Before the start of World War II, only a few countries were friendly with respect to the Soviet Union. The USSR was generally sympathized, as a rule, by supporters of political forces that were in opposition to their governments. However, the events of World War II changed the situation.

“The colossal contribution of the USSR to the defeat of German Nazism and Japanese militarism sharply raised the popularity of both the Soviet Union and socialist ideas in the world. In Eastern Europe, leftist parties began to come to power en masse. The United States managed to maintain control over Western Europe, where communism also grew in popularity, with great difficulty. The emergence of a belt from the allied states allowed Joseph Stalin to create a real shield protecting the state from potential aggression, ”the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the Russian University of Economics named in an interview with RT. Plekhanova Andrey Koshkin.

According to him, all this caused concern and irritation in the political leadership of the United States and Great Britain. In Washington and London, they feared that the local labor movement would intensify, as well as the growth of the national liberation forces in the colonies and dependent countries.

  • Winston Churchill's Fulton Speech, 1946
  • © Westminster College

On March 5, 1946, the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech in the American Fulton, putting forward the idea of ​​creating a Western alliance to fight "world communism led by Soviet Russia." These words are considered the starting point of the Cold War.

“Initially, the United States and Great Britain planned to put an end to the growth of Soviet influence radically. Plans were being developed for the destruction of the USSR by massive nuclear strikes, but the scientific and technological successes of Moscow put an end to these monstrous fantasies. The Soviet Union acquired its own nuclear weapons, and it became impossible to bomb them with impunity. The confrontation began to become protracted, ”said Koshkin.

In March 1947, US President Harry Truman outlined Washington's new foreign policy doctrine, which included military-political and economic assistance to anti-communist forces, interference in the affairs of sovereign states and the creation of a network of military bases.

In early April 1948, a plan put forward by the US Secretary of State George Marshall came into force in the United States, involving the provision of loans to 17 countries of Western Europe, which agreed to exclude left-wing forces from government coalitions.

A year later, on April 4, 1949, the United States, Canada, and ten European states signed the North Atlantic Treaty, which resulted in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Given the clearly anti-Soviet nature of the new association, on May 14, 1955, the USSR and the socialist states of Eastern Europe signed the Warsaw Pact.

In parallel, in the colonies and in countries that were politically dependent on Western states, national liberation movements sharply intensified. Somewhere they appeared in the form of boycotts and demonstrations, but in some cases led to military conflicts. The situation in Asia turned out to be especially difficult for the West, where local left-wing partisans took an active part in the struggle against Japanese occupation. Having gained actual independence, they did not want to return to the rule of the metropolis or political forces, which they considered bourgeois.

  • US bomber in the sky over Saigon (Vietnam)
  • AFP

The communist regime was established in China, a failed war ended with US efforts to establish a government controlled by itself in Vietnam, many years of civil conflict began in Africa and Latin America. The US military committed crimes and supported radical paramilitary groups, but this did not always bring the desired result. The socialist camp expanded and worked productively with representatives of the Non-Aligned Movement founded in 1961.

In 1961-1962, an escalation occurred in the Cold War. In 1961, the leadership of the German Democratic Republic decided to erect a wall around West Berlin, which is under the occupation of the United States, Britain and France. In addition, in response to the deployment of American nuclear missiles in the Mediterranean countries, the USSR agreed to send Soviet weapons to Cuba. In the fall of 1962, events known as the Caribbean Crisis took place. US authorities were ready to strike at Soviet forces in Cuba, but thanks to diplomatic negotiations, Moscow and Washington managed to defuse the situation.

Since 1968, the USSR pursued a foreign policy known in the West as the "Brezhnev Doctrine."

“When internal and external forces hostile to socialism try to turn the development of a socialist country in the direction of restoring the capitalist system, when there is a threat to the cause of socialism in this country, a threat to the security of the socialist community as a whole, this already becomes not only a problem for the people of this country, but also a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries, ”said the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee at the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers Party.

In fact, the Soviet leader then promised all socialist regimes direct military-political support. Against this background, negotiations were held between the states of the western and eastern blocs on recognition of borders and arms limitation. On August 12, 1970, the Moscow Treaty between the USSR and the FRG was signed, fixing the inviolability of borders in Europe. On May 22-30, 1972, the United States President Richard Nixon made an official visit for the first time. The result of this trip was the signing of agreements on the limitation of missile defense systems (ABM treaty) and strategic weapons (OSV-1). However, on December 20, 1974, the US Congress adopted the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which introduced foreign economic restrictions against the USSR.

End of the cold war

The international situation began to change only after the post of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in 1985 was taken by Mikhail Gorbachev. He began to pursue a policy that went down in history as “perestroika”. The USSR began to abandon the strong support of its allies, contacts with the United States and other NATO member countries intensified.

Between 1985 and 1989, three meetings were held with the participation of Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan, and in 1987, an American leader in absentia urged his Soviet counterpart to “demolish” the Berlin Wall.

In January 1989, George W. Bush became the owner of the White House, and until May there was a pause in Soviet-American relations. According to experts, the president tried to develop a new strategy for the USSR. US Secretary of State James Baker visited Moscow in May. And in the summer, Bush suggested that Gorbachev hold a personal meeting, the place for which Malta was chosen.

  • George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, December 2, 1989
  • globallookpress.com
  • © Consolidated News Photos

“Although the Maltese summit is often called the final point in the Cold War, I would rather say that the end of this geopolitical confrontation was not him, but the events against which he took place - a change of power in Eastern European states,” he said in an interview with RT, the head of the Center for Military-Political Studies of the ISK RAS Vladimir Batyuk

On November 9, 1989, the GDR leadership was forced to open free communication with West Berlin, and a week later the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia began.

In early December, Malta hosted a series of meetings between Mikhail Gorbachev and George W. Bush. in Malta. Initially, they were supposed to take place on warships, but due to stormy weather, the negotiations were transferred to a more stable Soviet cruise ship, Maxim Gorky.

Bush praised the policy of perestroika and said that the attitude towards the Soviet Union was changing in the United States. Mikhail Gorbachev, in turn, promised Bush not to intervene in Eastern European affairs and proposed by mid-1990 to resolve the main differences over the START treaty.

“The USA and the USSR are doomed to dialogue and cooperation. There is no other way. But it is necessary to get rid of the look at each other, as enemies. While it sits in our brains. And you can’t look at our relations only in a military spirit, ”Mikhail Gorbachev turned to Bush.

The American leader supported him by shaking his hand. He also promised to provide economic assistance to the USSR.

  • George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev at a joint press conference in Malta, December 3, 1989
  • © Yuri Somov / RIA News

At the end of the Malta Summit, its participants gave the first joint press conference.

“The world leaves one era and enters a new one. Threats of violent acts, distrust, psychological and ideological struggle - everything should sink into eternity. I assured President Bush that I would never start a war against the United States, ”Gorbachev publicly stated.

“We can realize the idea of ​​lasting peace between East and West. In Malta, I and Chairman Gorbachev laid the foundation for such a future, ”Bush said.

However, as experts say, everything did not work out as planned.

“Negotiations continued in 1990. In a discussion of German unification, a number of Western leaders guaranteed Moscow that NATO would not expand east. However, these promises, as we know, were broken very soon, jeopardizing the security of Russia, ”said Andrei Koshkin.

According to Vladimir Batyuk, in 1989-1990. it became obvious that the policy pursued by the Gorbachev team was at an impasse.

“They tried to cover up internal political and economic problems with foreign policy successes. However, it turned out badly. As a result of the Malta meeting, there was nowhere to retreat further; all possible and impossible concessions were made. The Americans openly "taught us the mind", this was the end of the superpower of the USSR, "the expert emphasized.

According to the director of the Franklin Roosevelt Foundation for the Study of the United States at Moscow State University, Yuri Rogulev, no official fateful documents were signed at the Malta Summit: "In fact, this was one of the stages of the end of the Cold War, which, however, was of great symbolic significance."

In turn, an expert at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Blokhin believes that the end of the Cold War was a peculiar moment of triumph for the United States.

“The USSR collapsed, in the USA they started talking about the“ end of history ”and the expansion of Pax Americana. Washington believed that a new era was beginning, ”he said.

However, according to the expert, at that moment the Americans made a strategic miscalculation.

“At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the representatives of its elite were ready to accept peace on the terms of the United States, but relying on more or less equal cooperation. However, Washington decided to “punish” Russia for the past, aggressively expanding NATO and organizing a violent change of power in neighboring countries. They made it clear to Moscow that there would be no equal cooperation, and this made her wake up, ”summed up Blokhin.