28. International relations and foreign policy of the ussr in the second half of the 40-s and first half of the 50-s.

With the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union, who made a major contribution to the defeat of fascism, has become one of the major powers, has grown its international prestige. Diplomatic relations were established with 50 countries around the world. However, after the second world war in the world faced two different political lines, the opposite platform. One defended the Soviet Union and the People's Democracy, the other - the capitalist states (U.S., Britain, France and others). The confrontation of these two systems has led to a "Cold War". The ideology and practice of Stalinism imposed a negative impact on relations between the Soviet Union to the outside world. They were based primarily on the perception of an imminent and near collapse of bourgeois society, the irreconcilable contradiction between socialism and capitalism, the exacerbation of the ideological struggle as the building of socialism. USA, who took the leading position due to changes in the balance of power, assumed the role of the dominant power in the postwar world. In this climate of international relations emerged bipolar system in which the role of the main antagonists belonged to the USSR and the USA. Often perceive the origins of this phenomenon only in the ideological incompatibility of the two "superpowers," but at the heart of the conflict lay deeper, and geopolitical reasons, the clash of interests, primarily in Europe. After the war in Central and Eastern Europe came to power the Left and democratic forces. They created the new government led by representatives of communist and workers parties. The leaders of Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia met in their respective countries agrarian reform, nationalization of major industries, banks and transport. The political organization of society was called People's Democracies. It was viewed as a form of proletarian dictatorship.

29. Cold War

Cold War

Dating the end of the Cold War requires dating its beginning, which requires defining what it was about. By one reckoning, the Cold War began in the 1945-1948 timeframe, and ended in 1989, having been a dispute over the division of Europe. By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy. The Cold War was the most important political and diplomatic issue of the later half of the 20th Century. The main Cold War enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold war got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish. The term "Cold War" was first used in 1947 by Bernard Baruch, senior advisor to Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, in reference to the frequently occurring and exacerbating crises between the United States and the former Soviet Union, despite having fought side-by-side against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The Cold War grew out of longstanding conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States that developed after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Communist Party under V.I. Lenin considered itself the spearhead of an international movement that would replace the existing political orders in the West, and indeed throughout the world. The Cold War can be said to have begun in 1917, with the emergence in Russia of a revolutionary Bolshevik regime devoted to spreading communism throughout the industrialized world. For Vladimir Lenin, the leader of that revolution, such gains were imperative. As he wrote in his August 1918 Open Letter to the American Workers, "We are now, as it were, in a besieged fortress, waiting for the other detachments of the world socialist revolution to come to our relief." Western governments generally understood communism to be an international movement whose adherents forswore all national allegiance in favor of transnational communism, but in practice received their orders from and were loyal to Moscow. In 1918, the United States joined briefly and unenthusiastically in an unsuccessful Allied attempt to topple the revolutionary Soviet regime. Suspicion and hostility thus characterized relations between the Soviets and the West long before the Second World War made them reluctant allies in the struggle against Nazi Germany.

30-31. Collapse of colonial system

The colonial system began to collapse rapidly after the Second World War. During the first 12 post-war years nearly the whole of enslaved Asia became free. Collapse of the Colonial System of Imperialism, the process of liquidation of economic and political relations based on the oppression of colonial and dependent countries by the imperialist powers. The collapse of the colonial system of imperialism means the loss of a powerful reserve sustained by the capitalist system and further changes in the correlation of strength between the two social systems in favour of socialism. In the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism, especially after World War II, the upsurge of the national liberation 46 movement resulted in the crisis of the colonial system of imperialism evolving into its disintegration and complete collapse in the third stage. By the end of the 1970s more than 100 countries had won national independence. The downfall of the colonial slavery system under the charge of the national liberation movement is the phenomenon that is second in its historical significance only to the formation of the world socialist system. A solid socioeconomic basis for the collapse of the colonial system was the heightening of contradictions between the oppressed peoples of the colonial and dependent countries and foreign capital. All the contradictions of the colonial system (national, socio– economic, political, and ideological) sharpened to the utmost, and the overthrow of imperialist domination became an urgent objective necessity. The peoples of these countries have launched a struggle for equality and free development without imperialist exploitation. This struggle was supported by the very existence of the world socialist system, by the direct and generous assistance of the socialist countries to the peoples struggling for liberation. An important role was played by the workingclass and democratic movement in the imperialist countries. The example of and moral support from already liberated countries was also of great importance for those still oppressed. The historical experience of building socialism and assistance from the countries of the world socialist system have opened broad horizons for national renascence, the overcoming of centuries of poverty, the achievement of economic independence, and the possibility of the noncapitalist path of development for the peoples of newly liberated countries. At the Fifteenth UN General Assembly Session, the Soviet Union submitted a draft declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples. The USSR waged a consistent struggle to adopt this declaration and have it implemented. The USSR considers fraternal solidarity with the peoples who have freed themselves from colonialism one of the cornerstones of its foreign policy. The collapse of the colonial system meant the completion, at least in its main aspects, of an important stage of the national liberation revolution which resulted in political independence for the colonial peoples. Imperialism has lost many important economic positions in the liberated countries. Much of the property of the imperialist powers and colonial administration was nationalised by the new states. Capitalist monopolies have also lost an essential chunk of their incomes.