Internet Resources
- 13 Photos of Powerful Communist Leaders and DictatorsCommunism as an ideology arose in the wake of the first Industrial Revolution when overworked, underpaid workers felt exploited and sought better representation in government. The Communist Manifesto, as laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, called for a classless society where each person would contribute according to ability and receive according to his or her needs.
- Gamal Abdel Nasser: BritannicaGamal Abdel Nasser, Arabic Jamāl ʿAbd al-Nāṣīr, (born January 15, 1918, Alexandria, Egypt—died September 28, 1970, Cairo), Egyptian army officer, prime minister (1954–56), and then president (1956–70) of Egypt who became a controversial leader of the Arab world, creating the short-lived United Arab Republic (1958–61), twice fighting wars with Israel (1956, 1967), and engaging in such inter-Arab policies as mediating the Jordanian civil war (1970).
- Nikita Khrushchev: HistoryNikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) led the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, serving as premier from 1958 to 1964.
- Reasons for the Cold War: Ideological DifferencesThe ideological schism that had developed since World War One was clear at the peace conferences of Yalta and Potsdam in 1945. The aim of the conferences was to help the allies decide what would happen to Europe, and in particular Germany, at the end of World War Two.
Archives & Primary Sources
- Revelations from the Russian ArchivesRelations between the Soviet Union and the United States were driven by a complex interplay of ideological, political, and economic factors, which led to shifts between cautious cooperation and often bitter superpower rivalry over the years. The distinct differences in the political systems of the two countries often prevented them from reaching a mutual understanding on key policy issues and even, as in the case of the Cuban missile crisis, brought them to the brink of war.
- Nikita Khrushchev Collection: Wilson CenterDocuments containing the thoughts and opinions of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The earliest document is from 1955 and the latest is from 1968. Most are from Russian archives, along with a few Bulgarian and Romanian documents. The collection includes comments on Stalin, the post-Stalin Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the 1956 uprisings in Poland and Hungary. The documents also broadly cover his opinions on various states, nations, the Soviet Union, and socialism.See also 1956 Polish and Hungarian Crisis and Post Stalin Succession Struggle. (Image: Khrushchev and Kennedy meet in Vienna, June 1961, Department of State Photograph from the JFK Library)
Streaming Media
- With Khrushchev, the Cultural ThawNikita Khrushchev emerged from the power struggles after Stalin's death with a daring denunciation of the dictator's cult of terror and personality. As you examine Khrushchev's liberalization of culture, you'll also explore its limits, including the continuation of anti-Semitism from the Stalin era, embraced under the guise of "anti-cosmopolitanism."
- A&E Classroom: Nikita Khrushchev/Fidel CastroNikita Khrushchev, born of peasant parents, ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist while preaching peaceful co-existence. Fidel Castro led the Cuban Revolution, and then became Prime Minister of Cuba, then President of the Council of Ministers. This episode of A&E Classroom examines how these two men joined forces and how their tenuous alliance was tested by the Cuban missile crisis. Distributed by A&E Television Networks. (45 minutes) Distributed by A&E Television Networks.
- Egypt's Modern Pharaohs: NasserFrom Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar Sadat, to Hosni Mubarak, “The Pharaohs of Modern Egypt” follows the path of the successive regimes in power, and reveals their common goal to carefully lay the basis of a solid independence, but which, on the other hand, led to the revolution on Tahrir Square in 2011. Between democracy and a military dictatorship, President Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to forge a tailor-made brand of socialism to eradicate deep inequality. But in order to do so, he did not hesitate to repress and gag the opposition, while crushing civil society and leading Egypt into the War of Attrition against Israel. His sudden death rendered his socialist vision obsolete, paving the way for his successor, President Anwar Sadat.
Perspectives
Ho Chi Minh
Although Ho Chi Minh's life helped shape the twentieth century, not until now has there been a major biography of this immensely important and elusive figure. This astonishing work of history by a world-renowned authority on Vietnam now fills this gap taking full advantage of much information and archives only recently declassified. engrossing and impeccably researched, this is a revelatory portrait of one of the most towering and mysterious figures of our time, a charismatic leader whose legacy continues to inspire and confound.
Khrushchev: The Man and His era
Remembered by many as the Soviet leader who banged his shoe at the United Nations, Nikita Khrushchev was in fact one of the most complex and important political figures of the twentieth century. Complicit in terrible Stalinist crimes, he managed to retain his humanity. His daring attempt to reform Communism--by denouncing Stalin and releasing and rehabilitating millions of his victims--prepared the ground for its eventual collapse. His awkward efforts to ease the Cold War triggered its most dangerous crises in Berlin and Cuba. The ruler of the Soviet Union during the first decade after Stalin''s death, Khrushchev left his contradictory stamp on his country and the world. More than that, his life and career hold up a mirror to the Soviet age as a whole: revolution, civil war, famine, collectivization, industrialization, terror, world war, cold war, Stalinism, post-Stalinism.
Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East, 1952-1977
A multi-archival documentary history of British policy towards Nasser's Egypt under the Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Home and Wilson governments. The primary focus of the study is an enquiry into the causes of the Anglo-Egyptian Cold War from 1952 to 1967.
The Real Fidel Castro
Rhetoric during and after the Cold War years has painted starkly contrasting portraits of Cuba's Fidel Castro: an unblemished idealist on the one hand, a ruthless dictator on the other. This book, an intimate and dispassionate biography of the revolutionary leader, shows that neither assessment is true. close to personal friendship with Castro as any foreigner was permitted. With frequent contact and regular conversations, Coltman was in a unique position to observe the dictator's personality in both public and private situations. Here he presents a close-up view of the man who for half a century has been loved, admired, feared, and hated, but seldom really understood. the political activism of his university days in Havana to periods of exile, imprisonment, and guerilla warfare alongside Che Guevara, to the uncertainties of his old age. Drawing on personal observation and archival sources in Cuba and abroad, Coltman explores the contradiction between the private character and the public reputation, and highlights the complexities of the consummate actor who continues to play a crucial role on the international stage.
Khrushchev in the Kremlin
This book presents a new picture of the politics, economics and process of government in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Based in large part on original research in recently declassified archive collections, the book examines the full complexity of government, including formal and informal political relationships; economic reforms and nationality relations in the national republics of the USSR; the treatment of political dissent; economic progress through technological innovation; relations with the Eastern bloc; corruption and deceit in the economy; and the reform of the railways and construction sectors. The booknbsp;re-evaluates the Khrushchev era as one which represented a significant departure from the Stalin years, introducing a number of policy changes that only came to fruition later, whilst still suffering from many of the limitations imposed by the Stalinist system. Unlike many other studies which consider the subject from the perspective of the Cold War and superpower relations, this book provides an overview of the internal development of the Soviet Union in this period, locating it in the broader context of Soviet history. This is the companion volume to the Jeremy Smith and Melanie Ilic'snbsp;previous edited collection, Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev (Routledge, 2009).
Ho Chi Minh: A Biography
Ho Chi Minh is one of the towering figures of the twentieth century, considered an icon and father of the nation by many Vietnamese. Pierre Brocheux's biography of Ho Chi Minh is a brilliant feat of historical engineering. In a concise and highly readable account, he negotiates the many twists and turns of Ho Chi Minh's life and his multiple identities, from impoverished beginnings as a communist revolutionary to his founding of the Indochina Communist Party and the League for the Independence of Vietnam and ultimately to his leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and his death in 1969. Biographical events are adroitly placed within the broader historical canvas of colonization, decolonization, communism war, and nation building. Brocheux's vivid and convincing portrait of Ho Chi Minh goes further than any previous biography in explaining both the myth and the man, as well as the times in which he was situated.
Red Heat
The Caribbean crises of the Cold War are revealed as never before in this riveting story of clashing ideologies, the rise of the politics of fear, the machinations of superpowers, and the brazen daring of the mavericks who took them on During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, the charismatic Fidel Castro, and his mysterious brother Raúl; from Argentina, the ideologue Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement and torture. Alex von Tunzelmann's brilliant narrative follows these five rivals and accomplices from the beginning of the Cold War to its end, each with a separate vision for his tropical paradise, and each in search of power and adventure as the United States and the USSR acted out the world's tensions in their island nations. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Red Heat is an intimate account of the strong-willed men who, armed with little but words and ruthlessness, took on the most powerful nations on earth.
Ho Chi Minh & Vietnam War
