Tip 1: How did the term "cold war" come about?

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Tip 1: How did the term "cold war" come about?

The phrase cold war is familiar to almost every person living in the post-Soviet space. But the origin of this term is still a matter of controversy.

How did the expression "cold war" come about?

Essence of Cold War expression

It is customary to call the Cold WarThe historical period from 1946 to 1991, which characterized the relationship between the US and its allies and the USSR and its allies. This period was distinguished by the state of economic, military, geopolitical confrontation. However, this was not a war in the literal sense, so the term Cold War is conditional. Although the official end of the Cold War is considered to be July 1, 1991, when the Warsaw Treaty broke up, but in fact it happened earlier - after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The opposition was based on ideological attitudes, namely, the contradictions between the socialist and capitalist models. Although officially in a state of war, states were not, but since the beginning of the confrontation, the process of their militarization has been gaining momentum. The Cold War was accompanied by an arms race, and the USSR and the US entered into a direct military confrontation throughout the world 52 times. At the same time, there was a threat of the beginning of the third world war. The most famous case was the Caribbean crisis of 1962, when the world was on the brink of disaster.

The origin of the Cold War expression

Officially the phrase Cold War for the first timewas used by B. Baruch (Advisor to US President G. Truman) in a speech in front of the House of Representatives in South Carolina in 1947. He did not focus on this expression, only pointed out that the country is in a state of cold war.However, most experts give the palm of primacy in the use of the term D. Orwell, the author of the glorified works "1984" and "Animal Farm". He used the expression Cold War in the article "You and the Atomic Bomb". He noted that thanks to the possession of atomic bombs, superpowers are invincible. They are in a state of peace that is in fact not a world, but are forced to maintain balance and not use atomic bombs against each other. It is worth noting that he described in the article only an abstract forecast, but in fact predicted the future confrontation between the US and the USSR. Historians do not have an unambiguous point of view as to whether Baruch invented the term himself or borrowed it from Orwell. It should be noted that the Cold War has gained wide popularity worldwide after a series of publications by American political journalist W. Lippman. In the New York Herald Tribune he published a series of articles devoted to the analysis of Soviet-American relations, which were entitled "The Cold War: A Study of US Foreign Policy."

Tip 2: How the Cold War began

The Cold War is a global economic,military, geopolitical and ideological confrontation between the USSR and the US, based on the deep contradictions between the socialist and capitalist systems.

The confrontation of the two superpowers, in whichparticipated and their allies, was not a war in the truest sense of this concept, the main weapon here was ideology. For the first time the expression "cold war" was used in the article "You and the Atomic Bomb" by the famous British writer George Orwell. In it, he accurately described the confrontation of invincible superpowers possessing atomic weapons, but agreed not to apply it, remaining in a state of peace that, in fact, is not the world.

Post-War Preconditions for the Beginning of the Cold War

After the end of the Second World War, beforeThe allied states participating in the Anti-Hitler Coalition raised a global issue of the upcoming struggle for world leadership. The United States and Britain, worried about the military might of the USSR, did not want to lose their leadership positions in global politics, they began to perceive the Soviet Union as the future potential enemy. Even before the signing of the official act of surrendering Germany in April 1945, the British government began to develop plans for a possible war with the USSR. In his memoirs, Winston Churchill justified this by saying that at that time Soviet Russia, inspired by a difficult and long-awaited victory, became a mortal threat to the entire free world. In the USSR, it was well understood that the former Western allies are making plans for a new aggression. The European part of the Soviet Union was exhausted and destroyed, all resources were involved in the reconstruction of cities. A possible new war could become even more protracted and require even greater expenditures, with which the USSR would hardly have managed, in contrast to the less afflicted West. But the victorious country could not show its vulnerability. Therefore, the Soviet authorities invested huge amounts not only in the reconstruction of the country, but also in supporting and developing the Communist parties in the West, seeking to expand the influence of socialism. In addition, the Soviet authorities put forward a number of territorial demands, which further increased the intensity of the confrontation between the USSR and the United States to Great Britain.

Fulton speech

In March 1946, Churchill, speaking in theWestminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the United States delivered a speech that in the USSR began to be considered a signal for the beginning of the Cold War. In his speech, Churchill unequivocally called upon all Western states to unite for the forthcoming struggle against the communist threat. It is worth noting the fact that at that time Churchill was not the Prime Minister of England and acted as a private person, but his speech clearly defined the new foreign policy strategy of the West. Historically, it was precisely Churchill's Fulton speech that gave impetus to the formal beginning of the Cold War - a prolonged confrontation between the US and the USSR.

The Truman Doctrine

A year later, in March 1947, the AmericanPresident Harry Truman in his statement known as the Truman doctrine finally formulated the US foreign policy objectives. The Truman Doctrine marked the transition from post-war cooperation between the US and the USSR to open rivalry, which was named in the statement of the American president as a conflict of interests of democracy and totalitarianism.