Drugs

Drugs

Apart from the possibility that the excessive utilisation of for sure drugs tin brand the user paranoid, illicit drugs conduct hold been at the pump of a number of conspiracy theories over the yesteryear century. One cluster of conspiracy theories surrounds the utilisation of opiates, together with some other focuses on marijuana.

Opiates

Opiates—opium, morphine, together with heroin—have figured largely inward drug conspiracies. One of the earliest conspiracy theories surrounding opiates inward the U.S. concerned Chinese immigrants on the West Coast. When Chinese immigrants began arriving inward the U.S. to a greater extent than or less 1870, their habit of smoking opium drew condemnation.

Chinese laborers, derogatorily called “coolies,” were essential to the completion of the showtime transcontinental railroad, but when economical depression beset the reason inward the belatedly nineteenth century, white fears of task competition, combined amongst Chinese opium smoking, led to repression of the Chinese population.


Nativism, xenophobia, together with the conviction that opium smoking posed a threat to U.S. club helped Pb to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigration to the United States. Other repression came inward the shape of local together with province laws that targeted Chinese Americans, equally good equally harassment yesteryear native-born whites, especially on the West Coast. In 1875 a San Francisco City ordinance banned opium smoking.

Stories of Chinese immigrants who lured white females into prostitution, along amongst media depictions of the Chinese equally depraved together with unclean, bolstered the enactment of anti-opium laws inward xi states betwixt 1877 together with 1900. On the federal level, inward 1909 President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Opium Exclusion Act, which forbade the importation of smoking opium.

Although no fully formed conspiracy theory emerged amidst anti-opium advocates, yesteryear the plow of the century the association betwixt Chinese immigrants, opium, together with societal decay illustrated the widespread belief that opium smoking (or the consumption of whatever psychoactive centre for nonmedical purposes) threatened to erode the Anglo-Saxon race’s might to propagate itself. Put some other way, during the Social Darwinist–infused days of the belatedly nineteenth together with early on twentieth centuries, drug addiction amidst white Americans was idea to termination inward racial suicide.

More delineated conspiracy theories concerning opiates materialized during together with afterward World War II. Propagating numerous drug conspiracies was Harry J. Anslinger, who served equally commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) from 1930 to 1962. Anslinger had an imposing physical appearance: somber-faced, bald, thick-chested, together with square-jawed, he resembled a cross betwixt Benito Mussolini together with the infamous British satanist Aleister Crowley (Sloman, xi).

As caput of the FBN, Anslinger dominated U.S. drug policy for 30 years, during which fourth dimension he maintained the link betwixt foreigners together with drugs, brought a high degree of bureaucratic monastic tell to federal drug policy, embarked upon a effort to demonize together with limit marijuana, melded antinarcotics policy amongst U.S. unusual policy together with safety issues, together with sought repressive measures to bargain amongst addicts together with dealers.

During World War II Anslinger charged the Japanese amongst conspiring to spread narcotics addiction throughout the West, remarking that a drugsodden patch could offering petty resistance to an invading Japanese military.

The Japanese were flooding Communist People's Republic of China amongst narcotics during the state of war but no prove corroborated their supposed programme to foment addiction inward the United States. Similarly, inward the early on mutual frigidness state of war years, Anslinger unrelentingly maintained that heroin addiction was role of Communist China’s programme for subversion inward the United States.

Lacking whatever proof of such a conspiracy, Anslinger withal fostered stories together with images of syringe-wielding Chinese soldiers poised to conduct hold over the gratis world together with outlined the details of the Chinese Communist Party’s heroin conspiracy inward his 1953 majority The Traffic inward Narcotics.

Anslinger’s conspiracy theories demonstrated the link betwixt federal drug policy together with national safety issues, which is to say that the FBN’s claims were inward line amongst America’s anticommunist mission inward Asia. The commissioner never recanted his accusations together with his claims persisted into the 1970s.

In a reversal of Anslinger’s claims, 2 other drug conspiracies emerged during the mutual frigidness war, which charged the U.S. government, non unusual nations, amongst spreading narcotics addiction together with using drugs for undemocratic purposes.

One conspiracy theory defendant the CIA, from the 1950s through the 1980s, of willingly allying itself amongst narcotics (opium, morphine, together with heroin) traffickers inward Burma, Thailand, Laos, Afghanistan, together with Islamic Republic of Pakistan equally role of the agency’s anticommunist crusade inward Asia.

By supplying these unsavory elements amongst funds, equipment, together with intelligence, the CIA provided a zone of protection to a greater extent than or less drug lords together with blocked investigations of their clients’ drug running. Ultimately, the CIA contributed to the global narcotics merchandise yesteryear sanctioning their allies’ involvement.

Researchers, such equally Alfred W. McCoy, conduct hold unearthed prove corroborating the link betwixt the CIA together with narcotics traffickers inward Asia but deny the existence of a full-blown conspiracy inward which the CIA intended to foster trafficking together with addiction internationally, including Europe together with the United States.

Rather, the CIA’s short-term destination of using narcotics traffickers equally self-sustaining paramilitary forces during the mutual frigidness state of war blinded the way from foreseeing the long-term increase inward the region’s drug merchandise afterward the U.S. authorities no longer needed its clients’ services. In essence, the CIA, narrowly focused on anticommunism, deemed its clients’ expanded drug trafficking abilities equally entirely “fallout” from overriding mutual frigidness state of war concerns.

For instance, when narcotics produced yesteryear CIA allies supplied U.S. addicts—as inward the instance of U.S. soldiers inward Vietnam using heroin trafficked yesteryear South Vietnamese, Laotian, together with Thai officials—the CIA, jump yesteryear law to provide intelligence on drug trafficking, illegally prevented investigations of Southeast Asian officials. Damning facts such equally these conduct hold lent the air of conspiracy to the CIA’s human relationship to the international drug trade.

Another drug conspiracy leveled at the U.S. authorities involved the Nixon administration’s drug policy together with the White House’s reorganization of federal drug enforcement agencies. In the early on 1970s President Nixon launched his “war on drugs” inward response to a burgeoning heroin epidemic inward the United States.

Like Harry J. Anslinger, Nixon cast blame on unusual nations for America’s addiction problem. Nixon favored the utilisation of federal drug command agencies equally the response to the country’s supposedly growing rates of drug abuse.

Part of Nixon’s solution entailed the creation of the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence (ONNI), Office for Drug Abuse together with Law Enforcement (ODALE), together with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which replaced the Bureau of Narcotics together with Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), the FBN’s successor agency. The executive branch oversaw these agencies together with critics defendant the president of using them for purposes non related to drug control.

Specifically, skeptics argued that Nixon manufactured a drug scare that distracted the U.S. populace together with Congress together with allowed the direction to practise White House– controlled federal agencies that were used for surveillance together with harassment of political enemies, non apprehending drug dealers.

Critics charged ODALE together with ONNI equally beingness petty to a greater extent than than a White House soul constabulary force. ODALE, housed inward the Justice Department, was authorized to comport no-knock search warrants together with warrantless raids, equally good equally to utilisation court-ordered wiretaps. Such an way had the capacity to human activeness higher upwards the law together with did on occasions. Indeed, telephone substitution figures inward the Watergate scandal—G. Gordon Liddy, Egil Krogh, E. Howard Hunt, together with Lucein Conein— were all involved inward federal drug command agencies.

Liddy developed the creation of ODALE. Conein, a CIA agent, evidently developed a special assassination force—ostensibly aimed at major drug traffickers—within the DEA afterward that organization’s creation inward mid-1973. Krogh served equally deputy assistant for the president for law enforcement together with helped gear upwards the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which established federal methadone clinics.

Interestingly, the federal methadone clinics—aimed at helping heroin addicts— drew criticism from African Americans equally a ploy to maintain inner-city populations addicted to difficult drugs. In the end, the Plumbers, drawn from the Nixon administration’s drug command apparatus, together with the resulting Watergate scandal derailed Nixon’s cry for for unchecked executive power.

Marijuana

Like the opiates, conspiracy theories formed to a greater extent than or less marijuana, a drug outlawed inward 1937 yesteryear the Marijuana Tax Act. Similar to the Chinese immigrants’ negative association amongst opium smoking, marijuana was linked to some other stereotyped immigrant group, Mexicans.

During the showtime few decades of the 1900s local together with province restrictions on marijuana, especially inward the West together with Southwest, were established equally the drug was purported to get smokers to commit crimes. Tales of stoned Mexicans who craved violence together with were immune to hurting were common. Throughout the showtime one-half of the 1930s Anslinger resisted calls for federal legislation banning marijuana, believing that the states could best command the matter.

But yesteryear 1936 Anslinger reversed course of report together with embarked on a effort inward which he showtime stated that he had underestimated the marijuana threat together with and therefore proceeded to describe the weed equally worse than heroin, together with the harbinger of decease together with discord. Drug policy scholars conduct hold attributed Anslinger’s turnaround to his sharp concern for bureaucratic survival—he used the marijuana number to justify his together with the FBN’s existence.

According to this line of thinking, Anslinger did non practise a marijuana scare; he joined ane already inward progress together with bolstered it to best of his might amongst lurid testimony at congressional hearings together with inward paper together with magazine articles. Anslinger’s article “Marijuana: Assassin of Youth,” which appeared inward the July 1937 edition of American Magazine, was a prime number illustration of FBN antimarijuana propaganda.

The article, equally did well-nigh of Anslinger’s marijuana horror stories together with other sensationalized accounts similar the Hollywood celluloid Reefer Madness, involved American youths together with linked the drug amongst serious crimes (such equally murder, rape, together with mutilation), insanity, promiscuity, together with full general immorality.

For Anslinger, the consequences of inhaling the killer weed ranged from patricide together with fratricide—as the commissioner oftentimes recounted inward the instance of a Florida youth—to the possibility that a user would plow into a “philosopher, a joyous reveler inward a musical heaven,” a contestation that linked marijuana together with jazz music (Anslinger 1937, 150). The outcome of all the scare tactics together with misinformation was the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, which initially curtailed hemp production, but ultimately served equally the footing for criminalizing marijuana users.

Countering Anslinger’s persuasion of marijuana equally a generator of offense together with decease is the conspiracy theory best articulated yesteryear Jack Herer inward Hemp together with the Marijuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes. According to Herer, bureaucratic survival was non at the pump of Anslinger’s antimarijuana campaign. Rather, Anslinger’s role inward demonizing marijuana stemmed from his participation inward a concerted essay yesteryear powerful economical interests to postage out contest from the hemp industry.

Specifically, Anslinger, the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (DuPont), work organisation magnate Andrew Mellon, together with the media giant William Randolph Hearst worked paw inward paw to forestall a growing hemp manufacture from offering cellulosebased products, such equally paper (and potentially textiles together with plastics), from competing amongst DuPont’s products. By the 1930s DuPont had developed patents for producing paper from woods pulp together with likewise had plans to brand plastics from fossil oil products.

Andrew W. Mellon, secretarial assistant of the treasury together with possessor of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, which was ane of entirely 2 banks DuPont dealt with, appointed his time to come son-in-law to caput upwards the newly created FBN inward Dec 1930. Anslinger’s solar daytime of the month to the FBN, housed inward the Treasury Department, tied him to Mellon’s together with DuPont’s fiscal interests, which included stunting a hemp manufacture that had grown over the 1920s together with 1930s.

The Hearst paper syndicate, the nation’s largest, was likewise tied economically to the woodpaper industry. Moreover, Hearst, known for his disdain of jazz music, Mexicans, together with African Americans, readily published antimarijuana tracts that seat his newspapers inward line amongst the federal government.

Ultimately, all of these actors constituted a conspiracy orchestrated to brand hemp illegal. According to this theory, the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, far from outlawing a supposedly murderous drug, was inward fact legislation designed to farther DuPont’s fiscal fortune.

Marshall Plan

Marshall Plan

World War II decimated Europe’s infrastructure and economy, leaving bombed and gutted buildings, destroyed factories and businesses, and high unemployment. Hit heaviest were areas of industrial production and transportation. With Europe debt-ridden and financial reserves depleted by the war, the problems could not be easily fixed.

Both U.S. and European officials put forth several plans, all of which were rejected. The one alternative for recovery called for German reparations. However, many officials felt such a plan would be the same mistake that was made after World War I and opted instead for U.S. investment in Europe.

The United States initiated the European Recovery Program (ERP), generally referred to as the Marshall Plan. On June 5, 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, in addressing the graduating class of Harvard University, outlined the U.S. government’s intentions for aiding European recovery.

Marshall called for Europeans to create a plan that the United States, whose economy had grown rapidly during the war and the one major power whose infrastructure remained intact, would then subsidize. State Department officials would work with the nations of Europe to develop the program, which was named for Marshall.


A month after Marshall’s speech European officials, led by British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin and French foreign minister Georges Bidault, met in Paris to discuss options for the ajuan at the Conference of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC). Invited by the Western powers as a sign of good faith, the Soviet Union attended the conference as well.

However, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov walked out, calling for Soviet rejection of the plan. Seeing it as a U.S. scheme to subjugate Europe by promoting free trade and economic unity, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin pressured Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary into rejecting it as well.

In September the CEEC approved the formation of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) to oversee the European side of the recovery program. Except for Germany and Spain, every nation outside the Soviet sphere joined.

On April 2, 1948, the U.S. Congress formally authorized the ERP through passage of the Economic Cooperation Act, which President Truman signed the next day. Truman appointed Paul G. Hoffman, president of the Studebaker automobile corporation, as head of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the U.S. agency that operated the ERP.

Marshall Plan Poster

W. Averell Harriman, a Lend-Lease representative to Britain and secretary of commerce under Truman, was made special representative to the participating countries to advise them on the program.

Beginning operations in July 1948, the ECA had the objectives of strengthening European currencies, encouraging the development of industrial production, and facilitating international trade within Europe and its partners, especially the United States.

Meanwhile, the OEEC met to determine European needs prior to any distribution of appropriations under the act. The revitalization plan proposed to the United States asked for $22 billion in aid. Congress approved a Truman-backed $17-billion aid package with strong bipartisan support.

The amount of aid received varied by country on a per capita basis. For instance, Great Britain received an approximate total of $3.3 billion while Iceland received only $43 million. Moreover, Allied nations and major industrial powers were given priority aid over those that had sided with the Axis powers or had remained neutral during the war. The same went for countries seen as strategic in the fight against communism, like West Germany.

The basic idea of the plan was simple: The United States gave monetary grants to participating countries, which then utilized that aid to buy the materials needed for recovery—typically from the United States. The ECA and local governments jointly administered and processed the exchange, examining and distributing the aid where needed.

As a result the U.S. economy flourished as the European recovery effort grew. Early on, imports consisted mostly of essential items like food, fuel, and materials for reconstruction; however, as western Europe stabilized and the cold war heated up, aid went more toward rebuilding military capabilities to defend against communist expansion.

On the other hand, eastern Europe’s forced rejection of the Marshall Plan clearly showed the division in Europe leading toward the cold war. Unlike its former allies, the Soviet Union imposed large reparations on former Axis nations in its sphere of influence.

Finland, Hungary, Romania, and East Germany were all forced to pay large stipends to the Soviet Union as well as to provide supplies and raw materials. Consequently the economies of eastern Europe did not recover as quickly, if at all, under Soviet rule.

Over the four years of the Marshall Plan’s existence, participating countries received in total close to $13 billion in economic aid; with the exception of West Germany, the economies of all surpassed prewar levels when the kegiatan ended in 1951.

Under the provisions of the plan none of the aid had to be repaid, as it was absorbed and reinvested in the economies of Europe and the United States. The lone exception was West Germany, which had to repay the United States a reduced amount of $1 billion; the akibat payment came in 1971.

Seen as the first instrument of sustained European economic integration, the European Recovery Program removed tariff barriers, ended protectionism, and established institutions that could control the economy on a continental level—an idea European leaders had sought to institute in the past.

U.S. Suburbanization

Suburbanization describes a process by which U.S. city dwellers moved from central cities into residential areas characterized by single-family homes with lawn space. It is generally associated with the period directly following World War II, but suburbanization is a much older process.

The term "suburb" has been in use since 1800. Although it originally applied to a pastoral existence, connected to but outside the central city, it is now associated with the basic ideals of U.S. family life.

The form of the U.S. city has been changing since the development of the steam engine. As the railroad replaced the stagecoach as a means of transportation, it became possible to live farther from the center of the city while still working in the central business district.

The streetcar accelerated this outward movement, and automobiles accelerated it even more, creating "bedroom communities" with access to commuter trains, buses and ferries, and parking lots. By 1940 only 20 percent of U.S. citizens lived in the suburbs, which were regarded as communities for the upper class.


A shortage of housing in cities with significant concentrations of war-related industries led to the building of suburban communities to house workers during World War II, but the diversion of resources for the war effort created a national housing shortage for returning servicemen. Ninety-seven percent of all new single-family dwellings built between 1946 and 1956 were surrounded by their own plots.

The period saw the cottage industry of single-family home construction transformed into a major manufacturing process. The most famous example of this is Levittown, which is named after the family who built it.

In 1946 Levittown was 4,000 acres of potato fields in Long Island, New York; by 1950 it was a town with 17,400 separate houses. Similarly the developers of Lakewood, in Los Angeles County, California, purchased 3,500 acres in 1949 and had built and sold 17,500 houses by 1953.

The new suburbs were characterized by low density, architectural monotony, and economic and racial homogeneity. Soon businesses, especially retailers, opened branch stores in the suburbs, creating shopping malls to reach consumers who had moved there. The suburbs continue to grow as the urban/suburban relationship in the nation’s metropolitan areas evolves.

This is evident in the explosive growth of suburbia in the formerly rural hinterlands of cities in the southern and southwestern United States, now known as the Sun Belt, which attract homeowners with promises of fine weather, large acreages, and air-conditioning.

George II - King of England

George II - King of England

George II was born into the House of Hanover in 1683 in the Schloss (Castle) Herrenhausen, which had been the seat of the dynasty since George, the duke of Brunswick-Luneberg, moved to Hanover during the Thirty Years’ War. When George II’s father became king of England, the court moved from Herrenhausen to London.

Unlike George I, who had a bevy of mistresses, George II was devoted to his wife, Caroline of Anspach, whom he wed in 1705. Caroline, the daughter of the margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach, accompanied her husband to England when his father, usually known as the elector of Hanover, became king of England in 1714.

Caroline of Anspach was one of the most illustrious women of her age and a patroness of science and philosophy. When the great philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) was at Schloss Herrenhausen, Caroline was his best student.

The rule of George I featured a stormy relationship between George I and his son. In a dispute over British policy in Germany, the future George II broke with his father when Robert Walpole, George I’s prime minister, felt that British interests were being subordinated to those of Hanover in Europe.


With Caroline’s help, the future George II set up what amounted to a government in exile at Leicester House, where Caroline established a learned salon similar to what she had at Schloss Herrenhausen. However, father and son were reconciled and in 1720, Walpole returned to the government.

When George I died in Germany in 1727, his son immediately became king, as much a testimony to the skill of Walpole as to the Act of Succession of 1701. When James Edward Stuart, the son of James II, invaded Scotland in 1715 and 1719, it showed the value of his legislation in the eyes of those who favored the Hanovers over the Stuarts.

For the duration of George I’s reign and much of George II’s, the threat of a Stuart restoration to the throne was real. In 1745, the son of James Edward, Bonnie Prince Charlie, did in fact land in Scotland and administer two stinging defeats to the Hanoverian army at Prestonpans and Falkirk and occupied Scotland.

This precipitated the greatest crisis of George II’s kingship. Bonnie Prince Charlie reached as far south as Derby in England, but concerned about a lack of support among the English, he began his retreat north again.

George II, who at Dettingen in 1743 in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) had been the last British king to take part in a battle, sent his son, George Augustus, duke of Cumberland, in pursuit of Bonnie Prince Charlie. At Culloden Moor in April 1746, Cumberland defeated him in a decisive engagement.

Aside from the Stuart threat, the kingdom, which included Scotland and Ireland, enjoyed peace and stability, shown by the rise of the middle class and the birth of modern English literature. Henry Fielding gained prominence in the reign of George II.

Fielding’s satiric plays incurred the wrath of Walpole, who set about closing Fielding’s theater. Rebounding from this defeat, he would go on to write his greatest novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), which perhaps better than any other work presents life in the time of the second George. Daniel Defoe had an active career through the reigns of Queen Anne, George I, and George II.

In 1756, Britain became involved in the Seven Years’ War, which had actually begun in the conflict between the British and French colonies in North America in 1754. The war soon spread to encompass much of the world, although the decisive battles would be fought in Europe and America. Britain’s greatest ally was Frederick the Great of Prussia, an admirer of the French field marshal Maurice de Saxe.

The use of English money as a subsidy, an inheritance from Walpole’s passionate pursuit of mercantilism, enabled Frederick to field an army that, along with his undisputed military genius, would keep at bay the combined forces of France, the Austrian Empire, and Russia.

William Pitt was an accomplished and reliable wartime prime minister for England. He strategically strengthened the British navy, sent fleets where they would be most effective, and oversaw supply exchanges with allies. After several years of reverses, British arms in 1758 scored several victories against France, earning both the king and Pitt great popularity among the people.

In 1760, at the height of his power, George tragically succumbed to a stroke. Since his son Frederic Louis had died in 1751, his grandson succeeded him on the throne as George III. From his grandfather, George III inherited a monarchy—and an empire—at the height of its power and prestige.

Warsaw Pact

Warsaw Pact logo

Warsaw Pact is the informal title given to the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO), a group of Eastern European nations and the Soviet Union pledged to mutual assistance and defense. In 1955 the member nations signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance.

The Warsaw Pact’s objectives from its inception to its demise in 1991 changed, but throughout that time, the organization served as the means by which the Soviet Union bound its Eastern European client states together militarily.

The Warsaw Pact agreement replaced a series of bilateral treaties of defense and friendship between the Soviet Union and these nations. Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania joined with the Soviet Union.


The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had been in existence since 1949, but NATO announced in May 1955 that it would include West Germany as a member; this prompted the formation of the Warsaw Pact. Thus only 10 years after the end of World War II, the Soviet Union not only was engaged in a cold war with the West but also faced a resurgent Germany.

It was not only an external threat that moved the Soviets to change their agreements with these nations, but there was the matter of internal stability as well. Following World War II, there had been significant armed resistance to the Soviets, who had entered these nations while advancing against the retreating German armies.

Polish anti-Soviet partisans opposed the Soviets until well into the late 1940s. Demonstrations against the Soviets caused real concern about the stability of the communist elites running these countries.

By bringing in Soviet troops to occupy these countries as part of Warsaw Pact activities, the Soviet Union allowed itself to more easily defend any attacks that might come from the West and, at the same time, to keep these friendly regimes stable. East Germany joined in 1956. Yugoslavia did not join at any time.

The treaty clearly stated that national sovereignty would be respected and that all of the signatories were independent. The treaty was to last for 20 years, with an automatic 10-year extension.

Each member nation could unilaterally leave the organization; the reality proved to be very different. In 1956 the Hungarian government of Imre Nagy declared that it would no longer be allied with the Soviet Union but would become a neutral. Part of this neutrality process would be its withdrawal from the pact.

Regardless of any promises, the Soviet Union acted quickly to defeat this rebellion. Using the request of some Hungarian Communist Party members as an invitation to act, Soviet infantry and armor invaded the country and after a two-week struggle replaced Imre Nagy’s government with a more compliant government under János Kádár. Although the Soviets cited the danger of breaking up the alliance to justify the invasion, it was only Soviet troops that took part in the operation.

In the early days of the Warsaw Pact, the nature of the alliance was somewhat vague. Each of the member nations, while influenced by the Soviet Union, still had a certain amount of independence in its tactical doctrine and did not coordinate its training with either the Soviet Union or other members. That situation would change in the coming years.

From 1961 on, combined exercises were conducted, and Soviet-manufactured weapons and equipment were purchased by the member nations. High-ranking Soviet officers were assigned to the defense ministries of Warsaw Pact members to ensure a uniformity of training and to keep the national militaries subservient to and a part of the armed forces of the Soviet Union.

Although the Warsaw Pact gained cohesion in terms of command and control, there were movements that served to weaken it. In 1962 there was another defection from the Warsaw Pact, this time a successful one. In this case it involved Albania strengthening its ties to China and distancing itself from the Soviet Union.

Because Albania did not border on any other Warsaw Pact member, the Soviet Union had no choice but to accept this action. The Soviets thus lost access to a Mediterranean port. Albania’s formal defection in 1968 merely ratified what already existed.

Independent Streaks

Another unhappy member of the alliance was Romania. This country managed to conduct a very successful balancing act in staying within the alliance, exercising a surprising degree of independence, and not paying a very high price for its actions. Romania’s independent streak began as early as 1958, when it stated that Soviet troops were not welcome on its territory, continuing through 1968, when it would not participate in the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia. A child watches as Warsaw Pact tanks invade his country, August 1968

Romania’s position was that the pact existed only for self-defense and not to maintain communist elites in the separate nations. In part because Romania was loyal in other ways and because it was not close to the potential front with Germany, this independent streak went unpunished.

Not every nation was so fortunate. In late 1967 a reform movement within the Czechoslovak Communist Party caused a major change in leadership. These events were closely monitored by the Soviet leadership. After the attempted defection by Hungary 10 years before, Albania’s departure, and Romania’s distancing itself, the Soviets were concerned that any reform or liberalization might weaken their control over this state.

The continued freedom of the press and freedom of expression forced the Soviets to act. On the night of August 20–21, Soviet troops, assisted by forces from Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Poland, invaded.

Combined Warsaw Pact exercises had been taking place that summer, and the Warsaw Pact nations had been able to stage their invasion and subsequently move quickly into the country. The Czechoslovak government was changed, and there was no more discussion of changing Czechoslovakia’s role in the Warsaw Pact.

Thirteen years later, the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia influenced another nation. This time it was Poland, where vigorous opposition appeared in the form of the labor union Solidarity. By the end of 1981, after almost two years of liberalization, the Communist government of Poland imposed martial law.

Union leaders were imprisoned, the union was declared illegal, and Polish soldiers took over many of the government’s functions. The rationale for this move was that the imposition of martial law by Polish authorities would eliminate the possibility of a repetition of the events of 1968.

Soviet Leadership

As the 1980s wore on, there were significant changes in Soviet leadership. Leonid Brezhnev, who had ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia and threatened the same for Poland, died in 1982. He was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, who had, earlier in his career, restored order to Hungary after its unsuccessful rebellion in 1956. Andropov, died in 1984 and was for a few months succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko. With the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev to power in 1985, relationships between the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact slowly changed.

That year the Warsaw Pact came up for renewal, and the members agreed to another 20-year term to be followed by a 10-year extension, as had been done 30 years before. It became recognized that there would be no more interventions such as the ones that had taken place in Czechoslovakia and had been threatened in Poland.

The Warsaw Pact still, however, existed as a force with over 6,300,000 soldiers—20 percent of whom were non-Soviet. The resolution of the Euromissile crisis and changing politics within the Soviet Union were leading to other changes.

At the end of 1988 Gorbachev announced that there would be troop withdrawals from East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The power elites did not look forward to this, as their position within their own countries had been strengthened against dissidents and other opposition by the presence of the Soviet army.

Romanian Revolution 1989 image - Warsaw Pact

Early in 1989 the Hungarian government removed its barbed wire barriers along its border with Austria, and Solidarity scored well in a partially free election. Before the year was out, the regimes had changed in Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Although there were some attempts to keep the Warsaw Pact alive as a political organization, the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991.

Eight years later three former members of the Warsaw Pact—Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary—joined NATO. In 2004 former members Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia joined, as did three former republics of the Soviet Union—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

The Warsaw Pact never functioned as smoothly as desired. There was a great deal of distrust between the Soviet Union and the member states and among the member states themselves. Several of these countries had not enjoyed good relations before World War II and still harbored ill feelings toward each other.

Also, although the Soviet Union, could compel these nations to buy Soviet equipment and essentially to become part of the Soviet army, they could not force complete obedience in all matters. Despite Soviet demands that pact members buy substantial amounts of military equipment, many of the nations refused to do so.

The purchase of military equipment presented another difficulty. Arms purchases would bring in cash desired by the Soviet Union, and it wanted these nations to field equipment compatible with Soviet issue. On the other hand, the Soviets did not want other pact members to have armies, air forces, or navies that could present obstacles to the Soviet Union.

Although the Warsaw Pact sent advisers and provided military aid to Soviet clients, there never was a conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. To predict that pact forces would have fought unreservedly to protect the Soviet Union and socialism is an unrealistic assumption.

Third World/Global South

The term Third World applies to those nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere that mostly secured independence from the imperial powers after World War II. In the cold war construct the First World, dominated by the United States, also included Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

These nations were wealthy, highly industrialized, urban, largely secular, democratic, and had capitalist economies. The Second World consisted of the Soviet bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union.

These nations were industrialized but not as wealthy as the First World; they were secular, authoritarian, and had socialist economics. The Third World nations, consisting of two-thirds of the world’s population, were poor, rural, and agrarian, with traditional societies.

After the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the terms no longer applied and because most of the nations of the Third World were south of the equator the term Global South came to be used as a collective label for these nations.

The gap between rich and poor nations grew in the 20th century. As the Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru commented, "The poor have to run fast just to keep up". Third World countries were caught in a cycle of poverty, with low incomes and low production. After independence many became dictatorships and attempted to improve their economies, usually unsuccessfully, by adopting socialist systems on the Soviet state capitalist model.

Economists often referred to the poor developing nations as low-GDP (low Gross Domestic Product) countries, meaning they produced little in the way of goods and services. Countries in the Global South adopted a wide variety of methods to break out of the cycle of poverty.

In China Mao Zedong led a socialist revolution and mobilized the masses, but only with privatization after his death did the Chinese economy begin to take off. India, the world’s most populous democracy, adopted a capitalist approach; India also successfully applied the technology of the Green Revolution, the use of hybrid seeds to increase agricultural productivity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, India suffered major famines but by the end of the century it was exporting foodstuffs. India and many other poor nations also invested heavily in education. In Southeast Asia educated workers became the backbone of industrialization and the development of high-tech firms.

Other nations built huge development projects, such as the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Three Gorges Dam in China. Following Western advice in the 1950s and 1960s, many Third World nations concentrated on industrialization, to the detriment of the agricultural sector. That, along with ecological changes, droughts along wide bands of Africa, civil wars, political corruption, and instability, contributed to large famines and mass starvation in many African nations.

In the Middle East oil-producing nations joined a cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to gain increased revenues from their major resource. They then used the new revenues to build modern infrastructures. Kuwait was able to provide a complete welfare system from cradle to grave for its small population.

Other countries, such as the "little dragons" in Southeast Asia (Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore), attracted foreign businesses and industries. Many nations in South America and Africa also borrowed vast amounts of money from private and public Western banks, such as the World Bank, to bring much-needed capital into their countries.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also provided assistance in welfare, food, education, and healthcare. Brazil used foreign loans to create new industries and provide jobs, but it, along with many other countries, became ensnared in a web of indebtedness that was impossible to repay.

By the 1990s rich nations promised but often failed to deliver increased foreign aid and to forgive or restructure the debts of these nations, especially the poorest in Africa. Other nations had some modest successes in adopting appropriate technology to establish small, inexpensive grassroots projects.

Population growth also contributed to economic problems. In Kenya the population doubled every 18 years and in Egypt every 26 years, compared to every 92 in the United States. By 2000 the world’s population had exceeded 6 billion, from 1 billion in 1800. It was expected to reach 9 billion by 2054.

In poor countries high infant mortality contributed to the desire to have many children in hopes that at least some would survive to adulthood and be able to care for their parents, especially their mothers, in their old age. To limit its population China adopted a draconian one-child policy and strictly enforced it through its totalitarian system.

India adopted numerous approaches in attempts to limit population growth; these were often accepted by urban elites, but peasants continued to value large families. In societies where women had low status, having children, especially boys, brought status and the hope of some security.

The educational status of many improved, and literacy rates improved, although in many countries boys enjoyed higher rates of education than girls. While programs to empower women were often successful, they were also resisted by traditional and religious leaders.

Women’s work continued to be undervalued and underpaid. Child labor was yet another problem. Globalization and privatization in the late 20th century actually caused some nations to become poorer as prices for agricultural goods and raw materials dropped.

In some Global South nations, such as India, a few people became millionaires, but most remained desperately poor. In the 1990s, incomes in 54 nations actually declined, and in Zimbabwe life expectancy fell from 56 to 331, compared to over 80 in the United States and Japan. Disease, especially AIDS, contributed to further economic and social problems, particularly in many southern African countries.

At the 2000 Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to institute programs aimed at cutting in half the number of people living on under $1 a day and at halving the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015. Five years later the commitments of the donor nations, especially the United States, had fallen short of the promises made, and it remained uncertain whether the goals would be met.

Third World/Global South

The term Third World applies to those nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere that mostly secured independence from the imperial powers after World War II. In the cold war construct the First World, dominated by the United States, also included Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

These nations were wealthy, highly industrialized, urban, largely secular, democratic, and had capitalist economies. The Second World consisted of the Soviet bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union.

These nations were industrialized but not as wealthy as the First World; they were secular, authoritarian, and had socialist economics. The Third World nations, consisting of two-thirds of the world’s population, were poor, rural, and agrarian, with traditional societies.


After the breakup of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the terms no longer applied and because most of the nations of the Third World were south of the equator the term Global South came to be used as a collective label for these nations.

The gap between rich and poor nations grew in the 20th century. As the Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru commented, "The poor have to run fast just to keep up". Third World countries were caught in a cycle of poverty, with low incomes and low production. After independence many became dictatorships and attempted to improve their economies, usually unsuccessfully, by adopting socialist systems on the Soviet state capitalist model.

Economists often referred to the poor developing nations as low-GDP (low Gross Domestic Product) countries, meaning they produced little in the way of goods and services. Countries in the Global South adopted a wide variety of methods to break out of the cycle of poverty.

In China Mao Zedong led a socialist revolution and mobilized the masses, but only with privatization after his death did the Chinese economy begin to take off. India, the world’s most populous democracy, adopted a capitalist approach; India also successfully applied the technology of the Green Revolution, the use of hybrid seeds to increase agricultural productivity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, India suffered major famines but by the end of the century it was exporting foodstuffs. India and many other poor nations also invested heavily in education. In Southeast Asia educated workers became the backbone of industrialization and the development of high-tech firms.

Other nations built huge development projects, such as the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the Three Gorges Dam in China. Following Western advice in the 1950s and 1960s, many Third World nations concentrated on industrialization, to the detriment of the agricultural sector. That, along with ecological changes, droughts along wide bands of Africa, civil wars, political corruption, and instability, contributed to large famines and mass starvation in many African nations.

In the Middle East oil-producing nations joined a cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), to gain increased revenues from their major resource. They then used the new revenues to build modern infrastructures. Kuwait was able to provide a complete welfare system from cradle to grave for its small population.

Other countries, such as the "little dragons" in Southeast Asia (Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore), attracted foreign businesses and industries. Many nations in South America and Africa also borrowed vast amounts of money from private and public Western banks, such as the World Bank, to bring much-needed capital into their countries.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) also provided assistance in welfare, food, education, and healthcare. Brazil used foreign loans to create new industries and provide jobs, but it, along with many other countries, became ensnared in a web of indebtedness that was impossible to repay.

By the 1990s rich nations promised but often failed to deliver increased foreign aid and to forgive or restructure the debts of these nations, especially the poorest in Africa. Other nations had some modest successes in adopting appropriate technology to establish small, inexpensive grassroots projects.

Population growth also contributed to economic problems. In Kenya the population doubled every 18 years and in Egypt every 26 years, compared to every 92 in the United States. By 2000 the world’s population had exceeded 6 billion, from 1 billion in 1800. It was expected to reach 9 billion by 2054.

In poor countries high infant mortality contributed to the desire to have many children in hopes that at least some would survive to adulthood and be able to care for their parents, especially their mothers, in their old age. To limit its population China adopted a draconian one-child policy and strictly enforced it through its totalitarian system.

India adopted numerous approaches in attempts to limit population growth; these were often accepted by urban elites, but peasants continued to value large families. In societies where women had low status, having children, especially boys, brought status and the hope of some security.

The educational status of many improved, and literacy rates improved, although in many countries boys enjoyed higher rates of education than girls. While programs to empower women were often successful, they were also resisted by traditional and religious leaders.

Women’s work continued to be undervalued and underpaid. Child labor was yet another problem. Globalization and privatization in the late 20th century actually caused some nations to become poorer as prices for agricultural goods and raw materials dropped.

In some Global South nations, such as India, a few people became millionaires, but most remained desperately poor. In the 1990s, incomes in 54 nations actually declined, and in Zimbabwe life expectancy fell from 56 to 331, compared to over 80 in the United States and Japan. Disease, especially AIDS, contributed to further economic and social problems, particularly in many southern African countries.

At the 2000 Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to institute programs aimed at cutting in half the number of people living on under $1 a day and at halving the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015. Five years later the commitments of the donor nations, especially the United States, had fallen short of the promises made, and it remained uncertain whether the goals would be met.

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The dominant political party in Japan from 1955 to 1993 was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It began in 1955 with the merging of Shigeru Yoshida’s Liberal Party and Ichiro Hatoyama’s Japan Democratic Party, because both shared a common opposition to the Japan Socialist Party.

However the roots of the LDP date to the late 19th–20th century. Two Japanese political figures, Itagaki Taisuke and Saigo Takamori, played roles in the emergence of the modern LDP.

Japanese political development before the occupation by the United States after World War II can best be viewed in broad cycles. Modern Japanese history begins with the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Facing a continued challenge from the West to modernize and change their isolationist policies, Japanese feudal lords, samurai, and others overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate that had ruled from 1603 to 1867.


The result was a complete alteration of the Japanese system in order to compete with the West. Japan then changed many of its old political, economic, and social institutions to conform with Western-style examples. From the Meiji Restoration came a series of cycles in Japanese political history that would continue until after World War II.

First came the Freedom and People’s Rights Era, with its associated demands for more liberalization, which lasted from 1878 to 1889. Japan then underwent a militarist period from 1894 to 1905 that was characterized by wars with both China and Russia.

Afterward, a cycle of liberalization known as the Taisho Democracy dominated the politics from 1912 to 1915 and again from 1918 to 1930. An age of militarism, again marked by international aggression, dominated the politics of Japan from 1931 to 1945. The beginnings of the Liberal Democratic Party can be traced to the Freedom and People’s Rights Era.

Itagaki Taisuke claimed a powerful role in late 19th-century Japan. He used his position to advocate peace instead of rebellion in order for the Japanese people to gain a voice in government.

In 1874 Itagaki and his supporters penned the Tosa Memorial, a criticism of the seemingly unchecked power of the oligarchy and a call for representative government. By 1878 Itagaki had become impatient at the lack of reform and moved to create the Aikokusha, the Society of Patriots, in order to achieve representative government.

In 1877 the Satsuma rebellion pitted the samurai led by Saigo Takamori against the citizen-based Meiji army. The Meiji victory solidified its position over the samurai. By 1881 Itagaki founded the Jiyuto, the Liberal Party, which favored the adoption of French styles of political representation.

At the same time, Okuma Shigenobu emerged as a voice in favor of the British model of representative government. Okuma founded the Rikken Kaishinto, the Constitutional Progressive Party, in 1882. The two opposition parties led to a pro-government party called the Rikken Teiseito, or the Imperial Rule Party, in 1882.

A number of violent and nonviolent demonstrations among the political parties soon led to government suppression and restrictions on political activism. Restrictions on the political parties led to fighting within the parties as well as with others.

The Jiyuto, which had fought against the Kaishinto, fell apart in 1884. Okuma also resigned his leadership of the Kaishinto party. A call for more democratic governance, through the movement for Freedom and People’s Rights, added to growing demands for a more politically liberal Japanese system of governance.

By 1889 popular demand led to the enactment of the Meiji constitution. Modeled after that of Prussia, the constitution resulted in a limited democracy. A representative body, the Diet, of directly elected members came into being. Ultimately, the government was run by bureaucrats much like its Prussian example.

By 1890 the call for more direct representation resulted in the first national election. Both the Jiyuto and Kaishinto reorganized for the elections and combined to win over half of the seats in the House of Representatives. The first two decades of the 20th century brought the transformation of the Freedom and People’s Rights into the Liberal Party and later the Seiyukai.

The abad of political parties, however, gave way to the militarist period of 1931 to 1945. After the war the modern Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) emerged as the result of a merger between the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party.

The LDP reflected a broad coalition of those calling for military protection by the United States and the economic rebuilding of the war-torn infrastructure under a capitalist system. The first postwar government was LDP-created, and the party would dominate until the 1990s.

Latin American Politics

Latin American Politics

On a December day in 1956 a small band of armed men pushed off from the shores of eastern Mexico with their eyes on Cuba. Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara were among this group of revolutionaries, and they dreamt of a new Cuba free from social classes, capitalism, and American imperialism.

After two years of guerrilla warfare, Castro and his band succeeded in overthrowing the Cuban government and seized power. Almost immediately their new vision of a socially just society unfolded as the new regime expropriated foreign holdings, transferred industries to state ownership, and “volunteered” Cuban citizens to work on state-run farms.

This new vision of Cuba stemmed from the growing tide of Latin American nationalists turning toward Marxist theories in the decades after World War II. This brand of Marxism centered on erasing centuries of inequity and poverty with far-reaching change aimed at dismantling capitalism and promoting social justice for all.


The struggle between rich and poor dominated the rhetoric of Latin American Marxism, but with a unique spin that included U.S. multinational corporations among the rich. The Cuban revolution presented a new political paradigm to Latin America, one driven by Marxis ideology and armed revolution. It would influence Latin American politics for the rest of the 20th century.

As the economic boom of World War II faded in the 1950s, international demand for Latin American exports—chiefly agricultural—waned. High machinery costs driven by postwar rebuilding in Europe held back industrialization and economic growth in Latin America.

Economic hard times fused with the legacy of conquest and colonialism incited demands for sweeping, fundamental change. Some Latin Americans, including Fidel Castro, explored and then embraced Marxist ideology as a viable solution to ending the region’s poverty and economic dependency on industrialized nations.

The cold war wore heavily on U.S.–Latin American relations, and the Cuban Revolution signaled an alarming turn to an American government in the throes of the “red scare.” Even more distressing to American policy-makers was Castro’s involvement in the launching of the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) in 1967 to encourage Marxist revolutions throughout the region.

Leftist revolutionaries such as the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador, the Montoneros and People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) in Argentina, and the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) are some of the armed Marxist guerrilla movements supported by Castro and OLAS. The United States sponsored a military alliance with anticommunist governments throughout Latin America.

This national security doctrine increased the power of the military in Latin American societies as the United States encouraged military involvement in cracking down on Marxist guerrillas and their supporters.

Soon some military leaders viewed civilian democratic governments as corrupt and a hindrance to social and economic change. These generals believed that the solution to Latin American problems lie in rapid social and economic development. During the 1970s almost every Latin American country succumbed to military rule.

Many of these authoritarian governments looked to a free market economy as the means to change and seized upon low interest rates to borrow heavily to finance development. Any protests or cries for change, which increasingly came from urban residents-turned-guerrillas, were vehemently suppressed.

In Argentina, scholars estimate that as many as 20,000 people “disappeared” at the hands of the military. The El Salvadoran military massacred peasants thought to be aiding leftist guerrillas, and in Guatemala, tens of thousands of indigenous people suspected of similar actions were killed by the military.

By the 1980s government deficit spending coupled with a wavering global economy resulted in skyrocketing inflation and foreign debts. This economic crisis provoked criticism of the status quo from citizens and accusations that military leadership represented incompetent government. One by one, Latin America’s military regimes retreated to the barracks and handed leadership back to civilians.

The 1990s saw many democratic, civilian leaders embracing neoliberalism, a philosophy centered on making Latin America competitive on the global market. State-owned industry was privatized, protective tariffs reduced, military budgets cut, foreign investment encouraged, and social programs and bureaucratic structure streamlined.

More benefits of modernity came to Latin America, especially technology, yet most Latin Americans remained too poor to participate in free market capitalism as consumers. A few guerrilla movements continued to flourish, like Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru, violently working toward their goal of revolution.

Latin American politics from the 1950s represents tumultuous decades, marred by the violence of “dirty wars” perpetuated by U.S.-backed military regimes. Marxist guerrillas throughout this time period sought revolutionary change of Latin American society.

By the 2000s the move to the left in Latin American politics saw Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva winning the presidential elections in Brazil in December 2002, Evo Morales being elected as president of Bolivia in December 2005, an, in the following month, Michelle Bachelet won the second round of the presidential elections in Chile, becoming the first woman president of Chile and the first left-wing president since the overthrow of Salvador Allende.

Moreover, the move by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, a socialist, toward a national referendum in 2007 to reelect him to the presidency despite constitutional limits, foretold a continuing left-wing power center in Latin America.