Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain

The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989

Mark Kramer, Vit Smetana

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780739181867
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The Cold War began in Europe in the mid-1940s and ended there in 1989. Notions of a "global Cold War" are useful in describing the wide impact and scope of the East-West divide after World War II, but first and foremost the Cold War was about the standoff in Europe. The Soviet Union established a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe in the mid-1940s that later became institutionalized in the Warsaw Pact, an organization that was offset by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) led by the United States. The fundamental division of Europe persisted for forty years, coming to an end only when Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe dissolved. Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989, edited by Mark Kramer and Vít Smetana, consists of cutting-edge essays by distinguished experts who discuss the Cold War in Europe from beginning to end, with a particular focus on the countries that were behind the iron curtain. The contributors take account of structural conditions that helped generate the Cold War schism in Europe, but they also ascribe agency to local actors as well as to the superpowers. The chapters dealing with the end of the Cold War in Europe explain not only why it ended but also why the events leading to that outcome occurred almost entirely peacefully.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Central Europe and the Onset of the Iron Curtain
• Stalin, Soviet Policy, and the Establishment of a Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe, 1941-1949
• The United States and Eastern Europe, 1943-1948
• Concessions or Conviction? Czechoslovakia’s Road to the Cold War and the Soviet Bloc
• Hungary’s Role in the Soviet Bloc, 1945-1956
• Stalin, the Split with Yugoslavia, and Soviet-East European Efforts to Reassert Control, 1948-1953
• Austria, Germany, and the Cold War, 1945-1955
• Neutrality for Germany or Stabilization of the Eastern Bloc? New Evidence on the Decision-Making Process of the Stalin Note
• The German Question and Intra-Bloc Politics in the Post-Stalin Era
• The Berlin Wall: Looking Back on the History of the Wall Twenty Years After Its Fall
• The German Problem and Security in Europe: Hindrance or Catalyst on the Path to 1989-1990?
• Germany and East-Central Europe, 1945-1990: The View from London
• The German Question as Seen from Paris
• Cold War, Détente, and the Soviet Bloc: The Evolution of Intra-Bloc Foreign Policy Coordination, 1953-1975
• The Role of East-Central Europe in Ending the Cold War
• Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and the Revolutions of 1989: American Myths Versus the Primary Sources
• Moscow and Eastern Europe, 1988-1989: A Policy of Optimism and Caution
• The Fall of the Wall, Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev’s Vision of Europe after the Cold War
• Pulling the Rug: East-Central Europe and the Implosion of East Germany
• The Demise of the Soviet Bloc
• Long-Term Perspectives on the Cold War and Its End
• Nuclear Weapons and the Cold War in Europe
• Why Did the Cold War Last So Long?
• The End of Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence
• Conspicuous Connections, 1968 and 1989
• 1989 in Historical Perspective: The Problem of Legitimation
• November 1989: From a Velvet Opening of Regime Change to a Revolutionary Outcome
• The End of the Cold War and the Transformation of Cold War History: A Tale of Two Conferences, 1988-1989
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Index