During Joseph Stalin’s long rule there weren’t many who managed not only to say no but to openly defy him, especially in the communist realm. Among those few who managed to stand their ground against “the man of steel” were Josip Broz Tito and Yugoslavia. For most of the world, the abrupt end of the Yugoslav-Soviet friendship was a shocking turn of events. Yet the question arises - was the event as important as some have claimed?
Introduction The New World envisioned by the Nazis collapsed with the defeat of the Axis in World War Two. Instead, a whole different world was about to be built with Communism as one of its pillars. As the war was ending, the red wave coming from the east was unstoppable, changing the political map of pre-war Europe along the way. The entire eastern part of the continent fell into the firm grip of Moscow, turning the countries in the region into de facto puppets of the Soviet Union.
Introduction The Cold War is often depicted as an era marked by a struggle for global dominance between two blocs led by the USSR and the US. Such representation is quite reasonable, yet it clouds our view on the past by focusing it on only a fraction of the historical horizon. There were more nations and states than just the two giants, many of which gained independence in their struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
Background In the early 20th century, the world found itself in a global conflict. World War I, or the Great War as it was known at the time, lasted from 1914 to 1918, pitching Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) versus the Entente/Allied Powers (Russia, France, Britain, and later the US), with a myriad of smaller allies on both sides. Without going into the question of reasons and causes of the war, many fighting at the time thought of it as a “war to end all wars”, a notion which proved to be too idealistic.
Introduction
As a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II, a novel confrontation began to emerge. It was much less volatile, earning the nickname “Cold War”. It was an ideological and political struggle between two major world powers – the Soviet Union representing communism and the United States heralding capitalism. This simmering hostility went on to define international politics for the rest of the 20th century. Yet this simplified portrait of the struggle between eastern and western blocs is rather misleading because as it depicts two alliances as unified monoliths. This wasn’t true in neither case, but it was substantially more prominent in the communist sphere where two larges countries came to the brink of an actual armed confrontation.
In May 1945 the war ended in Europe. The moment was welcomed with relief by millions on the old continent as years of death and despair came to an end. Still, the shadow of war still hung over Europe. Without Nazis on the scene, new hostilities were born. On the ruins of the European pre-war political system, Communism began to rise. Following the footsteps of the Red Army, communists seized the rule in the entire Eastern Europe. Only in Greece did the communists meet resistance. It was a prelude to the Greek Civil War - the first armed conflict in Europe after World War Two.
As World War II came to an end, both Europe and the world slowly started to divide between two major powers – the US in the west and the USSR in the east. Though in the immediate post-war years these two blocs tried to at least present themselves as friends, by the late 1940s it was clear that the two ideological camps entered a confrontation that was quickly dubbed the Cold War. It was painted as an ongoing struggle for world supremacy of two ideas – capitalism in the west and communism in the east.
