Note: The following content is part of my book called BLOOD BORDERS THE FUTURE MAP OF ASIA POST US CHINA COLD WAR - WHY CHINA WILL BE THE WINNER? It covers wide range of subjects related to the Soviet Union - U.S. cold war, War on terror and on going U.S. - China cold war. It is exclusively available on Amazon in almost every country. Click on this link to get your copy now and to get full access to this fascinating Book.
In the year 1870, a child was born in an ordinary Russian middle class family. He inherited political activism from his home environment. In fact, when he was just a teenager, his brother was hanged for his role in a failed assassination attempt against the Emperor of Russia, Alexander III who was also the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. It all happened during the Russian revolutionary struggle. Then that teenager joined a revolutionary socialist politics following his brother’s execution and never looked back until he formed one of the greatest empires of the last century, The Soviet Union and emerged as one of the greatest socialist leaders in history whom world known as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin.
The creation of Soviet Union began during the October revolution in 1917 under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. They thrown out Russian provincial government and created world’s first socialist states which until that time existed only in the books of German Philosopher Karl Marx. Many believed until Oct 1917 that the Karl Marx’s idea of creating a social state is good but it’s not practical. However, Lenin had other ideas, he made a serious attempt to show the world that the socialism is not only a practical “ideology” but it does provide solution for the political, Economic and social problems of the world. The power struggle between the centuries old Russian empire and the socialists continued and Russia witnessed a bloody civil war from 1917 to 1922. Those were the interesting times for the Russian empire, on one hand Russia was engaged in internal civil war and turmoil where socialists were trying to overthrow centuries old Russian empire to replace it with a socialist state of Soviet Union and on the other hand, Russians were facing furious security challenges on its borders and beyond as World War 1 had started already and Russians were part of the Allied Powers which included France, British Empire, United states and others against the Central powers which included Germany, Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary Empire and Bulgaria. Although Russian empire and allies emerged as the victorious forces but they faced heavy causalities and financial losses during World War -1. World War ended in 1918 just a year after the start of October revolution in Russia.
However, it is estimated that around 9 million soldiers and 5 million civilians were killed in that war and 23 million humans were wounded. So it was obvious that the troops of Russian empire were clearly tired and exhausted after fighting such a huge war and Russian empire’s treasuries were also affected significantly and Russian empire became weak as a result. This helped socialists since their enemy was tired militarily and financially. However, just when it appeared that the socialists were getting momentum, their Revolution which started in October 1917 was getting more and more public support; another massive event shocked the world. Just when it appeared that the World War 1 was slowing down which eventually ended in November 1918, same year massive pandemic broke out which was called as Spanish flu. This disease was much more powerful and deadly than the Covid 19 that world just saw almost 100 years after the Spanish flu, in fact Spanish flu is considered as the most deadly pandemic in the known human history. Around 100 million humans died because of this disease all over the world. Its first case was reported in Kansas, United States in March 1918. Russia was also among those countries that were severely affected by the pandemic. This further weakened Russian government and helped socialists as they were now resisting against much more weaker Russia as compared to what it was before the Spanish Flu and World War- 1. As a result, by 1922 socialists under Vladimir Lenin had emerged victorious and they formed the Soviet Union. Before I discuss further, I would like to make a point here that despite all these hurdles, soviets emerged as a victorious just because they had more powerful ideology as compared to their opponents, their ideology attracted the masses as a result their followers stuck to their mission despite the hardships of pandemic and World war, so it is the powerful ideologies which turn the tables rather than just a military strength.
After the formal creation of Soviet Union on 30th December 1922, its foundation was laid on the Lenin’s understandings or interpretation of Karl Marx’s theory of state. Lenin initially believed that the structure of governance of the state or the government itself had nothing to do with the nature of dictatorship or the proletariat. Lenin and his followers also believed that the Russia was basically going through the transitional period where it was moving from Capitalism to socialism and for them the socialism was actually an intermediate and temporary phase that would ultimately leads to the communism.
However, while Russia under the soviets rule was going through a socialism wave, just across its borders of Eastern Europe, world was witnessing the emergence of another form of Social, political and Economic system in many European countries and America known as the capitalism. So although Russians and Americans were allies in World War 1 and both had no historical security threats from each other until the formation of Soviet Union, both the countries had quietly started parting their ways due to fundamental differences in their social, political and Economic systems. Although Cold war started between these two massive powers US (which was representing Capitalism) and the Soviet Union (Which was representing Socialism) in 1947, just two years after the end of the World war II but actually it could have started much earlier than that since the fundamental Economic Political and Social differences between these two great powers and their desire to dominate the world with their respective ideologies had reached to peak until as early as 1930s.
However, another massive global event forced these two great powers to stay together as allies despite the differences and that massive global event was World War II which started in September 1939 and ended in September 1945, less than a month after the American nuclear strikes on Japan. It was the deadliest war in human history which killed 3% of global population. Human population was 2.3 billion in those days and of them 85 million humans died during that Great War which reshaped the global order. That global order is still intact to some extent, although it is now facing another serious challenge with the rise of new great forces such as China. U.S. and Soviet Union were in same bloc during the World War 1 and 2, other powers in that bloc were UK, France and Republic of China. The permanent members of the UN Security Council that you see today were basically part of that victorious alliance of World War 2. Although America’s European allies had won this war but they were devastated and their global influence shrank significantly due to WWII, which triggered the decolonization of Africa and Asia which as a result altered the global map and many new countries such as India, Pakistan, Gulf countries and others emerged on the face of the earth. Most of these countries were created on the basis of territorial nationalism or linguistic basis except two Countries, Israel and Pakistan which were created on the basis of religious ideologies.
At the end of World War II, those fundamental differences in the social, Economic and Political systems of US and Soviet Union surfaced again and a new unusual war started between these two allies of World War 1 and 2. However, since both the powers had nuclear weapons and both had enough potential to destroy each other completely, both the powers decided not to go one on one against each other instead, both of them started using their allies against each other to get maximum global influence and to create their own regional and global orders which is why this war was called as the Cold war. Exactly 6 years after the start of the cold war Joseph Stalin, a Senior Soviet leader who was leading that great power since the death of Lenin in 1924 also died. This was perhaps the turning point in the history of Soviet Union as many believed that the downfall of this great ideological empire began from this point of history.
Nikita Khurshchev, the Soviet leader who replaced Joseph Stalin proved to be the most controversial figure in the history of Soviet Union. On 25 February 1956, Khurshchev made a speech at 20th congress of the communist party of Soviet Union, his speech was full of criticism on deceased General Secretary Joseph Stalin and he argued that we the soviets have diverted from our original ideology under Stalin rule instead we have become the cult followers. So he started a process of de Stalinization where he started reversing almost all the policies of Joseph Stalin.
This created even bigger problems for the Soviet Union especially on external fronts. Other Communist countries such as China and North Korea who were the strong allies of the Soviet Union refused to support these new policies of Nikita Khurshchev. This speech of Nikita Khurshchev at the 20th congress of the communist party of Soviet Union was supposed to be the secret speech in front of the congress however, it was leaked to the west by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet also known as Shabak which is basically Israel’s internal security service but they received the copy of Khurshchev’s speech from a Journalist Wiktor Grajewski who was a polish Jew, Poland was basically regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet Sphere of influence in those days. Khurshchev faced severe criticism from the other leaders of Soviet union during that speech, many even shouted and laughed at him during his speech against the Stalin who was considered as the Hero and Genius among the Soviet leaders and common Soviet citizens. Khurshchev took a “U turn” at the critical junction of Soviet history when U.S. Soviet Union cold war was going towards its peak. Process of de Stalinization wasn’t easy and Khurshchev faced severe resistance within the country especially in Georgia which was the homeland of Stalin and Khurshchev used brutal force to silence those pro Stalin protestors. In fact Khurshchev went to that extent in his de Stalinization campaign that he started renaming many places bearing Stalin’s names including cities, buildings, roads, landmarks everything. Even the state anthem was also changed to remove the references of Stalin.
This content is the part of my book called BLOOD BORDERS THE FUTURE MAP OF ASIA POST US CHINA COLD WAR - WHY CHINA WILL BE THE WINNER? It covers wide range of subjects related to the Soviet Union - U.S. cold war, War on terror and on going U.S. - China cold war. It is exclusively available on Amazon in almost every country. Click on this link to get your copy now and to get full access to this fascinating Book.
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