USSR in the post-war period 40-60 years. The Soviet Union is a great socialist power. Figures and facts
After the end of the Second World War, rather complex processes influenced the course of the history of the Soviet state. inner life and especially events related to international factors.
Therefore, for the purpose of a more objective analysis of this period, it is advisable to begin the presentation with a description of the country's international position in the postwar years.
After the Second World War, the USSR, which made the main contribution to the defeat of fascism, turned into one of the leading world powers, without which it became impossible to resolve any serious issue of international life. The USSR during these years had diplomatic relations with more than 50 countries of the world. His international prestige steadily grew. At the same time, the situation in the world was completely different from what the Allies had planned. anti-Hitler coalition at the end of the war: formed two different political lines, two opposite platforms. One of these platforms was defended by the Soviet Union and the countries formed at the end of the war, called the countries of people's democracy. The second was represented by the United States of America and their allies - England, France and others. In the postwar years, the Soviet Union, although it was in great need of much, provided great assistance in the economic development of its allies.
In the late 1950s, for example, under long-term agreements alone, our country provided assistance to the countries of the socialist community in the construction of more than 620 large industrial facilities and 190 individual workshops and installations. The largest deliveries of equipment were made to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania. In China, 291 enterprises were built with the participation of the USSR, in Poland - 68, in Romania - 60, in Bulgaria - 45, in North Korea - 30, etc. escalate relations between the two political blocs.
The development of contradictions between these blocs led to the fact that world history at the end of 1946, it made another zigzag, returning to the track of military-political confrontation. The idea and practice of universal peace, not having time to establish itself, began to be actively destroyed by opposing forces.
The United States, which took the lead as a result of the change in the "balance of power" in the capitalist world, assumed the role of the dominant power in the capitalist world after the war.
The increased economic and military capabilities of the United States as a result of the war instilled in the American ruling circles the confidence that both Western and Central and Southeastern Europe represented the “power vacuum” by filling which the United States would be able to secure a dominant position in the post-war system of international relations. and to carry out a policy of pressure against the USSR.
Since then, the so-called cold war between the USSR and the USA and their allies.
The question of the emergence and beginning of the cold war between the former allies, and especially the question of who or which side is to blame for its unleashing, is exclusively important topic. To this day, there are no unambiguous answers to these questions. In the vast literature published in the post-war years and more recently, we see different interpretations and assessments of who first started the Cold War and what were its consequences. Some authors, including domestic historians, believe that the roots of the Cold War must be sought in pre-war politics. former allies, as well as in the events of the end of World War II. Without going into the details of this process, we will try to briefly express our point of view, taking into account the aspect of presentation that we have identified in this chapter. To be extremely objective, it should be noted that the Cold War did not break out suddenly and not from scratch. She, apparently, was born in the crucible of the Second World War. The term "cold war" was put into circulation in 1947. The concept of the cold war included a state of political, economic, ideological and other aspects of a pronounced confrontation between states, between countries, between two systems. The Cold War gained wide scope after W. Churchill's speech on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri (USA), at Westminster College. It is necessary to take into account the importance of this speech for understanding the causes of the Cold War, as well as the answer to it by I. V. Stalin, published in the Pravda newspaper in mid-March 1946.
Churchill's Fulton speech is considered one of the key moments in the beginning of the Cold War. This speech was coordinated in detail with the White House, primarily with the US President of those years, H. Truman. Moreover, Truman, along with Churchill, arrived in Fulton on the presidential train. Truman's reaction to Churchill's speech was personally described by the latter in a message to British Prime Minister Attlee and Foreign Secretary Bevin. As Churchill reported, "he (i.e., Truman) told me that the speech, in his opinion, was delightful and would bring nothing but good, although it would make a noise." She really made a lot of noise on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the reaction in the United States itself, in England and in other European countries turned out to be contradictory, revealed the unwillingness at that time to immediately go so far in the Anglo-American opposition to the USSR. At the same time, the Fulton speech was a serious alarm signal for Stalin, a challenge from the former allies, which could not be left unanswered. In his reply to Pravda on March 14, 1946, Stalin spoke rather sharply about Churchill's speech and its possible consequences.
Churchill's speech revived the image of the old enemy, forgotten during the war years, and the abstract threat new war took on a very real face, calling for vigilance and combat readiness. However, it was impossible to go too far. Therefore, in his answer, Stalin carefully doses the ratio of anxiety and confidence, speaks of vigilance and at the same time of restraint. Here is how he himself formulated the essence of his appeal to the country in a May (1946) conversation with the Polish leaders: “Churchill's speech is blackmail. Its purpose was to intimidate us. That is why we responded so rudely to Churchill's speech ... We should not have allowed Churchill to intimidate our people.
Speaking about the beginning of the Cold War and its consequences, I would like to cite quite interesting observations and generalizations by well-known domestic historians L. A. Bezymensky and V. M. Falin, who tried to give an objective assessment of these processes. Yeshe in the late 1980s. they wrote in the article “Who Started the Cold War”: “Today we have the opportunity to restore by the day and even by the hour the chronology of the selection by the Truman government of the seeds of the “cold war”, which gave a lot of poisonous shoots. Let's turn to authentic American documents - to the diaries of President G. Truman, J. Kennan's "long telegram" from Moscow to Washington, the developments of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and its divisions - the Joint Intelligence Committee (JRC), the Joint Military Planning Committee (OKVP ), as well as the National Security Council (NSC) established in 1947.
October 9, 1945 OKNSh (document 1545) sounds the alarm. The Soviet Union is credited with "the ability to capture the whole of Europe now or by January 1, 1948", throwing "40 divisions" at it. Together with Europe, it costs nothing for Moscow to include Turkey and Iran “in its sphere of influence”. Obedient performers endow the USSR with the potential to reach the Pyrenees with one throw and cross them, and in Asia to capture China.
At the same time, the compilers of the memorandum single out the "weaknesses" of the USSR, emphasizing the protracted time to overcome them:
“a) Military losses in manpower and industry, rollback from developed industry (15 years).
- b) Lack of technical forces (5-10 years).
- c) Lack of strategic air forces (5-10 years).
- d) Absence navy(15-20 years).
- e) Poor condition railways, military transport - systems and equipment (10 years).
- f) Vulnerability of oil sources vital industrial centers for long range bombers.
- g) The absence of an atomic bomb (5-10 years, possibly earlier).
- h) Resistance in the occupied countries (within 5 years), etc.”
The first document in an extensive series of developments directly aimed against the USSR was a memorandum (of the United States Intelligence Agency) on September 3, 1945, that is, from the day following the day of the official end of World War II.
Many other facts of a similar content could be cited, however, the cited ones are enough to make sure who is the main culprit in the beginning of the unleashing of the Cold War. It marked the beginning of an arms race unprecedented in world history in terms of scale and the creation of two military-political blocs. One more important circumstance of that period should be borne in mind. The American nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 meant the emergence of a superpower in the world that had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. This monopoly was liquidated in 1949 by the Soviet Union, which by that time had managed to create its own atomic bomb, and in 1954 - a hydrogen bomb. However, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, The United States possessed an arsenal of nuclear weapons that for a long time surpassed that of the USSR.
The "doctrine of massive retaliation" developed by the United States in 1954 was supposed to provide not only "containment", but also "rejection of communism." The possibility of using nuclear weapons against the USSR was allowed. And even in 1974, the US military-strategic doctrine allowed "separate nuclear operations" in the event of an escalation of the conflict in any region of the world. However, in 1982, NATO members declared that nuclear weapons would only be used in response to an attack.
During the Cold War, the Soviet military-strategic doctrine was based on the idea that its defensive structure, including strategic weapons, should be built taking into account the impressive military potential of the United States and NATO. For strategic nuclear forces In the Soviet Union, the essence of defensive sufficiency was determined by the need to maintain these forces at such a quantitative and qualitative level as to have reliable means of delivering a retaliatory strike in any conditions, even in the most unfavorable ones, in the event of a nuclear attack.
Under the conditions of the Cold War and the economic blockade by the United States and Western countries in 1949, the Economic Conference of representatives of the countries of people's democracy (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Czechoslovakia) decided to create a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). In 1950, the German Democratic Republic joined the CMEA, in 1962 - the Mongolian People's Republic, in 1972 - Cuba, in 1978 - the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. For settlements between the socialist countries, and then with the capitalist states, a clearing system of non-cash payments for goods and services was used, based on the offset of mutual claims. In connection with the post-war strengthening of the ruble, as well as increasing inflation in Western countries, the determination of the ruble exchange rate on the basis of the dollar was discontinued, and from March 1, 1950, the gold content of the ruble was established.
In the conditions of the Cold War, the competition of two superpowers, two economic strategies began: the United States - with an economic strategy of exporting capital to all countries and the Soviet Union - with an economic strategy of centralized distribution of investments for the development of leading industries.
During the Cold War, the rules of the game in the international arena were simplified to the extreme. The over-ideologization of interstate relations gave rise to a black-and-white vision of the world, which was clearly divided into “us” and “them”, “friends” and “enemies”. Every “win” for the US was automatically considered a “loss” for the USSR, and vice versa. From the point of view of the main participants in the confrontation, the quintessence of foreign policy wisdom was expressed by the old slogan: "He who is not with us is against us." In accordance with this logic, each country had to clearly define its place on one side or the other in this global confrontation.
As you know, after the end of World War II, the political map of the world changed dramatically. Defeat of fascist regimes, military defeat Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan significantly reduced the forces of international reaction. England, France and some other countries emerged from the war noticeably weakened. In Europe, Albania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia fell away one after another from the capitalist system. In Asia, the peoples of China, North Korea and North Vietnam have succeeded in doing this. The population of these 11 states was more than 700 million people.
The victory of the revolution in a number of countries in Europe and Asia led to the emergence of the globe a very significant group of states with the same type economic basis- public ownership of the means of production, the same state system, a single ideology - Marxism-Leninism.
The expansion after the Second World War of the community of countries that embarked on the socialist path of development did not lead to a weakening of the ideology. Most of these countries were also drawn into the orbit of confrontational confrontation.
The confrontation between the two systems eventually led to erection of the Iron Curtain, a policy of almost complete rupture of foreign trade, scientific, technical, cultural, social and personal ties between them.
As a result of the process of political disengagement, many of the agreements adopted at the end of the war and the institutions established to maintain peace and cooperation ceased to operate. Work in the UN on the fundamental issues of disarmament and peace was paralyzed.
In 1949, the Western powers, led by the United States, created the military-political organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO). Then successively in 1954 and 1955. two more blocks
(SEATO and CENTO). The United States, Great Britain and France have involved 25 more states of Europe, the Middle East and Asia into these military groupings.
In turn, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Albania in May 1955 in Warsaw signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. The Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO) was created.
In the West, the emergence of NATO was explained by the "Soviet threat", diligently emphasizing the defensive and peacekeeping role of this organization. And in the Soviet Union, not without reason, they believed that it was the formation of the NATO bloc that posed a threat to its security and that the creation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 was only a means of neutralizing this threat.
One of the most important problems that arose in international relations as a result of the Second World War was the "German question". At the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945), the heads of the governments of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain adopted decisions on the demilitarization of Germany, which provided that, as the conditions for unconditional surrender and the decisions of the conference were fulfilled, the German people should themselves determine the paths of their socio-economic and state structure. For the implementation of the stated goals in Germany, a temporary regime of quadripartite occupation was established.
However, the United States and other Western powers headed for the division of Germany. As a result, in 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was formed. After that, in October 1949, another German state was formed in the eastern part of Germany - the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Shortly after the death of I. V. Stalin (March 3, 1953), a period of "thaw" began for some time in international relations. In 1955, all foreign troops were withdrawn from Austria, and a peace treaty was concluded with it. In the same year, for the first time in the last 10 years, a meeting was held between the United States and the USSR at highest level. And yet this was only the beginning of a détente, which was to gain momentum and irreversibility afterwards.
After the XX Congress of the CPSU (1956), the dismantling of the "Iron Curtain" began, the most acute manifestations of the Cold War were overcome, economic, political and cultural ties between the USSR and the capitalist countries began to be established.
Nevertheless, conflict situations between the two blocs continued.
The new Soviet leadership, which came to power after Stalin's death, strove for a turnaround, for a "thaw" in international relations.
In January 1954, a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR was held in Berlin. The range of issues under consideration was wide: Indo-China, Korea, German problems, collective security in Europe. Since Western representatives advertised the defensive nature of NATO, the Soviet government put forward a proposal for the possible entry of the Soviet Union into NATO. At the same time, the USSR proposed to conclude a collective security treaty in Europe with the participation of the United States. However, all Soviet proposals were rejected by the West.
In July 1955 (10 years after Potsdam), the heads of the great powers - the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France - met again in Geneva. The focus of the meeting was on the interconnected German question and the question of European security. But here, too, the Western powers blocked Soviet proposals for concluding a collective security treaty in Europe, continuing to insist on joining the GDR to the FRG and including a united Germany in NATO.
In 1955, the Soviet government decided to return to their homeland all German prisoners of war who were in the USSR. In September 1955, German Chancellor K. Adenauer arrived in Moscow. As a result, diplomatic relations were established between the USSR and the FRG. West Berlin remained a hotbed of tension in Europe, so in 1958 the USSR proposed declaring it a free city. But this proposal was rejected by the West, as was the Soviet opinion about the need to conclude a peace treaty with Germany.
In July 1961, the first meeting between N. S. Khrushchev and the new US President D. Kennedy took place in Vienna. It was decided to establish a direct telephone connection between the Kremlin and the White House. In Berlin, the situation worsened again. And then, on August 12, 1961, overnight, a concrete wall was erected around West Berlin and checkpoints were set up at the border. This caused even greater tension both in Berlin itself and in the international situation as a whole.
The paramount task of the Soviet Union in external political sphere was the struggle for peace and disarmament. In an effort to reverse the dangerous course of events, the USSR for the period 1956-1960. unilaterally reduced the strength of its Armed Forces by
4 million people. In March 1958, the Soviet Union also unilaterally stopped testing all types of nuclear weapons, thus expressing the hope that other countries would follow its example. However, this display of goodwill did not resonate with the United States and its NATO allies at the time.
In the autumn of 1959, the first ever visit of the head of the Soviet government N. S. Khrushchev to the United States took place. It was agreed with US President D. Eisenhower that the heads of government of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France would meet in May 1960 in Paris. However, this important meeting did not take place. A few days before it, a Soviet anti-aircraft missile shot down at an altitude of over 20 km a U-2 manned spy plane that was crossing our entire country from south to north along the Ural meridian. The pilot of this plane, Powers, jumped out with a parachute and was detained at the landing site. Such an unfriendly act on the eve of the summit meeting was regarded the Soviet side as an attempt to disrupt the meeting, and the USSR refused to participate in it.
Thus, the post-war order, created “according to the blueprints” of Yalta and Potsdam, was not a European peace order, but a mode of mutual balancing based on the nuclear weapons of the superpowers, the delimitation of the spheres of interests of the USSR and the USA, and the confrontation between the two military-political allied structures of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Western Europe served as an instrument of the American strategy of "containment" of the USSR, while the Eastern European countries played the role of the "strategic foreground" of the USSR. Therefore, at different stages of post-war history, the results social transformation far from always coincided with the original plans and intentions. In 1945-1947, when the new order in the people's democracies was just being established, development was carried out in line with the agreements of Yalta and Potsdam, and its course was relatively independent.
At the first stage of development of these countries, to some extent, they took into account such factors as national specificity, traditions (preservation of elements of private property, multi-party system). However, later such features were practically reduced to nothing and their presence was more and more formal. For many countries, the chosen development model turned out to be ineffective both politically and economically, which led to a discrepancy between the proclaimed lofty goals socialism and very modest achievements.
From all the richness of the practice of socialist construction in the USSR, the Eastern European countries ultimately turned not to the New Economic Policy, but to the theory and politics of the 1930s. - the period of the cult of personality. Therefore, serious mistakes were made in these countries too, connected with the spurring of industrialization and collectivization; the imposition of a rigid centralized directive economic mechanism; the ever-widening spread of administrative-command methods of managing the economy and society as a whole. Authoritarian-bureaucratic regimes everywhere have become an obstacle to the economic and technical progress of their countries, a brake on integration processes within the CMEA.
The autumn of 1956 was difficult in the international aspect. The exposure of the personality cult of I.V. Stalin at the XX Party Congress gave rise to crises in the pro-Stalinist leadership of a number of countries of Eastern Europe; caused massive popular movements in Poland and Hungary, where the situation has escalated to the extreme.
In the 1960s-1970s. the international situation fluctuated first one way, then the other. At times, this situation led to clashes and even to hostilities.
The international situation of those years was generally characterized by instability and the growth of a whole group of contradictions, which created serious tension.
In the 1970s still kept the reality of a nuclear catastrophe. The build-up of nuclear missile weapons on both sides was becoming uncontrollable.
The Western ruling circles, together with the military-industrial complex, set out to rapidly build up their military power, seeking to create a potential for "containment" of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Soviet leadership took retaliatory measures to increase its military-strategic potential. Using a powerful economic base, advanced achievements of science and technology, the USSR and its allies achieved approximate parity between the countries of the Warsaw Pact and NATO by the beginning of the 1970s. However, the threat of war not only did not recede, but because of the excessive glut of weapons became more obvious.
The world community began to realize that a global nuclear war is fraught with catastrophic, unpredictable consequences, which means that the policy of confrontation becomes an unacceptable risk in the nuclear age.
In such a situation, the leadership of the USSR and the USA took a step towards some agreements in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war partly improve the international situation. The Soviet Union and the United States signed the Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War (1971), which supplemented the previously reached agreement on the establishment of a direct line of communication between Moscow and Washington, London and Paris, which, in combination, was supposed to reduce the risk of an accidental (unauthorized) outbreak of nuclear war.
Despite the measures taken, international tensions persisted.
The Soviet leadership, without radically changing its foreign policy course, sought to achieve a turn from the Cold War, from tension in the international situation to detente and cooperation.
During these years, the Soviet Union submitted over 150 different proposals aimed at ensuring international security, ending the arms race and disarmament. They created the appropriate political atmosphere. However, many of them could not be performed then. The arms buildup continued unabated despite the nuclear test cessation treaty and closer contacts between the superpowers after the Cuban crisis. The USSR hoped to reduce the US's large advantage in strategic missiles. Between 1960 and 1980, the spending on armaments of the two blocs increased by almost five times, although there were already more than enough weapons for the complete and repeated destruction of mankind. At the same time, arms exports to third world countries have tripled. By 1970, the destructive power wielded by the superpowers was about 1 million times greater than the two bombs dropped on Japan. For every person on Earth, there were 15 tons of explosives. Studies have also shown that in the event of a nuclear war, the sun's rays would not be able to break through dark clouds and radioactive dust, and thus the "nuclear night" would destroy all life on earth. The only hope was that the superpowers would understand that there would be no winners in a nuclear war and that it would be collective suicide. This way of thinking has come to be known as "mutual destruction" or "balance of terror."
With the advent of intercontinental missiles in our country, the relative strategic invulnerability of the United States has irrevocably become a thing of the past. As the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Yu. Kvitsinsky noted, already in early 1960, Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower government Gates, speaking before a congressional commission, was forced to admit that the United States did not have protection against our intercontinental missiles with nuclear warheads, and the commander strategic aviation United States General Power said that the USSR "can actually wipe out our entire striking force within 30 minutes." Thus, the plans of the United States to turn the territory of the USSR into a "lunar landscape" with impunity became pointless.
Seeing that the Soviet Union began to put into operation tens and hundreds of new launchers for its strategic missiles, the Americans were forced to offer the USSR negotiations on a comprehensive limitation and reduction of both offensive delivery systems strategic weapons, and defense systems against ballistic missiles. Such negotiations began in November 1969 in Helsinki, and the treaty signed as a result became the SALT-1 treaty. The USSR very quickly created its own warheads. In 1979, a new strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT-2) was signed in Vienna, based on the principles of equality and equal security, which paved the way for significant reductions in strategic arms.
Despite the military-political confrontation between the two systems, the intensification of detente and adherence to the principle of peaceful coexistence are gradually becoming a trend against thermonuclear war. In practice, its result is the signing between the USSR and the USA of an indefinite Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War (1973).
Soviet-American relations began to change, which gave rise to an improvement in the international climate. Great efforts had to be made to convene a pan-European Conference on Security. The leaders of 33 states of Europe, the USA and Canada signed in Helsinki final act Meetings (August 1975). Its signing 30 years after the end of the Second World War fixed the principles of the inviolability of borders in Europe; respect for the independence and sovereignty, territorial integrity of states; renunciation of the use of force and the threat of its use; non-interference in each other's internal affairs, which became the international legal basis for overcoming the Cold War.
Somewhat earlier (1971), the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France concluded a quadripartite agreement on West Berlin, recognizing it as an independent city. The borders of the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia were recognized as inviolable.
In 1973, an agreement was signed to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam. Together, we managed to eliminate the most dangerous hotbed of international tension in Southeast Asia.
The emerging certain gap in international detente and changes in the political map of the world affected the fact that the ruling circles in the West called for a “freeze” in relations with the Soviet Union and for a “harder course” towards it in order to once again contain the onset of “communism” . Influential forces in the West began to focus on continuing the arms race in the hope of wearing down the USSR and other socialist countries and regaining their lost military superiority.
In general, the first half of the 1970s showed the possibility of softening the international situation, strengthening relations of peaceful coexistence between states with different political systems, including the development of cooperation between them. At the same time, it also revealed that in the event of a violation of the status quo, especially in the political sphere, relations between the USSR and the USA immediately become aggravated. Therefore, the consequence of this is another round of the arms race.
The confrontation sharply intensified in connection with the entry of a contingent of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979. The political leadership dragged the Soviet Union into an extremely difficult conflict situation which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides. Most of the countries that are members of the UN, not only did not support this action, but also demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The further course of events led to the aggravation of the international situation. In response to the deployment of American missiles in Europe, the Soviet leadership decided to deploy medium-range missiles in the GDR and Czechoslovakia. A new stage of the arms race began, as a result of which Europe found itself in the role of a hostage.
The Soviet leadership once again began to put forward peace proposals. They were supposed to implement confidence-building measures in Europe and Asia, settle the conflict over Afghanistan, limit and reduce strategic weapons, and, as a first step, introduce a mutual moratorium on the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe.
However, the proposals put forward by the Soviet leadership were not successful.
In 1983, the United States began to place its missiles in Western Europe. The Soviet Union took similar actions that required additional material costs. The increase in spending on armaments in the socialist countries met with a far from unambiguous response.
Confrontational relations developed during these years with China as well. In February 1979, China carried out military operations against Vietnam. The Soviet Union declared that it would fulfill its obligations under the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Cooperation between the USSR and Socialist Republic Vietnam.
The general situation in the world, the situation in the countries of socialist orientation left their mark on their relations.
Some socialist countries tried to get out of the situation on their own, focusing on the Western states. The situation escalated. Attempts were made to intensify cooperation between the socialist countries, primarily in the economic, scientific and technical fields. A qualitatively new task was outlined: to turn the current decade into a period of intensive industrial, scientific and technical cooperation.
Proceeding from this, in 1985 the Comprehensive Program of Scientific and Technological Progress of the CMEA Member Countries until 2000 was adopted. The decision of this program, in the opinion of its authors, should help strengthen the positions of socialism in the world community. But, as practice has shown, about 1/3 of the program did not meet the requirements of the world level of development of science and technology. The program in its initial execution was not the one that could carry out scientific and technological progress.
Ministry of Education and Science Russian Federation
Federal Agency for Education
State educational institution
Supreme vocational education
All-Russian Correspondence Financial and Economic Institute
Department of History of Economics
Test № 1
by discipline " National history»
Completed by a student
1 course, gr.129
Faculty of Accounting and Statistics
(special Accounting Analysis and audit)
Salnikova A.A.
Checked Chernykh R.M.
Moscow - 2008
USSR in the post-war period (40s - early 50s).
1. Introduction - the relevance of the chosen topic.
- Consequences of the Great Patriotic War.
Restoration of the country's economy;
Industry recovery;
Rearmament of the army;
Agriculture;
Financial system;
Organization of labor in the postwar period;
The standard of living of the people, social benefits.
3 . Conclusion.
Introduction
Consequences of the Great Patriotic War
The victory over fascism went to the USSR at a high price. A military hurricane raged over the main regions of the most developed part of the Soviet Union for several years. Most of the industrial centers in the European part of the country were hit. All the main granaries - Ukraine, the North Caucasus, a significant part of the Volga region - were also in the flames of war. So much was destroyed that restoration could take many years, or even decades.
Nearly 32,000 industrial enterprises lay in ruins. On the eve of the war, they gave the country 70% of all steel production, 60% of coal. 65,000 kilometers of railway lines were put out of action. During the war, 1,700 cities and about 70,000 villages were destroyed. More than 25 million people lost their homes. But even more serious losses were human lives. Almost every soviet family I lost someone close to me during the war years. According to the latest estimates, the losses during the hostilities amounted to 7.5 million people, the losses among the civilian population - 6-8 million people. To military losses should be added the death rate in the camps, which during the war continued to function at full capacity, carrying out emergency construction, logging and mining on a colossal scale generated by the requirements of wartime.
The nutrition of the prisoners then, perhaps, was even less consistent with physical needs person than in peacetime. Total between 1941 and 1945. premature death overtook about 20-25 million citizens of the USSR. Of course, the greatest losses were among the male population. Reducing the number of men 1910-1925 birth was horrendous and caused permanent disproportions in the demographic structure of the country. A lot of women are the same age group left without husbands. At the same time, they were often single mothers, who at the same time continued to work in the enterprises of the economy transferred to the war footing, which was in dire need of workers.
Thus, according to the 1959 census, there were only 633 men per 1,000 women between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four. The result was a sharp drop in the birth rate in the 1940s, and the war was not the only reason.
Plans for the recovery of the country's economy.
The Soviet state began to restore the destroyed economy even during the war years, as the territories occupied by the enemy were liberated. But as a priority, restoration arose only after the victory. The country was faced with a choice of path economic development. In February - March 1946, Stalin again returned to the slogan put forward shortly before the war: the completion of the construction of socialism and the beginning of the transition to communism. Stalin assumed that in order to build the material and technical base of communism, it was enough to increase the production of cast iron to 50 million tons per year, steel to 60 million tons, oil to 60 million tons, coal to 500 million tons.
More realistic was the fourth five-year plan. The development of this plan is closely connected with the name of N. A. Voznesensky, who in those years was at the head of the State Planning Commission. During the war years, he actually led the industrial complex that produced the most important types of weapons: the people's commissariats of the aviation and tank industries, weapons and ammunition, and ferrous metallurgy. A son of his time, Voznesensky tried to introduce elements of cost accounting and material incentives into the economic system that had developed after the war, albeit while maintaining the decisive role of central planning.
Such foreign policy factors as the beginning of the Cold War, the looming nuclear threat, and the arms race had an effect. Thus, the first post-war five-year plan was not so much a five-year period for the restoration of the national economy, as the construction of new enterprises of the military-industrial complex - factories for the construction of ships of the Navy, new types of weapons.
Recovery of industry, rearmament of the army.
Immediately after the end of the war, the technical re-equipment of the army takes place, saturating it with the latest models of aviation, small arms, artillery, and tanks. Large forces required the creation of jet aircraft and missile systems for all branches of the armed forces. In a short time, tactical missile weapons were developed, then strategic purpose and air defense.
A broad program of building both large-capacity ships of the Navy and a significant submarine fleet was launched.
Huge funds were concentrated on the implementation of the atomic project, which was supervised by the all-powerful L.P. Beria. Thanks to the efforts of Soviet designers, and partly intelligence, which managed to steal important atomic secrets from the Americans, atomic weapons in the USSR were created in an unpredictably short time - in 1949. And in 1953, the Soviet Union created the world's first hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb.
Thus, in the post-war years, the Soviet Union managed to achieve considerable success in developing the economy and rearming the army. However, these achievements seemed insufficient to Stalin. He believed that it was necessary to "spur" the pace of economic and military development. In 1949, the head of the State Planning Commission, N.A. Voznesensky was accused of having drawn up in 1946 a plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the USSR for 1946-1950. contained low scores. Voznesensky was convicted and executed.
In 1949, at the direction of Stalin, without taking into account the real possibilities for the development of the country, new indicators were determined for the main branches of industry. These voluntaristic decisions created extreme tensions in the economy and slowed down the rise in the already very low standard of living people. (Several years later this crisis was overcome, and in 1952 the increase in industrial output exceeded 10%).
We must not forget about the forced labor of millions of people in the Gulag system (the main administration of the camps). The volume of camps completed by the system, where prisoners worked, increased several times after the war. The army of prisoners expanded with the prisoners of war of the losing countries. It was their labor that built (but was never completed) the Baikal-Amur Railway from Baikal to the shores Pacific Ocean and the Northern Road along the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Salekhard to Norilsk, nuclear industry facilities, metallurgical enterprises, energy facilities were created, coal and ore, timber were mined, huge state farm camps produced products.
While recognizing the undoubted economic successes, it should be noted that under the most difficult conditions of the restoration of the war-torn economy, a unilateral shift in favor of the military industries, which essentially subjugated the rest of the industry, created an imbalance in the development of the economy. Military production fell heavily
burden on the country's economy, sharply limited the possibility of improving the material well-being of the people.
Agriculture.
The development of agriculture, which was in a severe crisis, proceeded at a much slower pace. It could not fully provide the population with food and raw materials for light industry. The terrible drought of 1946 hit Ukraine, Moldova, and southern Russia. People died. Dystrophy was the main cause of high mortality. But the tragedy of the post-war famine, as often happened, was carefully hushed up. After a severe drought, a high grain harvest was obtained in the next two years. This to some extent contributed to the strengthening of agricultural production in general and some of its growth.
In agriculture, the assertion of the old order, the unwillingness to undertake any reforms that would weaken the tight control of the state, had a particularly painful effect. In general, it rested not so much on the personal interest of the peasant in the results of his labor, but on non-economic coercion. Each peasant was obliged to perform a certain amount of work on the collective farm. For non-compliance with this norm, prosecution was threatened, as a result of which the collective farmer could be deprived of his liberty or, as a measure of punishment, his personal plot was taken away from him. It should be taken into account that it was this site that was the main source of livelihood for the collective farmer, from this site he received food for himself and his family, the sale of their surplus on the market was the only way to receive money. A collective farm member did not have the right to move freely around the country; he could not leave his place of residence without the consent of the head of the collective farm.
At the end of the 40s, a campaign was launched to enlarge the collective farms, which at first seemed a reasonable and reasonable measure, but in fact turned out to be only a stage on the path of turning the collective farms into state-owned agricultural enterprises. The situation in agriculture made it much more difficult to supply the population with food and raw materials for light industry. With an extremely limited diet of the population of the Soviet Union, the government exported grain and other agricultural products abroad, especially to the countries of central and southeastern Europe, which began to "build socialism."
The post-war USSR has always attracted the attention of specialists and readers interested in the past of our country. The victory of the Soviet people in the terrible war in the history of mankind became the finest hour of Russia of the twentieth century. But at the same time, it also became an important frontier, marking the onset of a new era - the era of post-war development.
It so happened that the first post-war years (May 1945 - March 1953) were "deprived" in Soviet historiography. In the first post-war years, a few works appeared, extolling the peaceful creative work of the Soviet people during the Fourth Five-Year Plan, but, of course, not revealing the essence of even this side of the socio-economic and political history of Soviet society. After Stalin's death in March 1953 and the ensuing wave of criticism of the "cult of personality", even this story was exhausted and soon forgotten. As for the relationship between the authorities and society, the development of the post-war socio-economic and political course, innovations and dogmas in foreign policy, these topics have not received their development in Soviet historiography. In subsequent years, the plots of the first post-war years were reflected only in the multi-volume "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", and even then fragmentarily, from the point of view of the concept of "restoring the country's national economy destroyed by the war."
Only in the late 80s. publicists, and then historians, turned to this complex and short period of the country's history in order to look at it in a new way, to try to understand its specifics. However, the lack of archival sources, as well as the “revealing” attitude, led to the fact that the place of one half-truth was soon taken by another.
As for the study of the Cold War and its consequences for Soviet society, these problems were not raised at that time either.
A breakthrough in the study of the post-war USSR came in the 1990s, when archival funds of the highest state authorities became available, and, most importantly, many documents of the top party leadership. Discovery of materials and documents on history foreign policy The USSR led to the emergence of a series of publications on the history of the Cold War.
In 1994, G. M. Adibekov published a monograph on the history of the Information Bureau of Communist Parties (Cominform) and its role in the political development of Eastern European countries in the first post-war years.
In a collection of articles prepared by scientists of the Institute world history RAS “Cold War: New Approaches. New Documents” have developed such new topics for researchers as the Soviet reaction to the “Marshall Plan”, the evolution of Soviet policy on the German issue in the 1940s, the “Iranian crisis” of 1945-1946. and others. All of them were written on the basis of the latest documentary sources found in previously closed party archives.
In the same year, a collection of articles prepared by the Institute Russian history Russian Academy of Sciences "Soviet Foreign Policy during the Cold War (1945-1985): A New Reading". Along with the disclosure of private aspects of the history of the Cold War, articles were published in it that revealed the doctrinal foundations of Soviet foreign policy in those years, clarified the international consequences of the Korean War, and traced the features of the party leadership foreign policy USSR.
At the same time, a collection of articles “The USSR and the Cold War” appeared under the reaction of V. S. Lelchuk and E. I. Pivovar, in which for the first time the consequences of the Cold War were studied not only from the point of view of the foreign policy of the USSR and the West, but also in connection with with the impact that this confrontation had on the internal processes that took place in the Soviet country: the evolution of power structures, the development of industry and agriculture, Soviet society, etc.
Of interest is the work of the author's team, united in the book "Soviet Society: Origin, Development, Historical Finale" edited by Yu. N. Afanasyev and V. S. Lelchuk. It deals with various aspects of external and domestic policy USSR in the post-war period. It can be stated that the comprehension of many issues has been carried out here at a fairly high research level. The understanding of the development of the military-industrial complex, the specifics of the ideological functioning of power, has noticeably advanced.
In 1996, VF Zima published a monograph on the origin and consequences of the famine in the USSR in 1946–1947. It also reflected various aspects of the socio-economic policy of the Stalinist leadership of the USSR in the first post-war years.
An important contribution to the study of the formation and functioning of the Soviet military-industrial complex, its place and role in the system of relations between government and society was made by N. S. Simonov, who prepared the most complete monograph on this issue to date. He shows in it the growing role of "commanders of military production" in the system of power in the USSR in the post-war period, highlights priority areas growth in military production during this period.
During these years, V.P. Popov showed himself to be a leading specialist in the field of a comprehensive analysis of the economic development of the USSR in the postwar years and the development of state policy in this area, publishing a series of interesting articles, as well as a collection of documentary materials that were highly appreciated by the scientific community. The general result of his many years of work was a doctoral dissertation and a monograph on these issues.
In 1998, R. G. Pikhoi's monograph “The Soviet Union: the history of power. 1945-1991". In it, the author unique documents shows the features of the evolution of power institutions in the first post-war years, argues that the system of power that has developed in these years can be considered as a classic Soviet (or Stalinist).
E. Yu. Zubkova has established herself as a well-known specialist in the history of the reformation of Soviet society in the first post-war decades. The fruit of her many years of work on the study of moods and everyday life of people was a doctoral dissertation and a monograph “Post-war Soviet society: politics and everyday life. 1945-1953".
Despite the publication of these works over the past decade, it should be recognized that the development of the history of the first post-war years of Soviet society is just beginning. Moreover, while there is no single conceptually homogeneous historical work, which would undertake a comprehensive analysis of the accumulated historical sources throughout the entire spectrum of the socio-economic, socio-political, foreign policy history of Soviet society in the early post-war years.
What sources have become available to historians in recent years?
Some researchers (including the authors of this monograph) got the opportunity to work in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (the former archive of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU). The richest material on all aspects of domestic and foreign policy is concentrated here. Soviet state and his senior leadership, personal funds of the leaders of the CPSU. The notes of the members of the Politburo on specific issues of economic development, foreign policy, etc., make it possible to trace around what problems of post-war development disputes flared up in the leadership, what ways of solving these or those problems were proposed by them.
The Great Patriotic War ended with a victory, which the Soviet people achieved for four years. Men fought on the fronts, women worked on collective farms, at military factories - in a word, they provided rear. However, the euphoria caused by the long-awaited victory was replaced by a sense of hopelessness. Continuous hard work, hunger, Stalinist repressions, renewed with renewed vigor - these phenomena overshadowed the post-war years.
In the history of the USSR, the term "cold war" is found. Used in relation to the period of military, ideological and economic confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. It begins in 1946, that is, in the post-war years. The USSR emerged victorious from World War II, but, unlike the United States, it faced long haul recovery.
Construction
According to the plan of the fourth five-year plan, the implementation of which began in the USSR in the post-war years, it was necessary, first of all, to restore the cities destroyed by the fascist troops. More than 1.5 thousand suffered in four years settlements. Young people quickly received various construction specialties. However, there was not enough manpower - the war claimed the lives of more than 25 million Soviet citizens.
To restore normal working hours, overtime work was canceled. Annual paid holidays were introduced. The working day now lasted eight hours. Peaceful construction in the USSR in the postwar years was headed by the Council of Ministers.
Industry
Plants and factories destroyed during the Second World War were actively restored in the post-war years. In the USSR, by the end of the forties, old enterprises began to work. New ones were also built. post-war period in the USSR - 1945-1953, that is, it begins after the end of the Second World War. Ends with the death of Stalin.
The recovery of industry after the war was rapid, partly due to the high working capacity Soviet people. The citizens of the USSR were convinced that they had a great life, much better than the Americans living in the conditions of decaying capitalism. This was facilitated by the Iron Curtain, which isolated the country culturally and ideologically from the whole world for forty years.
They worked hard, but their life did not get easier. In the USSR in 1945-1953 there was a rapid development of three industries: rocket, radar, nuclear. Most of the resources were spent on the construction of enterprises that belonged to these areas.
Agriculture
The first post-war years were terrible for the inhabitants. In 1946, the country was gripped by famine caused by destruction and drought. A particularly difficult situation was observed in the Ukraine, in Moldova, in the right-bank regions of the lower Volga region and in the North Caucasus. New collective farms were created throughout the country.
In order to strengthen the spirit of Soviet citizens, directors, commissioned by officials, shot a huge number of films telling about happy life collective farmers. These films enjoyed wide popularity, they were watched with admiration even by those who knew what a collective farm really was.
In the villages, people worked from dawn to dawn, while living in poverty. That is why later, in the fifties, young people left the villages, went to the cities, where life was at least a little easier.
Standard of living
In the post-war years, people suffered from hunger. In 1947, but most of the goods remained in short supply. The hunger has returned. The prices of rations were raised. Nevertheless, over the course of five years, starting in 1948, products gradually became cheaper. This somewhat improved the standard of living of Soviet citizens. In 1952, the price of bread was 39% lower than in 1947, and that of milk was 70%.
The availability of essential goods did not make life much easier ordinary people, but, being under the Iron Curtain, most of them easily believed in the illusory idea of the best country in the world.
Until 1955, Soviet citizens were convinced that victory in the Great Patriotic War they owe it to Stalin. But this situation was not observed throughout. In those regions that were annexed to the Soviet Union after the war, far fewer conscious citizens lived, for example, in the Baltic states and in Western Ukraine, where anti-Soviet organizations appeared in the 40s.
Friendly states
After the end of the war in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the GDR, the communists came to power. The USSR developed diplomatic relations with these states. At the same time, the conflict with the West escalated.
According to the 1945 treaty, Transcarpathia was transferred to the USSR. The Soviet-Polish border has changed. Many former citizens of other states, such as Poland, lived on the territory after the end of the war. The Soviet Union concluded an agreement on the exchange of population with this country. Poles living in the USSR now had the opportunity to return to their homeland. Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians could leave Poland. It is noteworthy that in the late forties only about 500 thousand people returned to the USSR. In Poland - twice as much.
criminal situation
In the postwar years in the USSR, law enforcement agencies launched a serious fight against banditry. 1946 saw the peak of crime. About 30,000 armed robberies were recorded this year.
To combat rampant crime, new employees, as a rule, former front-line soldiers, were accepted into the ranks of the police. It was not so easy to restore peace to Soviet citizens, especially in Ukraine and the Baltic states, where the criminal situation was the most depressing. In the Stalin years, a fierce struggle was waged not only against "enemies of the people", but also against ordinary robbers. From January 1945 to December 1946, more than three and a half thousand bandit organizations were liquidated.
Repression
Back in the early twenties, many representatives of the intelligentsia left the country. They knew about the fate of those who did not have time to escape from Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, at the end of the forties, some accepted the offer to return to their homeland. Russian nobles were returning home. But to another country. Many were sent immediately upon their return to the Stalinist camps.
In the post-war years, it reached its apogee. Wreckers, dissidents and other "enemies of the people" were placed in the camps. Sad was the fate of the soldiers and officers who found themselves surrounded during the war years. AT best case they spent several years in the camps, until which they debunked the cult of Stalin. But many were shot. In addition, the conditions in the camps were such that only the young and healthy could endure them.
In the post-war years, Marshal Georgy Zhukov became one of the most respected people in the country. His popularity annoyed Stalin. However, he did not dare to put the national hero behind bars. Zhukov was known not only in the USSR, but also abroad. The leader knew how to create uncomfortable conditions in other ways. In 1946, the "Aviator Case" was fabricated. Zhukov was removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief ground forces and sent to Odessa. Several generals close to the marshal were arrested.
culture
In 1946, the fight against Western influence began. It was expressed in the popularization of domestic culture and the ban on everything foreign. were persecuted Soviet writers, artists, directors.
In the forties, as already mentioned, a huge number of war films were shot. These films were heavily censored. The characters were created according to a template, the plot was built according to a clear scheme. The music was also under strict control. Only compositions praising Stalin and a happy Soviet life. This did not have the best effect on the development of national culture.
The science
The development of genetics began in the thirties. In the postwar period, this science was in exile. Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet biologist and agronomist, became the main participant in the attack on geneticists. In August 1948, academicians who made a significant contribution to the development of domestic science lost the opportunity to engage in research activities.
