Kgb History Essay

     The activities of the CIA are largely undisclosed. It undoubtedly makes use of the surveillance Sattelites of theNational Recconasonsse Office (NRO) and the signal interception capabilities of the NSA, including the Echelon system, and the surveillance aircraft of the various branches of the US armed forces. At one stage, the CIA even operated its own fleet of U-2 surveillance aircraft. The agency also employs a group of officers with paramilitary skills in its Special Division. Micheal Spaan, a CIA officer killed in November 2001 during the U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan, was one such individual. In its earliest years the CIA attempted to rollback Communism in Eastern Europe by supporting local anti-communist groups; none of these attempts met with much success. It was more successful in its efforts to limit Communist influence in France and Italy, though many believe there was never much of a Communist threat in these nations.

This highlighted not only Stalin’s fear of being subsided as leader of the USSR, but his ruthlessness in the face of opposition. Then followed the 1936 Show Trials, in which there were many arrests of party members, ex-opponents, military figures and non-party members. The first involved Zinoviev, Kamanev and their allies, who confessed under force for falsified crimes of being responsible for attempts to wreck Soviet industry and to kill Soviet leaders, and subsequently were shot after being convicted. The second followed in January 1937, in which Karl Radek, a well known Trotskyite and Pyatakov was shot, again on falsified crimes. In March 1938, Bukharin and 20 members of the old Right Deviation were tried, and found guilty of working with Trotsky and foreign governments against the USSR. All confessed and were shot, with Tomsky being so crippled by fear that he committed suicide. The Show Trials were a grotesque sham by which Stalin cast immense fear into the hearts and minds of Russia’s political clout, ensuring total control over any opposition through fear alone. Removal of any potential opposition was extended in July 1937 when Yezhov (Stalin’s head of the secret police from 1936) drew up a list of over 250,000 ‘Anti-Soviet elements’, which included intelligentsia such as artists, writers, musicians, priests and so forth. This became known as the Anti-Soviet List, ad anyone unfortunate enough to be found on it was arrested,

Under a backdrop of systematic fear and terror, the Stalinist juggernaut flourished. Stalin’s purges, otherwise known as the “Great Terror”, grew from his obsession and desire for sole dictatorship, marking a period of extreme persecution and oppression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. “The purges did not merely remove potential enemies. They also raised up a new ruling elite which Stalin had reason to think he would find more dependable.” (Historian David Christian, 1994). While Stalin purged virtually all his potential enemies, he not only profited from removing his long-term opponents, but in doing so, also caused fear in future ones. This created a party that had virtually no opposition, a new ruling elite that would be

The Soviet Union controlled every attribute of their economy and focused in developing a strong and self-sufficient country. The Soviet became the superpower of the west as their military strengthened and their prevailing economy influenced other countries to follow their communist ways. But the Soviet’s accomplishment came with secrecy only an insider would recognize. The British intelligence recruited a Russian double agent as he escaped house arrest as the Soviet became suspicious. The double agent Intel displayed the deceiving economy of the Soviet Union.

Democratic localism was also enforced to keep the government at bay, allowing people to make their own economic decisions. Capitalism was renewed due to growth. Americans were enjoying various freedoms in politics, religion and travel. Nixon stated in one of his speeches that the United States had “come closest to the idea of prosperity for all in a classless society (166).”

Offner, Arnold, "Provincialism and Confrontation: Truman’s Responsibility" in Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II.

1.     How NSC-68 influenced America’s response to Communist North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950 and to Communist expansion in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The NSC-68 called for military assistance programs that would meet the requirements of our allies. Since South Korea was an ally, we assisted them in repelling the invasion of another communist nation. This help for South Korea meant that a communist nation would be weakened and therefore possibly cripple a potential ally for the Soviet Union. Also, South Korea would then respond to a call for aid if the Soviet Union ever attacked

Stalin used the media in order to convince the Russian citizens that there were saboteurs and spies within Russian population. Stalin used the secret police and military forces to carry out the arrests of so called

Particularly during the Great Terror under Stalin, the oppression and its effects were truly awful. People could be arrested and even killed just for suspicion of opposing the government. This of course made the people extremely fearful. Millions of others died due to famine and disease. Eventually, the Great Terror led to the execution of more than 700,000 soviet citizens. The soviet political system was not only brutal, it was rigged. The political elite feared democracy and arranged elections in which the people were given no real choice. The fact that leonid Brezhnev received 99.99% of the vote tells a thinly veiled story of political corruption. it is crucial to emphasize this political charade if one is to understand the degree of oppression and regulation that the government imposed on its people, whether it was moving them to a camp in Siberia or a ballet school in Moscow. soviet society was not a free

In 1961 President John F Kennedy put together a doctrine, which altered from President Eisenhower’s one. It was to “Respond flexibly to communist expansion, especially guerrilla warfare.” (Roskin & Berry, 2010, p. 58) It was a time when the Cold War was at its height and nuclear weapons a mass threat and source of power. This doctrine was aimed at using alternative means before opening into combat. This, in light of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it succeeded in doing.

The USSR showed great educational progress as it is shown in the statistics , the literacy was twenty-five percent in 1915 and it grew to ninety-nine in 1980. Another example of Russia’s social condition is the massive instability and genocides during 1937 and 1938. In Document C it states “According to declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims , of whom 681,692 were shot -an average of 1,000 executions a day ( in comparison, the Tsarists executed 3,932 persons for political crimes 1825 to 1910-an average of less than 1 execution per week).” (Document C) it shows how the NKVD, the police force that carried out Stalin’s orders to keep his people from rebelling and having freedom of speech

The NKVD was relentless on seeking and punishing those who threatened the stability of the Soviet Union, per the direction and management of Stalin. While the majority of the NKVD activity included ordinary police work and public safety, there were also secret assassinations and political cover ups done by the secret police department. In a book written by Richard Pipes in 2001, he gave the statistics that, “...during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims, of whom 681,692 were shot”. These shocking numbers were only addressing the arrests and deaths by the NKVD, which in the grand amount of total atrocities of the USSR during the Cold War. All of these deaths and arrests separated families and loved ones and created a country divided in fear and

When one hears the common phrase, “The only good commie is a dead one,” the Cold War comes to mind. This war, cold because of no direct violence towards each country, was a major contribution to future wartime diplomacy. The clever Americans used many tactics to create a “cold” war that would benefit them in every aspect. The fear of communism consuming smaller countries exaggerated the possibility that America’s economy could be jeopardized. Politicians also helped guarantee anti-communist principles in the United States. Imitating the government, the media and other political figures helped create a frenzy of fear. The United States was more to blame for the Cold War than the Soviet Union.

For example, the thought police is one of them. ”There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the thought police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork”. This quote taken from the book describes how the thought police could watch individuals at any chosen time, and also had the power to listen to people’s thoughts. This was a way of controlling the people, by having their mind in control and to expose those who were in the opposition. In contrary to popular beliefs at the time, NKVD did not have the power to listen to the citizens of the soviet union’s thoughts. However, they did have spies working for Stalin, in order to listen to, and follow people who they suspected had political differences to their

The Cold War was a response to the perceived threat by the United States that Communism would interfere with national security and economic stakes in the world. It was a perceived threat by communist countries that the United States would take to the world. During the Cold War, the United States, Russia, and other countries made efforts to avoid another world war, while warring in proxy in other lands. The devastation caused by the hydrogen bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the next technological advancements became only deterrents to the public. Governments had their own agenda which would result in worsening the strain between nations. The United States hid behind a curtain of nationalism resulting in increased