Road to Détente
and Home Fronts
1960s
Cuba and Vietnam
Kennedy and Khrushchev: new
strategies, Cuba, Berlin
The early of 1960s: Kennedy and Khrushchev
• Developing countries became a center of the
Cold War
– AID and Peace Corps, 1961 not to let Russia to win
Third world/ a a Soviet support of national movement
for independence and a movement against American
imperialism
• Cuba crisis, 1962
–
–
–
–
Castro since 1959 and asked the USA to help
Eisenhower did not support him
Castro asked the Soviet Union
CIA: to kill Castro or to invade Cuba by trained
émigré;
– The mistake of Kennedy – not to support the émigré
invasion by military forces, April 1961>>
– In result: Kennedy has drawn Havana and Moscow
closer together.
– Castro declared himself a socialist, to ensure a
Soviet commitment to defend Cuba
P.S.: Cuba crisis, 1962
– Other pressing factors:
• Berlin crisis, august 1961
• South Vietnam –pressure from the North
• Chinese pressure on Taiwan
– Soviet missiles were deployed on Cuban territory in
early 1962 >>
– 6 days crisis in October: world on the edge of the
nuclear war:
• Kennedy felt humiliation after failed invasion of Cuba + he
was strongly criticized for his soft reaction to the building of
the Berlin Wall >>
• He wanted to go to the end
• Khrushchev felt the force and backed
– Solution: mutual removal of missiles (American
missiles in Turkey)
– and new concepts and strategies were elaborated
New approaches in Cold War politics
• Kennedy: “flexible response”
• To use not only nuclear attack against the
Soviet Union but also:
– covert action,
– antiguerrilla operations,
– conventional forces
– Military build up
– Diplomacy
Today: it was the direct road to Vietnam tragedy
Vietnam in the Cold War
• Kennedy increased the number of military advisers from
700 to 16,700
• He believed in domino theory
• Lyndon Johnson: South Vietnam would collapse if the
United States did not expand its participation in the war.
>> air war+ ground combat forces (500 000 in 1968) +
bombing campaigns
• Problem: the factor of China: Mao sent 300 000 to help
Ho Shi Minh
– Today: Johnson did not use the possibilities to
convince China estimating Chinese foreign policy as
having expansionist character in Asia.
– But: Chinese policy was more defensive
– USA till 1969 did not use zero relations of ChinaSoviet Union >>
– Talks since 1969.
The road to relaxation
• Both Soviets and Americans wanted to
improve relations since Sputnik, Vietnam,
Chinese test of hydrogen bomb in 1967
• Both were eager to halt the spread of
nuclear weapons to nonnuclear-weapon
states >>
• Cultural communication and offensive
Cold War culture
Home fronts
Selling image
Frames of the theme
• Social-cultural dimension of the Cold War:
– It means as an umbrella term to embrace the
mass experience of cold-war political events.
– social history in its broad sense of ‘ordinary’
and ‘everyday’, but in extraordinary
circumstances.
• Problems:
– Did the Cold War high politics of influence arts,
movies, pop culture, everyday life, etc. of people who
lived during the period of the Cold War, 1940es 1990?
– Were the cultural artifacts to use as a tool in
propaganda or they were made by autonomous artists
who lived in the cold war and reflect the reality of the
Cold War?
2 dimensions of Cold War Culture (American-West
and Soviet-socialist)
1) Home fronts: how did the Cold War
influence a domestic life?
2) Selling a brand (image) aboard: How did
both superpowers sell their images,
ideologies to foreign public and each
other?
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension
1) Purge: both in the United States and Soviet
Union: pursue of dissidents
1) Campaign against those who appraised West
culture in the Soviet Union (in Russian: “against
cosmopolitism) – “Kosmopolit”, since 1950s until the
end of 1980s =
traditional Russian xenophobia VS. America-and-Westadmirers
2) Campaign against communists (Senator McCarthy),
since the end 1940 until the mid-1950s >>
American variant of xenophobia during the Cold War –
to infect America with leftist and communist ideas
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension
2) dissidents in all the countries whose words were
differentiated from an official discourse:
1) In Soviet Union:
- The Thaw since 1956: phenomenon of
physicist-lyric poet – a dissent voice
among technocrats (scholars, and
engineers) like A. Sakharov = R. Havemann
in the GDR.
- The defection to the West of a number of
leading Soviet artists
However, a support of the communist regime in
1960-1970s became more wide: a standard
of life became higher and the absent of
repression
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension
2) Eastern Europe: from open riots to silent opposition
•
•
•
•
•
Germany, 1953
Riots in Poland, 1956
Hungary, 1958
Czechoslovakia, 1968 >>
Silent nonviolent dissidents were strong in
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland
• Church (Catholic and Lutheran) was shelter for
dissidents in GDR, and Poland
• End of 1970s – Jimmy Carter idea to promote
human rights became the main idea of
dissidents
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: social dimension
3) In United States:
-1960s-1970s generation of baby-boomers – 20% of
population of 24 years.
-Hippy and counterculture movement (rock groups)
against War (pacifism)
-strong revisionism in arts and social studies (critical
theory to interpret history and politics)
3) In Western Europe:
-radical students in the FU, leftists, post-modernism, the
battles between left- and right-wing intellectuals:
Picasso and Congress of for Cultural Freedom:
Main ideas – rejection of dominant values of American
society, idea of American imperialism = the Soviet policy
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: cultural
dimensions
3) Making divergent official cultural discourses in
historical memory: different story of the Second
world war (two victors) in both the U.S. and the
USSR;
4) Official games with public fear of future nuclear
war: through anti-war demonstrations,
documentary films and movies like ‘The third
war’
5) “We [USSR] turned out to be in position of
defender in the face of American cultural
offensive:” inserting some American ideas in
society, movies, culture >>globalization,
Americanization or copying to smooth people)
Байкал (Baikal)/ Pepsi
Пугачева (Pugacheva)/Monro
Grenki (fried bread)/toast
Idea of “American dream” in Hollywood and of
“Soviet dream” in Mosfilm
1) “Soviet dream” as an answer to
Hollywood films
Moscow does not believe in tears, Oscar,
1979
2) An American tradition to watch a movie on
the eve of Christmas:
It is a Wonderful Life, 1946
Enjoy your Bath (С легким паром), 1975
at home: inside the U.S/West and USSR: cultural
dimensions
6) Patriotism as a theme in arts was the
main tool for a counter-offensive.
Flight 222 (movie, 1985)
-we love USSR
-we do not leave it
The friendship of people
II)
Selling its image to foreign public
How both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tried to sell their
ideologies
• Main motive: to win an allegiance of
people around the world (the war for
hearts and minds)
• Means:
– Propaganda (radio)
– Training of definite social and professional
groups
– Cultural presentations
How both the U.S. and the Soviet Union tried to sell their
ideologies
• United States Information
Agency
• Agency of Intentional
Development
• Voice of America
DOS+NSC
More people were mobilized
through private initiative
than in the USSR
• Central Committee of
Communist Party
(Propaganda Division)
State Committee of Foreign
Relations at MFA
SU Committees of
Friendship and Cultural
Relations with Foreign
Countries (SSOD)
Radio of Moscow
Radio propaganda
• Radio Moscow:
The U.S. was first targeted since
early 1950s, from Moscow
Since 1970s – from Cuba and
Vladivostok
70 languages
1. News and answer on
American propaganda
2. Russian Classics
Radio Moscow World Service
>> Voice of Russia
• Voice of America
The Soviet Union was targeted
since 1947, from Austria
Soviet jamming
1. News and Music
2. Strong and free critics of
American government and life
3. Encourage people for internal
change through programs
about “democratic legacy” or
national history of a country.
4. Forbidden literature
NEW: the VOA turned out to be more respected that the Radio Moscow
American-Soviet cultural
exchanges
Since 1958
• first contacts – people-to-people
• Exchanges in information (America,
USSR)
• American Exhibition Moscow and
Leningrad, 1959
• 20 citizens per year + many students
Influence through printed mass
media: two journals
Another journals: Sputnik/Диалог
The printed media
• USSR
Primary topics:
Science,
Space
Russian literature
Belated Counter-attacks on
American pop-culture in
the early 1980s
• USA
Primary topics:
Government
People
Consumerism (retail goods)
Consumerism undermined Soviet life and
communism regime
Nixon-Khrushchev kitchen debates, 1958
Training of foreign citizen
Two divergent approaches to reproduce allegiance:
• USA: an existed
professional elite was
the main target
• 600,000-700,000 were
trained
• 900 former grantees
became members of
ruling elite (presidents,
leaders of parties)
• Main success: Alexander
Yakovlev, an adviser of
M. Gorbachev
• USSR: lower social
groups were trained to
reproduce new elite loyal
to the SU
• 250,000-270,000 were
trained
• 100 former grantees
became members of
ruling elite
When and Why the Soviets failed
• Since 1956, NSC-5506 “EastWest Exchanges” –
1) To stimulate consumerist
desires of captive and Soviet
people
2) To return people in East
Europe to their national history,
history of independence and
prosperity. (the seeds of
nationalism)
3) The increase of funds since the
early 1980s
• Soviet Union:
1) Movement for Peace
defeat in political campaigning
to reach short-term political
aims
2) Artistic and sporting exchanges
to advertise a prestige and
success of Russian culture
and Soviet sport;
3) A lack of funds for support of
“socialist” movements in 28
countries (Africa, Arabs, 2
countries in Latin America)
since the early 1980s
Conclusion
• Dissidents and consumption society of the
West have undermined the political regime
of the Soviets.
Methodological problems in studies of cultural cold war and
proposed theoretical frames
1) Problems in methods:
1) what kinds of methods are more appropriate
to estimate the audience response to
domestic and foreign influence?
2) How to evaluate an efficiency of both
American and Soviet cultural influence?
3) Multiple meanings of cultural phenomena.
Proposed theoretical frames for cultural cold war
• American and Soviet cultural imperialism
(pressure and deep implantation of values
in all the clusters of life)
• Americanization and Sovietization (partial
influence –politics, technologies,
language)
• Cultural Transfer (mutual exchange and
globalization without borders and Walls)
• Response theory (resistance of local
culture to coming values) – toasts
VS.grenki
Home reading for a test, 18 April
Files:
5_Powaski’s book: Chapters I-V
2_MacCahon: Chapters I-VI