By the middle of the 20th century, two forces had formed in the world, the confrontation of which either intensified before the “rattling of arms”, then weakened until the international relations. "
The socialist countries were part of a single camp, which was in a state of cold war with a capitalist encirclement. They did not become an indestructible monolith with a uniform ideology. Too many differences in traditions and mentality were among the peoples whom they were going to lead with a strong hand into the communist future.
Post-war world
The Soviet Union, led by Stalin, emerged from World War II with incredible military power and international authority. The countries of Eastern Europe and the countries of Southeast Asia, liberated by the Soviet Army from the yoke of German fascism and militarism of Japan, saw in the USSR a real leader who knew the right path.
Often, the attitude towards Soviet soldiers was of an emotional nature, transferring a good attitude to the whole lifestyle that they personified. When, for example, Bulgaria and Sofia were liberated, people saw the power of the social system of the country, which defeated an incredibly formidable enemy.
Even during the war, Stalin supported the parties and national liberation movements that shared communist ideology. And after the victory, they became the leading political force of the states from which the socialist countries were soon formed. The coming to power of the communist leaders was facilitated by the presence of the Soviet armed forces, which carried out for some time the occupation regime in the liberated territories.
The spread of Soviet influence in other parts of the planet has always provoked fierce opposition. An example is Vietnam, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and others. The suppression of socialist movements was simply anti-communist in nature and the meaning of the struggle for the return of the colonies.
The new stage of development was personified by the Republic of Cuba - the first socialist state of the western hemisphere. The 1959 revolution had a romantic halo in the world, which did not prevent it from becoming the scene of the hottest clash between the two systems - the 1962 Caribbean crisis.
Section of Germany
The symbol of the post-war division of the world was the fate of the German people. By agreement between the leaders of the victorious anti-Hitler coalition, the territory of the former Third Reich was divided into two parts. The Federal Republic of Germany arose on that part of the country where the American, French and English troops entered. In the Soviet zone of occupation in 1949, the German Democratic Republic was formed. The former German capital - Berlin - was also divided into Western and Eastern parts.
The wall erected on the line of contact of the two new states in the once united city became a literal personification of the division of the world into the countries of the socialist camp and the rest of the world. Like the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany exactly 40 years later marked the end of the Cold War era.
Warsaw Pact
The beginning of the Cold War is Churchill’s speech in Fulton (03/05/1946), where he called on the United States and its allies to unite against the threat to the “free world” from the USSR. After some time, an organizational form for such an association appeared - NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). When the Federal Republic of Germany joined this military-political bloc in 1955, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Europe, which had appeared at that time, also came to the need to unite their military potential.
In 1955, an agreement was signed in Warsaw, which gave the name of the organization. Its participants were: the USSR, the GDR, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Albania. Albania later withdrew from the treaty due to ideological differences, in particular due to the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968).
The governing bodies of the organization were the Political Advisory Committee and the Joint Command of the Armed Forces. The Armed Forces of the USSR were the main force of the Warsaw Pact, therefore the posts of Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Forces and Chief of Staff were always held by senior officers of the Soviet Army. The USSR and the socialist countries have always declared the exclusively defensive purpose of their military alliance, but this did not stop the NATO countries from calling it the main threat to themselves.
These recriminations were the main justification for the arms race, the constant increase in military spending on both sides. All this continued until 1991, when the former socialist countries agreed to officially terminate the treaty.
The military opposition of two social structures had other forms. The socialist republic of Vietnam arose as a result of the victory of the communist forces in the long war, which became an almost open confrontation between the USA and the USSR.
Mutual Economic Assistance Council
The predecessor of the current European Union was the European Economic Community (EEC). It was she who was engaged in cooperation between the USA and Western Europe in the production and financial sphere. Countries with a social system based on the ideas of Marxism decided to create an alternative EEC structure for economic, scientific and technical cooperation. In 1949, the socialist countries established the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). Its convocation is also an attempt to oppose the American "Marshall Plan" - a plan to restore the European economy with the help of the United States.
The number of CMEA participants varied, in the mid-80s it was the largest: 10 permanent members (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Mongolia, Cuba, Vietnam), and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia participated only in some programs . Twelve countries of Asia, Africa and South America with socialist economies, such as Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, etc. sent their observers.
For a while, CMEA performed its functions, and the economies of the European countries of the socialist camp with the help of the USSR overcame the effects of wartime and began to gain momentum. But then the slowness of the public sector of industry and agriculture, the great dependence of the USSR economy on the world raw materials market, reduced the Council's profitability for its participants. Political changes, a sharp decline in the competitiveness of the economy and finances of the USSR led to curtailing cooperation within the CMEA framework, and in the summer of 1991 it was disbanded.
World Socialism System
At different times, the official ideologists of the CPSU worked out various formulations to designate countries of a related socio-political formation. Until the 50s, the name "country of people's democracy" was adopted. Later, party documents recognized the existence of 15 socialist countries.
The special path of Yugoslavia
The multinational state entity - the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - which existed in the Balkans from 1946 to 1992, was regarded by the communist social scientists as a social camp with large reservations. Tensions with communist theorists towards Yugoslavia came about after a quarrel between two leaders - Stalin and Josip Broz Tito.
One of the reasons for this conflict was called Bulgaria. Sofia, as conceived by the “leader of the peoples,” was to become the capital of one of the republics as part of a federal state common to Yugoslavia.But the Yugoslav leader refused to obey the Stalinist dictate. Subsequently, he began to declare his own path to socialism, different from Soviet. This was expressed in the weakening of state planning in the economy, in the freedom of movement of citizens in European countries, in the absence of an overwhelming ideology in culture and art. After the death of Stalin in 1953, the differences between the USSR and Yugoslavia lost their sharpness, but the originality of Balkan socialism remained.
The 1956 Uprising in Budapest
For the first time the arena of popular unrest, which were extinguished by Soviet tanks, became in 1953 the German Democratic Republic. More dramatic events occurred in another country of popular democracy.
Hungary during the Second World War fought on the side of Hitler and by decision of international organizations was obliged to pay indemnity. This influenced the economic situation in the country. With the support of the Soviet occupation forces, Hungary was led by people who copied the most negative aspects of the Stalinist model of leadership - personal dictatorship, forced collectivization in agriculture, suppression of dissent with the help of a huge army of state security agencies and informants.
Students and the intelligentsia started the protests, supporting Imre Nagy, another leader of the Communists, a supporter of democratization in the economy and public life. The conflict took to the streets when the Stalinists in the leadership of the ruling Hungarian Workers' Party turned to the USSR with a request for armed support during the removal of Nadia. Tanks were introduced when lynching on state security officers began.
The speech was suppressed with the active participation of the Soviet ambassador, the future head of the KGB, Yu. V. Andropov. More than 2.5 thousand people were killed by the rebels, Soviet troops lost 669 people killed, more than one and a half thousand were injured. Imre Nagy was detained, convicted and executed. The whole world was shown the determination of Soviet leaders to use force at the slightest threat to their political system.
Prague spring
The next notable conflict between proponents of reform and those inspired by the images of the Stalinist past occurred in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Selected by the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubcek was the representative of a new type of leaders. They did not question the correctness of the general path along which the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic moved, only the idea was expressed of the possibility of building "socialism with a human face."
This was enough to start military exercises of the Warsaw Pact troops near the eastern borders of Czechoslovakia, where almost all the socialist countries sent their troops. At the first signs of the reformers' resistance to the arrival of the leadership, who agreed with the CPSU line, the 300,000th contingent crossed the border. Resistance was largely non-violent and did not require the use of serious force methods. But the events in Prague had a great resonance among supporters of changes in the Soviet Union and the countries of socialism.
Different face of the cult of personality
The principle of democracy, the participation of the masses in the management of all aspects of society lies at the heart of the Marxist system of building the state. But history has shown that it was precisely the lack of responsibility of the authorities for their decisions that caused the negative phenomena in almost all social countries, this was one of the many reasons for the collapse of the communist regimes.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong - the attitude towards these personalities often assumed absurd features of deity worship. The Kim Dynasty, which has been ruled by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for 60 years, has clear analogies with the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, at least in terms of monuments. Brezhnev, Ceausescu, Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, etc.- for some reason, in the countries of socialism, the governing bodies became a source of stagnation, turned the electoral system of democracy into fiction, when for decades gray individuals of modest proportions remained on top.
Chinese version
This is one of the few countries that have remained committed to the socialist path of development to this day. The People's Republic of China for many adherents of the communist idea seems to be a powerful argument in disputes about the correctness of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism.
China's economy is growing at the fastest rate in the world. The food problem has long been resolved, cities are developing at an unprecedented speed, the unforgettable Olympics in Beijing have been held, and Chinese achievements in culture and sports are universally recognized. And all this happens in a country where the Communist Party of China has been ruling since 1947, and the Constitution of the PRC enshrines the provision on the democratic dictatorship of the people in the form of a socialist state.
Therefore, many indicate the Chinese version as the direction that should have been taken during the reform of the CPSU, during the restructuring of Soviet society, in this they see a possible way to save the Soviet Union from collapse. But even purely theoretical reasoning shows the complete failure of this version. The Chinese direction of the development of socialism was possible only in China.
Socialism and religion
Among the determining factors, the specifics of the Chinese communist movement are the main ones: huge human resources and an amazing mixture of religious traditions, where Confucianism plays the main role. This ancient teaching affirms the supremacy of traditions and rituals in the organization of life: a person should be content with his position, work hard, respecting the leader and teacher placed above him.
Marxist ideology combined with the dogmas of Confucianism gave a bizarre mixture. In it are the years of an unprecedented cult of Mao, when politics changed with wild zigzags, depending on the personal aspirations of the Great Helmsman. Metamorphoses of relations between China and the USSR are indicative - from songs about the Great Friendship to the armed conflict on Damansky Island.
It is difficult to imagine in another modern society the phenomenon of continuity in leadership, as declared by the CCP. The People’s Republic of China in its current form is the embodiment of Deng Xiaoping's ideas about building socialism with Chinese characteristics, implemented by the fourth generation of leaders. The essence of these postulates would lead into indignation the true zealots of communist dogma from the middle of the 20th century. They would not have found anything socialist in them. Free economic zones, the active presence of foreign capital, second in the world in the number of billionaires and public executions for corruption - these are the realities of socialism in Chinese.
The time of "velvet revolutions"
The beginning of Gorbachev's reforms in the USSR gave rise to changes in the political system of the socialist countries. Publicity, pluralism of opinions, economic freedom - these slogans were picked up in the countries of Eastern Europe and quickly led to a change in the social system in the former socialist countries. These processes, which led to the same result in different countries, had a lot of national characteristics.
In Poland, a change in social formation began earlier than others. It had the form of revolutionary actions by independent trade unions - the Solidarity association - with the active support of the Catholic Church, which is very authoritative in the country. The first free elections led to the defeat of the ruling Polish United Workers Party and made former trade union leader Lech Walesu the first president of Poland.
In the GDR, the main impetus for global change was the desire for the unity of the country.East Germany more quickly than others has joined the economic and political space of Western Europe, its population is more likely than other nations to feel not only the positive effect of the advent of modern times, but also the problems caused by this.
The name "velvet revolution" was born in Czechoslovakia. The demonstration of students and the creative intelligentsia that joined it gradually and without violence led to a change in the country's leadership, and subsequently to the division of the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The processes taking place in Bulgaria and Hungary were peaceful. The ruling communist parties, having lost active support from the USSR, did not begin to impede the free expression of the will of the radical layers of the population, and power passed to forces of a different political orientation.
Other were the events in Romania and Yugoslavia. The regime of Nicholas Ceausescu decided to use a well-developed state security system, the secretariat, for the struggle for power. Under obscure circumstances, violent suppression of public unrest was provoked, which led to the arrest, trial and execution of the Ceausescu couple.
The Yugoslav scenario was complicated by ethnic conflicts in the republics that were part of the federal state. The long civil war led to numerous casualties and the emergence of several new states on the map of Europe ...
There is no turning back in history
China, Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are positioned as socialist countries, the world system has long been a thing of the past. Some bitterly regret that time, others try to erase the memory of him, destroying the monuments and prohibiting any mention. Still others speak of the most rational - to go forward, using the unique experience that has befallen the peoples of the former socialist countries.
