Reconstructing the Cold War : the early years, 1945 - 1958 / Ted Hopf.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hopf, Ted, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity.

Social change.

Soviet Union--Foreign relations--1945-1991.

Soviet Union.

International relations.

Cold War.

Social change--Soviet Union.

Group identity--Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

ix, 305 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Soviet foreign relations in the early years of the Cold War seem like a mess of inexplicable, incoherent policy outcomes, but as Ted Hopf argues, Soviet identity is in fact the key to understanding them. During Stalin's era, any deviations from the idealized version of the New Soviet Man were understood as threatening the very survival of the Soviet project. But the discourse of danger did not go unchallenged. Even under Stalin, Soviet society understood a socialist Soviet Union as a more secure, diverse, and socially democratic place. This discourse of difference, with its broader conception of what the socialist project meant, and who could contribute to it, was empowered by the post-Stalin Soviet leadership. It allowed for the de-Stalinization of Eastern Europe, with the consequent revolts in Poland and Hungary, rapprochement with Yugoslavia, and initial warming of relations with China. But it also sowed the seeds of the split with China, as the latter moved in the Stalinist direction that Moscow had just rejected. And, contrary to conventional and scholarly wisdom, a moderation of authoritarianism at home did not lead to a moderation of Soviet foreign policy abroad, but to the opening of an entirely new, and bloody, front in the decolonizing world. Book jacket.

Contents:

Stalinism after the war: a discourse of danger, 1945-53

Stalin's foreign policy: the discourse of danger abroad, 1945-53

The thaw at home, 1953-58

The thaw abroad, 1953-58.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-289) and index.

ISBN:

9780199858484

0199858489

OCLC:

762768456