# Forum About Russia Politics  About Cold War and more

## rockzmom

So younger daughter came home today with and essay assignment about the Cold War. I thought I'd share the assignment with you just so you can see it and also to see what comments you might have:  *Directions:* The following question requires you to construct a coherent essay that integrates your interpretation of Documents A-I and your knowledge of the period referred to in the question. High scores will be earned only by essays that both cite key pieces of evidence from the documents and draw on outside knowledge of the period.  *Question:* What were the Cold War  fears of the American people in the aftermath of the Second World War? How successfully did the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower address these fears? 
Use the documents and your knowledge of the years 1948-1961 to construct your response.  *Document A:*
Eisenhower News Conference, _March 17, 1954_  There is too much hysteria. You know, the world is suffering from a multiplicity of fears. We fear the men in the Kremlin, we fear what they will do to our friends around them; we are fearing what unwise investigators will do to us here at home as they try to combat subversion or bribery or deceit within. We fear depression, we fear the loss of jobs. All of these, with their impact on the human mind makes us act almost hysterically, and you find hysterical reactions.   *Document B:*  Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, International Communism in Guatemala, June 30, 1954. 
If world communism captures any American State, however small, a new and perilous front is established which will increase the danger to the entire free world and require even greater sacrifices from the American people.  This situation in Guatemala had become so dangerous that the American States could not ignore it. At Caracas last March the American States held their Tenth Inter-American Conference. They then adopted a momentous statement. They declared that "the domination or control of the political institutions of any American State by the international Communist movement" . . . would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political independence of the American States, endangering the peace of America."   *Document C:* 
Life Magazine, May 1955     *Document D:* 
Saturday Evening Post, October 1956  On last June twenty-ninth, with president Eisenhower’s signature, one of the most astounding pieces of legislation in history quietly became a law.  Public Law 627 represents such a monumental conception of national public works that its accomplishment will literally dwarf any previous work of man … That new title – the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways – tells the story of the road network, which will receive the major portion of the brave new effort to get this country out of its national traffic jam.  The Interstate System … is the 40,000-mile network of existing roads which comprise our trunkline highways; it connects 209 of the 237 cities having a population of 50,000 or more and serves the country’s principal industrial and defense areas.   *Document E:* 
Source: _U.S. News and World Report,_ December 1957     *Document F:*    * 
Document G:*
Special Message to the Congress from President Eisenhower on Education, January 1958. 
  Because of the national security interest in the quality and scope of our educational system in the years immediately ahead, however, the Federal Government must also undertake to play an emergency role.  The Administration is therefore recommending certain emergency Federal action to encourage and assist greater effort in specific areas of national concern.  These recommendations place principal emphasis on our national security requirements… 
  If we are to maintain our position of leadership, we must see to it that today’s young people are prepared to contribute the maximum to our future progress.  Because of the growing importance of science and technology, we must necessarily give special – but by no means exclusive – attention to education in science and engineering.     *Document I*
President John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 1961.  
  Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. 
  Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge, but a request:  that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. 
  We dare not tempt them with weakness.  For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain that they will never be employed.  But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course – both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rigidly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.   *Grading Rubric:*

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## Doomer

May I suggest another document - Cuban Missile Crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As many Americans probably know that USSR in 1962  put its nuclear middle-range missiles on Cuba and those missiles could have theoretically hit US. This crisis might have become World War III but luckily it haven't because USSR dismantle nuclear missiles on Cuba later in 1962
As not so many Americans probably know that USA put more than 100 nuclear missiles in 1961 in Turkey and Italy and those missiles could have theoretically hit USSR. Cuban missiles were direct reaction on US missiles in Turkey and Italy even that USA had an ability to deliver nuclear warheads to USSR even before 1961, using submarines
So, it is fair to say that US almost started World War III
Also it is fair to say that Cold War hysteria in US has been created strictly by US government because until 1962 USSR had no way to deliver nuclear warheads to US thus all those talks about invasive communists had nothing to do with real things happening in the world that time 
USA and USSR were trying to show who's the boss during Korean War in 50s and Afghan War in 80s but I would say without much of a success

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## Hanna

I agree with Doomer. Growing up during this era, I used to think both super powers were EQUALLY bad - that they had different pros and cons. 
But lately as I have learnt more about what went on politically, geographically and economically during the Cold War, it seems to me that the USA was actually the more aggressive, and that historical facts support this.  
It also offered a more initially appealing lifestyle, in what it said that it represented. But this was not consistently applied. 
The propaganda of the USA was also spectacularly more successful than the propaganda of the USSR.
That is not saying that the USSR was always acting morally or respectfully towards their own citizens and sometimes citizens of other countries.  
But I think it is a real shame that the USA is regarded today as the morally righteous victor of the Cold War, and the USSR as the evil loser....!
Things were nowhere near that simplistic! 
It's a pity if American and other school children, like Rockzmom's daughters, are not given the full picture. 
I can't help to wonder what Russian children are taught about this era?  
I noticed that young people in Sweden toay are convinced that the USSR was "evil...."  While I grew up it was not like that, but presented differently - a much more nuanced view of both super powers - neither was glorified or blackpainted. But nowadays the Cold war is simplified as a struggle between good and evil, where good (represented by the US) won. I really object to that and I suspect that lots of people in Russia and ex Soviet countries don't agree with it either.

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## nulle

> I noticed that young people in Sweden today are convinced that the USSR was "evil...."

 I was born in the USSR - and I consider it evil too...
USSR collapse was one of the best things in XX century - People locked up in prison of nations were finally free (but sadly many did not know what to do wih their newly acquired freedom).

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## Crocodile

I think it was very difficult to say who had almost started the WWIII. The Cuban Missile Crisis is as controversial today as it was back then. Let us seat ourselves in a high office of the military headquarters and observe the situation from each side. 
From the SU side, the main danger had not been the missiles which were, at the time, of limited reliability and cargo capabilities, but mainly from the plane bombers. Their location was primarily in Europe, but there also were mobile units launched from the aircraft carriers. Very dangerous situation. 
From the US side, the danger was greatly mitigated by the distance. The plan bombers had to come all the way over the Arctic and, subsequently, Canada giving plenty of chances for the US's and Canadian plane fighters to massive and non-stop attacks. There were challenges of fuel limitations - the aircraft is very vulnerable during the aerial refueling because it needs to stay still becoming an easier prey for the fighters, which primary job is not really fighting with the enemy fighters, but actually not to let the bombers drop their bombs to their targets. 
So, at the time the US was much more capable of starting the nuclear WWIII, without much worry of nuclear retaliation from the USSR, but it hadn't.  
And here's why. The WWIII could only start with a very high degree of assurance that the nuclear weapons will not be used at all or will be used in a very limited quantities. Obviously, due to the ecological consequences. At the time, neither the US, nor the SU were capable of neutralizing the nuclear capabilities of each other, so the WWIII could not start. Then, both side's military minds worked hard to overcome the challenge, and both sides realized those approaches could work. The only reliable way to defend itself from those tactics was the diversification and the proliferation of the nuclear weapons. Until the point at which the maintenance had become so expensive for both sides that they agreed to the so-called mutual disarmament. Oh, how much joy had it caused! Wow! The superpowers are looking for the ways to make peace! All the peace movements... the dreams... What had happened in reality is that both superpowers had replaced the outdated warheads with the more modern equipment which could fit better with the more modern missiles and being less vulnerable. But, at the same time the strategy and tactics of the rest of the military had become tuned to destroying the nuclear capabilities of the enemy. By the late 70s and early 80s it had become apparent that the USSR is a way ahead in that game and can start the WWIII any time it wants and the US can do nothing except for total destruction. The only real thing which hold that war back was the leadership weakness - Brezhnev and his company were very old and were incapable of such energetic undertaking. As soon as Brezhnev died in 1982, newly elected leader Yuri Andropov (who was one of the three leaders which actually governed the country in the later years of Brezhnev's life) had decided that the time has come. It was now or never for many reasons. The gradual preparation of the country to war had begun. The US had gradually realized what had happened, but it was basically too late. But, they couldn't do just nothing. So, about a half-year later the US had launched the Strategic Defense Initiative, which allegedly could protect at least somehow against the state-of-the-art splitting warheads. Of course, it could take years until it would work, but the Soviet leadership had realized they don't have that much time either. So, the internal opposition to Andropov had realized the whole war-playing was for real. It wasn't about playing the who's the boss anymore, if the entire plan goes wrong, there could be total destruction. And they chickened. Not long afterwards (just a few months later), previously active Andropov suddenly got so sick that the last time he had acted as a Secretary General was about a half-year later after the SDI was announced. What a strange coincidence... Anyway, after the last of the Mohicans had died, a young leader named Gorbachev took over the leadership of the party. And the Cold War had effectively been finished.

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## gRomoZeka

> I was born in the USSR - and I consider it evil too...
> USSR collapse was one of the best things in XX century - People locked up in prison of nations were finally free (but sadly many did not know what to do wih their newly acquired freedom).

 Your expressed your views on this forum multiple times, and I believe that most people aware now that your view of the USSR is very simplistic and negative (not to say biased). 
 I was born in the USSR too, and I see it in much more favorable light. Sadly, the winners rewrite history (which is a natural order of things), and now most of its nicer aspects are forgotten or belittled. 
I'd like to know (if anyone here can tell) what the level of "nuclear war hysteria" among Soviet citizens was at the time (the 50s-60s). Were they as concerned as Americans? I can't remember hearing about anything as extreme as American "home-made" bomb shelters, and later, in the 80s the atmosphere was very much relaxed, despite occasional talk about WWIII or American nuclear threat. We studied what we should do during the nuclear strike at school, but no one took it very seriously. The possibility of actual nuclear war seemed very small.

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## rockzmom

Dommer, I keep forgetting you're not a native English speaker and then I see that you forget all your "the" and remember! You did a great job of not using USA and using US instead, that is what usually gives it away.   

> May I suggest another document - Cuban Missile Crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> As many Americans probably know that the USSR in 1962  put its nuclear middle-range missiles on Cuba and those missiles could have theoretically hit the US. This crisis might have become World War III but luckily it haven't didn't because the USSR their dismantle nuclear missiles on Cuba later in 1962. As What not so many Americans probably know, is that in 1961, the USA put more than 100 nuclear missiles in 1961 in Turkey and Italy and those missiles could have theoretically hit the USSR. Cuban missiles were in direct reaction on to the US missiles in Turkey and Italy. Even prior to that, the USA had an ability to deliver nuclear warheads to the USSR even before 1961, using submarines.
> So, it is fair to say that the US almost started World War III. Also It is also fair to say that the Cold War hysteria in the US had been created strictly by the US government because until 1962 the USSR had no way to deliver nuclear warheads to the US thus all those talks about invasive communists had nothing to do with real things happening in the world at that time.  The USA and USSR were trying to show who's the boss during the Korean War in the 50s and the Afghan War in the 80s but I would say without much of a success.

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## Crocodile

> I'd like to know (if anyone here can tell) what the level of "nuclear war hysteria" among Soviet citizens was at the time (the 50s-60s). Were they as concerned as Americans?

 I can't tell for sure as I did not witness that, but my impression of the 50s-60s in the USSR was the euphoria of the achievements and an image that the US cannot match the USSR. It was more like: "they won't even dare".    

> I can't remember hearing about anything as extreme as American "home-made" bomb shelters, and later, in the 80s the atmosphere was very much relaxed, despite occasional talk about WWIII or American nuclear threat. We studied what we should do during the nuclear strike at school, but no one took it very seriously. The possibility of actual nuclear war seemed very small.

 I agree. Also, I remember a joke about those classes was running - what should you do if you see a nuclear explosion? You should wrap yourself in a white bed sheet and start slowly crawl towards a cemetery.  ::  In general, people never beleived in the real possibility of the nuclear war.

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## Doomer

> Dommer, I keep forgetting you're not a native English speaker and then I see that you forget all your "the" and remember! You did a great job of not using USA and using US instead, that is what usually gives it away.

 Thanks for corrections  ::

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## rockzmom

Hey Chaika and Deborski... you out there? I believe the two of you would have some valuable insight and could add to this discussion! ::

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## Doomer

> I agree. Also, I remember a joke about those classes was running - what should you do if you see a nuclear explosion? You should wrap yourself in a white bed sheet and start slowly crawl towards a cemetery.  In general, people never beleived in the real possibility of the nuclear war.

 I've got couple army jokes for you
Here is one
Почему при ядерном взрыве нужно класть автомат под себя?
Чтобы капли расплавленного металла не испортили форму
Here is another one
Почему при ядерном взрыве нужно ложиться ногами в сторону взрыва?
Чтобы видеть куда полетят части твоего тела

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## rockzmom

Very timely for this topic... got a message today that  

> "the school conducted a practice Public Shelter Drill (used to be called Code Blue) and a practice Lockdown Drill (used to be called Code Red).  In weeks ahead, the school will conduct practice Inclement Weather Drills."

 Sadly the Code Red has been used a few times for real with the schools my girls attend, both in elementary years and as recently as last week when a shooting happened near their school and the gunman was on the run.  Code Red is a term used to describe an emergency/crisis at a School facility. Code Red alerts staff that imminent danger exists inside or outside the building and requires moving to an immediate lockdown mode. It requires all students to be accounted for and under supervision. During a Code Red no one, including parents, may enter the building. During a Code Red the telephone will not be answered.   Code Blue is a term used to alert staff that an emergency/crisis exist at or near a School facility. It requires all students to be accounted for and under supervision.

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## maxmixiv

I was growing up (70's-80's), waiting for nuclear strike every day, and often saw nightmares. They said, that our city is among primary targets, and will be attacked with not less than 10 bombs. I really don't understand, how any one could stay indifferent with the news that was in mass media those days. 
Cannot say much about 1950's, but I saw the articles on the Internet(might be fake), that the US had been elaborating plans to attack the USSR since very beginning, when it was safe (USSR had not the bomb yet).
In my opinion, we were just lucky, that not everyone in our world only dreams to push the button, there is some room for common sense too.
And Andropov was not absolutely mad, and Brezhnev even was not thinking about first strike, I think. But personally I was expecting first strike from the USA, because was sure that they are supreme Evil on the Earth (our propaganda was quite effective inside USSR, Hanna! Well it worked on me...) 
It would be nice, if all military bases disappear from the ground, in whole world, and all bombs be destroyed, but process goes in opposite direction I'm afraid.

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## BappaBa

> I'd like to know (if anyone here can tell) what the level of "nuclear war hysteria" among Soviet citizens was at the time (the 50s-60s). Were they as concerned as Americans? I can't remember hearing about anything as extreme as American "home-made" bomb shelters, and later, in the 80s the atmosphere was very much relaxed, despite occasional talk about WWIII or American nuclear threat. We studied what we should do during the nuclear strike at school, but no one took it very seriously. The possibility of actual nuclear war seemed very small.

 Я помню только такие плакатики =)     
Сомневаюсь, что у нас была такая же как в США паранойя. И, имхо, была огромная разница в подходе к пропаганде: грубо говоря, наши учили ненавидеть американскую _угнетающую верхушку_, а американцы учили ненавидеть вообще русских. Поэтому, невозможно представить в Советской Армии плакат "Убей Джона!", а плакаты "Убей Ивана!" на американских базах были.

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## Marcus

> наши учили ненавидеть американскую угнетающую верхушку, а американцы учили ненавидеть вообще русских.

 Вот поэтому мы и проиграли Холодную войну. Не поэтому, конечно. Но пропаганду надо было вести типа нынешней. Сейчас негативное отношение к Америке гораздо сильнее, чем тогда.

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## Eric C.

> Also, I remember a joke about those classes was running - what should you do if you see a nuclear explosion? You should wrap yourself in a white bed sheet and start slowly crawl towards a cemetery.

 Yeah, and you know why "slow"? "So that you won't raise panic." xD

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## maxmixiv

> Я помню только такие плакатики =) 
> Сомневаюсь, что у нас была такая же как в США паранойя. И, имхо, была огромная разница в подходе к пропаганде: грубо говоря, наши учили ненавидеть американскую _угнетающую верхушку_, а американцы учили ненавидеть вообще русских. Поэтому, невозможно представить в Советской Армии плакат "Убей Джона!", а плакаты "Убей Ивана!" на американских базах были.

 Ага, нас учили, что простые американцы не против сбросить оковы капитализма, но вот правительство им не позволяет  ::

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## gRomoZeka

> I was growing up (70's-80's), waiting for nuclear strike every day, and often saw nightmares.

 I'm sorry to hear that. I guess moods could be different in cities that had big military bases and thus were considered to be among possible targets... 
I was growing approximately at the same time and I did not care about Americans at all - apart from the weird stage at 5 or 6 years old, when I forced my mom to pretend that she was Reagan a few times, and then tried to persuade her to dismantle nuclear weapon. *facepalm*. 
  Me and my friends were much more concerned with Germans, who had a "history" of killing Soviet civilians indiscriminately in most unpleasant ways (like burning them alive). I remember planning the best place to hide if they decide to attack again. American threat seemed insignificant in comparison.   

> Я помню только такие плакатики =) 
> [...] 
> Сомневаюсь, что у нас была такая же как в США паранойя. И, имхо, была огромная разница в подходе к пропаганде: грубо говоря, наши учили ненавидеть американскую _угнетающую верхушку_, а американцы учили ненавидеть вообще русских. Поэтому, невозможно представить в Советской Армии плакат "Убей Джона!", а плакаты "Убей Ивана!" на американских базах были.

 I agree. 
The last picture is hilarious (in the light of the previous joke). Is it a gravestone?  :: 
Actually that's the only tip I remember from these lessons: during a nuclear strike find a nearby ditch which is positioned along the direction of shock wave and lie down. For some reason it always caused laughing fits. )))

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## Eric C.

> Вот поэтому мы и проиграли Холодную войну. Не поэтому, конечно. Но пропаганду надо было вести типа нынешней. Сейчас негативное отношение к Америке гораздо сильнее, чем тогда.

 One who was born to hate everything will always come up with an excuse to even hate their own reflection in a mirror.

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## rockzmom

*Okay, so tomorrow is the deadline for the assignment... this thread of course can go on and on, but any last input for the assignment today would be great. Thanks. *  *BappaBa,* thank you so much for posting those graphics. While I can't read them, I believe I get the basic understanding of them. Do you by any chance have a date from when they are from?  * 
maxmixi,* where did you grow up that it effect you so much? I know living so close to Washington, D.C. everything was different for me as well. When I was young I was sitting in a tree and there was this BOOM and the tree shook. I thought a bomb went off in DC. It turned out that a house exploded in the next "town" over yet we felt it. There was nothing left of the house and thankfully no one was in the house at the time. I believe it was a gas build up. And when we had the earthquake here last year, as we NEVER have them here, the very first thought the girls and I had, was a bomb.  
It is interesting that when I was in elementary school they used to have the emergency sirens go off I think once a month to test them. They had it in the school yard. Now they don't do that any more. Does anyone else remember those or am I the only person old enough? 
My dad is old enough that when I asked him about all of this, he remembers the duck and cover under his desk from WW2, having to sit in lines on each side of the hallway, and his dad was actually an air raid warden.

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## Doomer

> [B]
> It is interesting that when I was in elementary school they used to have the emergency sirens go off I think once a month to test them. They had it in the school yard. Now they don't do that any more. Does anyone else remember those or am I the only person old enough?

 It was the same in USSR except the sirens have been going off for the whole city not just school

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## rockzmom

My daughter's teacher showed them this video!!  *Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle Civil Defense Film*

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## maxmixiv

*rockzmom*, I believe, that it was my individual perception, not much related to my location. My city is Omsk, and I was growing sure, that nothing bad could happen ever, because we are so distant and earthquakes are not possible. Then I learned, that bombs can be delivered in half-hour. I got nervous since then  :: 
We had many military industries in the USSR times, and big refinery. Military works all crippled after USSR's demise, but refinery was captured by Abramovich and it is still profitable and interesting for Pentagon. Look please (there is come text in English at the end): ﾑﾘﾀ ??? ?蒟?? ??韃 ? ﾎ?

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## BappaBa

> *BappaBa,* thank you so much for posting those graphics. While I can't read them, I believe I get the basic understanding of them. Do you by any chance have a date from when they are from?

 I believe they are from early 80's, because of the Space Shuttle.

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## rockzmom

> I believe they are from early 80's, because of the Space Shuttle.

 Thanks. I forwarded the second one to her teacher and I just got a text from my daughter that he is showing it to them in class right now!! You see how much you impact the lives of American school children??!!  
About the Space Shuttle, I was talking with my dad about that one. Is the picture suggesting that you could launch a weapon from the Space Shuttle? If so, that is something that neither of us thought about before.

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## Crocodile

> About the Space Shuttle, I was talking with my dad about that one. Is the picture suggesting that you could launch a weapon from the Space Shuttle? If so, that is something that neither of us thought about before.

 The space shuttles were one of the key components of the SDI. It was estimated that the cost to deploy the nuclear weapon onto space and maintaining it there would be reduced by the space shuttles.

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## Doomer

> Thanks. I forwarded the second one to her teacher and I just got a text from my daughter that he is showing it to them in class right now!! You see how much you impact the lives of American school children??!!

 Let us know how it went

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## rockzmom

> The space shuttles were one of the key components of the SDI. It was estimated that the cost to deploy the nuclear weapon onto space and maintaining it there would be reduced by the space shuttles.

 Say what?  ::  That little tidbit of information certain went by me. But then again, most of politics did when I was growing up. Remember, Star Wars was a movie to me... one I actually saw in a movie theater, back in 1977.

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## Crocodile

Well, it went both sides. Militarisation of space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  
"_The Soviet Union was also researching innovative ways of gaining space supremacy. Two of their most notable efforts were the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) and Polyus orbital weapons system._"

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## rockzmom

> Well, it went both sides. Militarisation of space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  
> "_The Soviet Union was also researching innovative ways of gaining space supremacy. Two of their most notable efforts were the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) and Polyus orbital weapons system._"

 Shut the front door!  

> "orbital nuclear explosion were researched with varying levels of success."

 The moon... for real?  

> "In the late 1950s United States Air Force considered dropping an atomic bomb on the Moon to display U.S. superiority to the Soviet Union and the rest of the world (Project A119). "

 Oh my, I love how this is worded. I makes it sound as if the SU is now a pile of ashes. Like the entire country was Lot's wife and blinked and turned into a into a column of salt or something.  

> In 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated.

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## Crocodile

> Shut the front door! 
> "orbital nuclear explosion were researched with varying levels of success."

 That's right. I think that was part of the project Excalibur Project Excalibur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
The main idea was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the orbit and let it power a series of x-ray lasers in various directions to destroy the ballistic missiles or splitting nuclear warheads.

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## Throbert McGee

> грубо говоря, наши учили ненавидеть американскую _угнетающую верхушку_, а американцы учили *ненавидеть вообще русских*.

 Well, how does that old song go again? Oh, yeah: 
"*Союз* нерушимый республик свободных.  *Сплотила* навеки Великая *Русь*" 
(I.e., While the *угнетающая верхушка* [oppressive elite leadership] of the Soviet Union was -- from the US point of view -- the major threat, it was them goddamn _rooskies_ who built the USSR in the first place, as they brag about in their own anthem!)

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## Throbert McGee

> I've got couple army jokes for you
> Here is one
> Почему при ядерном взрыве нужно класть автомат под себя?
> Чтобы капли расплавленного металла не испортили форму
> Here is another one
> Почему при ядерном взрыве нужно ложиться ногами в сторону взрыва?
> Чтобы видеть куда полетят части твоего тела

  ::  
Q: "Why should you put your machine-gun UNDER you in the event of a nuclear explosion?"
A: "So that the drops of molten metal don't ruin your uniform." 
Q: "Why should you lie down with your feet_ in the direction of the explosion*_ in the event of a nuclear blast?"
A: "So that you can see where the pieces of your body fly to." 
*PS: Actually, I'm not 100% sure whether *ногами в сторону взрыва* is supposed to mean "with your feet towards the source of the explosion at Ground Zero" or "with your feet pointed in the direction that the blast-wave is traveling, away from the source at Ground Zero." Obviously, these are the opposite of each other.

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## Throbert McGee

> *Document E:* 
> Source: _U.S. News and World Report,_ December 1957

 My parents are retired out in Arizona, and my dad works as a volunteer tour guide at the Titan II Missile Museum near Tucson. (The only Titan II silo still in existence -- though the missile now has no warheads, rocket fuel, or engines, of course! -- since the other 53 sites were dynamited after being decommissioned in the late '80s.) 
Anyway, the Titan II missiles and the underground silos that housed them were both designed to deal with that "35 minute" problem described in the graphic. For instance, the missiles used a special fuel mixture that did not have to be stored in huge refrigeration units (like liquid oxygen) and pumped into the rocket's fuel tanks at the last minute -- so the missiles were completely fueled at all times, and could launch in just under 1 minute.  
And the silos were massively engineered and theoretically capable of surviving a "nearby" detonation by a *Soviet first strike* -- not only were there steel doors and concrete walls more than a meter thick, but absolutely everything inside the silo was mounted on gigantic shock-absorption springs to protect electronic equipment from shockwaves. (Thus, even if a multi-megaton Soviet missile had destroyed the nearby city of Tucson, the silo that's now the Museum should have been able -- at least in theory -- to launch a retaliatory strike.) 
Thus, the Titan II program was an attempt to preserve the US Govt's official "no first strike" policy, even in an age where Soviet missiles could reach the US in about half an hour. (Note that the magazine article posted by rockzmom is from 1957, and the Titan II silos were completed and activated by around 1963.)

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## Doomer

> *PS: Actually, I'm not 100% sure whether *ногами в сторону взрыва* is supposed to mean "with your feet towards the source of the explosion at Ground Zero" or "with your feet pointed in the direction that the blast-wave is traveling, away from the source at Ground Zero." Obviously, these are the opposite of each other.

 The first one 
Those jokes actually based on real things
Because you are supposed to put your AK under you
And you are supposed to drop and lie on the ground with your feet toward the explosion if you see the flash

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## Doomer

> Thus, the Titan II program was an attempt to preserve the US Govt's official "no first strike" policy, even in an age where Soviet missiles could reach the US in about half an hour.

 Every nuclear country claims the same thing  ::  
But the actual idea is an ability to respond on nuclear bombing and that' basically the main deterrent force

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## Hanna

I remember from that era, having a huge fight with my best friend about how many times over the whole world could be destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal. It was like 8 times, I believed, but she said 18, or something like that... Somebody came to school to lecture about this.  
There were a number of really creepy books about a post nuclear war society which perhaps some remember? One that I remember one was about animals that lived in a Russian town after all the people had died in a nuclear war. The animals tried to understand what happened, and in the process made some wise observations about the madness of an arms race.  Anyone remembers that book? 
One of the things that was often said was that any nuclear war was most likely going to be started by a misunderstanding or mistake -- neither super power would deliberatly start a nuclear war. 
There was apparently an incident where the USA almost fired off the nukes because a flock of birds were flying from Siberia towards Alaska and appeared on the radar like missiles!  
It was a big thing where I grew up, to believe in "neutrality", that the superpowers were generally crazy and greedy for land and assets. 
In the neighbourhood I grew up, another thing was whether to join, the scouts or the pioneers. My best friend was in the pioneers, and in addition they had a really varied program of activities. I wanted to join but was not allowed by my parents and had to be in the sea scouts instead, which I did not enjoy. I don't think the pioneer organisation exists in Sweden anymore 
Remember another school lecture about why Sweden needed a defense, and compulsory military service for the guys (now stopped). Kids said "What's the point - the Russians/Americans could invade us any time they wanted, we wouldn't stand a chance...". 
The idea was that the Northern part of Scandinavia was incredibly strategically important for some complicated reason that I totally missed. So, supposedly either super power might come up with the idea to invade, "liberate", forcibly send a bunch of "advisors" and insist on a military base there, or something like that. However, our guys on skis with white anoraks could prevent this due to superior training, local knowledge etc....I did not buy it.... Sweden has not had any spine at all militarily for the last few hundred years, and would probably have surrendered long before anyone actually died in a hypothetical invasion! This is evidenced for exampled by our behaviour during both WW2, and what happened at the end of the Cold War - Senior politicians and other leaders changing the politics and alliances like others change socks.  
I wonder how many times over the world could still be destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal, and whether it matters? 
No idea!   *Nowadays I am more concerned about Environmental matters, and it is still nice to think that the military tension and scary border controls are gone from the European continent.*  
But talk of this played a huge part of my childhood, as it probably did for everyone over the age of 35.  
Super creepy book from my childhood - some kids get cancer and starve to death after a nuclear war..."The Last Children" 
I read this book several times in my childhood.

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## Hanna

> I can't remember hearing about anything as extreme as American "home-made" bomb shelters, and later, in the 80s the atmosphere was very much relaxed, despite occasional talk about WWIII or American nuclear threat. We studied what we should do during the nuclear strike at school, but no one took it very seriously. The possibility of actual nuclear war seemed very small.

 Perhaps it was part of a propaganda campaign to scare Americans by suggesting that it would be wise build their own bomb shelters. There are thosands of American TV shows from that era with "evil Russians" plotting something nasty against nice Americans. I don't think there was equivalent bad portraying of Americans on Soviet TV.  
I remember the first time I saw such a film and was able to follow the plot. I was totally shocked at the prejudiced, ill informed and one dimensional portrait of Russians - I regularly saw Russian ferry passengers at my local metro stop, and had been in the USSR, so it was clear to me that the film was blatantly untrue in what it conveyed.  
But how would an American living in the midwest watching the same filem have known? 
But now it is almost as if the propaganda has become the official truth!

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## Marcus

> Well, how does that old song go again? Oh, yeah: 
> "*Союз* нерушимый республик свободных.  *Сплотила* навеки Великая *Русь*" 
> (I.e., While the *угнетающая верхушка* [oppressive elite leadership] of the Soviet Union was -- from the US point of view -- the major threat, it was them goddamn _rooskies_ who built the USSR in the first place, as they brag about in their own anthem!)

  Советский Союз представлял собой угрозу американскому господству в мире, а не самой Америке. Разница в пропаганде очевидна.

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## mishau_

Results of using Duck and Cover

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## Doomer

> There was apparently an incident where the USA almost fired off the nukes because a flock of birds were flying from Siberia towards Alaska and appeared on the radar like missiles!

 It was a little bit more dramatic in USSR one day Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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## capecoddah

An U.S. Air Force Convair F-106A _Delta Dart_  (s/n 57-2494) of the 102nd Fighter Interceptor Wing of the  Massachusetts Air National Guard based at Otis Air Force Base,  Massachusetts (USA), intercepting a Soviet Tu-95 _Bear D_ bomber aircraft off Cape Cod on 15 April 1982. 
Used to see this in the local newspaper every year or so. Soviet Bears would fly to Cuba and the local Air National Guard would go out and say "Hi guys!".  
Note the "Cape Cod" on the fighter's fuel tank.

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## BappaBa

> Well, how does that old song go again? Oh, yeah: 
> "*Союз* нерушимый республик свободных.  *Сплотила* навеки Великая *Русь*" 
> (I.e., While the *угнетающая верхушка* [oppressive elite leadership] of the Soviet Union was -- from the US point of view -- the major threat, it was them goddamn _rooskies_ who built the USSR in the first place, as they brag about in their own anthem!)

 off: раз не затирают "goddamn _rooskies",_ то и я позволю себе побесчинствовать. =) 
Неужели пиндосы учили определять кто есть клятый москаль, а кто бедный хохол и бульбаш? =)   
Что при СССР, что сейчас: "Наташа, заткнись! Выпьем водки!" =)

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## Throbert McGee

> Неужели пиндосы учили определять кто есть клятый москаль, а кто бедный хохол и бульбаш? =)

 Who can tell Rooskies apart from Ukies? _You people all look the same_, just like Chinks and Japs and Gooks... of course, the problem may be that слишком много телевизора вредно глазам, и поэтому у нас пиндосов слабое зреное. 
But seriously, cheers to BarraBa for responding with good humor on this complex topic. (And thanks for introducing me to the word бульбаш, which I had to look up.)  
Of course, it wasn't my intention to defend prejudice (even in wartime) or to deny that there was hateful Russophobia in the US during the Cold War.  
But the point I wished to make with my reference to "Великая Русь" in the Soviet anthem was that, если бы столица СССР была не Москвой, а Бишкеком, то Сильвестр Сталлон в "Rocky IV" дрался бы не с блондином-славянином, a с "чёрным" киргизом-тюрком. That is, the Russophobia was based on the actual fact that ethnic Russians had dominated the Soviet Union. (And Russia had, of course, been an imperial power even before the Soviet revolution.) 
At the same time, however, I think that Hanna greatly exaggerated the historic reality when she wrote:    

> There are thousands of American TV shows from that era with "evil Russians" plotting something nasty against nice Americans.

 There was definitely "Soviet-phobia", and sometimes the "Soviet-phobia" became simple "Russophobia", for the reason I explained above. But, in my opinion, the caricature of "evil Soviets" was much less widespread in American popular media than Hanna implies; for there's a lot more to US cinema than _Rocky IV_ and _Red Dawn_! 
I would argue, instead, that US pop-culture (i.e., films and TV) typically recognized at least three categories of "Soviet people":  The truly good and intelligent ones -- who, of course, were desperate to defect to the West!Those who were good at heart, yet remained blindly loyal to the inherently bad Soviet system because they'd been "brainwashed".The evil ones who fanatically believed in the All-Powerful Soviet State and were happy to kill anyone who got in their way.  
Absent from this scheme, of course, are noble-hearted and rational Soviet citizens who saw their country as "flawed but fixable" (like the US in slave-owning days) who believed that the Soviet sphere was truly worth defending as a counterweight to the US, and who envisioned two peacefully competitive spheres of influence. 
Actually, this type (good-hearted and without delusions about Soviet abuses of power) wasn't *totally* unrepresented -- especially in science fiction, one sometimes found good and wise Soviet scientists or even KGB agents who teamed up with good and wise Americans for the common benefit of humanity, and each side learns to admit the flaws/limits/evils of his own system, etc. However, this was relatively rare, and more often, the American heroes would have to rescue the "heroic pro-American Soviets" and/or the "good but naive and helpless Soviets" from the "evil Communist fanatics".   

> I don't think there was equivalent bad portraying of Americans on Soviet TV.

 Of course not! Soviet TV fully captured both the negative side of America -- such as unemployed workers and oppressed Negroes being sprayed with fire hoses -- and the positive side -- such as billionaire industrialists with yachts, limousines, and private jets. Fair and balanced, just like FoxNews.

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## gRomoZeka

> That is, the "Russophobia" was based on the actual fact that ethnic Russians had dominated the Soviet Union. (And Russia had, of course, been an imperial power even before the Soviet revolution.)

  Hmm.. I think it's a bit of a (Western?) stereotype. The only way Russians 100% dominated the Soviet Union was an obligatory knowledge of Russian, since it was a state language. Generally Russians did not have any special privileges based on their ethnicity, no they were sole leaders in republican governments, which consisted largely of locals.
I've heard a theory that one of the reasons of such a swift demise of the USSR was exactly that - too much of ethnic and territorial integrity was allowed, so the transition from a 'Soviet republic' to an independent state was relatively easy: Soviet republics retained their "ethnic" borders, their national languages (which were also mandatory subjects at schools from grade 2 to grade 10), etc. 
I'd like to add that "Soviet Russia" was usually a foreign concept to native "Soviets", because very few of them saw the Soviet Union as Russia - "Russia" was almost exclusively associated with Russian Empire, i.e. country before 1917.

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## Doomer

> Last edited by Throbert McGee; Today at 07:43 PM. Reason: Edited to add: I had to write this post in two parts because my laptop crashed...

 CIA is watching you  ::

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## Marcus

The Soviet Union never threatened the US. Its people did not have negative feelings towards America and Americans (there was a neg. feeling during and after the war because were thought to do nothing and use the Soviet Union to achieve the victory). That was the biggest lie propagated by the US. The history showed that even Soviet leaders were not antiamericanists.

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## Hanna

If Nulle is the biggest Latvian nationalist on the forum (not much competition) then I think Marcus is the biggest Russian nationalist on the forum :: !! 
PS - what happened to the smiley with the red flag? That would have been more appropriate....  
Anyway, I think everybody here is doing a great job of representing Russia to people from other countries, and also explaining the USSR and the Cold War from your perspective.  
It's interesting to hear that you don't see Russia as being dominating in the USSR. Most other people thought so. 
What about stars in the USSR ice hockey team, were they mostly Russian or other nationalities?
I remember from this time that people said, "blah, blah, blah Russians...." and teachers said "don't say Russians, say Soviets". It never really caught on though!  
I have no idea what it was like with possible Russian domination of the USSR, and no opinion on it -- but I remember often seeing programs on TV with people with really elegant national costumes from different parts of the USSR - I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that the different nationalities were something that was celebrated in the USSR, in culture at least. 
Plus, several of the Soviet leaders were from other Soviet republics than Russia, as far as I am aware. I guess that wouldn't have been the case if Russia totally dominated.  
One thing that seems strange though, is that USSR apparently marked in people's passport who was Jewish (why??!) and that Jews were sometimes discriminated against (?) to the extent that many got fed up and tried to emigrate. But on the other hand... tons of really famous people from the Soviet era were Jewish, so it can't have been extreme. Don't know what the truth about this is - does anyone have a view on it?

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## Marcus

> If Nulle is the biggest Latvian nationalist on the forum (not much competition) then I think Marcus is the biggest Russian nationalist on the forum!! 
> PS - what happened to the smiley with the red flag? That would have been more appropriate....  
> Anyway, I think everybody here is doing a great job of representing Russia to people from other countries, and also explaining the USSR and the Cold War from your perspective.  
> It's interesting to hear that you don't see Russia as being dominating in the USSR. Most other people thought so. 
> What about stars in the USSR ice hockey team, were they mostly Russian or other nationalities?
> I remember from this time that people said, "blah, blah, blah Russians...." and teachers said "don't say Russians, say Soviets". It never really caught on though!  
> I have no idea what it was like with possible Russian domination of the USSR, and no opinion on it -- but I remember often seeing programs on TV with people with really elegant national costumes from different parts of the USSR - I could be wrong, but it seemed to me that the different nationalities were something that was celebrated in the USSR, in culture at least. 
> Plus, several of the Soviet leaders were from other Soviet republics than Russia, as far as I am aware. I guess that wouldn't have been the case if Russia totally dominated.  
> One thing that seems strange though, is that USSR apparently marked in people's passport who was Jewish (why??!) and that Jews were sometimes discriminated against (?) to the extent that many got fed up and tried to emigrate. But on the other hand... tons of really famous people from the Soviet era were Jewish, so it can't have been extreme. Don't know what the truth about this is - does anyone have a view on it?

 Stalin was a Georgian (Svan I think in fact) and spoke with a noticible foreign accent. There were many others of course. The only real advantage of Russians was the language, the Russian language unofficially became the state language and the lingua franca.
The ethnicity was marked anyway, now it is not. Why? I have always wondered. Jews had very high positions  in the first decades of the Soviet power. But the tensions arose between them and Stalin, because of their support of Israel which appeared to be anti-Soviet despite the USSR helped it a lot.
Many people wanted to emigrate, many Jews thought their motherland was Israel. Jews were allowed to emigrate after the war and in the 70ths. Others did not usually get this opportunity.
Jews were never oppressed, they still occupied high positions in culture, science, but they were gradually excluded from the government, Party lidership, high army command and the special services. It is worth saying that they occupied a very large part of posts in Soviet ministries, Party, army and special services before the end of the 1930s. The Soviet Union enjoyed the support of Jews throughout the world but was called Jewish state by the white, Hitler and other enemies.

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## Crocodile

> The Soviet Union never threatened the US.

 That's true, it has never threatened the US explicitly, but it had said and done enough to show it wants the US to join the Family of the Brother Nations just like any other country.  
"_Со дня победы пролетарской революции в России вся история человечества наполнена непримиримой борьбой двух миров. [...] Трудящиеся массы капиталистических стран, и в первую очередь рабочий  класс, все больше проникаются сознанием, что освобождения от гнета  нищеты и безработицы можно добиться только идя по тому пути, который  указал рабочий класс Советского Союза. [...] Ленинизм учит, что, пока существует капиталистическое окружение нашей  страны, существует опасность интервенции, а следовательно, реставрации  капитализма. [...]_ _«...Ошибочно было бы думать, что сфера классовой борьбы ограничена  пределами СССР. Если один конец классовой борьбы имеет свое действие в  рамках СССР, то другой ее конец протягивается в пределы окружающих нас  буржуазных государств. Об этом не могут не знать остатки разбитых  классов. И именно потому, что они об этом знают, они будут и впредь  продолжать свои отчаянные вылазки. _   _Так учит нас история. Так учит нас ленинизм. _   _Необходимо помнить все это и быть начеку»_" (ВОЕННАЯ ЛИТЕ)   

> Its people did not have negative feelings towards America and Americans (there was a neg. feeling during and after the war because were thought to do nothing and use the Soviet Union to achieve the victory).

 During and after the war (I guess you mean the WWII) there was a great deal of friendship between the USSR and the US. Have you ever heard about the lend-lease that helped a lot for the Soviet Union to survive especially through the first toughest years of the war? Have you ever heard a song "_На честном слове и на одном крыле_" http://vilavi.ru/prot/150307/media/ut_rus.mp3 ? That was very popular in the Soviet Union by the end of the war and in the year of victory and right after the war. It is only years after the WWII ended, during the Cold War that the US was perceived as a "possible enemy" (страна вероятного противника).  
That's true there weren't too much of the anti-american feelings, but more or less anti-capitalist feelings which meant the US had to be liberated just like any other capitalist country. All capitalist countries were the target. There was no need to single out the US. If you want to kill a dangerous bull, it's not that wise to tease it, you'd rather pat it first.

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## Marcus

Идеи мировой революции были отброшены Сталиным еще в 1929 г. Остальное было болтовней.
Во время войны сами западные дипломаты и журналисты отмечали недовольство советских людей недостаточной активностью западных стран, хотя американская помощь была всякакя и дружба тоже была.
Ненависти к капитализму в СССР не было вообще (было неприязненное отношение к спекулянтам, но не к Западу). Советские люди считали, что они живут в говне, что на Западе текут молочные реки с кисельными берегами, хватались за все западное вне зависимости от нужности и качества и считали, что все это можно устроить у нас, если ввести рыночную экономику, демократию и подчиниться Западу. Именно поэтому перестройка и распад Союза прошли так замечательно. Своим СМИ советские люди не верили, а часто верили наоборот.

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## Crocodile

> Идеи мировой революции были отброшены Сталиным еще в 1929 г. Остальное было болтовней.

 Yes, Stalin said that and even documented that. But, remember the bull? Why had Stalin established the communist regimes in the Eastern Europe? Wasn't it according to the idea of shrinking the "capitalistic circle"?  What was the blah-blah and what was actually happening? In your earlier post you mentioned the Cuban Crisis, but what had preceded that? Do you remember the emigration through Berlin and the subsequent Berlin Crisis? The two systems cannot co-exist. The war which would shrink/eliminate the capitalistic circle was inevitable. That was bound to happen regardless of the peaceful rhetoric.    

> Во время войны сами западные дипломаты и журналисты отмечали недовольство советских людей недостаточной активностью западных стран, хотя американская помощь была всякакя и дружба тоже была.

 Ok, so the WWII started in the 1939. The UK and France fought with Germany. During that time the soviet people weren't that active to help the western countries. Strange, right?  ::    

> Ненависти к капитализму в СССР не было вообще (было неприязненное отношение к спекулянтам, но не к Западу). Советские люди считали, что они живут в говне, что на Западе текут  молочные реки с кисельными берегами, хватались за все западное

 By the 80s, yes.   

> вне зависимости от нужности и качества

 I disagree. Women spent their entire month salary to get the Italian shoes and were wearing it for a decade. Usually, those who visited the west imported European or Japanese goods. Except for the jeans which were fake most of the time, unless being brought by the americans who visited the USSR. Those real jeans used to cost a lot as well.   

> и считали, что все это можно устроить у нас, если ввести рыночную экономику

 Yes, many believed that.   

> , демократию и подчиниться Западу.

 That is a political demagogy. The people wanted to learn how the West does it, hence the impression of "the western is good". That was only true in the early 90s.   

> Именно поэтому перестройка и распад Союза прошли так замечательно.

 I think you're mixing up things here. I don't think those who started the "remodeling" have planned for the disintegration of the USSR. Also, people in general liked the idea of the USSR and disliked the nationalist sentiments of the late 80s which ultimately caused the disintegration. The whole thing was though to be more like the New Economic policy of the past, something that could revive the economics and make people more involved and interested. I'm not really sure that was a bad idea, it could work.    

> Своим СМИ советские люди не верили, а часто верили наоборот.

 Why do you think that happened? Was there a reason, or people just went crazy altogether?

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## Marcus

> Wasn't it according to the idea of shrinking the "capitalistic circle"? What was the blah-blah and what was actually happening? In your earlier post you mentioned the Cuban Crisis, but what had preceded that? Do you remember the emigration through Berlin and the subsequent Berlin Crisis? The two systems cannot co-exist. The war which would shrink/eliminate the capitalistic circle was inevitable. That was bound to happen regardless of the peaceful rhetoric.

 Капитализм и социализм здесь по большому счету ни при чем. Это борьба двух сверхдержав, и все.  

> Ok, so the WWII started in the 1939. The UK and France fought with Germany. During that time the soviet people weren't that active to help the western countries. Strange, right?

 Какая разница? Советским людям во время войны было наплевать на начало Второй мировой, их это не касалось. К тому же Советский Союз и не говорил, что он будет помогать Франции и Англии сражаться с Германией.  

> I think you're mixing up things here. I don't think those who started the "remodeling" have planned for the disintegration of the USSR. Also, people in general liked the idea of the USSR and disliked the nationalist sentiments of the late 80s which ultimately caused the disintegration. The whole thing was though to be more like the New Economic policy of the past, something that could revive the economics and make people more involved and interested. I'm not really sure that was a bad idea, it could work.

 Нет, именно это они и планировали. Я долго думал на эту тему и пришел к однозначному выводу: Горбачев - предатель, сознательно ведший страну к гибели.  

> Why do you think that happened? Was there a reason, or people just went crazy altogether?

 Это идеологическое поражение сов. власти. Неэффективность пропаганды.

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## gRomoZeka

> It's interesting to hear that you don't see Russia as being dominating in the USSR. Most other people thought so. 
>  What about stars in the USSR ice hockey team, were they mostly Russian or other nationalities?

 There were no Russian domination in sport, if we talk about sport in general. If you google "Soviet (Olympic) champions", you'll see people of different ethnicities. Sometimes certain sports were dominated by people from certain republics (that probably depended on what sports were popular there due to cultural differences or climate). For example, wrestling champions were almost exclusively machos from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ossetia, etc. Ukrainians succeed in soccer, Russians in hockey, and so on.  

> I remember from this time that people said, "blah, blah, blah Russians...." and teachers said "don't say Russians, say Soviets". It never really caught on though!

 Your teachers were smart.  :: 
The USSR was a union of 15 ethnic republics, people of various backgrounds all mixed together. For example, in my school class we had loads of kids of mixed ethnicities, who were proud of their "ethnic" last names (Georgian/Armenian/Uzbeck/Arab/Korean/Karaim/Latvian and some others).  

> One thing that seems strange though, is that USSR apparently marked in people's passport who was Jewish (why??!)

 Absolutely everyone had their ethnicities marked in passports, along with name, address and some other info. Jews were no different.
If a child was of mixed ethnicity, parents could choose which ethnicity they prefer to "transfer" to their kid.

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## Marcus

> If Nulle is the biggest Latvian nationalist on the forum (not much competition) then I think Marcus is the biggest Russian nationalist on the forum!! 
> PS - what happened to the smiley with the red flag? That would have been more appropriate....

 The smiley with a rose always suits well. So, you congratulate me as a winner? Thank you!

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## Crocodile

> Капитализм и социализм здесь по большому счету ни при чем. Это борьба двух сверхдержав, и все.

 What do you think about the Berlin Crisis? People were fleeing from the Eastern side to the Western side. Was it because of the effective propaganda?  ::  
You see, I agree with your point that the struggle of the two superpower had taken place. However, what I disagree is that the struggle had no previous history.   

> Какая разница? Советским людям во время войны было наплевать на начало Второй мировой, их это не касалось.

 Not quite so. Do you remember that the WWII officially started with Germany invaded Poland? Ok, so the USSR had joined the WWII two weeks after that, remember?  ::  Then there was the war of 1940 with Finland. So, the soviet people weren't oblivious about the WWII. So, why the "westerners" weren't so eager to help the USSR, like they allegedly should? Because they are just too evil? What do you say? Even the extension of the lend-lease to the USSR was disputed by many.   

> К тому же Советский Союз и не говорил, что он будет помогать Франции и Англии сражаться с Германией.

 Exactly. Because in 1939 it helped Germany to fight Poland. So, could you blame France and the UK for not being too active helping the USSR?  ::  I think they simply did not know what to do with the USSR. Ideally, from their point of view, the USSR and Germany would weaken each other and thus be of the lesser future threat. Can you really blame them?   

> Нет, именно это они и планировали. Я долго думал на эту тему и пришел к однозначному выводу: Горбачев - предатель, сознательно ведший страну к гибели.

 Ok, so let's assume you're right. So, what motivation did he have? And what did he win as a result of disintegration of the USSR? He was a Secretary General of the USSR. One of the wealthiest and mightiest people in the world. He had everything. Then, with a disintegration of the USSR he became just a person. What was his interest?    

> Это идеологическое поражение сов. власти. Неэффективность пропаганды.

 I would respectfully disagree. The propaganda was very effective. I'm not sure how old are you, but if I ask you a couple of the Soviet propaganda keywords you will remember right away. "Израильская военщина провела очередную карательную операцию?" "Самосовские головорезы?" "Фидель Кастро посетил Советский Союз с очередным дружественным визитом?" Does it ring the bells? Do you remember anything from the BBC in those days? And those who could really listen to the "Radio of Freedom" were really a minority. I couldn't. Were your parents able to catch the BBC programs if they wanted? Whose parents on this forum could listen to the BBC? Or were listening to the BBC? So, the Soviet propaganda was working hard and the western propaganda wasn't really getting to its audience. However, by the 80s people were experienced enough not to believe anything that comes from the government. Any idea why? Do you think people just were stupid?

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## Hanna

Yes, I think Soviet union and Soviets were the politically correct expressions. 
I guess some people thought of themselves as "Soviets", but perhaps not all?
Perhaps it would depend on how much they moved around, or their background.  
I have some relatives who are Estonian, but they lived in Leningrad in the 1980s. Now they are scattered all over. Somebody in that family told my sister that they felt they did not belong anywhere after the dissolving of the USSR. The problem was that although they were Estonians (of Swedish origin), they had grown up in Leningrad. But then after the USSR finished, they did not want to stay there, because the situation was bad and suddenly they did not belong. But then they felt strange being in Estonia and had problems fitting in there (not too sure of the details). So all the children apart from one promptly emigrated!  I am not in touch with them - I don't know them very well and always had some communication problems (no language in common). 
Another example is the collegue I mention a few weeks ago. People keep thinking that he is Russian because he has a Russian name. But that pisses him off and he is apparently a Ukrainan - Estonian Jew! And he doesn't like Russia much. Both his parents were Soviet defectors who simply sneaked off while on trips to Sweden, and managed to get political asylum. (But life in Sweden did not work out very well for them, from what I would guess. He grew up in a bad area. It doesn't seem like he had a very good childhood. Sad! )
But the situation gets tricky for him when he wants to explain his origins, which could probably be summarised as "Soviet". Poor chap doesn't even have a proper native tongue from his childhood, although his parents spoke Russian with each other until they divorced.

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## Marcus

> What do you think about the Berlin Crisis? People were fleeing from the Eastern side to the Western side. Was it because of the effective propaganda?  
> You see, I agree with your point that the struggle of the two superpower had taken place. However, what I disagree is that the struggle had no previous history.

 Это было связано с тем, что ФРГ была богаче, целенаправленно проводила политику по переманиванию гдровцев, пропаганда тоже играла здесь роль. Немцы считали ФРГ Германией, а ГДР оккупированной территорией, хотя ФРГ была такая же оккупированная, как и ГДР.  

> Not quite so. Do you remember that the WWII officially started with Germany invaded Poland? Ok, so the USSR had joined the WWII two weeks after that, remember?  Then there was the war of 1940 with Finland. So, the soviet people weren't oblivious about the WWII. So, why the "westerners" weren't so eager to help the USSR, like they allegedly should? Because they are just too evil? What do you say? Even the extension of the lend-lease to the USSR was disputed by many.

 Не надо путать политику государств и настроения людей. Я говорил о последнем. США и Великобритания официально не помогали СССР, а боролись с Германией. Людям и казалось, что они борются недостаточно. Англия же не из-за СССР в войну с Германией вступила. Сейчас людей раздражает, что они всю победу приписывают себе.  

> Ok, so let's assume you're right. So, what motivation did he have? And what did he win as a result of disintegration of the USSR? He was a Secretary General of the USSR. One of the wealthiest and mightiest people in the world. He had everything. Then, with a disintegration of the USSR he became just a person. What was his interest?

 Не знаю, но факт предательства очевиден. Наверное, он надеялся войти в мировое правительство.  

> I would respectfully disagree. The propaganda was very effective. I'm not sure how old are you, but if I ask you a couple of the Soviet propaganda keywords you will remember right away. "Израильская военщина провела очередную карательную операцию?" "Самосовские головорезы?" "Фидель Кастро посетил Советский Союз с очередным дружественным визитом?" Does it ring the bells? Do you remember anything from the BBC in those days? And those who could really listen to the "Radio of Freedom" were really a minority. I couldn't. Were your parents able to catch the BBC programs if they wanted? Whose parents on this forum could listen to the BBC? Or were listening to the BBC? So, the Soviet propaganda was working hard and the western propaganda wasn't really getting to its audience. However, by the 80s people were experienced enough not to believe anything that comes from the government. Any idea why? Do you think people just were stupid?

 Я сказал, что пропаганда была неэффективной, а не то, что ее было мало. Она настраивала людей противоположным образом. Была слишком отдельной, а не встроенной незаметно во все, как на Западе. Воздействовала не на те части сознания, не учитывала настроений и потребностей людей.
 Это особенно видно в контрасте с нынешней пропагандой.

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## gRomoZeka

I g 

> uess some people thought of themselves as "Soviets", but perhaps not all?

 I think most people in private life thought of themselves in terms of ethnicity (as Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, etc.), but when it was about delegations, Olympic teams or international events the term that seamed appropriate was Soviet (because they were ethnically diverse).

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## Marcus

> I can't help to wonder what Russian children are taught about this era?

 From a 11 grade history textbook by Левандовский и Щетинов (история России 20 век.)
Начало Холодной войны:  

> Начало «холодной войны». Потенциал сотрудничества, накопленный СССР и западными державами в годы совместной борьбы с фашизмом, с наступлением мира стал быстро улетучиваться.
> В выступлении бывшего премьер-министра Великобритании У. Черчилля в американском городе Фултоне (март 1946 г.), в послании к конгрессу президента США Г. Трумэна (февраль 1947 г.), а также в ряде конфиден-циальных документов были сформулированы две стратегические цели Запада по отношению к СССР. Перво-очередная: не допустить дальнейшего расширения сферы влияния СССР и его коммунистической идеологии (доктрина «сдерживания коммунизма»). Перспективная: оттеснить социалистическую систему к довоенным границам, а затем добиться ее ослабления и ликвидации в самой России (доктрина «отбрасывания коммуниз-ма»). При этом правящие круги США не скрывали намерений добиться мирового господства. «Победа,— от-крыто заявлял Трумэн,— поставила американский народ перед лицом постоянной и жгучей необходимости ру-ководства миром».
> СССР в свою очередь стремился как можно быстрее материализовать влияние на освобожденные Совет-ской Армией страны, подведя под него соответствующую политическую и экономическую базу. При этом И. В. Сталин питал надежду, что в условиях, когда на конференциях «большой тройки» был де-факто признан новый раздел мира на сферы интересов великих держав, ему удастся добиться своей цели без ухудшения отношений с западными партнерами, сохранив с ними взаимовыгодное сотрудничество. По мере того как эти надежды уле-тучивались, в Кремле формируется еще одна внешнеполитическая установка. Она никогда открыто не афиши-ровалась, но, судя по некоторым документам, занимала важное место в планах стареющего кремлевского дикта-тора. Он вынашивал мысль мобилизовать военно-экономическую мощь советского блока для распространения его влияния на новые регионы мира. Так, на секретном совещании в Кремле в январе 1951 г. И. В. Сталин зая-вил, что существует возможность «установить социализм по всей Европе» в течение «ближайших четырех лет» и что этой цели должна быть подчинена внешняя и внутренняя политика возглавляемых коммунистами «народ-но-демократических» стран. «У нас были свои надежды,— вспоминал позднее Н. С. Хрущев.— Так же как Рос-сия вышла из первой мировой войны, осуществила революцию и установила советскую власть, Европа тоже, пережив катастрофу второй мировой войны, может быть, станет советской. Все затем пошли бы по пути от ка-питализма к социализму. Сталин был убежден, что послевоенная Германия устроит революцию и создаст про-летарское государство... Все мы верили в это. У нас были такие же надежды в отношении Франции и Италии».
> Реализация намеченных бывшими союзниками внешнеполитических курсов, острие которых оказалось на-правленным друг против друга, за короткий срок до предела осложнила международную обстановку, ввергла мир в состояние «холодной войны» и гонки вооружений.

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## Marcus

Продолжение:  

> В сложившихся условиях оказалась невозможной и эффективная работа Организации Объединенных На-ций, созданной в октябре 1945 г. в соответствии с постановлением Ялтинской конференции для поддержания мира и разрешения международных споров «без угрозы силой или ее применения». США, располагавшие в ООН гарантированным большинством голосов, стремились превратить ее в некий всемирный трибунал с пра-вом безапелляционного вмешательства в любые противоречия между странами, с тем чтобы «гармонизировать» их по собственному усмотрению. Ответом советского правительства была педантичная защита своего права вето в ключевом органе ООН — Совете Безопасности. Новая международная организация быстро превратилась в трибуну острой публичной полемики. Существовавшие глубинные разногласия между СССР и другими вели-кими державами не могли быть сняты простым поднятием рук голосующих.
> В последние дни войны в Европе Вашингтон внезапно приостановил действие закона о ленд-лизе в отно-шении Советского Союза, что вызвало горечь и раздражение в Москве. После первых весьма скупых сумм по займу, обещанному И. В. Сталину еще президентом Ф. Рузвельтом, СССР в дальнейшем не получил ни доллара. И это при том, что советский лидер не раз публично проявлял заинтересованность в таком займе и даже готов был пойти на определенные уступки в международных делах. Отвергались лишь наиболее обременительные условия, подобные требованию полного ухода из Восточной Европы. Не успев начаться, были прекращены вы-платы репараций СССР из западных зон оккупации Германии, несмотря на обязательства, принятые союзника-ми в Потсдаме.
> В январе 1947 г. госсекретарь США Дж. Маршалл предложил выделить значительные финансовые ресурсы на цели восстановления европейских стран. Министры иностранных дел Англии и Франции, горячо поддержав «план Маршалла», пригласили в Париж В. М. Молотова для обсуждения этого плана. На переговорах Молотов поставил свои условия, главным из которых было сохранение за советским правительством свободы в расходо-вании предназначенной ему части средств и в выборе экономической политики. После того как эти условия бы-ли отвергнуты, Москва отказалась участвовать в «плане Маршалла» и настояла на принятии аналогичных реше-ний правительствами стран, входивших в ее сферу влияния.
> Помощь по линии «плана Маршалла» ограничилась, таким образом, только Западной Европой. Ее масшта-бы были колоссальны: 12,4 млрд. долларов за 1948—1951 гг. Эти средства позволили за короткий срок возро-дить разрушенную экономику западных стран и сформировать там современные рыночные структуры. Кроме того, они умело использовались Вашингтоном как инструмент политического давления. В результате позиции местных компартий, авторитет которых в годы войны значительно вырос благодаря их самоотверженной борьбе с фашистскими оккупантами (во Франции и Италии коммунисты даже входили в первые послевоенные прави-тельства), оказались ослабленными, а влияние США в этом ключевом регионе мира существенно укрепилось.
> В апреле 1949 г. в Вашингтоне был подписан Североатлантический договор (НАТО), оформивший военно-политический союз США и 11 западных стран: Великобритании, Франции, Италии, Бельгии, Дании, Норвегии, Нидерландов, Люксембурга, Португалии, Исландии и Канады. В 1951 г. появился блок АНЗЮС (США, Австра-лия и Новая Зеландия), в 1954 г.— СЕАТО (США, Великобритания, Франция, Австралия, Новая Зеландия, Таи-ланд, Филиппины и Пакистан), в 1955 г.— блок СЕНТО (США, Великобритания, Турция, Иран, Пакистан). Об-разование этих блоков на десятилетия утвердило американское военное присутствие в ряде регионов мира.
> Вдоль советских границ развертывалась сеть военных баз США. В Пентагоне велась разработка планов войны против СССР с применением атомного оружия. Наиболее известный из них — «Дропшот» — предусмат-ривал нанесение ядерных ударов по основным городам Советского Союза.
> Одновременно Вашингтон предложил проект учреждения наднационального контроля над атомной энерги-ей («план Баруха» — по имени американского деятеля, представившего его в ООН летом 1946 г.). План преду-сматривал создание специального органа, по форме международного, а по существу управляемого США. На него не должно было распространяться право вето со стороны членов Совета Безопасности. Этому органу над-лежало контролировать и выдавать разрешения государствам на все виды деятельности, в какой либо мире свя-занные с ядерной энергией. Им запрещалось заниматься не только производством, но и научными исследова-ниями в этой области. «План Баруха» фактически закреплял монополию США на атомное оружие, открывал возможность постоянно вмешиваться во внутренние дела других стран и в конечном счете способствовал бы подчинению наукоемких отраслей их экономики американским монополиям.
> В ответ Советский Союз выступил с инициативой заключить конвенцию по полному и безоговорочному запрещению ядерного оружия, включая обязательство уничтожить уже существующие его запасы. Нарушение конвенции объявлялось «тягчайшим между народным преступлением против человечества», а контроль над строгим режимом ее соблюдения должен был регламентироваться Советом Безопасности, где СССР мог ис-пользовать право вето.

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## Hanna

> I would respectfully disagree. The propaganda was very effective. I'm not sure how old are you, but if I ask you a couple of the Soviet propaganda keywords you will remember right away. "Израильская военщина провела очередную карательную операцию?" "Самосовские головорезы?" "Фидель Кастро посетил Советский Союз с очередным дружественным визитом?"

 Ok, but if the Soviet propaganda was so good, how come it did not work on you Crocodile?  ::   You were never really with the programme, and left when you could.... And if the propaganda was effective, then why did the USSR disintigrate? If people had believed it, then they would have thought "whatever the problems here, it is still better than imperialism & capitalism...." Instead they thought "where can I buy a pair of Levis'...." (Btw, commercial messages is a form of propaganda too!)  
One thing that I like about the approach of communist countries to propaganda, is that they call it what it was. I.e. as far as I am aware, communism actually calls propaganda by its right name and admits that it is doing that, agitation etc. If you see a red banner with a slogan, you know what it is, right - and you can choose to think "Bullshit".  
The creepy propaganda is that which you are not aware that you have been subjected to. 
Assumptions which you just have, but you can't really explain why, where they come from.  
I mean, there have been some serious American propaganda victims here, haven't there? People with horrendous prejudice and poorly informed views on Russia, the USSR or something else. 
Then somebody tries to talk some sense to them and they get really agitated!
And it is obvious that these people have their heads full of crappy Hollywood action/spy dramas, or Fox News reports on Russia.  
Are there really people in Russia with such a poorly informed and prejudiced views on the USA? I don't think so, although I don't for sure. 
I honestly think US is much better at propaganda than the USSR was... With all their patriotic films, horrible portrayls of their "enemies" in films and the News.. Making kids learn storybook style anecdotes about American historical figures, "founding fathers" loyalty pledges every day in school, and singing of national anthem with much drama. I don't think the USSR quite matched their level and scale of patriotic and ideological  indoctrination!

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## Marcus

Дальше:  

> Столкновение советской и американской концепций с самого начала парализовало усилия по разрешению проблемы ядерного оружия и на долгие годы сделало бесплодными все дискуссии как по ней, так и по более общим проектам разоружения, которые СССР не раз вносил в ООН.
> В этих условиях И. В. Сталин нашел нетрадиционный путь сдерживания чрезмерных амбиций агрессивных кругов западных государств, приступив к широкомасштабной поддержке международного общественного дви-жения сторонников мира. Оно зародилось в 1948 г. по призыву нескольких сотен авторитетнейших ученых, пи-сателей, художников, артистов из многих стран. Первый Всемирный конгресс сторонников мира, объединив-ший представителей 72 государств, прошел в Париже в апреле 1949 г. Он завершился избранием Постоянного комитета во главе с выдающимся французским ученым-физиком Ф. Жолио-Кюри. И уже через три месяца в Москве была созвана Всесоюзная конференция сторонников мира и учрежден Советский комитет защиты мира.
> Когда в марте 1950 г. в Стокгольме Постоянный комитет Всемирного конгресса принял знаменитое воззва-ние, требовавшее «безусловного запрещения атомного оружия» и осуждавшее его применение как «преступле-ние против человечества», в СССР по негласной команде властей подписи под ним поставили 115,5 млн. чело-век — все взрослое население страны. Ради справедливости следует сказать, что это была та команда, которая отвечала искренним чаяниям и надеждам советского народа, хорошо помнившего трагические испытания Вели-кой Отечественной. Всего на планете Стокгольмское воззвание подписали около 500 млн. человек. Стараясь перевести общественную инициативу в плоскость официальной дипломатии, Москва заявила о готовности со-трудничать с законодательными органами других государств в практической реализации предложений движе-ния сторонников мира, а в марте 1951 г. Верховный Совет СССР принял Закон о защите мира. Пропаганда вой-ны объявлялась тягчайшим преступлением против человечества.
> Складывание «социалистического лагеря». «События развивались не в нашу пользу,— вспоминал Н. С. Хрущев.— США с их могущественной экономикой помешали тому, чтобы разрушенная экономика евро-пейских стран привела к революционным взрывам, чего мы ожидали в соответствии с теорией марксизма-ленинизма. К сожалению, все эти страны остались капиталистическими. И нас постигло разочарование. Тогда мы сосредоточили свои усилия на упрочении завоеваний социализма в братских странах Восточной Европы и Азии».
> При прямом содействии Москвы — в частности, через образованное в 1947 г. Информационное бюро, ко-ординировавшее деятельность в основном компартий восточноевропейских государств,— устанавливаются коммунистические и просоветские режимы в Болгарии (1944 г.), Югославии (1945 г.), Албании (1946 г.), Поль-ше и Румынии (1947 г.), Венгрии и Чехословакии (1948 г.), а также на Азиатском континенте: в Северном Вьет-наме (1945-г.), в Северной Корее (1948 г.). В 1949 г. коммунисты пришли к власти и в Китае. Этим странам ока-зывалась интенсивная материальная поддержка, в том числе через учрежденный в 1949 г. Совет Экономической Взаимопомощи (СЭВ).
> Истинные масштабы перекачки средств в страны «народной демократии» держались в секрете от населения СССР. Известно только, что одних долгосрочных льготных кредитов им было предоставлено в 1945—1952 гг. на 15 млрд. рублей, или 3 млрд. долларов. В ответ И. В. Сталин требовал послушания и проведения политиче-ских и социально-экономических преобразований по советской модели. Любое отклонение от нее воспринима-лось крайне враждебно. Именно это стало основанием для разрыва в 1948 г. отношений с Югославией, чей ли-дер И. Тито попытался отстоять свою самостоятельность.
> Попытки же иного рода, направленные на расширение границ «социалистического лагеря», встречали у Москвы полное понимание. Так, Сталин безоговорочно поддержал руководство КНДР в его открытом противо-борстве с Южной Кореей (1950—1953 гг.).
> Успешные на первых порах боевые действия быстро перешли в затяжную фазу и грозили перерасти в ми-ровую войну после вмешательства в события войск США под флагом ООН и противостоящих им Вооруженных сил Китая, выступивших на стороне КНДР под видом добровольцев. СССР принял в войне самое активное уча-стие, не вмешиваясь, однако, непосредственно в боевые операции. Советское правительство перебросило в Ки-тай несколько дивизий истребительной авиации, участвовавших в отражении американских налетов на КНР снабжало Корейскую народную армию и китайских «добровольцев» оружием, включая самолеты и танки, бое-припасами, транспортом, продовольствием, медикаментами. На крайний случай были подготовлены пять совет-ских дивизий для отправки в Корею.
> Корейская война была прекращена дипломатическими усилиями вскоре после смерти И. В. Сталина. Объе-динение страны под эгидой коммунистов сорвалось. Корея осталась разделенной на два государства. Та же участь постигла Вьетнам, а в Европе — Германию.
> ...

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## Marcus

Внешняя политика СССР при Хрущеве:  

> Реформаторский курс, проводимый хрущевской администрацией внутри страны, нашел свое отражение и во внешней политике. Ее новая концепция была сформулирована на XX съезде КПСС и включала два основных принципа:
> • актуализированный тезис о необходимости мирного сосуществования государств с различным общест-венным строем;
> • признание многовариантности путей построения социализма (в том числе через приход компартий к вла-сти в результате мирной парламентской борьбы) с одновременным подтверждением принципа «пролетарского интернационализма» (т. е. помощь, практически безвозмездная, международному коммунистическому и нацио-нально-освободительному движению, а также социалистическим странам — с негласным правом вмешательства в их внутренние дела там, где для этого имелась возможность).
> Укрепление «соцлагеря». В 1955 г. по инициативе советского правительства были сделаны первые ша-ги по нормализации отношений с Югославией. После обмена послами в Белград прибыл Н. С. Хрущев для лич-ной встречи с И. Тито. На переговорах удалось сблизить позиции двух лидеров по ряду принципиальных меж-дународных проблем, хотя идейные разногласия между ними сохранялись.
> В рамках СЭВ велась энергичная работа по координации народнохозяйственных планов соцстран, по со-трудничеству в области внешней торговли, электроэнергии, машиностроения, нефтегазовой промышленности, черной металлургии, сельского хозяйства. Полным ходом шло строительство трубопровода «Дружба» для по-ставок советской нефти в страны Восточной Европы и аналогичной энергосистемы «Мир». Экономика «соцла-геря», пополненного за счет Кубы (там в 1959 г. произошла революция и взявший власть Ф. Кастро провозгла-сил курс на строительство социализма на острове Свободы), динамично развивалась. К концу 60-х гг. на страны СЭВ, располагавшие 18% территории и 10% населения земного шара, приходилось 33% мирового промышлен-ного производства (в 1960 г.— 28%).
> Важной вехой в укреплении отношений между соцстранами явилось образование в 1955 г. Организации Варшавского Договора (ОВД) — союза, поставившего своей целью проведение совместной оборонной полити-ки. В него вошли все государства Восточной Европы, кроме Югославии. В системе ОВД были созданы Объеди-ненное командование Вооруженных Сил и Политический консультативный комитет — орган, координирующий внешнеполитическую деятельность государств — членов Варшавского Договора. Ведущую роль в ОВД играл Советский Союз.
> Вместе с тем в «социалистическом лагере» время от времени давали о себе знать и антитоталитарные силы. Их стимулировало разоблачение сталинизма в СССР, повлекшее за собой кризис в просталинских руководящих кругах Восточной Европы.
> В 1956 г. до предела обострилась ситуация в Венгрии, где возглавляемое М. Ракоши руководство растеря-лось и выпустило из-под своего контроля развитие политических событий. В стране начались антикоммунисти-ческие, антисоветские демонстрации. Было сформировано новое правительство Имре Надя, распущена компар-тия. По требованию Надя войска СССР, находившиеся в Венгрии по Варшавскому Договору, покинули Буда-пешт и другие населенные пункты. Венгрия заявила о выходе из ОВД, открыла границу с Австрией, приступила к организации добровольческих антикоммунистических вооруженных отрядов. Они контролировали обстановку в столице, арестовывали и убивали приверженцев прежнего режима. Армия, рабочий класс и крестьянство вели себя пассивно. В ночь на 4 ноября 1956 г. группа коммунистов во главе с Я. Кадаром объявила о создании Вре-менного рабоче-крестьянского правительства и обратилась к Москве с просьбой вновь ввести войска в Буда-пешт для пресечения кровопролития. СССР, заручившись предварительно согласием членов ОВД, бросил свои танки на венгерскую столицу и в считанные дни безжалостно подавил восстание.
> Руководство СССР было готово применить вооруженную силу и для наведения «порядка» в Польше, где в том же году происходили народные волнения. Но здесь удалось снизить накал страстей мирными средствами.
> ...

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## Marcus

При Брежневе и конец Холодной войны:  

> Брежневская дипломатия. На фоне провальной внутренней политики внешнеполитическая деятель-ность брежневской администрации воспринимается как довольно динамичная и результативная (во всяком слу-чае, до конца 70-х гг.).
> Активно развивались отношения в рамках «социалистического содружества». В 1971 г. по линии СЭВ была принята комплексная программа социально-экономической интеграции, которая по-прежнему базировалась в основном на промышленном потенциале и ресурсах СССР. Постепенно нормализуются отношения с Китаем, крайне обострившиеся в конце 60-х гг.— вплоть до вооруженных конфликтов на амурском острове Даманский и в ряде других приграничных районов. Коммунистическое руководство Северного Вьетнама с помощью СССР и его союзников вынудило покинуть полуостров американские экспедиционные войска, сражавшиеся на сторо-не южновьетнамского режима, и объединило в 1976 г. две части страны в единую социалистическую республи-ку.
> И все же, как и раньше, до полной стабильности в «содружестве» было далеко. В ответ на попытку демо-кратического «обновления социализма» в Чехословакии, предпринятую в 1968 г., члены ОВД во главе с СССР осуществили военное вторжение в эту страну.
> В 1979 г. вспыхнула война между Китаем и Вьетнамом из-за спорных территорий, вскоре благополучно за-кончившаяся благодаря вмешательству СССР на стороне Ханоя. Через год начался перманентный политический кризис в Польше.
> Что касается мировых систем социализма и капитализма, то они на рубеже 60—70-х гг. вступили в новую полосу взаимоотношений, получившую название «разрядки международной напряженности». Она была вызвана к жизни рядом глобальных по своему значению факторов:
> Советский Союз к тому времени, как мы знаем, добился ценой гигантских затрат сил и материальных ре-сурсов военно-стратегического паритета с США, что несколько ослабило позиции воинственных сил в правя-щих кругах западных государств. Все более широко осознавался тот факт, что в ядерной войне не может быть победителей. Накопленный в мире ядерный потенциал (около 50 тыс. боеголовок общей мощностью 13 тыс. мегатонн) позволял уничтожить все живое на Земле. Даже если бы агрессору удалось обезопасить себя от от-ветного удара, он все равно погиб бы от последствий своего собственного — радиации, выбросов пепла в верх-ние слои атмосферы и др.; 
> становилась невозможной и широкомасштабная «обычная война». Практически неизбежное в этом случае разрушение атомных реакторов, а их в мире насчитывалось свыше 20 тыс., привело бы к результатам, сопоста-вимым с ядерной войной;
> увеличение численности населения планеты влекло за собой резкое обострение продовольственной про-блемы. Ежегодно в мире от голода умирало 50 млн. человек — столько же, сколько погибло за годы второй ми-ровой войны. Растущую опасность для человечества представляло и состояние окружающей среды. Каждый год в атмосферу выбрасывалось 250 млн. т пыли, 20 млрд. т окиси углерода, азота, двуокиси серы и прочих вредных веществ. Шло интенсивное разрушение озонового слоя, защищающего Землю от солнечной радиации. Уничто-жено 40% тропических лесов, на четверть выросло содержание в воздушной среде углекислого газа. Общее за-грязнение планеты провоцировало новые болезни. Эффективно бороться с этими и другими последствиями не-осторожных действий человечества, надежно защитить природу можно было только совместными усилиями всех стран мира;
> углублялась взаимная заинтересованность как капиталистических, так и социалистических стран в развитии экономических, связей. Запад переживал тогда острый энергетический кризис и надеялся смягчить его за счет крупных поставок нефти и газа из СССР. Советское же правительство стремилось расширить доступ к передо-вым западным технологиям и обеспечить мощную валютную подпитку собственных экономических программ.
> ...

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## Marcus

I don't know, Hanna, if you can read this, but that's what is written in, I think, commonly accepted Russian history textbook. I studied with it.

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## Crocodile

> Это было связано с тем, что ФРГ была богаче, целенаправленно проводила политику по переманиванию гдровцев, пропаганда тоже играла здесь роль. Немцы считали ФРГ Германией, а ГДР оккупированной территорией, хотя ФРГ была такая же оккупированная, как и ГДР.

 I think you're putting too much emphasis on the propaganda. Propaganda is a lot, but not everything. Mostly, people would trust their own experience, not the way it was explained by somebody else.    

> Не знаю, но факт предательства очевиден.

 Well, you said you had been thinking a lot about it and reached the inevitable conclusion Gorbachev was a traitor. Would you be kind enough to spare just a tidbit of that titanic work to a simple-minded crocodile like myself? You see, I can't think that much, my mind was totally washed out by the Hollywood movies. You need to be patient with me.   

> Наверное, он надеялся войти в мировое правительство.

 Alright, so as of 1992 his job was complete. Is he a part of the World Government now?  ::  To say it in a simpler way, what kind of assurance had he have to abandon what he had in his hands for something as elusive (to say the least) as a chair in the World Government?  ::  He didn't need a chair, he was the chairman. He was the boss of almost the half of this world. What could just a chair in the World Government offer to such person?    

> Я сказал, что пропаганда была неэффективной, а не то, что ее было мало.

 And I pointed out that the soviet propaganda was abundant and the western propaganda was next to unknown to the soviet people.  ::  
The Soviet propaganda worked another way because there was NOTHING connecting it with the reality. People lived in a certain way and the propaganda said completely different things. And people saw that and made their own conclusions. They saw in their own eyes what Party had constituted of, what kind of people joined the party and why. And how disconnected that was from what the Party had said. That's why the Soviet propaganda worked the other way.

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## gRomoZeka

> They saw in their own eyes what Party had constituted of, what kind of people joined the party [...]

 Oh please, enlighten me.

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## Throbert McGee

> One thing that I like about the approach of communist countries to  propaganda, is that they call it what it was. I.e. as far as I am aware,  communism actually calls propaganda by its right name

 As far as I am aware, the word *пропаганда* in Russian historically had a totally neutral connotation -- unlike the English word, which is nearly always a very negative term. (Which is to say, the terms are _faux amis_, and do not necessarily translate each other.)  
So, it's a bit misleading to say that the Soviets "called propaganda what it was", as though they were being bluntly honest and transparent about their intents. Rather, they used the same neutral Russian word, пропапанда, whethern speaking about Soviet slogans or US government slogans, but in the latter case, the "propaganda" would be attributed to империалистические угнетатели (or some other clearly pejorative language would be attached to the neutral word пропаганда). 
I'm not saying that the US government was inherently more honest -- in many cases, we would describe our own government's statements by some nice-sounding terms like "public service announcements" or "awareness programs" or "educational efforts", while similar statements from the Soviet government would be, well, "mere *propaganda* " (which doesn't really need to be modified by some phrase like "aggressively expansionist Communism", or whatever, because the word is already bad-sounding).   

> If you see a red banner with a slogan, you know what it is, right - and you can choose *to think* "Bullshit".

 If telepathy really existed outside of science-fiction, do you imagine that Soviet citizens would have generally had the freedom to think "Bullshit"?

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## Throbert McGee

> And I pointed out that the soviet propaganda was abundant and the western propaganda was next to unknown to the soviet people.

 And to the extent that Soviet people knew about western propaganda, they (reportedly) sometimes had to resort to such extraordinary measures as making homemade audio recordings on old X-ray films and secretly trading them, in order to avoid being arrested for dissident activities.    
Thus, while Hanna makes some good points about commercial messages and FoxNews (for example) being a type of "propaganda" that shapes/distorts our thinking, the fact that *самиздат* had practically no analogue in 20th-century Western life (because there was no need for it) should caution us against treating Soviet and Western propaganda as "two sides of the same coin".

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## Crocodile

> Oh please, enlighten me.

 Исключительно карьеристы и проходимцы. Процесс начинался с комсомольских вожаков. Все говорили правильные слова, и при этом беспринципно стремились к власти и благам, невзирая ни на что. Высшая цель - пробраться в номенклатуру. Сделать карьеру помимо партии и/или профсоюзов было практически невозможно. По настоящему идейных и принципиальных вытесняли из партии и руководства. То, что наблюдали во властных структурах после развала СССР - похожая картина, просто усугублённая криминалом и возможностью вывозить капиталы за границу. Все 90е и нулевые во всех странах СНГ правили те же самые беспринципные кадры, закалённые когда-то в КПСС и ВЛКСМ. Сменили вывеску, а сущность поведения не поменяли. Кадры решают всё. Помнится, когда КПСС потеряла власть, были разговоры такого плана, что, мол, вот теперь наконец-то будет очищение партии, останутся только идейные, а карьеристы свалят туда, где побольше власти и денег. Ну, в итоге карьеристы, как и было сказано, повалили валом в "демократы" и иже с ними. Результат был немного предсказуем.

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## maxmixiv

> And if the propaganda was effective, then why did the USSR disintigrate? If people had believed it, then they would have thought "whatever the problems here, it is still better than imperialism & capitalism...." Instead they thought "where can I buy a pair of Levis'...."

 You see, Hanna:
1) People's thoughts meant and  mean nothing. Only a few persons decide what to do, according to the current situation. Gorbachyov was not traitor, just bad leader for such big country like a child driving the truck, but the results were terrible. USSR met giant economical problems in 1980's, and КПСС could not manage with it.
2) Some people are so limited, that the possibility to buy some clothes is everything they need. They don't care about all those ism's, and are deaf to propaganda. And you know, when suddenly you cannot buy some ordinary meal, or just you cannot get soap (late USSR times), I understand them to some degree! 
To finish with USSR - such extreme sentiment was not possible, of course. People were just watching with open mouths, how their country dies and hoped that, in the end, they will get the soap and may be even the bananas! Игорь Иртеньев | Депутатский запрос 
P.S. Now that we have plenty of bananas, suddenly they do not give much joy  ::

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## mishau_

Надо было Косыгина слушать, а его выгнали.... Может сейчас и Китай бы обгоняли...

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## BappaBa

> Исключительно карьеристы и проходимцы.

 Вот яркий представитель карьериста и проходимца: *Александр Николаевич Яковлев* член КПСС 1944-1991   
"На первых порах перестройки нам пришлось частично лгать, лицемерить,  лукавить — другого пути не было. Мы должны были — и в этом специфика  перестройки тоталитарного строя — сломать тоталитарную коммунистическую  партию" 
"Избрали простой, как кувалда, метод пропаганды «идей» позднего Ленина. Группа истинных, а не мнимых реформаторов разработали  (разумеется, устно) следующий план: авторитетом Ленина ударить по  Сталину, по сталинизму. А затем, в случае успеха, Плехановым и социал-демократией бить по Ленину, либерализмом и «нравственным социализмом» — по революционаризму вообще." 
Мне запомнилось, что во время перестройки едва ли не самой популярной книгой была "Дети Арбата", там как раз использован _метод Яковлева_: идеи Ленина верны, кровавый Сталин всё извратил, положительный герой Саша Панкратов - верный ленинец. В этой же книге Рыбаков придумал для Сталина фразу _нет человека - нет проблемы_, к-рую теперь на полном серьезе приписывают Виссарионычу. Через некоторое время нужно было уже кошмарить Ленина. Никогда не забуду передачи по ленинградскому ТВ, где два удолбанных укурка Курехин и Бананан доказывали, что Ленин - гриб. =) Жить не по лжи, ага. 
А с другой стороны был *Борис Евсеевич Черток*, член партии с 1932 и до смерти, не изменивший своим убеждениям.

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## Marcus

> If telepathy really existed outside of science-fiction, do you imagine that Soviet citizens would have generally had the freedom to think "Bullshit"?

 They had freedom to think what they wanted, because it is impossible to forbid people to think.

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## Marcus

> Thus, while Hanna makes some good points about commercial messages and FoxNews (for example) being a type of "propaganda" that shapes/distorts our thinking, the fact that самиздат had practically no analogue in 20th-century Western life (because there was no need for it) should caution us against treating Soviet and Western propaganda as "two sides of the same coin".

 What's the connection? самиздат appeared because the government forbade to publish many things and it was partially the result of uneffecient propaganda. But it doesn't mean that FoxNews say something closer to the truth.

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## Marcus

> Well, you said you had been thinking a lot about it and reached the inevitable conclusion Gorbachev was a traitor. Would you be kind enough to spare just a tidbit of that titanic work to a simple-minded crocodile like myself? You see, I can't think that much, my mind was totally washed out by the Hollywood movies. You need to be patient with me.

 Все советское поливалось грязью и дискредитировалось с государственных трибун и на бюджетные деньги (СМИ же были государственными).
Была разрешена бесконтрольная деятельность иностранных организаций, работающих на развал Союза. 
Было разрешено конвертировать безналичные рубли в наличные, кооперативы, частный экспорт - все это закономерно увеличивало дефицит и инфляцию. Под конец стал использоваться банальный саботаж, когда продукты сознательно не доставлялись в города.
Не было не только сделано попыток борьбы с сепаратизмом (кроме показушных), но и принят закон о выходе республик из СССР (процедура выхода) в 1990 году. Вопрос о переформатировании Союза и выход из него серьезно обсуждался властью.
Про внешнюю политику даже и говорить нечего: Горбачев заставил устроить перестройку и уйти в отставку правительства своих союзников в Европе и многое другое, всего не перечислишь.

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## xdns

> I honestly think US is much better at propaganda than the USSR was... With all their patriotic films, horrible portrayls of their "enemies" in films and the News.. Making kids learn storybook style anecdotes about American historical figures, "founding fathers" loyalty pledges every day in school, and singing of national anthem with much drama. I don't think the USSR quite matched their level and scale of patriotic and ideological  indoctrination!

 We had our founding father - Lenin. References to Lenin were ubiquitous - from ABC-books to forewords in technical volumes.
There are some very good songs about him. This one, for example (1974):    
It's so spirited that you just jump to your feet and start singing along  ::  
PS: It's hard to comprehend how USSR happened to dissolve 17 years after the creation of this hit.

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## Crocodile

> Все советское поливалось грязью и дискредитировалось с государственных трибун и на бюджетные деньги (СМИ же были государственными).
> Была разрешена бесконтрольная деятельность иностранных организаций, работающих на развал Союза. 
> Было разрешено конвертировать безналичные рубли в наличные, кооперативы, частный экспорт - все это закономерно увеличивало дефицит и инфляцию. Под конец стал использоваться банальный саботаж, когда продукты сознательно не доставлялись в города.
> Не было не только сделано попыток борьбы с сепаратизмом (кроме показушных), но и принят закон о выходе республик из СССР (процедура выхода) в 1990 году. Вопрос о переформатировании Союза и выход из него серьезно обсуждался властью.
> Про внешнюю политику даже и говорить нечего: Горбачев заставил устроить перестройку и уйти в отставку правительства своих союзников в Европе и многое другое, всего не перечислишь.

 Минутку, всё это было. Ты считаешь, что Горбачёв всё это задумал с 1985 года и знал, что всё именно так и получится? Для меня в то время это выглядело как отчаянные и безумные попытки чего-то там ещё пытаться срегулировать, но ничего хорошего не получалось. Ведь в чём была объявлена перестройка? Вот лозунги, которые были брошены в народ: хозрасчёт, гласность, кооперативы. В переводе на современный язык: публичные тендеры, прозрачность, мелкий бизнес. Всё это работало во время НЭПа, почему это обязательно должно было не работать в 80е? Проще говоря, почему ты так уверен, что тот самый "банальный саботаж" - это дело рук Горбачёва, а не оппозиции ему? Ведь в партии было много недовольных Горбачёвым, согласись.

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## Crocodile

> Вот яркий представитель карьериста и проходимца: *Александр Николаевич Яковлев* член КПСС 1944-1991

 Думаю, ты прав.    

> "На первых порах перестройки нам пришлось частично лгать, лицемерить,  лукавить — другого пути не было. Мы должны были — и в этом специфика  перестройки тоталитарного строя — сломать тоталитарную коммунистическую  партию"

 Полагаю, что это враньё. Подстроился под новую коньюнктуру. Не будучи коньюнктурщиком, товарищ такой карьеры бы не сделал.   

> "Избрали простой, как кувалда, метод пропаганды «идей» позднего Ленина. Группа истинных, а не мнимых реформаторов разработали  (разумеется, устно) следующий план: авторитетом Ленина ударить по  Сталину, по сталинизму. А затем, в случае успеха, Плехановым и социал-демократией бить по Ленину, либерализмом и «нравственным социализмом» — по революционаризму вообще."

 Угу. Чувак явно делает из лимона лимонад. Он же вроде потом социал-демократом заделался? Ну вот, "ударим по Ленину и революционаризму социал-демократией!"  ::    

> Мне запомнилось, что во время перестройки едва ли не самой популярной книгой была "Дети Арбата", там как раз использован _метод Яковлева_: идеи Ленина верны, кровавый Сталин всё извратил, положительный герой Саша Панкратов - верный ленинец. В этой же книге Рыбаков придумал для Сталина фразу _нет человека - нет проблемы_, к-рую теперь на полном серьезе приписывают Виссарионычу. Через некоторое время нужно было уже кошмарить Ленина. Никогда не забуду передачи по ленинградскому ТВ, где два удолбанных укурка Курехин и Бананан доказывали, что Ленин - гриб. =) Жить не по лжи, ага.

 Моя думай твоя есть быть во многом-многом правая. Моё мнение - Яковлев пытался выдать epic fail за хитрый план. Ибо иначе нафига он нужен в партии социал-демократов?  ::

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## rockzmom

> .. Making kids learn storybook style anecdotes about American historical figures, "founding fathers" loyalty pledges every day in school, and singing of national anthem with much drama. I don't think the USSR quite matched their level and scale of patriotic and ideological  indoctrination!

 Hanna... you've been down this path before We are not the only place that says a pledge or sings anthems. Believe me, it is more of a tradition than being patriotic. Young boys (and girls) today, they don't even take off their hats, EVEN when reminded to before hand by the Principal. Some of the kids don't even bother to take out their earbuds or put away their cell phones... let alone stand.

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## rockzmom

I received a message from my daughter (she texted me during lunch) and she got her paper back during class today and she got an A!!!! Her teacher wrote on her paper "This is excellent!!" and didn't make any other notations. He told the class if he didn't mark up the paper then it was "a damn good paper." AND... he talked about her in front of the class (don't know if he used her name or not or what he said and she didn't say in the text.) 
Thank you all for your help with this and while she may not have used what you gave her directly in the paper, I must say you have helped to educate me and my entire family on this topic. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have learned from this thread. Propaganda or not, lack of my education or lack of caring when I was supposed to learn this stuff, you all have really helped to shed light on this entire subject. Things I'm too embarrassed to admit I had no clue about...  ::  I now have a much better understanding of thanks to all of you.  ::

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## Hanna

> Hanna... you've been down this path before We are not the only place that says a pledge or sings anthems. Believe me, it is more of a tradition than being patriotic. Young boys (and girls) today, they don't even take off their hats, EVEN when reminded to before hand by the Principal. Some of the kids don't even bother to take out their earbuds or put away their cell phones... let alone stand.

 Haha, I am a broken record. Oh well! And I agree with you , discipline in school is probably an issue in most countries...  
But America has a great deal more patriotism than countries in Europe, I can absolutely promise you that. So from my perspective the USA is quite extreme.  
There is next to no patriotic stuff AT ALL anywhere in Europe. Once or twice a year you sing the national anthem in school - there is no loyalty pledge and no glorification of heroic history like there is in the USA. There are no old time kings or others that are glorified really - all of the old time heroes were involved in activities that are unacceptable now, or politically incorrect. There is the terrible legacy of devastating wars, guilt from colonialism, persecution of minorities and terrorism by separatist states. All that has put people off nationalism and patriotism. The only exceptions are the "new" countries in Eastern Europe, that have some kind of point to prove.  
So looked at it from our perspective, the nationalism of the USA is pretty extreme, with 4th of July, daily pledges in school, famous anectotes about leaders. There is endless talk about supposedly "American values" that are all about "freedom" and things like that. Sounds good, but for whom, how and at what price?  
I think it's pretty much comparable in intensity with the USSR which had parades, loyalty pledges, idolizing Lenin and talk about idealistic utopian ideas which they did not quite live up to... Just a different flavour of propaganda.  
I have seen young pioneer reciting some kind of pledge, on TV - guessing that must have been compulsory, so an equivalent to what Americans do. Not sure whether Russia today does anything like that.. I would guess, probably not.  
Joke video about American Pledge of Allegiance in school! Funny!!!     *I don't dislike patriotism at all, it can be a really nice thing.* 
As long as every country keeps their patriotic and nationalistic stuff within their own borders and don't use it to justify starting wars or invasions!  
If the USSR had been the winner of the Cold War and was violently pushing their agenda while being hypocritical about their ideology then I would have just as much an issue with that.

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## Doomer

> I received a message from my daughter (she texted me during lunch) and she got her paper back during class today and she got an A!!!! Her teacher wrote on her paper "This is excellent!!" and didn't make any other notations. He told the class if he didn't mark up the paper then it was "a damn good paper." AND... he talked about her in front of the class (don't know if he used her name or not or what he said and she didn't say in the text.)

 Great news!

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## Hanna

Rockzmom, now you have to tell us what she wrote about the Cold War that impressed the teacher!

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## rockzmom

> Haha, I am a broken record. 
> Some patriotic kids in the USA... As far as I understand, this is done EVERY day in school!

 Hanna, just remember that in the US, you are free NOT to participate, no one forces you to say the pledge... 
"The Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that students cannot be forced to salute the flag. Maryland law explicitly allows any student or teacher to be excused from participating in the pledge, according to the ACLU.  The Montgomery school system's student handbook contains a section about "Patriotic Exercises" that reads: "You cannot be required to say a pledge, sing an anthem, or take part in patriotic exercises. No one will be permitted to intentionally embarrass you if you choose not to participate." 
It is my understanding that in Canada, at school you sing O Canada and recited the lord's prayer in the morning and end the school day by singing God Save the Queen.   

> There are no old time kings or others that are glorified really

 And that big wedding that happened last year across the pond from the USA... and all the brouhaha about Prince Harry's blue shoes and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee??? What is all of that my dear? Is that not patriotic and also great PR??

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## Hanna

Yes, and it's good that they are not getting forced. That is a good thing about the USA. People CAN choose to go against the stream, and nothing very serious will happen as long as they don't take it too far. 
I saw a film about some people who were Jehova's Witnesses and had some  trouble because they did not want to salute the US flag. But it was  nothing major, just inconvenience.  
 I don't know about the USSR either, but I think they could opt out of most patriotic stuff, but probably at a higher cost to their career etc than in the USA. I remember Crocodile commenting that he joined the Komsomol organisation despite the fact that he did not really want to. Not sure what would have happened if he had just said "stuff it I can't be bothered." Does anyone know? 
As for the royals, I don't care for the monarchy at all and I am not defending it! I would not care if they disappeared tomorrow. (But I would not get rid of them in the way that the Russians did!!!! )  
They are not allowed to do or say ANYTHING political, they just perform official duties inside the country, and add a bit of glamour outside the country.  
The curent King of Sweden is dyslexic and has a mild speech problem. He could never run the country. 
These people are basically just ambassadors.  
The media obsession with them is really terrible, I think. Obsessing about the royals is a kind of modern "opium for the people..." Why worry about the state of schools and hospitals when you can talk about Kate Middleton looking too skinny, or what Princess Madeleine really is doing in New York..

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## Throbert McGee

> What's the connection? самиздат appeared because the government forbade to publish many things and it was partially the result of uneffecient propaganda. But it doesn't mean that FoxNews say something closer to the truth.

 FoxNews competes with many other privately owned media companies whose content and opinions are not tightly controlled by a centralized government. And not all of FoxNews's competitors are large corporations; there are small "indie" publishers and academic printing presses, etc. This was true even before the Internet age and the "digital distribution" revolution.  
In short, in Western society, people who dissented from the government's official point of view had a much easier time propagating their own views than Soviet dissidents did. (Which is not to say that there was NEVER censorship in the US, or legal harassment of dissidents; but in general, censors in the US had much less power, and dissidents had much greater opportunities to express and publish their beliefs legally.) 
P.S. I would add that although FoxNews is clearly biased, its biases have sometimes been *exaggerated* by people who devoutly believe in the "objectivity" of the BBC and _The New York Times,_ etc.

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## gRomoZeka

> I don't know about the USSR either, but I think they could opt out of most patriotic stuff, but probably at a higher cost to their career etc than in the USA. I remember Crocodile commenting that he joined the Komsomol organisation despite the fact that he did not really want to. Not sure what would have happened if he had just said "stuff it I can't be bothered." Does anyone know?

 I know for a fact that nothing would have happened, at least, not in the 70-80's. My cousin refused to join Komsomol (not because of any political believes, though). His teachers were mildly shocked, but there were no repercussions (just a lecture from a distraught teacher, which was ignored). 
My mom, who was a constructor of military sea crafts, refused to join the Communist party, when her boss offered her to do that as an encouragement for her excellent work. Such an offer was considered an honor, and could potentially aid her career. While the Party was much more serious business than Komsomol, again nothing happened. Her career did not suffer because of that (though it _could_, that's true), even despite the ridiculous and slightly disrespectful way she refused (she said essentially: "No way! Party meetings are boring and a waste of time"). 
At least that was my family's experience, So I take horror stories about "courageous people" who opposed Soviet system (by doing pretty safe things like refusing to be a pioneer) with a grain of salt. Circumstances differ, but in many cases it was not as dangerous as it probably sounds to people who never lived in the USSR.

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## Throbert McGee

I remember that when I was in grades 3-5, probably 95% of the boys my age (including me) participated in the Cub Scouts. But that percentage was, I think, unusually high because most of us were "military brats" whose fathers (or in a few cases, mothers) were stationed at a small US base in Turkey. So being a Scout was "practically mandatory" (though, of course, not literally mandatory) because of the military culture that prevailed on the base. 
But in public schools back in the States, the rate of participation in Scouting programs was generally lower -- unless you happened to belong to a religious community (such as the Mormons) that strongly pushed kids to be Scouts.

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## Throbert McGee

> So looked at it from our perspective, the nationalism of the USA is  pretty extreme, with 4th of July, daily pledges in school, famous  anecdotes about leaders. There is endless talk about supposedly  "American values" that are all about "freedom" and things like that.  Sounds good, *but for whom*, how and at what price?

 Well, it's good for new immigrants -- they can go on wearing the clothing styles from "The Old Country", and eat their "Old Country" foods, and speak English with an extremely heavy accent... but if they wave the American flag on the 4th of July, if they can sing the words to "America the Beautiful", and if they idolize Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, etc., people will generally accept them as "Real Americans". True, there is still some anti-immigrant prejudice, but merely by waving the flag, immigrants can give themselves a degree of "immunity" against prejudice.   

> I think it's pretty much comparable in intensity with the USSR which had  parades, loyalty pledges, idolizing Lenin and talk about idealistic  utopian ideas which they did not quite live up to... Just a different  flavour of propaganda.

 Despite their ideological differences, the US and USSR had something significant in common: they were both multi-ethnic states that tried (however imperfectly, in both cases) to do away with racism, blood-prejudice, and citizenship privileges based on ethnicity. This meant that it was necessary to create a *common identity that was not based on shared ancestry*. And thus the Christian socialist Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance so that schoolchildren whose parents had recently immigrated from Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Hungary, etc., would all be encouraged to think of themselves as simply "Americans" who had left behind their loyalties and hatreds based on blood-lineage.

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## Marcus

> FoxNews competes with many other privately owned media companies whose content and opinions are not tightly controlled by a centralized government. And not all of FoxNews's competitors are large corporations; there are small "indie" publishers and academic printing presses, etc. This was true even before the Internet age and the "digital distribution" revolution.  
> In short, in Western society, people who dissented from the government's official point of view had a much easier time propagating their own views than Soviet dissidents did. (Which is not to say that there was NEVER censorship in the US, or legal harassment of dissidents; but in general, censors in the US had much less power, and dissidents had much greater opportunities to express and publish their beliefs legally.) 
> P.S. I would add that although FoxNews is clearly biased, its biases have sometimes been *exaggerated* by people who devoutly believe in the "objectivity" of the BBC and _The New York Times,_ etc.

  BBC, The New York Times etc are not much different from FoxNews. Russia Today is probably different, but who watches it? All the big Western media belong to one group of people, behave coordinately and are connected with the states. Of course there is more possibilty to publish something in the West than in the Soviet Union, but that happens only because the Western rulers are able to make their people ignore other sources of information.

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## rockzmom

Here is her essay... try not to be too harsh, remember, she is in her 1st year of high school... [edit] I forgot to mention. Even though he had not given instructions to include footnotes, as you will see she did and apparently she was the only student who did so and that was what he mentioned to the class.  
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,”[1] might have been what President Eisenhower would have liked as his sound bite if it hadn’t already been used by President Roosevelt, instead he choose to go with, “There is too much hysteria.”[2] The fears of the American people after the Second World War were based in a large part on just that, fear. Would the Communism take over the world and the United States? Just how many Communists were in the U.S. Government already? How long before a nuclear attack would happen and what did one actually do if there was one? Could that Sputnik thingy really listen to everything we say? Eisenhower and his administration could choose to address these and other fears by either feeding into it or by calming it; they seemed to do a little of both as they told Americans to be calm, but their actions said to be prepared and fear the worst. 
            When President Eisenhower addressed the nation in March of 1954, he used the word fear six times and hysteria three times.[3] If you tell someone there is nothing to fear or not to become hysterical, the first thing they usually do is scream back at you “I am calm!” While on the face of it one might think he was trying to calm a nation, to others he was instilling the very hysteria he was hoping to avoid. When Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, John Dulles, was speaking about the expansion of Communism and the Domino Theory and proclaiming that “If world communism captures any American State, however small, a new and perilous front is established which will increase the danger to the entire free world,”[4] he was not helping to elevate the fears of the American public. Because, “If the Communists took over Guatemala (where is that by the way?), we are certain to be next!” Secretary Dulles only helped to fan the fires of another possible Red Scare and that there was a Communist hiding around every street corner just waiting to take over the United States.  
            While the threat of a nuclear attack was looming, Americans decided to ease their worries and take matters into their own hands. They began building bomb shelters and stocked them with food rations and supplies.[5] In schools, children practiced “duck and cover” drills and learned where to go in the case of an attack. The government also helped citizens by creating National System of Interstate and Defense Highways which allowed for easier movement of cars or military vehicles especially in “cities having a population of 50,000 or more and serves the country’s principal industrial and defense areas.”[6] This would enable people in high population areas or target zones such as Washington, D.C. or New York City, a way to quickly escape the city or for the military to quickly move troops to these cities should an inbound missile be detected. This mixed message from the administration of be really worried about these evil people and be prepared and ready for the worst; but, don’t panic, caused many to not know what to really believe. 
            By 1953, America was spending 68.1% of its budget on defense from only 32.7% in 1949.[7] By 1958, this percentage decreased; however, not by much and it was not lost on the political cartoonist, Herblock, when he depicted President Eisenhower putting all of the money from the federal budget into the Missile Programs at the expense of all of the other programs like Space Development, School Construction, and Welfare Programs.[8]  By spending all of the funds on Missile Programs and Defense, one can only imagine the increased fear the American public would feel at seeing this. A nation does not ramp up their military that much for no reason or if they are trying to calm hysteria. The game of “Massive Retaliation[9]” and “If you launch a deadly missile, I’ll launch two right back at you,” instead of diplomacy also did not lend itself to a feeling of security. What money was not spent on the military, President Eisenhower seemed to want it to go to education “because of the growing importance of science and technology[10]” and that this was a matter of “emergency Federal action.”[11] Learning that our Nation’s youth must become scientists and engineers is a matter if national concern and that at any moment the USSR could “push a button, and 35 minutes later much of the U.S. could be laid waste,”[12] would increase not decrease public anxiety. 
            President Eisenhower and his administration created more hysteria and fears than they calmed. While the fears were real, they planted the seeds and then feed into them reiterating over and over again instead of playing to the strengths that the nation already had. The fact that the USSR was so far away from the US and that McCarthyism was hysteria and not real. President Kennedy, during his inaugural address stated, “that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.”[13] However, he also followed that up with a firm yet unwavering declaration that, “We dare not tempt them with weakness.”[14] President Kennedy let the USSR and the people of America know that he wanted to stop the games and talk about peace; however, don’t underestimate him. If you thought he might be young and therefore a weak President unable to push the button, don’t test him. This speech was a much better speech to calm the nerves of Americans than, “All of these, with their impact on the human mind, makes us act almost hysterically, and you find the hysterical reactions.”[15]   [1] Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933  [2] Dwight Eisenhower Press Conference, March 1954, Source Document A  [3] Ibid.  [4] John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, June 1954, Source Document B  [5] _Life_ magazine, May 1955, Source Document C  [6] _Saturday Evening Post,_ October 1956, Source Document D  [7] Historical Statistics of the United States, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Department of Commerce, Source H   [8] Herblock, “Well, I Got That In, All Right”, the _Washington Post_, January 14, 1958, A14, Source Document F  [9] Must U.S.Take the First Blow?, U.S. News and World Report, December 1957, Source Document E  [10] Special Message to the Congress from President Eisenhower on Education, January 1958,. Source Document G  [11] Ibid.  [12] Must U.S.Take the First Blow?, U.S. News and World Report, December 1957, Source Document E  [13] President John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 1961 , Source Document I  [14] Ibid  [15] Dwight Eisenhower Press Conference, March 1954, Source Document A

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## Crocodile

> I remember Crocodile commenting that he joined the Komsomol organisation despite the fact that he did not really want to. Not sure what would have happened if he had just said "stuff it I can't be bothered." Does anyone know?

 To tell the truth, I joined the Comsomol simply not to stand out of the crowd. I was not a hero (and I'm not a hero now) to fight the system I dislike. The whole society those days was not really tolerant to those who singled themselves out in any way, and I was a good boy to play by the rules. I have no idea what would have happened if I refused, and I didn't really want to know that back then. Maybe nothing serious. I had other more important stuff on my mind.  ::

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## Seraph

"...If you tell someone there is nothing to fear or not to become hysterical, the first thing they usually do is scream back at you “I am calm!”..."

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## rockzmom

> To tell the truth, I joined the Comsomol simply not to stand out of the crowd. I was not a hero (and I'm not a hero now) to fight the system I dislike. The whole society those days was not really tolerant to those who singled themselves out in any way, and I was a good boy to play by the rules. I have no idea what would have happened if I refused, and I didn't really want to know that back then. Maybe nothing serious. I had other more important stuff on my mind.

 Croc... I read this and became saddened by your choice of words and your situation. As a child who was different for many reasons and none of them for being a hero, I can tell you, being singled out in the US was not much of a cake walk. While I am thankful that today, it is much easier being a kid in school and being different/hero, even though in my girl's situation, it is has been the adults who are the meanest. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would have been like in the USSR for a child to say "Umm, ya know what guys, I don't wanna play your reindeer games."

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## rockzmom

> So looked at it from our perspective, the nationalism of the USA is pretty extreme, with 4th of July, daily pledges in school, famous anectotes about leaders. There is endless talk about supposedly "American values" that are all about "freedom" and things like that. Sounds good, but for whom, how and at what price?

 Okay, let me try to put it this way.  In 2006 the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined. That does not even begin to include the illegal immigrants that we get. Now, how do you go about uniting all of these people into a "blended" family. How do you get them to assimilate? You want them to be able to keep some of their culture, but at the same time "can't we all just get along?" You have to understand, if one family just came from Israel and one from Egypt and they moved in next door to each other, we don't want a bloodbath on our hands here. By having these "American" traditions, it is something that everyone "can" do no matter what. It's the Fourth of July, it's a national holiday, go out and watch the fireworks with your neighbor and forget for one night that you have been sworn to kill him as your life long enemy. There's time enough to hate him tomorrow. 
The Judge at my hubby's Citizenship ceremony said something like ... today you become American. You are not Irish American or Russian American or Central American, you are American.  
Now, that really doesn't work, except... when we say our pledge or sing our anthem or on national holidays. For in those few moments, that is when we forget all the negativity about who we are supposed to dislike or kill and we remember that we are all "united."

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## Crocodile

> in my girl's situation, it is has been the adults who are the meanest.

 Maybe, today's adults are the former kids...  :: 
I guess, the kids these days might be more focused on their iGadgets and on fitting their virtual company than on how to fit their society better.. Besides, almost everything that we've been taught to beleive and conform to eventually turned out to be garbage. Maybe, kids these days are aware of that.

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## Hanna

*I think the arguments that Rockzmom and Throbert McGee gave about being a multinational country are valid and good arguments for trying to encourage a bit of nationalism.* I understand that this is something that the USA has to handle, and that emphasising history and achievements is key to that. For me, the idea of a truly "multicultural" country is exciting and interesting.  
What we have in Europe with the traditional population + "refugees" is just a weird and frustrating situation. In many cases the cultural clash is extreme and there is really no way for them, with their culture, level of education and religion to be a part of society.  
America is different from Europe in that way. And I think that most people who emigrate to the USA are probably keen to put their past behind them and willing to identify as Americans. 
My impression is that the USSR tried to get people to feel "Soviet" rather than anything else, but they probably did not succeed very well with the majority of people for different reasons. 
Perhaps when Soviet people thought of the experiences of the the War, and about sports, they were able to identify with that nationality, but otherwise not...  
The EU is another example of an artificially created country that is trying to create some kind of unity. However, the 'propaganda' for this is quite low key. Kids are told that the EU is a very successful peace project for Europe, which is essentially true, although there is more to the story. 
Everyone can see the benefits for themselves when they travel in Europe, and compare with the past with endless wars that benefited practically nobody.  
You don't really feel "European" until you LEAVE Europe and compare yourself with people on some other continent - that's when you realise how much we have in common despite language differences. The level of enthusiasm about the EU varies a lot between countries too. _
My issue with American values / nationalism is that it is sometimes used  as part of the motivation for invasions etc. I.e. "there is no  "freedom" in this country, we need to liberate them (and their natural  resources...)". The values that are relevant for Americans are not  necessarily what other people want  - and if they do, let them get it  themselves! What the US gets up to, in my view, is just a modern take on colonialism/imperialism - but twisted around in such a way that it is hard to recognise.  
But invading a country and forcing your values on them, and obtaining their resources cheaply, IS imperialism, regardless of whether you talk about democracy and freedom, or Queen and the need for christening the pagans.... 
That is my view, anyway._

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## Marcus

I understand that America uses its strength and conducts wars, I understand that the American state tries to justify all those polices, but I don't like when some people start saying that American media are somehow more truthful than any other and that those policies are more justified than any other.

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## Hanna

> BBC, The New York Times etc are not much different from FoxNews. Russia Today is probably different, but who watches it? All the big Western media belong to one group of people, behave coordinately and are connected with the states. Of course there is more possibilty to publish something in the West than in the Soviet Union, but that happens only because the Western rulers are able to make their people ignore other sources of information.

 I agree that although the BBC is good, it often takes the official position of the UK. The "politically correct" agenda when reporting UK internal news is very tiresome. For example, their reports on Russia are very predictable. Lack of democracy, Khodorkovsky and spies.... That's all you ever read about Russia.  
I think Russia Today covers Europe very well indeed, but I am relatively certain that they are somewhat biased in their coverage of Russia. According to RT, everything in Russia is more or less pretty good, despite the fact that Russia has many well known problems. RT would be much more credible if they occassionally acknowledged those, and did a bit of investigation about it.  
In terms of coverage of the USA, it would be nice if they occassionally did a positive piece -- not everything in the USA is bad and the US is not necessarily going straight to hell in a handbasket... It's almost entertaining to see how the British RT presenters look just the tiniest bit amused as they read the latest grim report from the US. 
Likewise they clearly have an agenda to show that the EU and the Euro is a failure. I don't think they have ever said anything nice about the EU, or the Euro, and there _are_ plenty of good sides to this.  
They are VERY good at covering important and interesting stories in Europe that get neglected by mainstream media. They are not held back by the "politically correct" censorship on certain issues - this alone is worth watching RT for.  
I turned on RT in the kitchen at work in the UK a few times. I heard several people commenting that the coverage on some important story was very good, saying stuff like "what channel is this, it's really good".  RT has mainly British presenters and I think some people did not understand that it is Russian. 
Media in Sweden is totally insane - 95% all media have the _exact_ same opinion about everything (it's always been like this, but they have changed their position on lots of things for the worse over the last 15 years - I did not mind it so much when I agreed with most of what they were saying. Now I do not, so I can't actually be bothered to read it. They are politically correct to the extreme, and constantly chew the latest PC agenda. Anyone who dares express a different opinion is subjected to such a character assassination that his career is practically over. I really pity those Swedish people who can't speak any other language and are not able to get an alternative perspective. The sheer volume of media in the USA for example means you could easily get a lot more variation than in Sweden. Same thing in Russia, despite potential state interference in media.

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## rockzmom

> _is just a modern take on colonialism/imperialism - but twisted around in such a way that it is hard to recognise.  
> But invading a country and forcing your values on them, and obtaining their resources cheaply, IS imperialism, regardless of whether you talk about democracy and freedom, or Queen and the need for christening the pagans.... 
> That is my view, anyway._

 We call that... Manifest Destiny "The phrase was used as propaganda to convince the American people that it was their God given right to move across this country expanding from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. By taking an Overview of American Imperialism one can see there are several types of imperialism such as, Cultural Imperialism, Religious Imperialism, economic imperialism and militant imperialism. The idea of Manifest Destiny was one that incorporated religious imperialism, economic imperialism and to some extent militant imperialism."

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## Hanna

> We call that... Manifest Destiny "The phrase was used as propaganda to convince the American people that it was their God given right to move across this country expanding from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. By taking an Overview of American Imperialism one can see there are several types of imperialism such as, Cultural Imperialism, Religious Imperialism, economic imperialism and militant imperialism. The idea of Manifest Destiny was one that incorporated religious imperialism, economic imperialism and to some extent militant imperialism."

 Interesting - I never knew about that! I checked the link and I really related to the pciture by John Gast. Perhaps that was genuinely how people were thinking back then. 
What you said got_ me_ thinking...  
Somehow it feels like the people in the 17th -19th century were somewhat "innocent" in their imperialism, both the Europeans and the Americans (in the way that they treated natives etc). 
Does anyone agree with this?  
I think that many of them genuinely did not realise that what they were doing was wrong. 
Perhaps they imagined that the people they oppressed were extremely primitive, that they were spreading the true faith to them... All of this was new - they were not aware that they were involved in exploitation, imperialism etc.  
But today, we all know about the terrible things that were done during the Colonial times, about slavery not that long ago, about the crazy ideas of the Nazism and about things like "gulags". We should know better than repeat any of it.  We don't have the excuse of ignorance. 
To knowingly engage in imperialism today, particularly with the aid of ultra modern weapons and the support of global mass media seems just so much more wicked than for a Victorian person to set up a tea plantation in India, or imagine he had a God-given right to rule America (not that this was not bad too...) In a way I can even sympathize that people in early 20th century to got so carried away with ideology that they lost the perspective that the ideology was supposed to help people get a better life, not kill them... To them, a dramatic revolution might very well have led to utopia. They were on unchartered territory and did not know what we know today.   
"Do unto others as you would like to have done done to you" 
We would not like a Middle Eastern country to invade us, try to force their "ideal society" on us, in our own best interest... and incidentally seize control our most lucrative businesses at the same time.  
Personally I don't have a very positive view on the economic future of either Europe or the USA, so I think that imperialism might be something we will not be able to afford in the future anyway. I think we should focus on building a sustainable and fair economy (ecologically and economically) in our own parts of the world, and let the Middle East and others take care of themselves.

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## Marcus

Edited

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## rockzmom

Younger daughter wrote this essay earlier in the year on this topic.... 
Don’t Tread on Me 
The U.S. has always been a place where people come to it; we never need to go to them. Most people had to travel a great distance and sacrificed family, friends, jobs, homes, etc. to start a new life. Therefore this isolation and assimilation caused us to not really need or want to participate outside of our borders. As time went on and America became more established and started generating their own goods, this caused us to rethink our views about being less self-sufficient. As more people came to the U.S. and as we expanded our interactions to other countries, we wanted to be able to grow as a nation and fulfill our Manifest Destiny and position us as a world leader.  
                When the US declared its independence from Great Britain, we were thought of as the naughty rebellious teenagers. Under George Washington and the other four fathers, our foreign policy remained the same as it was with Britain, “Don’t Tread On Me.” As the years went on, our identity, like us, matured to middle age. Other countries respected us more and we felt more confident participating in foreign affairs. By the time Theodore Roosevelt was president, we were showing the world the wisdom we gained: becoming a diplomatic leader; negotiation the end of the Russo-Japanese war; adding to the Monroe Doctrine; helped keep our open door policy with China and much more; we had shown the world that we have grown up. 
            During the late 1800s under President McKinley, our country’s foreign policy was one of American Imperialism. We had a desire to gain influence or ownership of areas outside the United States, for the increase in military, economic, and commercial wealth and influence they would bring to the United States.  Under President Roosevelt, our strategy changed for the U.S. to become a diplomatic leader.  During President Taft’s leadership (1909-1913) he stressed economic development of nations in Latin America and Asia through "Dollar Diplomacy", and went back to the “Don’t Tread on Me” philosophy in response to the revolt in Mexico. President Wilson took U.S. foreign policy in a completely new direction; the role of Big Brother, bringing morality and democracy to other nations. 
            Even though Americans were outraged at what was happening in Spain in the late 1890s, as our general unwritten military policy up until that time had been “Don’t Tread on Me,” it was not until the sinking of the Maine that President McKinley was forced to have the U.S. involved. In just a few short months, the U.S. (under the military leadership of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt) proved itself to be a significant military force. The Treaty of Paris provided the U.S. with almost all of Spain’s colonies. This war marked a change in how the world viewed the U.S. and how the U.S. The U.S. was no longer the rebellious little teenager; they were now a major player in world politics. 
            The U.S. has grown into a mature, yet sometimes still bratty, country. Our leaders who once never thought to become involved with other countries or their problems, is now known to lend not only military but financial aid. A number of former presidents have gone on to be successful ambassadors in negotiating peace agreements. While we still tend to live by the “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Speak softly and carry a big stick” policies, it has become much more difficult to stand aside and watch as humans suffer when we could possibly help them. This role we play is not often appreciated by others and we have seemed, for now, to not care so much about Manifest Destiny as much as we care about spreading democracy and being a world leader.

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## Hanna

Hm, I think here Cold War essay was considerably better! I don't quite understand the point she's trying to make, and I don't agree with her views there either. Perhaps she was younger when she wrote that one?  
I think the USA was right to break free from the UK though, and those early days of the USA are exciting to read about. 
It is extremely fascinating to think about who choose to go to the USA, their reasons and what they did when they arrived in the USA.  
I would like the USA the way I like Canada, but I just can't because of all the military bases that they USA has in Europe and because of all the invasions and wars lately. It's so fascinating how the USA is really plenty of countries and peoples inside one country, with states as different as Florida, Maine, Alaska or New Mexico, yet united as    
As for more Cold War stuff, gosh I am so glad this is behind us!! How scary and depressing it was! Even though it was so bizarre, it seemed so normal at the time.  
At the same time I am sad about all the tragic things that happened in the ex USSR area in the 1990s, and the loss of some of the good things that existed in Eastern Europe that were lost and may never come back again. In East Germany, there is a name for this "Ostalgie" which is a mix of East and nostalgia. 
I think in general they are pleased about their country being reunited, but they feel somewhat cheated, and they realised that there were a few things that were actually better in East Germany ,than West Germany and they realise that those things are lost forever.

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## Basil77

> There were a number of really creepy books about a post nuclear war society which perhaps some remember? One that I remember one was about animals that lived in a Russian town after all the people had died in a nuclear war. The animals tried to understand what happened, and in the process made some wise observations about the madness of an arms race.  Anyone remembers that book?

   
This? But it's about US town

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## gRomoZeka

I thought about it too. )) But is it the one? I remember feeling very peaceful when reading it, I would not call it creepy, unlike another book Hanna mentioned - about children dying of cancer in a post-Apocalyptic world. o_O
I don't remember any Soviet book for children with such a brutal message about nuclear threat. Soviet propagandistic literature was often steeped in the past - most of it was about fighting Nazis or Civil War heroes.

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## Hanna

No, I don't think it was that book. The book I remember was set in Siberia, I think. There were wolves in it. But I might have been 11 or 12 years when I read it, so it is really hard to remember.  But it must have been somewhat popular to have been translated into Swedish though...  I suppose another option was that the book was only set in Russia, but not written by a Russian author. Or I am mixing up Russia and Poland (for some reason I did that when I was a kid). Maybe it will come to me - at least I remembered that German book.  
I remember reading a few war stories from the childrens war stories from the USSR though - books from the library! Memorable and more dramatic and realistic than anything else about that era, apart from maybe the diary of Anne Frank.  
I am pleased to have grown up in an era were children actually read worthwhile books in their spare time.  
Don't you think that what one reads in childhood affects how you think when you grow up?

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## Throbert McGee

I've been offline from the Internet for a few days, but in the meantime I was reading through the long excerpts from a Russian history textbook provided by Marcus. 
First, thanks to Marcus for sharing them! 
Second, I strongly recommend these readings to Hanna and other students as a translation exercise!! There's plenty of tricky grammar typical of written Russian (e.g., really looong participial constructions), but at the same time the formalism of the grammar can be a help for non-natives. And the vocabulary is a bit repetitive, so even if some words are unfamiliar and you have to use a dictionary, you'll keep seeing those same words again and again. So your reading will gradually get faster after several paragraphs. And you'll be refreshing your knowledge of Cold War events while also getting a fresh perspective from the Warsaw Pact side. It's like killing three or four birds with one stone. =) 
Third, I was favorably impressed by the quality of the historical discussion and thought it was pretty fair and even-handed. True, it was clearly from a Soviet/Russian POV, but reading it as an American, I never thought, "Wait, that's completely one-sided -- what blatant propaganda!" Instead, while the descriptions of the США or Запад were sometimes bluntly critical, they were generally counterbalanced by self-criticism of Soviet policies. 
Even so, there were some instances of what seemed to be subtle bias resulting from the "connotations and nuances" of words or phrasings. However, I don't think these cases were any worse than what you'd find in a US high-school textbook covering the same events -- except, of course, the American text would tend to be biased in the opposite direction!

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## Throbert McGee

As an example of what I mean by "subtle connotative bias", consider a  pair of passages describing two major events of 1956: the suppression of  an anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, and the Suez Canal crisis. The  original Russian paragraphs are in bold, with my English rendering after  that. In a few places, I couldn't decide on the best translation, so  I've marked those with red text in square brackets, putting the  most literal translation first.   

> *В 1956 г. до предела обострилась ситуация в Венгрии, где  возглавляемое М. Ракоши руководство растерялось и выпустило из-под  своего контроля развитие политических событий. В стране начались  антикоммунистические, антисоветские демонстрации. Было сформировано  новое правительство Имре Надя, распущена компартия. По требованию Надя  войска СССР, находившиеся в Венгрии по Варшавскому Договору, покинули  Будапешт и другие населенные пункты.*  
> In 1956 the situation in Hungary was strained to the limit, where the  leadership headed by Mátyás Rákosi had [gotten lost little by little /  become confused / lost its sense of direction] and allowed the  development of political events to slip from its control.  Anti-Communist, anti-Soviet demonstrations began to take place in the  country. A new government under Imre Nagy was formed; the Communist  Party was disbanded. Soviet troops that had been stationed in Hungary  under the Warsaw Pact left Budapest and other populated areas, at the  demand of Nagy.   *Венгрия заявила о выходе из ОВД, открыла границу с Австрией,  приступила к организации добровольческих антикоммунистических  вооруженных отрядов. Они контролировали обстановку в столице,  арестовывали и убивали приверженцев прежнего режима. Армия, рабочий  класс и крестьянство вели себя пассивно.*  
> Hungary announced its withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, opened the border  with Austria, and proceeded to organize volunteer anti-communist armed  divisions. [These militias] tightly monitored the environment in the  capital city, and they went about arresting and killing the supporters  of the old regime. The army, the working class, and the peasantry  behaved passively.   *В ночь на 4 ноября 1956 г. группа коммунистов во главе с Я. Кадаром  объявила о создании Временного рабоче-крестьянского правительства и  обратилась к Москве с просьбой вновь ввести войска в Будапешт для  пресечения кровопролития. СССР, заручившись предварительно согласием  членов ОВД, бросил свои танки на венгерскую столицу и в считанные дни  безжалостно подавил восстание.* 
> On 4 November 1956,  [at nighttime / under cover of darkness], a group of  Communists headed by Y. Kadar declared the creation of a  [temporary /  interim]  Workers-Peasants Government and appealed to Moscow with a  request to send troops back to Budapest in order to put a quick stop to  bloodshed. The USSR, having gotten the prior agreement of the Warsaw  Pact members, sent its tanks to the Hungarian capital and in just a few  days they mercilessly repressed the  [uprising / insurrection] .

 Some comments from me, with key quotations from the text in blue.  "Армия, рабочий  класс и крестьянство *вели себя пассивно*." Note that  another way to express ALMOST the same idea might be "Армия, рабочий  класс и крестьянство *по-видимому тихо одобряли* аресты и убийства приверженцев  прежнего режима" ("[They], *apparently, quietly approved of* the arrests and  killings of old-regime supporters") -- but that would put a different  spin on the analysis! And it would be interesting to know how a  Hungarian textbook would characterize the behavior of the army, workers,  and peasants during this crisis; were they really "passive"? 
And this struck me as an especially "juicy" turn of phrase: "the  Communists asked Moscow to send Soviet troops *для пресечения  кровопролития*" ("for the nipping-in-the-bud of bloodshed") --  compare this with the American military euphemism "humanitarian  peacekeepers and advisers", which in actual practice often means  soldiers with automatic rifles, tanks, and helicopter gunships.   "СССР, заручившись предварительно согласием членов ОВД" -- When the USSR  wanted to do something, the "prior agreement" of the other Warsaw Pact  members was little more than a polite formality for the sake of  appearances. (But of course, the same might be said with regard to the  USA and other NATO members!) 
Finally, I was undecided about the fairest translation of восстание in  the last sentence -- "uprising" can be neutral or positive, but  "insurrection" has a more negative connotation in English. Native  speakers, what do you think? Similarly, I wasn't really sure whether  "они *убивали* приверженцев" ("they killed the loyalists") should  be considered an example of "connotative bias" or not. But, for example,  "они казнили приверженцев" ("they executed the loyalists") or  "приверженцы пропадали в бое" ("the loyalists perished in the fighting")  might be two alternative wordings, each with rather different spins. 
Anyway, on to the Suez Canal:    

> *Другой узел противоречий между СССР и Западом существовал по проблеме  отношений с государствами «третьего мира», число которых множилось в  условиях распада колониальной системы. Москва стремилась распространить  свое влияние на эти страны, одновременно оказывая им энергичное  содействие в борьбе с империалистическими поползновениями великих  держав. Последнее наиболее ярко проявилось в драматических событиях,  развернувшихся в 1956 г. вокруг Египта.* 
> Another  [knot / bundle] of  [contradictions / opposing viewpoints]  between the USSR and the West existed with respect to the question of  relationships with "Third World" states, whose numbers multiplied in the  conditions [that followed] the collapse of the colonialist system.  Moscow was striving to extend its influence on these countries,  simultaneously making available to them energetic assistance in the  struggle with the imperialist   ["vague urges" / inclinations]  of the  great powers. The latter [i.e., the "energetic assistance" from Moscow]  most vividly revealed itself in the dramatic events that   [unfurled /  unrolled / developed]  in 1956 over Egypt.  *
> Пришедшее незадолго до этого к власти в Каире  национально-демократическое правительство Г. Насера национализировало  контролируемый Англией Суэцкий канал, вынудило англичан покинуть военные  базы в Александрии. В поисках противовеса Западу Насер пошел на  сближение с Москвой, заключив, в частности, договор о поставках  советского оружия, что было совершенно необычным для того времени.  Осенью 1956 г. Англия, Франция и Израиль договорились о совместных  военных действиях и начали агрессию против Египта.* 
> The national-democratic government of Gamal Nasser, which had only  recently come to power in Cairo, had nationalized the UK-controlled Suez  Canal, and had forced the British to abandon their military bases in  Alexandria. Seeking a counterweight to the West, Nasser had   [gone to  closer ties with / courted / cozied up to]  Moscow, and in particular had  reached an agreement about delivery of Soviet weapons, which was  completely unprecedented for that time. In the fall of 1956, the UK,  France, and Israel agreed on joint military actions and launched an  offense against Egypt.  *
> Советское правительство потребовало немедленно ее прекратить и заявило,  что не будет препятствовать своим добровольцам выехать в Египет для  участия в боях. Ультиматум возымел действие, и иностранные войска  покинули эту арабскую страну. Закрепляя успех, СССР начал активно  развивать торговые и военные связи с государствами Ближнего и Среднего  Востока.* 
> The Soviet government demanded an immediate end to this aggression, and  announced that it would not obstruct its volunteer soldiers from  traveling to Egypt to participate in the fighting. The ultimatum had the  desired effect, and the foreign armies left this Arab country. Having  solidly succeeded, the USSR began to actively develop trade and military  ties with states in the Middle East and Central Asia.

 Comments:  
"Москва стремилась распространить свое влияние... в борьбе с  империалистическими поползновениями" Isn't it a double-standard to say  that the USSR merely wanted to "extend its influence", but Western  powers had "imperialist tendencies"? Admittedly, the word поползновение  implies a rather weak effort (per Ozhegov) -- which is why I suggested  the translation "a vague urge". So it's not like the text openly  demonized the Western powers by comparing them to бешеные собаки ("rabid  dogs"), for example. Still, it seems biased, even if it's subtle.  "Насер пошел на сближение с Москвой" -- as opposed to "Москва пошла на  сближение с Насером"! Hmmm, I wonder if the USSR ritually discouraged  Nasser three times from attempting to convert... =) 
"заявило, что *не будет препятствовать* своим *добровольцам*  выехать..." -- it seems highly unusual for a government to say, "we  won't prevent our volunteers from going out to join the fight", as  though they have no control over where the military goes and what it  does! But I suppose that a government might use such language for  internal propaganda purposes, and also as a veiled threat to foreign  audiences. So if this was the _actual phrasing_ used by Moscow in  1956, the textbook should probably have placed it *в кавычках* ("in  quotation marks"), to alert the reader that the authors writing today do  not necessarily agree with the colorful rhetoric used by the Soviet  government a half-century ago.  "...и *иностранные* войска покинули эту арабскую страну" -- So, the  USSR rattled its sabres and persuaded "foreign" armies to leave Egypt,  in the very same year that it sent its own "foreign" troops (i.e.,  non-Hungarians) and tanks into Budapest!  "СССР начал активно развивать торговые и военные связи" -- Note that  "the active development of trade and military ties" is more or less  exactly the same bland and pleasant phraseology that the so-called  Western imperialists have generally used to describe their own  involvement in the Third World. 
 * * * 
Anyway, I brought up these examples not for the purpose of finding fault  with Marcus's history textbook -- again, I'd expect that current US  textbooks would be filled with very similar "spin". And probably the  majority of American high-school teachers DON'T encourage their students  to scrutinize the texts for "connotative bias" and "spin", as I tried  to do above.  
But I wanted to point out to Hanna that subtle indoctrination and  "creepy propaganda that you're not aware of being subjected to" is not a  uniquely American phenomenon. And I wouldn't say that it's necessarily  "creepy" or evil. Any successful, stable society -- even one that allows  and encourages free-thinking dissenters -- has to "indoctrinate" its  children with, at least, some very basic axiomatic truths and taboos  that define the society.

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## gRomoZeka

Thank you for your comments and your POV, *Throbert McGee*! 
It definitely adds to the discussion.   

> "заявило, что не будет препятствовать своим добровольцам выехать..." -- it seems highly unusual for a government to say, "we won't prevent our volunteers from going out to join the fight", *as though they have no control over where the military goes and what it does*!

 "Добровольцы" are not necessarily military men, it could be any civilians who volunteered to help of their free will. But it was manipulation on a Soviet part, of course, since no one could leave the country without state approval, civilian or not, and a statement that no one would be "discouraged" from helping was almost the same as saying outright that these attitude would be silently encouraged. 
"В ночь на..." is neutral, it means that something happened between 0 am and roughly 5-6 am. So "under cover of darkness" is probably too poetic a translation.

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## Throbert McGee

> There were a number of really creepy books about a post nuclear war  society which perhaps some remember? One that I remember one was about  animals that lived in a Russian town after all the people had died in a  nuclear war. The animals tried to understand what happened, and in the  process made some wise observations about the madness of an arms race.

 The general scenario reminds me of the famous cartoon short Peace on Earth (MGM, 1939), which was remade by Hanna-Barbera in 1955 as _Good Will to Men_. Needless to say, the remake was deeply concerned with the threat of nuclear annihilation, while the original was still concerned with mustard gas and other "high-tech terror weapons" of the First World War. As the wikipedia article notes, the remake made more direct references to the Christian Bible than the original one did, perhaps reflecting 1950s paranoia about Soviet atheism. But otherwise, the plots are the same -- humans are extinct, and cute little cartoon animals try to understand what happened. 
But wikipedia doesn't say anything about the original cartoon being based on a book, whether set in Russia or elsewhere. But both versions of the cartoon are available on YouTube, and worth watching (they're under 10 minutes each).

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## Throbert McGee

Насчет постапокалиптических мультиков (speaking of postapocalyptic cartoons), I hope everyone has seen Будет ласковый дождь, an absolutely outstanding 1984 Soviet animation based on the 1950 short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. (Bradbury's title, in turn, came from a 1920 anti-war poem by Sara Teasdale.) 
Anyway, in the cartoon, all the humans are dead but the buildings are mostly intact (possibly a reference to a neutron bomb?) and the only living creature seen is a bird that tries to shelter inside a still-functional "robot house" that automatically continues to make breakfast, do the laundry, vacuum the floor, etc. 
Arguably, the Soviet adaption does introduce some "political spin" that's different from the original. Bradbury was an American author writing in an American magazine for a mostly American audience, and the story is set in the post-WW3 remains of a futuristic California suburban town -- because Bradbury wanted his anti-nuclear story to have a maximum psychological impact on Americans, warning them against any delusions that WW3 will be limited and survivable. 
The cartoon version by "Узбекфильм" studios, crucially, retains the suburban-California setting of the original (instead of relocating it to, say, the reuins of a futuristic Odessa suburb!), and therefore the cartoon-skeletons that *Soviet* audiences saw crumbling to dust are the bodies of *dead Americans, rather than dead Soviets. * However, this isn't simply a case of the director trying to be completely faithful to the source, because the cartoon also adds some elements NOT found in Bradbury's story, such as a laser-shooting "Automatic Defense Robot" and a robotic "cuckoo clock" that plays the US national anthem and waves a little US flag (those damned American capitalists -- warmongers and jingoists to the end!). 
So, there is a _little bit_ of "Soviet propaganda" in the cartoon adaptation (just as the 1955 remake of "Peace on Earth" added some "religious propaganda"), but with that caveat in mind, it's still a must-watch.

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## Crocodile

> The cartoon version by "Узбекфильм" studios, crucially, retains the suburban-California setting of the original (instead of relocating it to, say, the reuins of a futuristic Odessa suburb!), and therefore the cartoon-skeletons that *Soviet* audiences saw crumbling to dust are the bodies of *dead Americans, rather than dead Soviets.*.

 You see, when I first read that story by Bradbury, I haven't really realized that fact. Also, in his Fahrenheit 451, if you remember, Bradbury has the [evil] cities destroyed and I never really realized back then those were actually the American cities. The Soviet propaganda worked the way that the nuclear Holocaust would always be global, so there would be no winners. I'm not sure how it looked from the US side, but from the USSR side it looked like: "Come on, let's destroy all the nuclear arms! We only have them because you had them first so we had no choice." If you remember, the Soviet Union supported ANY peace movement. For example, if you remember, the anthem of the socialistic World Federation of the Democratic Youth was composed in the USSR and started with words "_The children of all nations, we live with a dream of peace. During these years of horror we're going to fight for the happiness._" It's only years later I realized that the strategic plans of the USSR were to lightening-fast conquer Europe in days, assassinate the leaders of the US putting the weight of the decision to start the nuclear war with the Soviet Union on the shoulders of the newly appointed leaders. By the time those people could make any decisions, there would be nothing to defend in Europe and the USSR would not attack the US or use the nuclear weapons. It would therefore be the full responsibility of the US military leaders (and local US officers) to either start the destruction of the entire humanity or just not being involved with what happens in Europe. It was assumed the latter would occur. As soon as Europe would be liberated from the damn capitalism and the people would eventually set free from the unfair exploitation and have the chance to happily work, the local socialistic movements of all countries would gain very strong momentum. Also, many countries waiting to see which superpower is more powerful would haste to dump the US as soon as possible and to make friends with the USSR as soon as possible to get a better slice of the pie which is still hot from the oven. The capitalistic world would subsequently shrink even more meaning that the global market would also shrink inevitably cutting the revenues of the capitalistic world. The obvious outcome would follow. The entire propaganda of the USSR had to instill into minds of the entire world a simple idea that if the nuclear war starts, it would inevitably mean the destruction of the entire humanity and possibly of the entire global ecosystem. (Which is possibly true.) That simple and powerful idea played in favour of the USSR plans for the WWIII and strategically disadvantaged the US. Like I said earlier, I think by the late 70s - early 80s the US had little to no chance. It ought to be mainly a pshychological war with the US itself. But, there had always been a chance some crazy colonel on an isolated Alaska nuclear silo would receive no orders from the higher command and push the button first causing the domino effect. That's why I think some of the high leaders of the Soviet Union eventually chickened, Andropov died, and the "remodeling" started as a way to revive the economy a little and prolong the well-being of the Party and the leaders.

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## gRomoZeka

> The cartoon version by "Узбекфильм" studios, crucially, retains the suburban-California setting of the original (instead of relocating it to, say, the reuins of a futuristic Odessa suburb!), and therefore the cartoon-skeletons that *Soviet* audiences saw crumbling to dust are the bodies of *dead Americans, rather than dead Soviets. * However, this isn't simply a case of the director trying to be completely faithful to the source, because the cartoon also adds some elements NOT found in Bradbury's story, such as a laser-shooting "Automatic Defense Robot" and a robotic "cuckoo clock" that plays the US national anthem and waves a little US flag (those damned American capitalists -- warmongers and jingoists to the end!). 
> So, there is a _little bit_ of "Soviet propaganda" in the cartoon adaptation

 Hmmm... I don't see it as intentional/additional propaganda. Bradbury was extremely popular in the USSR, and I think that relocating the setting to some Soviet suburb would've seemed weird to his fans and a bigger propagandistic "trick", i.e. a hint (among other theories), that the evil you-know-who attacked us and destroyed our cities.
 Also I did not expect that a cuckoo clock which played an American anthem and waved a flag would be seen as "Soviet propaganda" from American POV. It did not exist in the original (so yes, there was an agenda behind adding it), but Americans are proud of their patriotism, are they not? )

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## Throbert McGee

> Hmmm... I don't see it as intentional/additional propaganda. Bradbury was extremely popular in the USSR, and I think that relocating the setting to some Soviet suburb would've seemed weird to his fans and a bigger propagandistic "trick", i.e. a hint (among other theories), that the evil you-know-who attacked us and destroyed our cities.
>  Also I did not expect that a cuckoo clock which played an American anthem and waved a flag would be seen as "Soviet propaganda" from American POV. It did not exist in the original (so yes, there was an agenda behind adding it), but Americans are proud of their patriotism, are they not? )

 Certainly, we're proud of our patriotism, but a flag-waving cuckoo clock seems like a heavy-handed and unrealistic caricature of patriotism. (Also, our flag-waving tends to be on July 4th and a few other national holidays, such as Memorial Day, which is on the last Monday of May -- but the cartoon is set on New Year's Eve, when flag-waving and anthem-playing is not customary.) On the other hand, perhaps it's pointless to complain about an "unrealistic" caricature in a cartoon that features a robot-butler with laser beams!  ::  
But it's an excellent point you made that, if the cartoon had showed a destroyed Soviet city, that could *also* be seen as anti-US propaganda, blaming America for the attack. (Although I think it's implied in the original story and in the cartoon that the destruction was mutual and global, and thus blame is pointless because there's no one left to point fingers at, and also no one left with fingers to point!)

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## rockzmom

> The entire propaganda of the USSR had to instill into minds of the entire world a simple idea that if the nuclear war starts, it would inevitably mean the destruction of the entire humanity and possibly of the entire global ecosystem. (Which is possibly true.)

 I think this is the idea that my generation and my girl's generation has been raised with. I clearly remember the movie War Games. "The only winning move is not to play"

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## Crocodile

> I think this is the idea that my generation and my girl's generation has been raised with.

 Yup. So, no sane US officer would dare to start a nuclear war having that thought in mind. (And it was broadly assumed that the US was doing the same kind of screening and testing to ensure only the sane and psychologically stable officers were in command of the strategic weapons.) If the US would not be directly attacked, the US would most likely not intervene with a very quick war in Europe. So, the USSR had never really planned to INVADE the US. (The Red Dawn was never to happen!  ::  ) The US Army was never really thought as a primary opponent (except for the limited contingent in Europe). As far as I remember, the first and foremost "possible enemy" for the Soviet Army was the Bundeswehr as the most able military opponent.

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## Hanna

> I think this is the idea that my generation and my girl's generation has been raised with. I clearly remember the movie War Games. "The only winning move is not to play

   
I remember that too! It was a very good film. 
And when it comes to who was right or wrong in the cold war, I am glad that I was never forced to take sides and made to think that one of the sides were good and the other bad. Things were considereably less black and white back in those days. 
Some things were clearly more attractive about the USA, and some things about the USSR were admirable or nice too. And there were some very unattractive sides to both countries. 
Plus, seeing TV and films from both sides made a difference too, but towards the end of the cold war, there was definitely a dominance of American material. 
All through the 1990s there was a sort of ideological and power vacuum politically, where Communism had simply disappeared. Confusion for some, economic misery for some - a missionary fields, endless new markets and political allies for others.

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## Lampada

*Война во Вьетнаме. Танец со смертью.*Published on Aug 8, 2012 by* KiryhaS*   Документальный фильм о русских ракетчиках, воевавших во Вьетнаме. 
В фильме о войне рассказывают советские, американские и вьетнамские военные.

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## Marcus

Очень интересный фильм! Спасибо.

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## Юрка

> I can't remember hearing about anything as extreme as American "home-made" bomb shelters, and later, in the 80s the atmosphere was very much relaxed, despite occasional talk about WWIII or American nuclear threat. We studied what we should do during the nuclear strike at school, but no one took it very seriously. The possibility of actual nuclear war seemed very small.

 Согласен. Истерии у нас не было. Хотя я школьником иногда задумывался о том, что "прилететь может". Думаю, что отсуствие истерии у нас и присутствием её у них объясняется тем, что у них демократия, и распределение средств бюджета на военные нужды зависит от избранников народа, которые зависят от настроения этого самого народа. А у нас это зависело от верхушки. Поэтому пугать население нашим правителям не было нужды.

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