) ...................................................................................................... 3 Reels 2–4 Defense Affairs (DEF) cont. ............................................................................................. 4 Reel 5 Defense Affairs (DEF) cont. ............................................................................................. 12 Political Affairs and Relations (POL) ................................................................................ 15 Reels 6–24 Political Affairs and Relations (POL) cont. ....................................................................... 15 Subject Index .......................................................................................................................... 61 iii SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE The U.S. State Department Central Files are the definitive source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout the world in the twentieth century. This edition consists of the Central Files for the Soviet Union for the period between 1967 and 1969. The files are arranged according to the State Department Records Classification System, February 1963–1973. The subjects from the classification system included in this edition are AID (Foreign Economic Assistance), CSM (Communism), DEF (Defense Affairs), and POL (Political Affairs and Relations). The files consist of cables and letters sent and received by U.S. diplomats and embassy personnel; reports on meetings between U.S. and foreign government officials and leaders; newspaper clippings and translations from journals and newspapers; transcripts of speeches; and reports and observations on political, military, and social affairs. The first few documents in this edition of Central Files are from the AID category (Reel 1, frames 0001–0010); they focus on Soviet economic assistance to Middle Eastern nations and North Vietnam. Immediately following the AID file is the CSM file, composed primarily of correspondence on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. This file begins on frame 0011 of Reel 1 and ends with frame 0659 on the same reel. The DEF category begins on frame 0660 of Reel 1 and continues through frame 0782 of Reel 5. Major topics covered include the proposed Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between world nuclear powers, Soviet troop movements in Eastern European nations, and military assistance from the Soviet Union to other nations. A large portion of the documents deal with the Soviet Union’s supplying of arms to India and Pakistan. The POL category comprises the rest of this edition, starting with frame 0783 of Reel 5 and concluding at the end of Reel 24. Detailed here are the effects on U.S.-Soviet relations of various events, such as the Czechoslovakia invasion, the war in Vietnam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. During this period, the Soviet Politburo, under the leadership of Leonid I. Brezhnev, became more active in silencing dissidents than it had been under Brezhnev’s predecessor, Nikita S. Khrushchev. This issue is also a major part of the POL file, as are changes in the Soviet leadership and the celebrations for the fiftieth v anniversary of the Soviet state. The Politburo topics are primarily discussed in Joint Weeka Reports (POL 2-1), weekly reports written by U.S. diplomatic personnel that provide brief summaries of both internal and foreign developments. These summaries are based on observations of U.S. officials and translations from newspapers and periodicals. Foreign developments in Weeka reports include Soviet policy toward Middle Eastern nations, Communist activities in South America, and Sino-Soviet relations. Also available in the POL category are reports on U.S. diplomatic personnel visits to Soviet cities; biographical information on Soviet diplomatic personnel; and foreign visits and meetings by Leonid Brezhnev, Aleksei Kosygin, Andrei Gromyko, and Nikolai Podgorny. The defection of Josef Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, is a well-covered topic, as are travel controls, Soviet aircraft operations near U.S. naval units, and Soviet fishing vessels trawling in U.S. waters. vi SOURCE NOTE Microfilmed from the holdings of the National Archives, College Park, Maryland, Record Group 59: Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files, Subject-Numeric Files, 1967–1969, for the Soviet Union (and USSR). Materials from the following Subject-Numeric File categories were included in this microfilm publication: Economic (selected), and Political and Defense. Specific subject categories include AID (all types of aid), only from the Economic Subject-Numeric File category; and CSM (Communism), DEF (Defense), INT (Intelligence), and POL (Political Affairs and Relations) from the Political and Defense Subject-Numeric File category. EDITORIAL NOTE The Subject-Numeric Files for February 1963 through July 1973 are arranged by subject-numeric categories, not by country. Therefore, some file folders will contain multiple subject categories. In addition, some folders will have more than one country represented by a single subject category. LexisNexis has microfilmed all available documents relating to the subject categories listed above for the Soviet Union (USSR), excluding only exact duplicate copies of documents. In addition to the documents, LexisNexis has filmed file folders when possible. LexisNexis has microfilmed the documents as they are arranged at the National Archives. In a small number of instances, some documents have been misfiled and misclassified by the State Department. LexisNexis has included, in brackets, corrected citations for these items. The file containing the specific subject category INT had no documents for the Soviet Union. A few Document Withdrawal Sheets exist in the files, and LexisNexis has filmed them. Withdrawal sheets itemize documents that have been withdrawn from the files, due to national security restrictions, by the National Archives staff. vii viii STATE DEPARTMENT RECORDS CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM, FEBRUARY 1963–JULY 1973 Essential to the effective administration of the State Department and its overseas posts is the management of records. In keeping with the State Department’s program to improve and modernize its administrative processes, the department developed a new comprehensive records classification
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Cuban Missile Crisis JCC: USSR
    asdf PMUNC 2015 Cuban Missile Crisis JCC: USSR Chair: Jacob Sackett-Sanders JCC PMUNC 2015 Contents Chair Letter…………………………………………………………………...3 Introduction……………….………………………………………………….4 Topics of Concern………………………...………………….………………6 The Space Race…...……………………………....………………….....6 The Third World...…………………………………………......………7 The Eastern Bloc………………………………………………………9 The Chinese Communists…………………………………………….10 De-Stalinization and Domestic Reform………………………………11 Committee Members….……………………………………………………..13 2 JCC PMUNC 2015 Chair’s Letter Dear Delegates, It is my great pleasure to give you an early welcome to PMUNC 2015. My name is Jacob, and I’ll be your chair, helping to guide you as you take on the role of the Soviet political elites circa 1961. Originally from Wilmington, Delaware, at Princeton I study Slavic Languages and Literature. The Eastern Bloc, as well as Yugoslavia, have long been interests of mine. Our history classes and national consciousness often paints them as communist enemies, but in their own ways, they too helped to shape the modern world that we know today. While ultimately failed states, they had successes throughout their history, contributing their own shares to world science and culture, and that’s something I’ve always tried to appreciate. Things are rarely as black and white as the paper and ink of our textbooks. During the conference, you will take on the role of members of the fictional Soviet Advisory Committee on Centralization and Global Communism, a new semi-secret body intended to advise the Politburo and other major state organs. You will be given unmatched power but also faced with a variety of unique challenges, such as unrest in the satellite states, an economy over-reliant on heavy industry, and a geopolitical sphere of influence being challenged by both the USA and an emerging Communist China.
    [Show full text]
  • Title of Thesis: ABSTRACT CLASSIFYING BIAS
    ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis Directed By: Dr. David Zajic, Ph.D. Our project extends previous algorithmic approaches to finding bias in large text corpora. We used multilingual topic modeling to examine language-specific bias in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of Wikipedia. In particular, we placed Spanish articles discussing the Cold War on a Russian-English viewpoint spectrum based on similarity in topic distribution. We then crowdsourced human annotations of Spanish Wikipedia articles for comparison to the topic model. Our hypothesis was that human annotators and topic modeling algorithms would provide correlated results for bias. However, that was not the case. Our annotators indicated that humans were more perceptive of sentiment in article text than topic distribution, which suggests that our classifier provides a different perspective on a text’s bias. CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Gemstone Honors Program, University of Maryland, 2018 Advisory Committee: Dr. David Zajic, Chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Marine Carpuat Dr. Melanie Kill Dr. Philip Resnik Mr. Ed Summers © Copyright by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang 2018 Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our mentor, Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • New Evidence on the Korean War
    176 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 11 New Evidence on the Korean War Editor’s note: The documents featured in this section of the Bulletin present new evidence on the allegations that the United States used bacteriological weapons during the Korean War. In the accompanying commentaries, historian Kathryn Weathersby and scientist Milton Leitenberg (University of Maryland) provide analysis, context and interpretation of these documents. Unlike other documents published in the Bulletin, these documents, first obtained and published (in Japanese) by the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, have not been authenticated by access to the archival originals (or even photocopies thereof). The documents were copied by hand in the Russian Presidential Archive in Moscow, then typed. Though both commentators believe them to be genuine based on textual analysis, questions about the authenticity of the documents, as the commentators note, will remain until the original documents become available in the archives. Copies of the typed transcription (in Russian) have been deposited at the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and repository of declassified documents based at George Washington University (Gelman Library, Suite 701; 2130 H St., NW; Washington, DC 20037; tel: 202/994-7000; fax: 202/ 994-7005) and are accessible to researchers. CWIHP welcomes the discussion of these new findings and encourages the release of the originals and additional materials on the issue from Russian, Chinese, Korean and U.S. archives. Deceiving the Deceivers: Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, and the Allegations of Bacteriological Weapons Use in Korea By Kathryn Weathersby n January 1998 the Japanese newspaper Sankei raised by their irregular provenance? Their style and form Shimbun published excerpts from a collection of do not raise suspicion.
    [Show full text]
  • Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis: Should We Swallow Oral History? Author(S): Mark Kramer, Bruce J
    Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis: Should We Swallow Oral History? Author(s): Mark Kramer, Bruce J. Allyn, James G. Blight and David A. Welch Reviewed work(s): Source: International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer, 1990), pp. 212-218 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538987 . Accessed: 18/09/2012 11:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Security. http://www.jstor.org Correspondence MarkKramer Remembering the Cuban Missile Crisis: BruceJ. Allyn, Should We Swallow Oral History? JamesG. Blight,and DavidA. Welch To the Editors: Bruce Allyn, James Blight, and David Welch should be congratulatedfor a splendid review of some of the most importantfindings from their joint researchon the Cuban missile crisis, including the conferences they helped organize in Hawk's Cay, Cam- bridge, and Moscow.' They have performed an invaluable service for both historians and political scientists. Nevertheless, the research methodology that Allyn, Blight, and Welch (henceforth AB&W)have used is not without its drawbacks.Although their work has given us a much better understanding of the Americanside of the Cuban missile crisis, I am not sure we yet have a better understanding of the Soviet side.
    [Show full text]
  • Quoting at Random
    Quoting at Random STATEMENTS ON THE TREATY ON THE NON PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS President Lyndon B. Johnson, UN-GA(XXII), 12 June 1968: "I believe that this Treaty can lead to further measures that will inhibit the senseless continuation of the arms race. I believe that it can give the world time — very precious time — to protect itself against Armageddon, and if my faith is well- founded, as I believe it is, then this Treaty will truly deserve to be recorded as the most important step towards peace since the founding of the United Nations." Mr. Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, at the signing of NPT, 1 July 1968: "The participation by a large number of States today in signing the Treaty is convincing proof that mutually acceptable ways and means can be found by States for solving difficult international problems of vital importance for mankind as a whole. The drawing up of the Treaty has demanded great efforts and prolonged discussions in which States with differing social systems, nuclear and non-nuclear Powers, countries large and small, advanced and developing, have all taken part. The Treaty reflects the numerous suggestions and proposals put forward by different States and takes into account the differing points of view on solving the problem of non-proliferation, yet all the States which voted for it have agreed on the main point, namely the necessity of preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons." Prime Minister Harold Wilson, United Kingdom, at the signing of NPT, 1 July 1968: "This is not a Treaty for which just two or three countries are responsible.
    [Show full text]
  • The Soviet Union and the North Korean Seizure of the USS Pueblo: Evidence from Russian Archives
    COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT WORKING PAPER #47 The Soviet Union and the North Korean Seizure of the USS Pueblo: Evidence from Russian Archives By Sergey S. Radchenko THE COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT WORKING PAPER SERIES CHRISTIAN F. OSTERMANN, Series Editor This paper is one of a series of Working Papers published by the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Established in 1991 by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War as it emerges from previously inaccessible sources on “the other side” of the post-World War II superpower rivalry. The project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, and seeks to accelerate the process of integrating new sources, materials and perspectives from the former “Communist bloc” with the historiography of the Cold War which has been written over the past few decades largely by Western scholars reliant on Western archival sources. It also seeks to transcend barriers of language, geography, and regional specialization to create new links among scholars interested in Cold War history. Among the activities undertaken by the project to promote this aim are a periodic BULLETIN to disseminate new findings, views, and activities pertaining to Cold War history; a fellowship program for young historians from the former Communist bloc to conduct archival research and study Cold War history in the United States; international scholarly meetings, conferences, and seminars; and publications.
    [Show full text]
  • Detente Or Razryadka? the Kissinger-Dobrynin Telephone Transcripts and Relaxing American-Soviet Tensions, 1969-1977
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CGU Theses & Dissertations CGU Student Scholarship 2013 Detente or Razryadka? The Kissinger-Dobrynin Telephone Transcripts and Relaxing American- Soviet Tensions, 1969-1977. Daniel S. Stackhouse Jr. Claremont Graduate University Recommended Citation Stackhouse, Daniel S. Jr.. (2013). Detente or Razryadka? The Kissinger-Dobrynin Telephone Transcripts and Relaxing American-Soviet Tensions, 1969-1977.. CGU Theses & Dissertations, 86. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/86. doi: 10.5642/cguetd/86 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the CGU Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in CGU Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Détente or Razryadka? The Kissinger-Dobrynin Telephone Transcripts and Relaxing American-Soviet Tensions, 1969-1977 by Daniel S. Stackhouse, Jr. A final project submitted to the Faculty of Claremont Graduate University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History. Claremont Graduate University 2013 Copyright Daniel S. Stackhouse, Jr., 2013 All rights reserved. APPROVAL OF THE REVIEW COMMITTEE This dissertation has been duly read, reviewed, and critiqued by the Committee listed below, which hereby approves the manuscript of Daniel S. Stackhouse, Jr. as fulfilling the scope and quality requirements for meriting the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Janet Farrell Brodie, Chair Claremont Graduate University Professor of History William Jones Claremont Graduate University Professor of History Joshua Goode Claremont Graduate University Professor of History ABSTRACT Détente or Razryadka? The Kissinger-Dobrynin Telephone Transcripts and Relaxing American-Soviet Tensions, 1969-1977 by Daniel S.
    [Show full text]
  • Dartmouth Conf Program
    The Dartmouth Conference: The First 50 Years 1960—2010 Reminiscing on the Dartmouth Conference by Yevgeny Primakov T THE PEAK OF THE COLD WAR, and facilitating conditions conducive to A the Dartmouth Conference was one of economic interaction. the few diversions from the spirit of hostility The significance of the Dartmouth Confer- available to Soviet and American intellectuals, ence relates to the fact that throughout the who were keen, and able, to explore peace- cold war, no formal Soviet-American contact making initiatives. In fact, the Dartmouth had been consistently maintained, and that participants reported to huge gap was bridged by Moscow and Washington these meetings. on the progress of their The composition of discussion and, from participants was a pri- time to time, were even mary factor in the success instructed to “test the of those meetings, and it water” regarding ideas took some time before the put forward by their gov- negotiating teams were ernments. The Dartmouth shaped the right way. At meetings were also used first, in the early 1970s, to unfetter actions under- the teams had been led taken by the two countries by professionally quali- from a propagandist connotation and present fied citizens. From the Soviet Union, political them in a more genuine perspective. But the experts and researchers working for the Insti- crucial mission for these meetings was to tute of World Economy and International establish areas of concurring interests and to Relations and the Institute of U.S. and Cana- attempt to outline mutually acceptable solutions dian Studies, organizations closely linked to to the most acute problems: nuclear weapons Soviet policymaking circles, played key roles.
    [Show full text]
  • Afforded Majesties Welcome Inussr
    KABIR & CO. LTD NAWROZ CARPET EXPORT CO. Nlggest exporters of Afchan IF 'IK handicrafts offering the host displays highest quality newold TM AM nuuliiy Afghan products it: runs. Genuine antique ami, LT KABIR BOUTIQUE: and other Afghan - . ; handicrafts: " Address: Charahi Ansari (Share ... ! i' Nau). Address: Share Nau opposite Blue Mosque Tela; 30189 and 30183. , Tel?: 32035 and 31051. Post Box: 406. ' Cable: Nawroz-kabul- . Cable. PUST1NCHA VOL. X "NO 141 ' KABUL, WEDNESDAY, SEPTTEMBER 15, 1971 (SUNBULA 24, 1971 S.H.).. PRICE AF. 4 The Majesties TEXT OF HIS MAJESTY'S SPEECH -- HRH Prince Ahmac ir ! to signi- - both our Shah regent during Dear Excellency, . , Thanks their special improved, meeting .How me to exDress first mv flcance both' treaties are play- - wishes 'and those of . our deap-fe- lt gratitude for1 the Jng a very,, important part in friends.' HM's absence warm hospitality creating an atmosphere of Afghanistan by 'pursuing : a and sincere ' ' ' afforded warm to us at this, friendly ace and security in one or the policy of. positive and active . reception. The warm sentim-- rnajpr regions pi Asia, ine neutrality, nt and KABUL, Sept. 15, (Bakhtar). : tne aosence ents of Your Excellency , and past years ana events .. wnicn in military. uunnj of His other Soviet leaders and the took- - place in the international and political blocs, a policy of Majesty the King, His Royal . of Highness Prince Ahmad Shah peoples of the Soviet . Union situation bore out with f. still firm support for the struggle regent. welcome inUSSR toward Afghanistan are high-l- y greater elmity the positive im- the peoples and nations against is the appreciated by " the Afghan portance of these treaties.
    [Show full text]
  • Records of the Committee of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, 1976
    PARALLEL HISTORY PROJECT ON NATO AND THE WARSAW PACT (PHP) Records of the Committee of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs Anna Locher (ed.) Andrei Andreevich Gromyko. Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1957-1985. PHP Publications Series Washington, D.C. / Zurich May 2002 This publication is part of a publications series by the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact (PHP). The PHP provides new scholarly perspectives on contemporary international history by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting formerly secret governmental documents. Since its establishment in 1999, the project has collected thousands of pages of material on security-related issues of the Cold War, published a large number of online documentaries on central issues such as mutual threat perceptions and alliance management, and organized several major international conferences on war planning, intelligence, and intra-bloc tensions. Further information is provided at the PHP Website: www.isn.ethz.ch/php. Table of Contents 1) Introduction, by Anna Locher........................................................................................1 2) The CMFA in short – Annotated History of the Meetings of the..................................22 Warsaw Pact Committee of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs...........................................22 3) Records Sealed Forever? The Foreign Ministers' Last Decision, February 1991.......28 4) Foreign Ministers Participating in the CMFA Meetings 1976-1990.............................29 5) Document Overview....................................................................................................30 Please note: This issue of the PHP Publication Series offers highlights from a much larger online document collection. Please consult the PHP website for all the documents in their original language and other features: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/coll_3_CMFA.htm The PHP has published a number of document collections on various aspects of the security- related history of the cold war: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php.
    [Show full text]
  • Domestic and Foreign Problems of the Brezhnev Era CHAPTER 5 Domestic and Foreign Problems of the Brezhnev Era
    Chapter 5: Domestic and foreign problems of the Brezhnev era CHAPTER 5 Domestic and foreign problems of the Brezhnev era This chapter analyses Leonid Brezhnev’s rule of the USSR until his death in 1982. The extent to which this was an era of political, economic and social stagnation is fully explored. Soviet foreign policy in the 1970s is also discussed, in particular the reasons for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its consequences. You need to consider the following questions throughout this chapter: + What were the key features of the USSR’s politics, society and economy under Brezhnev? + Was Brezhnev’s leadership to blame for Soviet stagnation from 1964 to 1982? + What challenges did Soviet foreign policy face in the Brezhnev era? + To what extent were the USSR’s aims achieved in Afghanistan? + Why did the USSR invade Afghanistan? + How serious were the socio-economic and political problems confronting the USSR by the time of Brezhnev’s death? 1 Politics, economy and society under Brezhnev Key question: What were the key features of the USSR’s politics, society and economy under Brezhnev? By 1964, Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of KEY TERM the Soviet Union (CPSU), was viewed by senior party members as increasingly unable to exercise the necessary leadership and stability Presidium Dominant, required for the USSR to uphold its world position. policy-making body within the CPSU formed by the Khrushchev was removed from party leadership following a plot by Council of Ministers, members of the Presidium, in which Leonid Brezhnev played a leading part.
    [Show full text]
  • Anatoly Chernyaev, Georgi Arbatov, and the Foundations of the Soviet Collapse, 1970-1979
    THE RUSTY CURTAIN: ANATOLY CHERNYAEV, GEORGI ARBATOV, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE SOVIET COLLAPSE, 1970-1979 Michael Ginnetti A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2015 Committee: Douglas Forsyth, Advisor Beth Griech-Polelle © 2015 Michael Ginnetti All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Douglas Forsyth, Advisor “It seems the Western interpreters of Marxism are right when they say it is an outdated gospel.” Such a harsh condemnation of communist ideology might be expected from some persecuted Soviet dissident or perhaps a war-drumming functionary in Washington. However, this quote is from none other than Anatoly Chernyaev, a high-level apparatchik working for the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who found himself disillusioned with the state of Soviet society in the 1970s. In much the same way, Georgi Arbatov, the director of the Soviet Institute for the Study of the USA and Canada, declared that, “one had a particularly sickening feeling inside because of the intolerable propaganda.” From these perceptions of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, Chernyaev and Arbatov would rise to become personal foreign policy advisors to Mikhail Gorbachev and active reformers in the 1980s. The current restrictions on research in Russia have turned the personal writings of Chernyaev and Arbatov into resources of nearly exclusive importance on the history of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Not only were Chernyaev and Arbatov highly placed individuals within the Soviet government, they were remarkably intelligent, creative, and observant men who recorded their thoughts, impressions, and memories of the Soviet Union as it was before the implosion of the communist system.
    [Show full text]