https: //www.site/2018-04-06/zheleznyy_zanaves_kak_nasha_strana_otgorodilas_ot_mira_i_prevratilas_v_bolshoy_konclager

"Give permission to leave only in exceptional cases"

The Iron Curtain: how our country was fenced off from the world and turned into a large concentration camp

Victor Tolochko / RIA Novosti

The feeling that the world is approaching a new stage of the Cold War and the reincarnation of the Iron Curtain has become more pronounced over the past month. 20 days have passed since the British decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats in connection with the case of the poisoning of ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal. During this time, the United Kingdom has already supported 26 states, 122 employees of the diplomatic missions of the Russian Federation are to be sent home from their territory. The European Union and 9 other states recalled their ambassadors to Russia for consultations. In response, Russia announced the expulsion of 23 British and 60 US diplomats, as well as the closure of the US Consulate General in St. Petersburg, which had functioned since 1972. These are the numbers.

Crimea, a hybrid war in southeastern Ukraine, which killed 283 passengers and 15 crew members of the Malaysian Boeing-777 in 2014, a doping scandal with Russian athletes, Syria - it seems that all this was just a preamble.

Kremlin.ru

Repeating the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, we can admit that the international situation has indeed become even worse now than during the Cold War. The system that began to build back in 1986 by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik is collapsing. The system, which the first President of Russia Boris Yeltsin continued to develop and which Vladimir Putin tried to support at the beginning of his presidency. Russia, like the USSR a century before, is again being positioned as a country with a "poisonous", that is, a dangerous regime for those around it. A country that lives on its own on the other side of the fence, a country that is spoken to only when necessary. Znak.com invites you to remember how the “Iron Curtain” fell a century ago and how it turned out for the country.

"We will carry happiness and peace to working mankind on bayonets"

Contrary to popular belief, it was not Winston Churchill who introduced the term "Iron Curtain" into international use. Yes, giving his famous speech at Westminster College in Fulton on March 5, 1946, he uttered this phrase twice, trying, in his own words, “to describe the shadow that falls on the whole world in both the West and the East” “from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic ”. Another common misconception is that the copyright for the term "Iron Curtain" belongs to Joseph Goebbels. Although in February 1945 in the article "Das Jahr 2000" ("2000"), he did say that after the conquest of Germany, the USSR would fence off Eastern and Southeastern Europe from the rest of it.

Formally, H.G. Wells was the first. In 1904, he used the term "Iron Curtain" in the book Food of the Gods, describing the mechanism for limiting personal freedom. Then it was used in 1917 by Vasily Rozanov in the collection "Apocalypse of Our Time" dedicated to the theme of revolution. “The iron curtain falls over Russian history with a clang, creak, screech. The show was over. The audience stood up. It's time to put on fur coats and return home. They looked around. But there were no fur coats or houses, ”the philosopher stated.

However, the generally accepted meaning of the term was given in 1919 by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. “We want to put an iron curtain around Bolshevism that will prevent it from destroying civilized Europe,” Clemenceau said at the Paris Peace Conference, which drew an end to the First World War.

Two Russian revolutions of 1917, revolutions in Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1918, the formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, the uprising in Bulgaria, instability in the Ottoman Empire (ending with the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922 and the formation of the Turkish Republic), events in India, where led the anti-British campaign of civil disobedience by Mahatma Gandhi, the strengthening of the labor movement in Western Europe and America - Clemenceau seems to have reason to say this.

1919 year. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (left), 28th US President Woodrow Wilson (holding a bowler hat) and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (right) at a peace conference in Paris Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

On March 25, 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George wrote to him: “All Europe is saturated with the spirit of revolution. A deep feeling of not only discontent, but anger and resentment reigns in the work environment. "

Three weeks earlier, on March 4, 1919, the creation of the Third Communist International - the Comintern, was announced in Moscow, the main task of which was to organize and conduct an international proletarian revolution. On March 6, in his closing speech at the closing of the constituent congress of the Comintern, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) declared: “The victory of the proletarian revolution throughout the world is assured. The foundation of an international Soviet republic is coming. " “If today the center of the Third International is Moscow, then, we are deeply convinced of this, tomorrow this center will move to the west: to Berlin, Paris, London,” Leon Trotsky said next on the pages of Izvestia VTsIK. "For an international communist congress in Berlin or Paris will mean the complete triumph of the proletarian revolution in Europe, and, therefore, throughout the world."

Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

It was with this awareness of the existence that the Red Army crossed the Polish border in July 1920 (in response to the actions of the Poles who seized Kiev and the left bank of the Dnieper). “Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to a world conflagration. We will carry happiness and peace to working mankind on bayonets, ”read the order of the commander of the Western Front, Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

Did not happen. Polish "brothers in class" did not support the Red Army. In August 1920, an event occurred known as the "miracle on the Vistula" - the Reds were stopped, and they began to rapidly roll back. According to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus seceded to Poland. Soviet foreign policy took a course towards peaceful coexistence.

"You and we, Germany and the USSR, can dictate conditions to the whole world"

More precisely, Soviet Russia had to maneuver. For the brothers in the world communist movement, formally, everything remained the same - no one removed the task of fanning the fire of the world revolution. The country itself has begun to take distinct steps to recognize itself as a newborn in the international arena and to break out of global isolation.

Life pushed me to this. The village, robbed by surplus appropriation, erupted in 1920-1921 with the Antonov uprising, then the Kronstadt mutiny happened. Finally, the terrible famine of 1921-1922 with the epicenter in the Volga region and the death of about 5 million people. The country needed food and other goods of the first, second and so on necessity. After the fratricidal intoxication, restoration was required. Even the Bolsheviks, for whom Russia was primarily a bridgehead and at the same time a resource base, realized this.

An interesting detail: of the 5 million gold rubles that were raised from the sale of church valuables seized in accordance with the decrees of 1921-1922, only 1 million went to buy food for the hungry. The rest was spent on the needs of the future world revolution. But aid was provided by dozens of public and charitable organizations of the enemy bourgeois world: the American Aid Administration, the American Quaker Society, the Organization of European Aid to the Hungry to Russia and the International Committee for Aid Russia, organized by polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, the International Red Cross, the Vatican Mission, the Save the Children international alliance. Together, by the spring of 1922, they provided food for about 7.5 million starving Russians.

In 1921-1922, about 20 million Soviet citizens went hungry, of whom more than 5 million died. Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

It took about two years for the emerging Soviet diplomacy to solve the first task - to overcome isolation. The agreements signed in 1920 by the Soviet leadership with the limitrophes of Russia - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland - have not yet solved this problem. On the one hand, the Bolsheviks abandoned their claims to the former imperial territories, thereby ensuring the security of their northwestern borders by creating a buffer zone for relatively neutral newly formed states. On the other hand, all this fit perfectly into the declared Clemenceau concept of creating an "iron curtain around Bolshevism."

Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The ice began to break in 1922 at the Genoa and Hague conferences. The first coincided in time with the Soviet-German negotiations, which ended with the signing of the peace treaty in Rapallo on April 16, 1922. According to it, both post-imperial states recognized each other and established diplomatic relations. By 1924, the USSR signed trade agreements and, in general, established diplomatic relations with England, Austria, Afghanistan, Greece, Denmark, Italy, Iran, Mexico, Norway, Turkey, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Uruguay.

The situation, however, remained precarious for a long time. So, in May 1927, the British government announced the severance of diplomatic and trade relations with the USSR (relations were restored in 1929). The grounds for this were the British suspicions of council support for national liberation movements in the colonies of the United Kingdom, primarily in India, and also in China, which the British considered their sphere of interest.

By 1929, relations between the USSR and China itself had deteriorated. The anti-communist Chiang Kai-shek replaced the founder of the Kuomintang Party and the leader of the Second Chinese Revolution, Sun Yat-sen, who had maintained relations with the USSR and accepted the help of the Comintern, who died in 1925 of cancer. In 1928, he takes power into his own hands. Following in the summer of 1929, the Chinese unleashed a conflict over control of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which, according to the agreement of 1924, was under the joint control of China and the USSR. In November of the same year, Chinese troops made an attempt to invade the territory of the USSR in the region of Transbaikalia and Primorye.

Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Everything changed after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. On the one hand, it became important for Europe to prevent a possible link between Nazi Germany and the USSR. For her, in particular, the same Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who wrote at that time, spoke out: "You and we, Germany and the USSR, can dictate conditions to the whole world if we are together." His position was generally shared by the People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov. On the other hand, the USSR was quite suitable for the role of a powerful counterweight or even a lightning conductor in the east. Actually, anti-Hitler and anti-fascist, in a broad sense, rhetoric became the link that allowed for a while to strengthen relations with the West. Since mid-1936, Soviet "volunteers" (mostly military experts) fought against the fascists of General Francisco Franco in Spain. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Soviet fighters and bombers fought in the skies of China against the Japanese, who enjoyed the tacit support of Germany.

It all ended in August 1939 with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the secret protocol of which Germany and the USSR divided the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. This, however, was preceded by the Munich Agreement of 1938. Great Britain, represented by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and France, represented by Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, agreed to transfer the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany. And soon these countries signed treaties similar to the Soviet-German pact with the Third Reich on mutual non-aggression.

"It is impossible to lead the world labor movement from one center"

For the Comintern, the attitude to kindle the fire of the world revolution remained unchanged until the very dissolution. True, the very concept of how exactly this should be achieved has undergone several adjustments. In the summer of 1923, at the third congress of the Comintern, Lenin had to oppose the supporters of the "theory of the offensive." Lenin's theses were now based on the need to create the necessary prerequisites - a social base.

Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

Another important moment happened in August 1928. At the sixth congress of the Comintern, the class versus class principle was proclaimed. The organizers of the world revolution abandoned the principles of the united front and focused on fighting the Social Democrats as the main enemy. In 1932, this disunity led to the victory of the Nazis in Germany in the elections to the Reichstag: 32% voted for the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, 20% for the Social Democrats and 17% for the Communists. The votes for the Social Democrats and the Communists combined would have been 37%.

The dissolution of the Comintern, the "headquarters of the world revolution", was announced on May 15, 1943, simultaneously with the start of the Washington Conference of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who were expected to decide on the opening of a second front this year. On May 21 of the same year, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Joseph Stalin stated: “Experience has shown that both under Marx and under Lenin, and now it is impossible to lead the labor movement of all countries of the world from one international center. Especially now, in war conditions, when the Communist Parties in Germany, Italy and other countries have the task of overthrowing their governments and pursuing the tactics of defeatism, and the Communist Parties of the USSR, England and America and others, on the contrary, have the task of supporting their governments in every possible way to defeat the enemy as soon as possible. "

On this side of the Iron Curtain

With the formation of the "Iron Curtain", life in Russia itself became harder and harder. "Land and Freedom", the populists - all this is about the 19th century. Democracy ended between February and October 1917. It was replaced by the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Red Terror and War Communism. At the ninth congress of the RCP (b) in the spring of 1920, Trotsky insisted on the introduction of a "militia system", whose essence is "the all-round approach of the army to the production process." "Soldiers of Labor" - this is how the workers and peasants were now positioned. The peasants were given the right to receive passports only in 1974. Since 1935, they did not even have the right to leave their native collective farm. Such is the "serfdom 2.0". And this is in the most just and morally strong state in the world, as it was positioned by Soviet propaganda on the other side of the fence.

There was, however, a short attempt to release the reins in 1922-1928. The new economic policy, "state capitalism in the proletarian state", according to Lenin, was intended to help the Bolsheviks hold out until a new revolutionary upsurge in the world, settling in a country that was not yet ripe for socialism. But it just so happened that the years of the NEP became a prologue to the era of Stalinist totalitarianism.

Evgeny Zhirnykh / website

We will not describe in detail the tightening of the regime and the expansion of state terror after Stalin came to power. These facts are widely known: millions of people, including the Bolsheviks themselves, became victims of repression. The power of the leader became almost absolute, the state lived in an atmosphere of fear, freedom ended not only on the political, but also on the personal, intellectual, cultural level. The repression continued until Stalin's death in early March 1953. Almost all this time, the windows and doors through which one could escape from the USSR remained tightly packed and caulked.

Departure impossible

Only our parents and grandparents now remember how they traveled, or rather did not travel abroad during the Soviet era. Holidays in Turkey, Thailand, resorts in Europe, trips to the USA and Latin America - the older generation did not have all this. The “golden sands” of Bulgaria were, it seems, the ultimate dream and, despite the ideological closeness of the socialist camp, were available only to a select few.

None of us who are now traveling abroad even think to learn the rules of conduct outside the USSR that were obligatory a quarter of a century ago: Code of the builder of communism, conscientiously fulfill their official duties and assignments, be impeccable in their personal behavior, unswervingly defend the political, economic and other interests of the Soviet Union, strictly keep state secrets. "

Jaromir Romanov / website

It is hard to believe that in the USSR, not to mention tsarist Russia, it was not always so. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the country was not closed from the world. The procedure for issuing foreign passports and traveling abroad in the RSFSR was established in 1919. The issuance of passports from the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the provincial Councils of Deputies then passed to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID). The procedure for traveling abroad was again adjusted in 1922. By this time, the first foreign diplomatic missions began to appear in the young Soviet state. Foreign passports issued by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs now had to be issued with a visa. In addition, to the application for the execution of the document, it was now necessary to obtain the conclusion of the State Political Directorate of the NKVD "on the absence of a legal obstacle to leaving." But until the second half of the 1920s, the procedure for leaving and entering the USSR was rather liberal. They began to tighten the screws a little later - with the beginning of Stalin's industrialization and collectivization, when there was a significant increase in those wishing to leave the country.

Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

From November 9, 1926, a tax was introduced for the registration of passports. From workers (proletarians, peasants, office workers, as well as business travelers) - 200 rubles, from "living on unearned income" and "dependents" - 300 rubles. This is about one and a half of the average monthly earnings of a Soviet person in those years. An application for a visa cost 5 rubles, with a return visa - 10 rubles. Benefits were provided in exceptional cases and primarily to citizens of "labor categories" traveling abroad for medical treatment, meeting with relatives and emigration.

Kremlin.ru

In January 1928, the procedure for leaving USSR citizens abroad for study purposes was determined. Now it was allowed only if there was a conclusion of the People's Commissariat of Education on the desirability and expediency of such a trip. In July 1928, an order of the NKVD began to operate on the need to require, when issuing passports to persons traveling abroad, "a certificate from the financial authorities that they did not have tax arrears." These certificates were issued only to persons living in the area for at least three years. Those who lived for less than three years had to require a certificate from the authorities where they lived earlier. But the most important thing is that by a secret order from Moscow, the local authorities were henceforth deprived of the authority to issue permits to citizens to travel abroad. All only through the NKVD.

Historian Oleg Khlevnyuk on what happens to despotic regimes - on the example of Stalin

In 1929, they began to sharply reduce the rate of currency, which was allowed to be taken with you abroad. This rate now depended on the country of departure. For citizens of the USSR and foreigners traveling to the border countries of Europe, it was no more than 50 rubles, to other countries of Europe and border countries of Asia - 75 rubles. Family members, including dependent adult children, could claim only half of these amounts. In February 1932, the People's Commissariat of Finance once again cut the rates for receiving foreign currency. Persons traveling to the countries of Eastern Europe and Finland bordering the USSR were now allowed to purchase currency in the amount of 25 rubles, to other European and border Asian countries - 35 rubles, to the rest - 100 rubles.

How and for what the Urals were shot in 1937. To the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Repression

Everything was completely chopped off in 1931, when in the next Instruction on entry into and exit from the USSR the following norm was introduced: "Permits to travel abroad, for travel on private matters, are issued to Soviet citizens in exceptional cases." Exit visas soon came into use. The state, which deliberately closed the entire First Five-Year Plan of the way for its citizens to travel abroad, finally coped with this task. The Iron Curtain went down 60 years. The right to see life on the other side was left only to diplomats, seconded employees and the military. The country has turned into one big concentration camp. Stronger than others from the state with a "poisonous" regime, its own citizens suffered.

The era of closed doors ended on May 20, 1991, when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a new law "On the procedure for leaving the USSR and entering the USSR for citizens of the USSR." But is it over?

This expression is, of course, figurative, metaphorical. However, behind it are real historical events, fractured destinies, international tension for many decades.

The Iron Curtain: origins and essence

No matter how you relate today to what the Bolsheviks accomplished, the title of the book of the American journalist D. Reed, who happened to be in Moscow these days, is still relevant - "Ten days that shook the world." It is the world, not only Russia. From that moment on, the world seems to split into two opposing camps, into two irreconcilable systems - socialism and capitalism. And the chasm between them is not just deep - it continues to deepen further.

The Soviet writer Lev Nikulin was one of the first to use the expression "Iron Curtain" in one of his essays in 1930. During World War II, it was in the language of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who was in charge of propaganda and ideology in the Third Reich. However, the expression entered the broad political lexicon after it sounded in the speech of the British Prime Minister W. Churchill, which he delivered in 1946, while in the small provincial town of Fulton.

What is the "Iron Curtain" in the language of journalism? This is the conscious desire of the totalitarian state, which at that time was the Soviet Union, to separate itself from pernicious and harmful influences from the outside. Everything coming "from there" was declared hostile in spirit and therefore subject to speedy extirpation. What was the iron curtain fraught with for the Soviet citizens themselves? To many.

First, there are restrictions on movement. Only a lucky few managed to break out to the West, and that was mainly accompanied by secret agents of the special services dressed in civilian clothes. It was more realistic to get to "friendly socialist countries" - Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia - but after several trips, Soviet citizens were disappointed: much was similar and similar to a well-known reality, except that it was cheaper and of better quality. Secondly, the restrictions affected leisure activities.

Rallies and demonstrations on May 1 and November 7 - that is, in essence, what the decaying system could offer. Both the authorities and the citizens demonstrated mutual hypocrisy: they say, everything is wonderful, we have built developed socialism, now we are moving forward with leaps and bounds, towards the final victory of communism. But in reality, the system is hopelessly rotten, and all the convulsive attempts to revive it and breathe new life into it on the part of one of the last General Secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee - were deliberately hopeless.

Thirdly, Soviet citizens were extremely constrained in the choice of food and clothing. The last years of Soviet power were remembered for empty counters, gigantic queues for essential goods, and the introduction of a coupon system. The visible symbol of the "Iron Curtain" can be considered the Berlin Wall, which divided the previously unified country into the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. And only at the end of the 80s. the wall collapsed, Germany became united. And soon he creaked at the seams and went down in history and. "Evil Empire", as the then American President R. Reagan called it. After these global changes in the geopolitical map of the world, the world ceased to be bipolar, a field of confrontation between two superpowers.

• If you believe the notorious Wikipedia, then in the medieval theater there really was an iron curtain - without any quotes. Well, it means that the direct meaning of the word has gradually been replaced by a figurative one. And the blame for everything is politics and the conjuncture.

"Now they often say" unipolar world. "This expression is absurd, since the word" pole "in its meaning is inextricably linked with the number two, with the presence of the second pole."

S. Kara-Murza, political scientist.

The history of the Cold War is not only a history of rivalry between two ideologies, but also a history of rivalry between two economic systems, which in their essence were antipodes to each other. What is remarkable about this topic? It illuminates the beginning of what we will all witness in our lifetime.

What am I talking about?

Read between the lines. For he who has eyes, let him see ...

Background.

"The iron curtain - this expression was given life by a device that was used earlier in the theater - the iron curtain, which, in order to protect the auditorium from fire, was lowered onto the stage in the event of a fire on it. were used open fire - candles, oil lamps, etc. For the first time such an iron curtain began to be used in France - in the city of Lyon in the late 80s - early 90s XVIII century. "

Vadim Serov.

It is generally accepted that the well-known "iron curtain" descended on the country of the Soviets in the 1920s, roughly speaking, as soon as the USSR was created, they immediately covered it with a curtain, so that the mud would not fly from the west. I'm afraid to disappoint some, but this is not the case.

The country of the Soviets existed, developed and no self-isolation, and it did not have closeness, on the contrary, the Soviet government made every effort to eliminate this closeness. For this, famous writers, people of art and other figures from all over the world were invited to the USSR. The purpose of all this was to break the veil of lies that the West enveloped us, and to make it possible to assess what is happening in our country more or less truthfully.

In addition to writers and artists, ordinary people also came to the USSR: some of them were invited as specialists for a large salary, and some came on their own, for ideological reasons (people wanted to build the society of the future with their own hands). Naturally, after some time, returning to their homeland, they all brought with them a baggage of information about the country of the Soviets.

But the Western powers did not attach much importance to this, they no longer saw Russia as a serious enemy for the coming decades, although they did not stop their attempts to snatch an extra piece from us (the campaign of 14 states).

"Russia, which was a Western-style civilization - the least organized and the most shaky of the great powers, is now a modern civilization in extremis. ... History knows nothing like a collapse If this process continues for another year, the collapse will become final. Russia will turn into a country of peasants; cities will be empty and turn into ruins, railways will be overgrown with grass. With the disappearance of railways, the last remnants of central power will disappear. "

H.G. Wells, 1920

However, the shock rates of growth of the USSR frightened the West very much, showing them that they had miscalculated on our account, even taking into account the insertion of sticks into all our wheels and casters.

Then, from the sleeve was pulled the trump ace of the West - Adolf Hitler (you can read more about this in the article - "Shock USSR. Chronicles of Stakhanov") and a war of great scale was unleashed, hitherto unseen by mankind.

"If the Germans gain the upper hand, then we need to help the Russians, and if things turn out differently, then we need to help the Germans. And let them kill each other as much as possible."

G. Truman, " New York Times ", 1941

As they say (in the West) - "nothing personal, just business."

Bear trap.

"Who controls the money of the country is the absolute master of all industry and commerce."

James Abram Garfield, 20th President of the United States, 1881

In July 1944, in the midst of the war, the International Bretton Woods Conference was held in the United States (New Hampshire). The meaning of this conference was reduced to two main points: the dollar is the only currency that is now allowed to have gold content, all the other countries should refuse to provide gold for their currencies, introducing dollar security instead (buying a dollar to print their currency), and the second point - the dollar becomes the main settlement currency (all international trade should now be conducted only for dollars).

The USSR signs the enslaving Bretton Woods agreement, its ratification (approval) is scheduled for December 1945.

April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is assassinated. The reason for the murder was his friendly relations with the USSR and Stalin personally. This event shows once again that US presidents are just pawns in a big game.

"We were closest to equal cooperation when Roosevelt was in America and Stalin was here."

S.E. Kurginyan, political scientist.

Here are the words of Roosevelt:

"Under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Stalin, the Russian people have shown such an example of love for their homeland, firmness of spirit and self-sacrifice, which the world has not yet known. After the war, our country will always be happy to maintain good-neighborliness and sincere friendship with Russia, whose people, saving themselves, help salvation the whole world from the Nazi threat. "

Personal message to Stalin following the results Tehran Conference (took place: November 28 - December 1, 1943):
"I believe the conference was very successful and I am confident that it is a historic event that confirms our ability not only to wage war, but also to work for the future peace in full harmony."

“In simple terms, I got along well with Marshal Stalin. This man combines a huge, unyielding will and a healthy sense of humor; I think the soul and heart of Russia have their true representative in him. I believe that we will continue to get along well and with him, and with the entire Russian people. "

"Since the last meeting in Tehran, we have been working in really good cooperation with the Russians, and I think the Russians are quite friendly. They are not trying to swallow up all of Europe and the rest of the world."

The quotes speak for themselves.

Exactly 2 hours 24 minutes after the death of Roosevelt, his place is taken by the Vice President of the United States and an ardent anti-communist Harry Truman. Literally into Russian, "Truman" translates as "true man" =)), but this is a joke.

The first thing Truman does is prohibit any instructions from the previous Roosevelt administration.

"Enough, we are no longer interested in an alliance with the Russians, and therefore we may not fulfill the agreements with them. We will solve the problem of Japan without the help of the Russians."

From this moment on, any friendliness can be forgotten.

On the eve of the Potsdam Conference (held: July 17 - August 2, 1945), Truman receives an encrypted message: " The operation took place this morning. The diagnosis is still incomplete, but the results seem satisfactory and are already exceeding expectations.". It was the message about the successful test of the atomic bomb. And on July 21, US Secretary of War Stimson, who accompanied the conference Truman , receives photographs of the tests and shows them to the president.

And Truman goes on the offensive.

During the conference, he tries to hint to Stalin that the United States has atomic weapons.

Churchill describes the scene as follows: “We stood in twos and threes before we parted. I was perhaps five yards away and followed with keen interest this important conversation. I knew what the president was going to say. It was extremely important to know what impression this would make on Stalin ".

A little later Churchill would approach Truman: "How did everything go?" I asked. "He did not ask a single question," the president replied. ".

And on August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States makes two nuclear attacks on Japanese cities - on the city of Hiroshima (up to 166 thousand dead) and on the city of Nagasaki (up to 80 thousand dead).

"Military and civilians, men and women, old people and young people, were killed indiscriminately by atmospheric pressure and thermal radiation from the explosion ...

These bombs used by the Americans, in their brutality and terrifying effects, far exceed poison gases or any other weapons, the use of which is prohibited.

Japan protests against the US trampling on internationally recognized principles of warfare, violated both by the use of the atomic bomb and by previously used incendiary bombings, which killed the elderly, women and children, destroyed and burned Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, residential areas, etc. . d ..

They are now using this new bomb, which is far more destructive than any other weapon used until now. This is a new crime against humanity and civilization. "

According to an American report from 1946, there was no military necessity for the use of atomic bombs:

"Based on a detailed study of all the facts and after interviews with the surviving Japanese officials, according to this Study, definitely before December 31, 1945, and most likely November 1, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped. and the USSR would not have entered the war, and even if the invasion of the Japanese islands had not been planned and prepared. "

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans planned the subsequent atomic bombing of Japan, but later decided that it would be more expedient not to waste bombs as they were created, but to start accumulating them.

Stocks of nuclear weapons in the world.

On September 4, 1945, the US Joint Defense Planning Committee prepared Memorandum No. 329: " select about 20 of the most important targets suitable for strategic atomic bombing of the USSR and on the territory it controls". As the arsenal grew, the number of cities was planned to increase. By this time, the USSR did not have not only such weapons, but even a strategic bomber capable of long-range flights.

December 1945 came. The USSR refused to ratify the Bretton Woods agreement on the cut.

But atomic strikes against the USSR did not follow. Stalin weighed the pros and cons too well.
One of the important reasons for the failed attack was the Americans themselves, namely their supplies to us under Lend-Lease.

And since mid-1944, about 2,400 P-63 Kinkobra fighter-attack aircraft, the best American fighters at the end of the war, were delivered to the USSR, which were a modification of the aforementioned P-39. In the war with Germany, "Kinkobras" failed to participate, and in the war with Japan, practically the same.

Thus, it turned out that by the end of the war we were armed with a full set of the latest American fighters (I think good relations with Roosevelt played a role here), and all atomic bombs, at that time, were delivered using long-range aviation, vulnerable to fighters.

So it turns out that the Americans have protected us, from ourselves.

America had no opportunity infight us in a fair fighteven joining forces with Europe. By this time, the Soviet Union was too tough for them. So the West is beginning to build up its joint military power with all its might in order to bring it down on the USSR as soon as possible. The USSR, however, had only to strengthen its air defense and accelerate work on its atomic program.

The curtain falls.

"The most important thing is to choose the right enemy."

Joseph Goebbels.

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton (USA), divided the world into two poles: those who are with us and those who are with them, the so-called bipolar world. President Truman also attended the speech.

This speech was the official start of the Cold War.

“Neither effective prevention of war nor permanent expansion of the influence of the World Organization can be achieved without a fraternal alliance of the Anglophone peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and the British Empire and the United States.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended on the continent. On the other side of the curtain are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe - Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia. All of these famous cities and the population in their districts fell within the limits of what I call the Soviet sphere, all of them in one form or another subject not only to Soviet influence, but also to significant and increasing control of Moscow.

Almost all of these countries are run by police governments,<...>there is no true democracy in them. "

But Churchill was not the first to introduce the Iron Curtain to the Soviet Union. He borrowed this expression from an article by the Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of Germany, Joseph Goebbels:

“If the Germans put down their weapons, the Soviets will occupy, according to the Yalta Conference, all of eastern and southeastern Europe, along with most of the Reich. The Iron Curtain will fall over the entire gigantic territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which the peoples will be exterminated.
<...>

All that remains will be human raw materials, a dull roaming mass of millions of desperate, proletarianized working animals who will know about the rest of the world only what the Kremlin wants. "

This article was written by Goebbels on February 25, 1945, immediately after the Yalta Conference, at which the future fate of the world was decided.

With his article, Goebbels tried to bring seeds of discord into the ranks of the allies (anti-Hitler, naturally) and desperately beg the West for a last chance for salvation, in the face of imminent death: "Now Bolshevism stands on the Oder. Everything depends on the staunchness of the German soldiers. Will Bolshevism be pushed to the east or its fury will cover all of Europe."<...>Everything will be decided by us or not at all. That's all the alternatives. "

Goebbels' article had its effect, but only after the fall of Germany and the death of its ruling elite. It was then that Churchill took the words of Goebbels for his speech at Fulton.

"If Churchill had dug deeper, he would have known that the term" Iron Curtain "first came into use in Scandinavia, where workers in the early 1920s protested against the desire of their rulers to isolate them from" heretical ideas "coming from the East."

Valentin Falin, Dr. East. sciences.

We did not fight Hitler to transfer power to the Churchills.

Stalin immediately reacted to the Fulton speech:

“It should be noted that Mr. Churchill and his friends are strikingly reminiscent of Hitler and his friends in this respect. Hitler started the war by proclaiming a racial theory, declaring that only people who speak German represent a full-fledged nation.

Mr. Churchill also begins the cause of unleashing war with a racial theory, arguing that only the nations that speak English are full-fledged nations, called upon to decide the fate of the whole world.

German racial theory led Hitler and his friends to the conclusion that the Germans, as the only fully-fledged nation, should rule over other nations. The English racial theory leads Mr. Churchill and his friends to the conclusion that the nations that speak the English language, as the only full-fledged ones, should rule over the rest of the nations of the world.
<...>

In fact, Mr. Churchill and his friends in England and the United States are presenting to nations that do not speak English, something like an ultimatum: recognize our rule voluntarily, and then everything will be in order, otherwise war is inevitable. "

The parable of the good Samaritan.

The meaning of the Marshall plan was to provide financial assistance to the countries affected by the Second World War.

A gesture of goodwill, you say. Alas no, in America "only business". Each of the countries that received assistance had to sacrifice part of their sovereignty.

Truman's doctrine, however, contained specific measures against the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence and the spread of communist ideology (the "doctrine of containment" of socialism), as well as aimed at returning the USSR to its former borders (the "doctrine of rejection" of socialism).

The founder of the "doctrine of containment" is considered to be the American ambassador to Moscow (at that time). It was he who formulated and outlined in his telegram dated February 22, 1946, even before Churchill's speech in Fulton, all the main trends of the future Cold War. The telegram was called "long" as it contained about 8,000 words.

Here are some excerpts from the telegram:

You can read the full text of the telegram here (link) or at the end of the article, in the additional section. materials.

It was George Kennan who formulated the idea that the Soviet Union should be defeated without entering into direct military conflict with it. The stake here was placed on the depletion of the Soviet economy, because the economy of the West was much more powerful (why was it more powerful? Yes, because it developed while we were at war and ate our gold).

Thus, by the middle of 1947, two types of foreign policy orientation were finally formed on the world map: pro-Soviet and pro-American.

And on April 4, 1949, the countries that received economic assistance from the United States under the Marshall Plan signed the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO). So much for a two-move combination.

RDS-1.

A little about our bomber.

On August 3, 1947, three Tu-4 aircraft opened an air parade in Tushino, which was attended by foreign military representatives. At first, foreigners did not believe that Soviet planes were flying in the sky, because only the United States possessed such bombers, this was their latest development. But, no matter how much they wanted to admit it, the planes were Soviet. And the reason for the disbelief of foreigners was the similarity - the planes were exact copies of the American B-29 "Superfortress" (super fortress).

In 1949, the Tu-4 entered service and became the first Soviet aircraft to carry atomic weapons.

Thus, the position of the two forces in the world was relatively equalized. Now, with bare hands, it was no longer possible to take us.

“Truman started the Cold War. And he started it out of fear, from weakness, not from strength. And why? After the Second World War, capitalism as a system was badly shabby. It was discredited in the eyes of millions of people. It gave birth to the Great Depression. war He gave birth to fascism and gas chambers.

In this sense, the Soviet Union was a real alternative. And this happened against the background when Europe was in ruins.

The Greek communists are about to come to power.

The Italian communists in 1943 had 7 thousand people. In 45, they had 1.5 million people.

And so Truman and his entourage had a fear that Stalin would take advantage of the opportunities that opened before him. Moreover, there was a civil war in China, where the communists won. India continued to fight for independence. There were wars of liberation already in Indonesia and Vietnam, or were ready for it.

That is, the Soviet Union, as the Americans believed, could take advantage of this situation in order to create a real threat to American capitalism, the American way of life. The Soviet Union had to be stopped. That was the reason why the Americans started the Cold War. "

A.L. Adamashin, Russian diplomat.

The Soviet system was dangerous for the West not so much from an ideological point of view as from a methodological one. This mainly concerned the economic component.

"The principle of state policy (Soviet - author's note) was a constant, albeit modest, improvement in the welfare of the population. This was expressed, for example, in large and regular price reductions (13 times in 6 years; from 1946 to 1950 bread became three times cheaper, and meat 2.5 times.) It was then that specific stereotypes of mass consciousness enshrined in the state ideology arose: confidence in the future and the conviction that life can only get better.

The condition for this was the strengthening of the financial system of the state in close connection with planning. To preserve this system, the USSR took an important step: it refused to join the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and on March 1, 1950, it left the dollar zone altogether, transferring the determination of the ruble exchange rate to a gold basis. Large gold reserves were created in the USSR, the ruble was inconvertible, which made it possible to maintain very low domestic prices. "

In each country there is a certain amount of goods and services (commodity equivalent, TE), the amount of these goods and services is constantly growing or decreasing (depending on the situation in the country, but it certainly does not stand still) and there is a money supply, the purpose of which is to serve universal exchange equivalent (DE - cash equivalent). The money supply is always attached to goods and should approximately correspond to their quantity (that is, TE = DE). If there is more money than goods, this is called inflation ( TE< ДЭ = инфляция ); if there is less money than goods, then this is called deflation ( TE> DE = deflation).

But the Central Bank (in this particular case, I mean the Fed) constantly prints extra money, in other words creates inflation (TE< ДЭ ) и для того, чтобы уровнять соотношение "товар-деньги", цены на товары и услуги растут. Вот и вся математика.

What happened in Stalin's USSR?

And there everything was exactly the opposite: the number of goods was growing, while the Central Bank did not print money on the contrary, that is, it created deflation (TE> DE), and in order to equalize the "commodity-money" ratio, the prices of goods were reduced (i.e. the solvency of money grew).

"The essential features and requirements of the basic economic law of socialism could be formulated approximately as follows: ensuring maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the entire society through continuous growth and improvement of socialist production on the basis of higher technology. Consequently, instead of ensuring maximum profits, ensuring maximum satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of society; instead of the development of production with interruptions from rise to crisis and from crisis to rise, there is a continuous growth of production ... "

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States.

But why did the US choose such an illogical and highly volatile financial system? The answer is not difficult - "just business". The Fed is a private company, and the inflationary financial system is just a way of making a profit for this company.

"The main features and requirements of the basic economic law of modern capitalism could be formulated roughly as follows: ensuring maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of a given country ..."

And now I will explain what inflation is, since many do not understand the essence of this term.

For example: 10 people live in the country, each of them has 100 rubles (that is, there are 1000 rubles in total in the country's turnover), but here the Central Bank prints another 1000 rubles. And I have a question for you - how much money did these people have? Yes, they still have all the money, but their price (solvency) has been halved. In other words, the population of the country was simply robbed by 1000 rubles. This is the system of inflation - by producing extra money, the Central Bank is simply robbing its population. But here we again remember that the FRS is a private office, and therefore it turns out that it does not rob "its own population", but simply "the population" (and it does not matter which country). " Nothing personal, just business".

"Goods and services that could have been purchased for $ 1 in 1913 are now worth 21. Let's look at this in terms of the purchasing power of the dollar itself. It is now less than 0.05% of its 1913 value. that the government with its banking cartel, as a result of the incessant inflationary policy, stole from us 95 cents of every dollar. "

Ron Paul, American politician, 2009

With the death of Stalin, the practice of lowering prices in the USSR was discontinued. Khrushchev abolished the gold content of the ruble by converting Soviet currency, following the example of all countries, into dollar security.

“The success of the Soviet system as a form of power within the country has not yet been conclusively proven. It must be clearly demonstrated that it can withstand the decisive test of the successful transfer of power from one individual or group of people to another.

The death of Lenin was the first such transition, and its consequences had a devastating effect on the Soviet state for 15 years. After the death or resignation of Stalin, there will be a second transition. But even this will not be a decisive test. As a result of the recent territorial expansion, Soviet power within the country will experience a number of additional difficulties, which the tsarist regime had already subjected to severe trials once. Here we are convinced that never, since the end of the civil war, the Russian people were emotionally so far from the doctrines of the Communist Party as they are today.

In Russia, the party has become a gigantic and today successful apparatus of dictatorial rule, but has ceased to be a source of emotional inspiration. Thus, the inner strength and stability of the communist movement cannot yet be considered guaranteed. "

What was Stalin's genius? He understood that the ideological component needed to be constantly changed to meet the changing needs of the country, that is, to be flexible, but his followers did not understand this anymore, and that was what Kennan was talking about.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many thought that the United States emerged victorious in the Cold War, but the collapse of the USSR was not the end of the war, it was just the end of the battle. Today we can observe an information war - a new round, a new battle in one big war - a battle of empires ...

Video

Most of the people, one way or another, have heard about the concept of the "Iron Curtain". For some, the Iron Curtain is an expression that does not evoke much emotion or reflection. But numerous negative events are associated with this concept. In this article, we will consider its significance from a historical as well as a political point of view.

Winston Churchill: on the Iron Curtain

It is believed that the concept of the "Iron Curtain" was first mentioned in the early 1900s, but it took hold a little later. On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill made a speech that could be regarded as an outright provocation. To be more precise, a clear connection was created: Churchill - the "Iron Curtain" - the call for the Cold War.

I must say that this speech was indeed very bold, with advice on the work of the UN, with the proclamation of the United States of America as the greatest state in the world. Naturally, the "Iron Curtain" described difficult times for many countries, numerous people and the situation in the world as a whole. And yet, should Churchill be so open about the superiority of the United States, pushing the country to make mistakes that could aggravate its situation? So what is meant when the "Iron Curtain" is spoken of? Why did this expression cause massive panic and why is it so dangerous, this curtain?

Deteriorating relationships

The Iron Curtain is a term that denoted certain restrictions in the economic and political sense of different states. After World War II, all countries were as if divided into two halves. The "Iron Curtain" itself meant a ban on leaving the country, a struggle between countries for a position of supremacy, a struggle for armaments. In those days, the position of the USSR was very clearly indicated, which dictated its conditions to different states, and, of course, no one could like it. Someone peacefully bowed his head, while someone only incited Protestant politics, which only aggravated the position of their state. Everything that came from the West was considered bad and was immediately rejected or prohibited. A so-called list of "friendly countries" was created that could freely come to the territory of the USSR.

The first mention of the concept of "Iron Curtain"

The year that was credited with the creation of this value is 1920. Many believe that as soon as the Soviet Union was created, it was immediately protected from the rest of the world. The initial desire of the USSR was to develop both internal friendship and external friendship. The West believed that the USSR would soon collapse and therefore does not bear any strength among other states, does not constitute any competition or danger.

However, the USSR was gaining more and more growth rates, "stood on its feet" better and stronger, and this could not but agitate the West, which was not only not happy with such a Union, but also tried in every possible way to harm it. The consequences of this unrest on the part of the West were very great, and therefore a variety of measures began to be taken to collapse the USSR. What exactly began to happen and what were the outcomes that followed?

The origins of the Iron Curtain

The "Iron Curtain" did not exist in the USSR as such. On the contrary, the Soviet Union wanted to destroy the prevailing stereotypes. For this, various figures of art, science, and also medicine were invited and invited. These citizens were ready to offer high wages, good living conditions on the territory of the USSR.

None of the other states saw any real threat from the Soviet Union. However, the West was very scared when it saw the strength and power with which this Union was growing, despite all the problems that tried to destroy it. That is why the preconditions for the largest and most brutal war that is known to history to this day began. Adolf Hitler came out in the struggle for world supremacy and consolidation of the position of the "head", underestimating the possibilities of the Union of Republics. It was the most brutal and bloody war in the entire history of mankind, which people have never seen.

US provocations

Many will think that the "Iron Curtain" in the USSR did not depend at all on the Second World War, but this statement is erroneous. Even though a fierce battle was fought, the intrigues that were woven by the states had no end.

So, in 1944, the United States comes out with a provocative statement that the dollar is the only settlement currency, and in April 1945 Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States, is killed just because he was friendly to the USSR and Joseph Stalin himself. Just a couple of hours later, Harry Truman takes the place of US President, who in a harsh manner declares his unwillingness to resolve conflicts together with Russia. He says that, even in the current problem with Japan, he sees no point in helping the Soviet Union. There were many similar provocations during the war years, but the final result turned out to be exactly what it is.

Stalin's "Iron Curtain"

What is the policy of the "Iron Curtain" in the USSR? After the end of World War II, Stalin wanted all decisions about Germany to be made under his leadership, but the European communists could not accept this. They often tried to show independence in making politically important decisions. But Joseph Vissarionovich stopped such attempts and did not allow this to happen.

The leaders of Yugoslavia tried to create a Balkan Federation, but Stalin intervened here too, deciding to take the initiative into his own hands. Instead of submitting to the will of Joseph Vissarionovich, the Yugoslavs showed disobedience, and in 1949 the friendly relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia were terminated. By order of Stalin, all paths were cut off, West Berlin was cut off from the electrical supply, and food supplies to the territory of the rebels were cut off.

Parties' conflicts

The essence of Stalin's "iron curtain" was largely to subordinate the conquered territories to his influence. Meanwhile, the situation in the world was only getting worse. The occupying territories of France, England and the United States unified, and a month later the Eastern Republic was formed, over which Walter Ulbricht, appointed by Stalin, assumed the supremacy.

Relations on the Eastern side of the world also deteriorated. China and Korea started a civil war. Joseph Stalin feared this situation, since China had every chance of becoming an independent communist center. Only in 1949 diplomatic relations were formalized between the Soviet Union and communist China. For opponents of communist China, the Iron Curtain is not a reason to leave the UN. All negotiations on the part of the USSR were unsuccessful, and as a sign of discontent, the Soviet Union leaves all organs of the protesting side of China.

Warring Korea

It would seem that at this stage everything was over. But this only marked the beginning of a brutal war between North and South Korea. When the diplomats of the Soviet Union dealt with the problems of internal conflicts in China, and the "Iron Curtain" controlled this from the Soviet territories, America sent its troops to the lands of the warring parties in Korea. In turn, the Soviet leadership supported South Korea.

A fierce and bloody war broke out, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was captured. The internal war between the warring parties led to the fact that Korea was divided into two separate states. It was also an exact fact that one side adhered to the European path of development, while the other enlisted the support of the Soviet forces. However, the series of protests, conflicts and blockades did not stop there, but continued to spread throughout the world.

The "Iron Curtain" in Europe caused discontent on all sides. Only if the Soviet Union tried in every possible way to lower it, then the West only exacerbated the situation, creating more and more sophisticated conflicts. It is generally accepted that it was the USSR that created the borders and did not admit representatives of third-party states. However, in reality, this was far from the case.

The "Iron Curtain" means the isolation of the country in every sense, not only a political blockade, but also a cultural and informational one. The western part wanted to protect its territories and citizens from the influence of socialist development. In turn, the Soviet Union, too, could not ignore this behavior and applied its own methods to resolve this situation. After all, such political disputes have brought many problems to ordinary people. There were restrictions in products, goods for other use, as well as in travel outside the country.

"Russian diary"

In the post-war period, an attempt was made to show the real life of the country (the "Iron Curtain", beyond which ordinary people live). In 1947, a book was published with detailed descriptions, sketches and photographs of people living in the USSR. The book is called "Russian Diary", it was created under the authorship of the writer John Steinbeck and with photographs by Robert Capa. These two people came to the Soviet Union and tried to study the life of ordinary people: what they eat, what clothes they wear, how they meet their guests or how they lead their own life.

Attention was diverted from the official governing persons, the authors wanted to reveal precisely the life of ordinary citizens. The Russian Diary showed the true side of the Soviet people, who hated war, dreamed of peace, wished a good future for their children and were not supporters of world conflicts. The "Iron Curtain" hid this from the Western countries, and at times gave a false idea of ​​the Soviet Union and its inhabitants.

Destruction of the "iron curtain"

How long could this isolation process continue? How long could the Iron Curtain have existed? Sooner or later, it had to stop. The "Iron Curtain" in the USSR, whose years were marked by a difficult time for all people, began to weaken in the second half of the 1950s. At that time, marriages with foreigners began to be allowed.

Everyone was already tired of the Cold War, and therefore the next step towards weakening the "Iron Curtain" was the signing of a treaty that required the destruction of some missiles in both states. The USSR withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, and in the late 1980s the Berlin Wall fell. In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union takes place, and the "iron curtain" finally falls, revealing the country's borders. Of course, there were still many fears on both sides that there would be an influx of migrants on both sides of the open borders.

Opening the boundaries

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, not only positive changes, but also not very favorable ones began to take place. Of course, while the Soviet territories were closed from the rest of the world, it was impossible to travel abroad. And this was forbidden not only to those who wanted to relax abroad, but also to those who were considering the possibility of studying or working in the West. And even more so, it was forbidden to leave the state for the purpose of living in foreign territories.

Naturally, there were a number of small exceptions, but only for those individuals who enjoyed the confidence of the intelligence services. The "Iron Curtain" is a process that lasted for a fairly long period of time, and therefore the Soviet borders began to be opened not immediately, but gradually. What was the negative harm of such openness to the world? Everything is quite simple, the departure of Russian citizens and the arrival of foreigners provoked primarily the outflow and inflow of funds from the country. This, in turn, has shaken the economic situation.

Product pluses

There is no denying the positive consequences of being open to the world. The recent fall of the Iron Curtain opened up new opportunities for Russian citizens. Many foreign firms began to come and create new jobs with decent wages and new experience. Various goods and services that were previously in short supply began to appear on the Russian market. And now they were available even to people with a small income.

Also, scientific and medical specialists came to the country, who made their contribution to the development of relevant industries, shared their skills and unique experience, which was very necessary for the post-Soviet state. High-income people, who then accounted for about 10-20% of the total population of the country, received tremendous benefits from open borders. Now they could buy foreign goods and services that were of the highest quality, and the "Iron Curtain" did not even allow them to do this.

Nowadays

Those times have already passed, but they are very firmly entrenched in Russian history. Nevertheless, these events still haunt modern society. There is an opinion that historical events tend to repeat themselves. The policy of the "Iron Curtain" is being monitored in our time, only now it is clearly visible that an information war is going on. The events that are taking place in Russia and abroad cause fears among both heads of state and ordinary citizens, who most of all feel the conflict of states.

From the capitalist countries of the West.

The isolation policy was reciprocal. In the encyclopedia "Britannica" and Western journalism, the prevailing opinion is that the "curtain" was erected by the USSR in the course of its leadership's policy of self-isolation. In Soviet journalism, attention was drawn to the West's policy of isolating the USSR.

The term "Iron Curtain" was used in a propaganda sense even before Churchill by Georges Clemenceau (1919) and Joseph Goebbels (1945). As for the isolation of the Soviet state, it began back in 1917-1920. In 1917, the expression was first used by the Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov, who compared the events of the October Revolution with a theatrical performance, after which a bulky iron curtain fell over Russian history "with a clang, squeak". The beginning of the strengthening of the self-isolation of the Soviet government dates back to 1934-1939.

The Iron Curtain began to crumble towards the end of the 1980s due to the policy of openness and openness in the USSR and Eastern European countries (see European Picnic). The fall of the Iron Curtain was symbolized by the destruction of the Berlin Wall. The official date for the end of this period was January 1, 1993, when, in the post-Soviet era, the law “On the procedure for leaving the USSR” came into force, which actually canceled the approval of visas for those leaving the OVIR and allowed free travel abroad.

History

One of the first popularizers of the Iron Curtain theory was the German politician Joseph Goebbels. In his article "2000" ("Das Jahr 2000") in the newspaper "Das Reich (English) Russian"Of February 23, 1945, he expressed confidence that after the conquest of Germany, the USSR would fence off Eastern and Southeastern Europe from the rest of it with an" iron curtain ". It is also known that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich, Schwerin von Krosig, on May 2, 1945, announced the following on the radio: “Through the streets of the not yet occupied part of Germany, a stream of desperate and hungry people, pursued by fighter-bombers, tends to the west. They flee from indescribable terror. An iron curtain is approaching from the east, behind which ruin is taking place invisible to the world. " The expression "iron curtain" got its modern meaning thanks to Winston Churchill, who used it in his Fulton speech. At the same time, it is known that he used this expression as early as June 4, 1945 in a telegram to Harry Truman.

However, it existed before. Back in 1904, in Food of the Gods, H.G. Wells used the term "Iron Curtain" to describe "enforced privacy."

With regard to Russian history, in the book Apocalypse of Our Time (1917), the philosopher Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) wrote:

With a clang, creak, squeal, the iron curtain falls over Russian History
- The show is over.
The audience stood up.
- It's time to put on fur coats and return home.
They looked around.
But there were no fur coats or houses.

After World War II

The powerful forces behind Harry Truman proclaimed a policy of unbridled anti-communism and war hysteria. This affected everything, and in particular in the question of the repatriation of Soviet citizens. With a crash, the American Iron Curtain that fell, cut off our compatriots from their homeland, who were brought by an evil fate to West Germany.

In practice, the population of the country was deprived of the opportunity both to travel abroad without the authorization of the authorities, and to receive information from the outside world that was not sanctioned by the authorities (see Jamming of broadcasts). Any contact with foreigners had to be authorized by the authorities, even if the Soviet citizen just wanted to practice his knowledge of a foreign language. Marriage with a citizen of another country faced many obstacles and was often practically impracticable.

Individual attempts to overcome the "Iron Curtain" were reduced to "non-return" from an authorized trip abroad. Attempts to emigrate with the whole family were only possible to travel to Israel and then under a limited quota and after overcoming numerous obstacles (see Refusal) or if one of the spouses was a foreigner. Other reasons for emigration were not considered. In extreme cases, attempts to break out of the USSR border led to crimes (see Ovechkin family, Seizure of a bus with children in Ordzhonikidze on December 1, 1988, etc.)

Memory

see also

Notes (edit)

1. The philosophy of the "cold war" matured during the Second World War, or what is behind Churchill's Fulton speech // RIA Novosti Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Falin:

   It is somewhat strange that Churchill did not bother to find out the origin of the "Iron Curtain" cliché. Directly in front of the former prime minister, such a "curtain" was cut by Goebbels, who called on the Germans to resist the Russian invasion to death. Under the cover of the same "curtain" the Nazis tried in 1945 to put together a "saving front of civilizers" against the Russian hordes. And if Churchill had dug even deeper, he would have known that for the first time the term "Iron Curtain" came into use in Scandinavia, where workers in the early 1920s protested against the desire of their rulers to isolate them from "heretical ideas" coming from the East.

2. Iron Curtain // Britannica (eng.)
3. About the origin of the term "iron curtain" // Encyclopedic dictionary of winged words and expressions / Avt.-comp. V. Serov. - M .: Lokid-press, 2005.