Soviet imperialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world under Soviet influence,[citation needed] after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961

The informal term "Soviet Empire" is used by critics of the Soviet Union to refer to that country's perceived imperialist foreign policy during the Cold War. The nations said to be part of the "Soviet Empire" were independent countries with separate governments that set their own policies, but those policies had to remain within certain limits decided by the Soviet Union. Failure to stay within the limits could result in military intervention by the Warsaw Pact. Countries in this situation are often called satellite states. This arrangement was always unofficial.

Though the Soviet Union was not ruled by an emperor and declared itself anti-imperialist, critics[1][2] argue that it exhibited tendencies common to historic empires. Some scholars hold that the Soviet Union was a hybrid entity containing elements common to both multinational empires and nation states.[1] It has also been argued that the USSR practiced colonialism as did other imperial powers.[3]

The other dimension of "Soviet imperialism" is cultural imperialism. The policy of Soviet cultural imperialism implied the Sovietization of culture and education at the expense of local traditions.[4]

Influence

The Soviet Empire is considered to have included the following:[5][6]

Soviet Union The Soviet Union and its satellite states

The USSR is seen in red, while states in light pink were satellites. Yugoslavia, a communist state that was never a Soviet ally, is marked in purple. Albania, a communist state which ceased being allied to the Soviet Union in the '60s after the Sino-soviet split, is marked in orange.

These countries were the closest allies of the Soviet Union. They were members of the Comecon, a Soviet-led economic community founded in 1949. In addition, the ones located in Eastern Europe were also members of the Warsaw Pact. They were sometimes called the Eastern bloc in English and were widely viewed as Soviet satellite states.

 North Korea was a Soviet ally,[7] but always followed a highly isolationist foreign policy and therefore it did not join the Comecon or any other international organization of communist states.

Soviet involvement in the Third World

Some countries in the Third World had pro-Soviet governments during the Cold War. In the political terminology of the Soviet Union, these were "countries moving along the socialist road of development", as opposed to the more advanced "countries of developed socialism", which were mostly located in Eastern Europe, but also included Vietnam and Cuba. Most received some aid, either military or economic, from the Soviet Union, and were influenced by it to varying degrees. Sometimes, their support for the Soviet Union eventually stopped, for various reasons; in some cases the pro-Soviet government lost power, in other cases the pro-Soviet forces were overthrown by military coups promoted by the United States (such as in Chile and Brazil[citation needed]), in some cases the pro-Soviet forces gained power by military aid from the Soviet Union (such as in Vietnam), while in other cases the same government remained in power but ended its alliance with the Soviet Union.

States that had communist governments in red, and states that the USSR believed at one point to be "moving toward socialism" in orange.[citation needed] Not all of the bright red states remained Soviet allies.

Some of these countries were not communist states. They are marked in italic.

Communist states opposed to the Soviet Union

Communist state alignments in 1980: pro-Soviet (red); pro-Chinese (yellow); and the non-aligned North Korea and Yugoslavia (black). Somalia had been pro-Soviet until 1977. Cambodia (Kampuchea) had been pro-China until 1979.

Some communist states were openly opposed to the Soviet Union and many of its policies. Though their forms of government may have been similar, they were completely sovereign from the USSR and held only formal ties. Relations were often tense, sometimes even to the point of armed conflict.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Beissinger, Mark R. 2006 "Soviet Empire as 'Family Resemblance,'" Slavic Review, 65 (2) 294-303; Dave, Bhavna. 2007 Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, language and power. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
  2. ↑ http://www.jstor.org/pss/20031013 Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 1, Oct., 1953 - Soviet Colonialism In Central Asia by Sir Olaf Caroe
  3. ↑ Caroe, O. (1953). "Soviet Colonialism in Central Asia". Foreign Affairs 32 (1): 135–144. JSTOR 20031013. 
  4. ↑ Natalia Tsvetkova. Failure of American and Soviet Cultural Imperialism in German Universities, 1945-1990. Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2013
  5. ↑ Cornis-Pope, Marcel (2004). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries. John Benjamins. p. 29. ISBN 978-90-272-3452-0. 
  6. ↑ Dawson, Andrew H. (1986). Planning in Eastern Europe. Routledge. p. 295. ISBN 978-0-7099-0863-0. 
  7. ↑ Shin, Gi-Wook (2006). Ethnic nationalism in Korea: genealogy, politics, and legacy. Stanford University Press. p. 94. ISBN 978-0-8047-5408-8. 
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.