The seventies is a time of great hopes and no less severe disappointments in international politics. After the real threat of a global nuclear conflict in 1962, the world community gradually came to a period of detente in the Cold War between the USSR and the USA. Both sides clearly realized that serious changes had taken place in international relations. The search for ways to security through cooperation was outlined, international consultations began, the USSR and the USA concluded a number of important agreements on limiting the defense potential.
The term "detente" in the USSR
The term "detente of international relations" in the USSR was first voiced in the second half of the fifties by Georgy Malenkov, a high-ranking party leader, chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, who oversaw a number of strategic areas of the defense industry, including the creation of the first nuclear power plant in the world and a hydrogen bomb. Subsequently, the term was used by Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee.
Foreign policy of the USSR
The foreign policy of the USSR during the Cold War did not differ in consistency. The Soviet leadership in the years 50-80 resorted several times in politics to the rhetoric of detente, but then again proceeded to open confrontation. The first step towards the removal of international tension between the two superpowers was the official visit to the United States of the head of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev in 1959.
In the second half of the sixties, a relatively stable bipolar political system developed. Before the beginning of the period of detente of international tension, the Soviet Union caught up with the United States by the power of its nuclear potential, that is, the countries reached a strategic balance, which was based on mutual guaranteed destruction. Mutual destruction is a doctrine according to which the use of weapons of mass destruction by one of the parties is guaranteed to lead to the complete destruction of both. This made useless any attempts to inflict a sudden massive blow on the enemy.
Arms limitation
The parties achieved equality in nuclear forces, and then proceeded to detente. Cooperation began within the framework of the Soviet-American Soyuz Apollo program, the Soviet Union and the United States signed an arms limitation treaty. WWS saved the economies of the USSR and the USA, since building up nuclear potential required enormous material costs. The final agreement was reached in Vienna in 1979. The contract was signed by Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter. The agreement was not ratified by the US Senate, but the provisions were respected by the parties.
Human rights in the USSR
During the period of easing international tension, the Helsinki Accords were signed (1975), an important part of which was the human rights bloc. This part of the document was not widely publicized in the USSR, and the corresponding information was broadcast on Western radio. Since that time, dissidentism in the USSR intensified, becoming a more massive movement.
Another event of the period of detente is an attempt to exploit the interest of the US supreme authorities in reducing tension by activists of the Jewish Defense League in 1969. It was planned to achieve the abolition of restrictions by the Soviet authorities on the migration of Jews. Activists drew attention to the situation of Jews in the Union through mass demonstrations and protests, including violent against Soviet targets. It did not bring any real results.
The period of relaxation of international tension ended in 1979, when, after signing the arms limitation treaty, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan, violating its obligations of non-interference in the affairs of other states. This event marks the end of the discharge period.
Discharge in European countries
The concentration of Western nuclear control in the hands of the United States and a series of incidents involving nuclear weapons have criticized US nuclear weapons policies in Europe. Contradictions in NATO command during the period of detente (in the years 60-70s) led France to withdraw from participation in the organization in 1966.
In the same year, one of the largest nuclear weapons-related dangerous events occurred. An American nuclear bomber that caught fire in the air made an emergency drop of four bombs over the village of Palomares in Spain due to an accident. In this regard, Spain refused to condemn France’s withdrawal from NATO and suspended the Spanish-American agreement on military cooperation.
In Germany, the Social Democrats, led by Willy Brandt, came to power. This period was marked by "eastern politics", as a result of which an agreement was signed between Germany and the USSR in 1970. This document officially recorded the stability of state borders and the rejection of claims on East Prussia. The possibility of unification of Germany in the future was also declared.
US detente background
The escalation of the Vietnam war led not only to serious economic, but also political consequences: the financial costs of warfare called into question Lyndon Johnson’s welfare state plan and John F. Kennedy’s “new frontier” program. Internal opposition and an active antiwar movement in the United States increased, leading to calls for a harsh confrontation in the Cold War.
In the United States, the Caribbean crisis began the period of detente in the Cold War. John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev realized that it was necessary to make decisions that would not lead to a similar situation in the future. But then there was a pause. Nixon’s course didn’t improve the situation. Mass demonstrations, for example, provoked the abolition of the deferment of students' appeal. The most famous incident was the shooting of a demonstration at a university in Kent (1970).
Discharge timeline
In 1967, after the launch of the Soyuz-Apollo joint space project, a meeting took place between US President Lyndon Johnson and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro. In 1969, negotiations began on limiting offensive weapons. In 1971, an agreement was signed in Washington to improve direct communications between states, as well as measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
During the period of detente in the USSR in 1972, the US Consulate was opened. In the same year, another agreement was signed on cooperation in the cultural, scientific, technical, educational and other fields. The result of an extremely important event - the first official visit of the current US President (Nixon) to Moscow for the entire chronology - was the signing of an agreement on limiting missile defense, temporarily limiting offensive weapons, environmental cooperation, medicine, science and technology, and peaceful space exploration , the document “Fundamentals of relationships” and so on.
In 1974, Leonid Brezhnev and J. Ford met in Vladivostok. Politicians have signed an agreement to limit nuclear carriers to a maximum of 2,400 launcher units, including no more than 1,320 munitions.
Cultural cooperation of the USSR and the USA
As part of cultural cooperation during the period of detente, the film “The Blue Bird” was filmed in 1976. Cast - George Vitsin, Elizabeth Taylor, Margarita Terekhova, Jane Fonda. At the same time, PIA Pesnyary went on tour in the United States and jointly recorded an album with an American folk group.
Economic cooperation
During the period of detente, the development of space docking modules was carried out in international relations, and a rescue system for people in distress (Cospas-Sarsat) was jointly deployed. In the field of the chemical industry, the policy of L. Kostandov, Minister of the Chemical Industry of the USSR, was promoted. Cooperation was carried out on the principle: factories in exchange for products.
In the early seventies, the Soviet Union purchased American dump trucks and concrete mixers for the construction of canals in Asia. In 1972, a livestock complex was established in the Kuban, the equipment and production equipment for which the United States supplied. In those same years, the possibility of purchasing a Boeing 747 for the Soviet airline Aeroflot was considered with a view to operating them on intercontinental flights connecting the Soviet Union and the States, but these ideas were never implemented.
PepsiCo in the Soviet Union
In 1971, PepsiCo President Donald Kendall met with Alexei Kosygin. During the negotiations, possible cooperation was discussed. Such agreements were reached: Pepsi-Cola began to be sold in the Soviet Union (the first batch was released in April 1973), the construction of a beverage factory in the USSR began (the first was launched in 1974 in Novorossiysk). As part of the deal, PepsiCo began importing Stolichnaya vodka into the United States. Such a scheme was used because the leadership of the Soviet Union refused to conduct payments in foreign currency.
End of Relief
The period of detente ended with the invasion of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. On December 24-25, 1979, the palace of Hafizullah Amin, an Afghan politician and head of state, was stormed, and he himself was killed. Following the introduction of troops, United States President J. Carter ordered the Senate:
- defer ratification of the arms reduction treaty;
- limit or stop the export of certain goods to the USSR (primarily the embargo on high-tech and agricultural products);
- to suspend exchanges between the USSR and the USA in the field of science, culture, education, medicine, science and technology;
- postpone the opening of consulates.
Soon, the United States decided not to send the national team to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. More than 60 countries joined the boycott of the Olympic Games. True, a certain part of the states did this for economic reasons, and Mozambique, Qatar and Iran were not invited by the international committee at all. The idea of a boycott arose at a NATO meeting. The head of staff for the Olympics boycott group, organized by the United States, noted that the main initiators were the United States, Britain and Canada, but in the end the last two countries did not participate in the political rally. By the way, then in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bells Games were held, which went down in history as the Olympic boycott.
In 1981, the United States imposed sanctions against the USSR in connection with the events in Poland. It was decided to suspend Aeroflot flights and postpone negotiations, refuse to automatically renew contracts that expired in 1981, and also to review the procedure for obtaining permits for the supply of certain types of equipment to the USSR. So after detente, international relations again proceeded to confrontation.