Chapter 27: The Cold War World: Global Politics, Economic Recovery, and Cultural Change
Chapter Summary
Alexis de Tocqueville once remarked that, "There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. . . . Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world." He wrote that prophetic passage in 1835. More than one hundred years later, and following the devastation of the European heart and soul that was two world wars, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as two super powers, larger perhaps than any the world has ever known. Before the Second World War had even come to an end, these two great powers locked horns over the future shape of Europe and the world. When the battles had ended, a new war, a Cold War, burst upon the world scene. It was a war of words and ideologies, and spheres of influence and containment. Both sides had the bomb -- would anyone dare use it again? It seemed now that the only way world peace could be made reality was through the threat of nuclear holocaust.
The great Stalin died in March 1953. His political cronies bemoaned his loss but were perhaps breathing a sigh of relief at the same time. Power fell into the hands of Nikita Khrushchev. In 1956 he gave his famous "secret speech" in which he denounced the excesses of the Stalinist regime (of which he himself was a part). Khrushchev was careful, however, to admit that communism was here to stay. And why not? Ever since the war came to an end, Stalin had been busy building up his spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe, making satellite states loyal to Moscow in every way. Meanwhile, the United States aided the economic recovery of Europe with funds provided by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Germany was the hot spot and in an odd bit of geometrical planning, was divided into four zones of influence. Berlin was divided as well. It was a division that would last until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Europe would not forget thirty years of war. Nor would it forget the Depression, Hitler, or the Holocaust. Recovery was necessary and it came so quickly that historians still speak of the "economic miracle" of the 1950s. And all this in the midst of a Cold War. It seemed to most people that better days had finally come.
One of the distinctive features of the last fifty years is the quickened disintegration of Europe's empires. The British perhaps had the most to lose from their loss of empire, since their empire had been one of the most extensive before the Great War began in 1914. From the perspective of the West, the "post-colonial" period has meant that the populations of entire continents have regained some form of self-government. The process of decolonization was uneven -- some European nations simply withdrew from their colonies. Others demanded new constitutional arrangements. And in a third instance, the Western powers were drawn into complicated and violent struggles.
Meanwhile, George Orwell and Hannah Arendt cautioned everyone against totalitarianism, which came in a number of disguises. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus exited the war with a "dreaded freedom." How shall man know what to do in a world without God and without meaning? The only way out of "bad faith" was total commitment. Yet Europeans still needed to cope with the realities of war, atomic, weapons, and Nazi genocide. The responses ranged from repressing the past to mythologizing it. And still the Cold War raged on.
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