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From Berlin to Bucharest, from Warsaw to Sofia, Soviet tanks crossed national borders across East Central Europe at the end of the Second World War. The arrival of the Red Army marked an important turn in history. Within only a few years, the often unpopular communist parties developed into political organizations with mass followings. They managed to seize power, eliminate political opposition to their rule, and purge the state apparatus of undesirable personnel.In Securing the Communist State, Liesbeth van de Grift provides a new understanding of these organizations using recently disclosed material from the communist archives in Berlin and Bucharest. She reveals how these communist parties gained control over the security apparatus after 1945 in East Central Europe from a transitional justice perspective, focusing on purges and personnel policies. This book shows that the personal break after 1945 was not as radical as is often thought.

The Polish crisis in the early 1980s provoked a great deal of reaction in the West. Not only governments, but social movements were also touched by the changes. This book analyzes Western European social reaction to the Independent Self-governing Trade Union Solidarnosc, Revealing how many unionists hesitated between détente and workers' rights, between Atlantic cold warriors and European cooperation. It provides new insights relevant to historians dealing with the Cold War, Labor, and European integration.

For half a century, the United States and the Soviet Union were in conflict. But how and where did the Cold War begin? This book attempts to answer this question.

In this book an international group of scholars examines China's acceptance and ultimate rejection of Soviet models and practices in economic, cultural, social, and other realms.

The essays of a dozen leading European and American Cold War historians analyze the 'Prague Spring' and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in light of new documentary evidence from the archives of two dozen countries and explain what happened behind the scenes. They also reassess the weak response of the United States and consider whether Washington might have given a 'green light,' if only inadvertently, to the Soviet Union prior to the invasion.

Through a reading of major publications, this book recreates a postwar mood sympathetic to radical social change, thus casting doubt on the standard view of the communists' rise to power. It also raises questions about the relationship between war and radical social change, the communist takeover of the region, and the role of intellectuals.

Through research and interviews Castle examines the causes and consequences of Poland's collapse as a communist state and explores how today's leaders confront some of the legacies of transition.

In the US, the Cold War is often remembered as a two-power struggle. The Eisenhower administration placed an extremely high priority on victory in the Third World. This book assesses the impact of the globalizing Cold War and the process of decolonization on the Eisenhower administration's foreign policy. It is intended for diplomatic historians.

The Polish crisis in the early 1980s provoked a great deal of reaction in the West. Not only governments, but social movements were also touched by the establishment of the Independent Trade Union Solidarnosc in the summer of 1980, the proclamation of martial law in December 1981, and Solidarnosc''s underground activity in the subsequent years. In many countries, campaigns were set up in order to spread information, raise funds, and provide the Polish opposition with humanitarian relief and technical assistance. Labor movements especially stepped into the limelight. A number of Western European unions were concerned about the new international tension following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the new hard-line policy of the US and saw Solidarnosc as a political instrument of clerical and neo-conservative cold warriors. This book analyzes reaction to Solidarnosc in nine Western European countries and within the international trade union confederations. It argues that Western solidarity with Solidarnosc was highly determined by its instrumental value within the national context. Trade unions openly sided with Solidarnosc when they had an interest in doing so, namely when Solidarnosc could strengthen their own program or position. But this book also reveals that reaction in allegedly reluctant countries was massive, albeit discreet, pragmatic, and humanitarian, rather than vocal, emotional, and political.

After World War II, 12 million Germans, 3 million Poles and Ukrainians, and tens of thousands of Hungarians were expelled from their homes and forced to migrate to their supposed countries of origin. This work gives an account of the turmoil caused by the migration during the nascent Cold War.

On August 20, 1968, tens of thousands of Soviet and East European ground and air forces moved into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country in an attempt to end the ''Prague Spring'' reforms and restore an orthodox Communist regime. The leader of the Soviet Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was initially reluctant to use military force and tried to pressure his counterpart in Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek, to crack down. But during the summer of 1968, after several months of careful deliberations, the Soviet Politburo finally decide that military force was the only option left. A large invading force of Soviet, Polish, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops received final orders to move into Czechoslovakia; within 24 hours they had established complete military control of Czechoslovakia, bringing an end to hopes for ''socialism with a human face.'' Dubcek and most of the other Czechoslovak reformers were temporarily restored to power, but their role from late August 1968 through April 1969 was to reverse many of the reforms that had been adopted. In April 1969, Dubchek was forced to step down for good, bringing a final end to the Prague Spring. Soviet leaders justified the invasion of Czechoslovakia by claiming that ''the fate of any socialist country is the common affair of all socialist countries'' and that the Soviet Union had both a ''right'' and a ''sacred duty'' to ''defend socialism'' in Czechoslovakia. The invasion caused some divisions within the Communist world, but overall the use of large-scale force proved remarkably successful in achieving Soviet goals. The United States and its NATO allies protested but refrained from direct military action and covert operations to counter the Soviet-led incursion into Czechoslovakia. The essays of a dozen leading European and American Cold War historians analyze this turning point in the Cold War in light of new documentary evidence from the archives of two dozen countries and explain what happened behind the scenes. They also reassess the weak response of the United States and consider whether Washington might have given a ''green light,'' if only inadvertently, to the Soviet Union prior to the invasion.

After Stalin''s death in March 1953, the Cold War changed almost overnight. The Soviet Union embarked on a course of reconciliation and greater openness. However, despite an end to the Korean War and progress on many other outstanding East-West questions, the Western world remained mistrustful of Soviet motives and policies and Soviet leaders remained suspicious of Western intentions. Less than a decade after Stalin''s death the Berlin Wall was erected and the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to nuclear annihilation. Was this development unavoidable? Was an opportunity missed to overcome and terminate the Cold War? Was there a possibility for the creation of a more stable, less threatening, and less costly world in both human and material terms? It is only now, after the end of the Cold War and based on recently declassified western documents and revelations from once-closed archives in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China, that new light can be shed on the nature of international Cold War policies in the years after Stalin''s death. The essays in this book offer a historical understanding of this crucial period of the Cold War, assessing both the possibilities for change and the obstacles to détente. The book draws on the collective talents of an international group of scholars with a wide range of historical, geographical, and linguistic expertise. All of the essays are based on original research, many of them drawing from previously inaccessible archival documents from both the East and West. This book should be read by everyone interested in the final stage of the defining conflict that was the Cold War.Contributions by: Csaba Békés, Günter Bischof, Jeffrey Brooks, Ira Chernus, Jerald A. Combs, Lloyd Gardner, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Hope M. Harrison, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Mark Kramer, Klaus Larres, Vojtech Mastny, Kenneth Osgood, Kathryn C. Statler, and Qiang Zhai

Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain, edited by Mark Kramer and Vit Smetana, consists of cutting-edge essays by distinguished experts who discuss the Cold War in Europe from beginning to end, with a particular focus on the countries that were behind the iron curtain.

At the beginning of June 1961, the tensions of the Cold War were supposed to abate as both sides sought a resolution. The two most important men in the world, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, met for a summit in Vienna. Yet the high hopes were disappointed. Within months the Cold War had become very hot: Khrushchev built the Berlin Wall and a year later he sent missiles to Cuba to threaten the United States directly. Despite the fact that the Vienna Summit yielded barely any tangible results, it did lead to some very important developments. In The Vienna Summit and Its Importance in International History international experts use new Russian and Western sources to analyze what really happened during this critical time and why the parties had a close shave with catastrophe.

In The Legacy of the Cold War Vojtech Mastny and Zhu Liqun bring together scholars to examine the worldwide effects of the Cold War on international security. Focusing on regions where the Cold War made the most enduring impact¿the Euro-Atlantic area and East Asiähistorians, political scientists, and international relations scholars explore alliances and other security measures during the Cold War and how they carry over into the twenty-first century.

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the East-West occupation of Austria from the end of World War II to the signing of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955. Examining US, Soviet, British, French, and Austrian sources, the authors trace the complex negotiation process that led to the signing of the treaty.

On February 25, 1956, Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev delivered the so-called ';secret speech' in the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU in which he denounced Stalin's transgressions and the cult of personality around the deceased dictator. Replete with sharp criticism of the Terror of the late 1930s, the unpreparedness of the USSR for the Nazi invasion, numerous wartime blunders, and the deportation of various nationalities, the speech reverberated throughout the subordinate Soviet republics. For republics such as Azerbaijan, the speech was an unmistakable signal to readjust the entire political orientation and figure out ways to redefine governance in post-Stalin era. Previously frozen under the mortal threat of Stalinist persecution, various forms of national self-expression began to experience rapid revival under the Khrushchev thaw. Encouraged by the winds of change at the Center, the Azeris cautiously began to reclaim possession of their administrative domain. Among other local initiatives, the declaration of the Azerbaijani language as the official language was one step that stood out in its audacity, for it was not pre-arranged with the Kremlin and defied the modus operandi of the Soviet leadership. Somewhat reformist in his intentions yet ignorant of the non-Slavic peripheries, Mr. Khrushchev had not foreseen the scenarios that would unfold as a result of its new tone and the developments that would come to be interpreted as the rise of nationalism in the republics. Jamil Hasanli's research on 1950s' Azerbaijan sheds light on this watershed period in Soviet history while also furnishing the reader with a greater understanding of the root causes of the dissolution of the USSR.

Drawing on recently declassified Soviet archival sources, this book sheds new light on how the division of Europe came about in the aftermath of World War II. The book contravenes the notion that a neutral zone of states, including Germany, could have been set up between East and West. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was determined to preserve control over its own sphere of German territory. By tracing Stalins attitude toward neutrality in international politics, the book provides important insights into the origins of the Cold War.