Following the end of World War II a deep diplomatic and political rift developed between the Soviet Union on the one hand and the USA plus western countries on the other. The rift became known as the Cold War. It lasted about fifty years. Political drama and defections, diplomatic intrigue, ambassadorial trickery, international spying and military tensions riddled the period, providing an abundance of material for writers of fiction or history. A writer who concentrates on this period is known as a Cold War author.
During the Second World War, the Soviets fought as allies with the west against Germany and Nazism. Despite that cooperation, the Soviet relationship with western countries was brittle, even at that time, corroded by ideological mistrust. Communism and capitalism are not easy companions.
During the war, Soviet Russia maintained some dialogue with western allies. However, once the war ended, it withdrew. It severely limited its diplomatic dialogue and established a deep and wide ideological gulf with the western countries.
Less than a year after the war ended, Sir Winston Churchill bemoaned Soviet detente in a speech he delivered at Westminster College in Missouri, in March 1946. Churchill described how isolationist Soviet foreign policy had brought down an Iron Curtain across Europe, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, dividing western nations from those in the east.
Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia plus Romania were all under a high degree of Soviet influence if not control. They were puppets of the Soviet Union. Their communist parties were funded significantly by the Soviet Union.
Similarly, continual Soviet rebuffs towards establishing lasting friendship with western powers and its insistence instead on a policy of detente created deep doubts and uncertainties for many countries in Europe and around the world. Nobody knows, Churchill said, if Soviet Russia and its global communist organization has expansionist ambitions and, if so, what the limits of those ambitions were, if any.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Throughout that period of detente, limited data about its economic wealth and military capability was available to the West. Analysts such as the US Central Intelligence Agency badly over-estimated the power of the Soviet Union. That misunderstanding persisted for fifty years until Soviet President Gorbachev ushered in progressive policies known as Perestroika. Those policies dismantled many internal bureaucratic constraints, introduced market-driven mechanisms in the Soviet economy and opened it to the forces of international competition. Perestroika also ended the intense Soviet diplomatic detente with the West that for several decades provided rich literary fodder for a Cold War author.
During the Second World War, the Soviets fought as allies with the west against Germany and Nazism. Despite that cooperation, the Soviet relationship with western countries was brittle, even at that time, corroded by ideological mistrust. Communism and capitalism are not easy companions.
During the war, Soviet Russia maintained some dialogue with western allies. However, once the war ended, it withdrew. It severely limited its diplomatic dialogue and established a deep and wide ideological gulf with the western countries.
Less than a year after the war ended, Sir Winston Churchill bemoaned Soviet detente in a speech he delivered at Westminster College in Missouri, in March 1946. Churchill described how isolationist Soviet foreign policy had brought down an Iron Curtain across Europe, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, dividing western nations from those in the east.
Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia plus Romania were all under a high degree of Soviet influence if not control. They were puppets of the Soviet Union. Their communist parties were funded significantly by the Soviet Union.
Similarly, continual Soviet rebuffs towards establishing lasting friendship with western powers and its insistence instead on a policy of detente created deep doubts and uncertainties for many countries in Europe and around the world. Nobody knows, Churchill said, if Soviet Russia and its global communist organization has expansionist ambitions and, if so, what the limits of those ambitions were, if any.
Churchill titled that speech Sinews of Peace. It is now commonly referred to as the Iron Curtain speech. Many political analysts consider it to be one of the opening shots marking the start of the Cold War. The Churchillian term "Iron curtain" quickly entered into the official vocabulary.
Throughout that period of detente, limited data about its economic wealth and military capability was available to the West. Analysts such as the US Central Intelligence Agency badly over-estimated the power of the Soviet Union. That misunderstanding persisted for fifty years until Soviet President Gorbachev ushered in progressive policies known as Perestroika. Those policies dismantled many internal bureaucratic constraints, introduced market-driven mechanisms in the Soviet economy and opened it to the forces of international competition. Perestroika also ended the intense Soviet diplomatic detente with the West that for several decades provided rich literary fodder for a Cold War author.
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