Suchergebnisse

A decade after the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China established their formidable alliance in 1950, escalating public disagreements between them broke the international communist movement apart. In The Sino-Soviet Split, Lorenz Lüthi tells the story of this rupture, which became one of the defining events of the Cold War. Identifying the primary role of disputes over Marxist-Leninist ideology, Lüthi traces their devastating impact in sowing conflict between the two nations in the areas of economic development, party relations, and foreign policy. The source of this estrangement

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) tried to transcend the Cold War, but the NAM ended up as one of the Cold War's chief victims. During the movement's first dozen years (1961–1973), four Cold War developments shaped its agenda and political orientation. East Germany's attempt to manipulate it started with the so-called construction of the Berlin Wall less than a month before the first NAM conference in Belgrade. Nuclear disarmament issues imposed themselves the day before that conference, with Nikita Khrushchev's sudden announcement that the USSR would resume nuclear testing. The war in the Middle East in June 1967 brought the NAM close to an association with the Soviet bloc—at least until the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia the following year. Finally, the overthrow of Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk in 1970 split the movement over the question of that country's standing. The NAM again moved closer to the Soviet camp once the movement decided in 1972 to award representation both to the exiled Sihanouk, who lived in Communist China and was allied to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, and to the Communist insurgents in South Vietnam.

AbstractThe concert given by the West German rock star Udo Lindenberg in East Berlin on 25 October 1983 links cultural, political, diplomatic and economic history. The East German regime had banned performances by the anti-nuclear peace activist and musician since the 1970s, but eventually allowed a concert, hoping to prevent the deployment of American nuclear missiles in West Germany. In allowing this event, however, East Germany neither prevented the implementation of the NATO double-track decision of 1979 nor succeeded in controlling the political messages of the impertinent musician. Desperate for economic aid from the West, East Germany decided to cancel a promised Lindenberg tour in 1984, causing widespread disillusionment among his fans in the country.

The decision by France and the People's Republic of China (PRC) to establish diplomatic relations in late January 1964 has undergone relatively little scrutiny among scholars. Garret Martin's path-breaking article in the Winter 2008 issue of the JCWS is the most important account to date of this episode, but it focuses on the French side of the story. The account here provides a much fuller picture by drawing on declassified records of the PRC Foreign Ministry, official collections of formerly secret CCP documents, and materials from archives in former Soviet-bloc countries. These sources help illuminate two important but hitherto unknown or poorly understood aspects of Sino-French recognition in the period from August 1963 to January 1964: the French and Chinese thinking behind the decision to recognize each other, and the negotiation process itself.

AbstractSino-Soviet-American relations during 1969 followed a chaotic course. Scholars have asserted in the past that the Sino-Soviet border conflict in March led to Sino-American rapprochement in December. However, evidence from China, the former socialist world and the United States undermines the interpretation of a purposeful and planned policy of any of the three actors to the others. None had a formulated policy or strategy in place. China lacked the governmental ability to chart a clear course, the United States underwent a presidential transition, and neither it nor the Soviet Union had meaningful diplomatic relations with the People's Republic. In this context, the border clashes, intended by China to reassert territorial claims on a small island, led to a complex web of actions and interactions between the three countries that was based on mutual misunderstanding, lack of communication, exaggerated threat perceptions and improvised decision making. Thus the outcome at the end of the year, the start of a friendly relationship between Beijing and Washington, was by no means the result of well-formulated and implemented policies.

Contrary to later Vietnamese allegations, China did not "sell out" the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) during the last two years of the Paris negotiations (1971–1973). North Vietnamese, Chinese, Soviet, East European, and American sources show that Hanoi could have gotten from Washington an agreement similar to the final Paris Agreement (January 1973) as early as the spring of 1971. Sino-American rapprochement did not help the United States in the negotiations, as claimed by the North Vietnamese, because the Chinese side made no concessions at all on Vietnam. In fact, China increased military aid to the DRV. Similarly, U.S.-Soviet detente did not damage the North Vietnamese effort, although Moscow unsuccessfully tried to mediate between Hanoi and Washington. In the end, U.S. success in rebuffing the DRV's Easter Offensive and Hanoi's miscalculations about U.S. domestic developments in 1972 prolonged the Vietnam War unnecessarily.