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So during my younger years before the U.S.S.R. fell, my parents and grandma would tell me about the history of the Cold War; How Russia was this monolithic and oppressive state bent on world domination. I've started to wonder recently about the Soviet perspective (Russian or client-state) on the whole affair. How was the U.S. viewed? Not just the general "imperial-capitalist pig-dog" but a more individual view. Even my dyed-in-the-wool, Red-hating Nanna acknowledged the lovely hands Russia had been dealt that guided their actions. Are there any good sources where I could look or any Russian Goons that could weigh in? My googling just sends me to book reviews or pretty specific events like the moon landing.
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Sep 2, 2014 21:18
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I can perhaps give you some russian perspective, but Im limited in my time right now so I wont be able to write too much. On personal level, it wasnt ever "us vs them", like in the US. The official state line never tried to demonize the US/or it's people, it was always "Common united brotherhood of people against the exploitative capitalist goverment". Usually it depicted an average american citizen as a struggling worker who is being taken advantage of by it's society, and attempted to paint a united socialism picture of the two nations. As for literature, off the top of my mind - Fyodorov Alexander Viktorovich: "Transformation of Russia's image on the western screen: From the time of ideological conflict to modern times(1946-1992;1992-2010)/Федоров Александр Викторович. Трансформации образа России на западном экране: от эпохи идеологической конфронтации (1946-1991) до современного этапа (1992-2010). , althrough Im not sure if it was translated into russian and Genrich Borovik's "Prologue"(One of the best. IMHO) I'll find some books later today. If you have any specific questions, ask. HoratioRash fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 05:56
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It was more or less like Russia's current administration's stance, really. That's just the party line though, on a personal level there wasn't any resentment or hate. Can't imagine anybody in USSR actually hating Americans, unless you were a KGB guy like Putin or something. Definitely more like curiosity.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:19
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According to my relatives it was: "This government is absolutely horrendous and we want jeans too."
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Sep 3, 2014 09:02
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HoratioRash posted:I can perhaps give you some russian perspective, but Im limited in my time right now so I wont be able to write too much. What were people's reactions during some of the big confrontations? Like the Cuban Missile crisis? I guess it's weird for me to think of a government that didn't demonize an ideological opponent. Makes sense though if you were trying to stay with Marx/Lenin theory. Also, curious about Russian views on the Soviet(and current American) occupation of Afghanistan. pigdog posted:It was more or less like Russia's current administration's stance, really. That's just the party line though, on a personal level there wasn't any resentment or hate. Can't imagine anybody in USSR actually hating Americans, unless you were a KGB guy like Putin or something. Definitely more like curiosity. Now I'm curious to whether many American politicians actually hated the USSR or were just pandering. Was Putin known much to the general populace when he was heading up the KGB? Lichy posted:According to my relatives it was: "This government is absolutely horrendous and we want jeans too." This government being the US or USSR?
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Sep 4, 2014 02:41
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Let me give you some perspective regarding Afghanistan first. This wont be a long story, but perhaps a poorly worded one as it's 7 AM. Afghanistan never knew peace or calm. The first ever organized government in Afghanistan was the Durrani Empire. It existed since 1747 to 1826 and fell through into a few separate parts. This is where powers at the time decided to intervene. If the region was a buffer zone at best prior to that, now it was a very desired piece for both British and Russian Empires. Britain lost in 1919 and recognized Afghanistan's independence(Treaty of Rawalpindi) and giving up it's protectorate to-then Russia. A few years later, Soviets, even though they weren't exactly rich or possessing enough material to send abroad, they still did(One million roubles in gold, 5 thousand rifles and a couple airplanes.) Afghanistan was thus the first country to recognize THe Land of Bolsheviks. Let's skip to the sixties, to a dude known as Mohammed Zahir Shah, The King of Afghanistan(Also known as The Last King of Afghanistan" Zahir(Let's call him Zahir, shall we? He wont mind, He's dead) started to lean more strongly towards the soviets. Why, or how? Well, that's a good question. It all began with the offer from US to train his pilots, officers and the likes. Zahir told them it'd be a waste of money, and approached Soviets instead. So now all of his officers, pilots and the likes trained in the USSR. It didnt end there, though. In return for that show of trust, stuff began trickling back the other way - from USSR to Afghanistan. Nothing major, small arms, tanks, old planes, other assorted but valuable stuff. At that point, USSR also started to recognize that they dont really need a second GDR in their backyard, and so they flooded the country with thousands their own specialists. This is how modern Afghanistan came to exist. They did everything, from unfucking their agriculture, medicine, education system, to building roads, hydroelectric damns and airports. Simple fact is, Afghanistan was built fully with the money of our people. People were happy, another friendly country! Now, that kind of thing didn't really appease to everybody. Enter Mohammed Daud Khan, ex-PM of Afghanistan, also cousin of Zahir. I wont go much into internal poo poo that happened in afghanistan in that time, but Ill run the basics down. Daud was an rear end in a top hat. Whether he slowly got insane during the seventies, or just drunk with power, I honestly dont know. Daud was not a communist. In fact, Daud was anti-communist, he hated them. He banned all political parties, nationalized land(For a ransom), tried to buddy up to islamists but at the same time tried to keep extorting benefits and materiel from USSR in exchange for.. absolutely nothing. Thankfully, not all party politics were retarded like Brezhnev, and in 1973-1974 aid ceased completely. Situation was tense, military coups were planned(And sometimes attempted) every year, and so in 1978, angry Daud demanded tribute. He was basically told to gently caress off, and so, upon coming back to Afghanistan, he offed the soviet representative, and SUDDENLY that sparked a demonstration. After attempts to arrest or disperse the protests failed, it turned into a rebellion, and so Tarakis took the chance and came into power, burying Daud with his ministers(literally) Nur Muhammad Taraki, the new chief, communist to boot, accomplished quite a lot of things. He removed the debts 11m peasants owned to loan sharks, divided the feudal lands without paying for them(And installing a minimal given areas for everyone), began secularization, Nationalized the water supply to make it free. Lenin's triumph wasnt that long lived because radical islamists needed those reforms like a bull would need an udder. That is, not at all. Dowries were banned, forced marriages were banned, men were allowed to shave bears and women were prohibited from wearing burkas. Don't get me wrong, islamists and communists have been killing each other for quite a while now, at least occasionally, but Daud was still the main Bad Guy. With Daud gone, everything went to poo poo. An armed coup was attempted every year, failed, etc. Lets skip to 1979, and focus on Hafizullah Amin. Hafizullah Amin was a communist too, minister of defence, all that jazz. Amin wanted to play Napoleon, and so, another coup. Amin is now a president. Taraki's dead, smothered with a pillow under Amin orders. Literally. With a pillow. How low. I wont go over his accusations of beign a CIA agent, because frankly, there's really not enough evidence to go on save for a few entries in his personal journal with CIA contacts. Still, at the time it was a Big Thing. Unfortunately, with him came political and religious repressions, so country entered a brief period of turmoil. Amin went all in and called for Soviets to deploy a small contingent of military to Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Amin ruled for four months, and, quite funnily, had 4 or so attempted assassinations and a poisoning, all in space of 4 months. THe poisoning was actually a quite funny story. Soviet special services attempted the poisoning, that fact is open and well-documented. Soviet doctors, who were staffing Amin's palace, were not let in on the plan, so they saved him from poisoning, resuscitated and put him back into his chair. Due to the failure of that last attempt, a decision was made to just clear the palace completely, instead of just Amin. Amin's palace was stormed by Spetsnaz KGB, groups of "Zenit" and "Grom", supported by 103rd VDV division, with another 30 "Bloody KGB"s, and 15th GRU SPetsnaz with Afghani nationals in it. KGB Colonel Boyarinov, who commanded the operation, caught a bullet and died during the fighting. Amin died of acute lead poisoning. So begins a ten-year long frag fest. Im quite tired of typing right now, so Ill continue later, covering, briefly, the forces of each side and general flow of war until the withdrawal.
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Sep 4, 2014 08:11
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I think it was produced really soon after the wall came down, so the interpretation is pretty west-oriented, but Here's a documentary with a whole bunch of interviews with people who lived in E. Germany. The interviews alone are worth the watch. There's also this [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GvDyJobHTM]great Reagan-era CIA film about depictions of the west in Soviet media. Again, produced from a distinctively western perspective, but initially at lest intended for internal consumption as a way to judge what the Soviets thought of us. It's worth a watch.
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Sep 4, 2014 18:22
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Thanks a lot, both of you. This poo poo is fascinating. I love Afghan history and old school propaganda. What's the meaning behind "Zenit" and "Grom" btw? When I was active duty army we trained with a Polish airborne brigade and some of the officers were pointed out as being Grom. Thinking there was some translation error there but we just thought it meant Polish special forces.
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Sep 4, 2014 18:28
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Dirt5o8 posted:What's the meaning behind "Zenit" and "Grom" btw? When I was active duty army we trained with a Polish airborne brigade and some of the officers were pointed out as being Grom. Thinking there was some translation error there but we just thought it meant Polish special forces. GROM is an acronym that sounds like the Polish (and Russian) word for "thunder". It stands for Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego (Operational Maneuver Response Group) according to Wikipedia. "Zenit" is simply the transliterated Russian spelling of "zenith". It is perhaps worth noting that anti-air artillery is called "zenitnaja artillerija" (zenith artillery) in Russian.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:32
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Paging EnsignExpendable to the thread
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Sep 11, 2014 14:41
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I'm at the point where I want to know more but I don't know what questions to ask.
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Sep 11, 2014 19:09
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I'll ask for you. How was the space program portrayed?
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Sep 11, 2014 21:47
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Here's another: There's the classic, possibly untrue, story of Yeltsin visiting a supermarket in Houston and being blown away by the experience, in contrast to its parallel in Russia at the time. How did Russians see the 'plight' of the American civilian, then? I understand that the Soviets pushed a hard "free them from exploitation" but I guess I'm curious if you could describe the picture painted of that exploitation.
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Sep 11, 2014 22:46
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I know during the '60s and '70s they made a lot of hay talking about American racism and the plight of the black man. Systemic oppression, uncaring or hostile police, white citizens can lynch you with no real repercussions, segregation, sundown towns,, etc. Plenty of other aspects of American society to draw similar inspiration from.
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Sep 12, 2014 03:40
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Noctis Horrendae posted:I'll ask for you. How was the space program portrayed?  .quote:How did Russians see the 'plight' of the American civilian, then? I understand that the Soviets pushed a hard "free them from exploitation" but I guess I'm curious if you could describe the picture painted of that exploitation. quote:There's the classic, possibly untrue, story of Yeltsin visiting a supermarket in Houston and being blown away by the experience, in contrast to its parallel in Russia at the time.
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Sep 12, 2014 18:38
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Cuntpunch posted:Here's another: After the fall of the USSR it wasn't unusual to see Russian military units coming over to the US to cross train/liaise with the American military. Specifically one of their parachute regiments came down to Ft. Bragg and when let loose in the local mall went absolutely gaga over everything. Ever seen a Russian dude go crazy in a victorias secret? I have. Anecdote: This is how I found out that russian cigarettes taste shittier than american ones.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:21
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How did soviet citizens figure a theoretical war might develop? In the US, for example, the generic "Hot War" fantasy is some crisis escalating bad enough that the soviets start invading Europe. NATO forces make a desperate stand in Europe but are eventually overrun, and at some point nukes fly. What did soviets expect? Did they think it more likely that the US would be the aggressor?
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Sep 13, 2014 05:21
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vintagepurple posted:How did soviet citizens figure a theoretical war might develop? Obviously the US would have been touted as aggressor in any scenario, but I doubt a lot of people had any actual fear of US or NATO invading them, or even of Soviets invading the opposite direction. With all the civil defense stuff, learning about chemical and biological as war as nuclear warfare, an all out war looked insane from any angle. MAD really did work.
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Sep 13, 2014 12:58
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I recall from a previous thread that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was in a delicate position through most of the cold war. The U.S. viewed the first use of nuclear weapons as a sharp, terrible line that would result in a full exchange if crossed. The top Soviet leadership viewed it as more of a sliding scale, where the use of tactical nuclear weapon on a military target was a far cry from dropping a hydrogen bomb on a city. Thing is, the Americans didn't know that this was the Soviet doctrine.
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Sep 14, 2014 20:28
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For what it's worth, constant reminders that the USA was the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons in war, all the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all that was a thing. Not that most of the Soviet people even knew why the bombs were dropped, why they were dropped on Japan in particular, or whether or on which side Japan was fighting. Americans were just mean and liked to burn tens of thousands of civilians I guess.
pigdog fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 20:52
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Early Cold War stuff is horrifying. Literally everything that could be was nuclear equipped on the American side. The thought that maybe razing an entire nation with nuclear fire would be A Bad Thing never seemed to cross anyone's mind....
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Sep 14, 2014 22:40
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The Door Frame posted:Early Cold War stuff is horrifying. Literally everything that could be was nuclear equipped on the American side. The thought that maybe razing an entire nation with nuclear fire would be A Bad Thing never seemed to cross anyone's mind.... Pretty sure the soviets did the same thing. Backpack nukes, nuclear powered planes, all that poo poo. Not to mention a 50 MT bomb (that they only tested at half yield because they were freaked out about it.) The Americans used tactical precision and medium sized warheads while the soviets used pure quantity and raw firepower to supplement their less precise weaponry. wilfredmerriweathr fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 23:07
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Pretty sure the soviets did the same thing. Backpack nukes, nuclear powered planes, all that poo poo. Not to mention a 50 MT bomb (that they only tested at half yield because they were freaked out about it.) The Americans used tactical precision and medium sized warheads while the soviets used pure quantity and raw firepower to supplement their less precise weaponry. I only spoke for America since I only knew American military history well enough to, but for MAD to hsve actually worked, it stands to reason that the USSR also made their military work around the idea of burning the enemy to the ground in a flash of atomic weapons
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Sep 14, 2014 23:36
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Doctrinally, the Soviet armed forces considered Nuclear weapons to be an escalation of artillery, which was reflected in their selection of tactical nuclear weapons.
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Sep 15, 2014 03:49
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Nine of Eight posted:Doctrinally, the Soviet armed forces considered Nuclear weapons to be an escalation of artillery, which was reflected in their selection of tactical nuclear weapons. I know the US played with the idea of using nukes tactically at the Battalion level before they just focused on strategic level. Think it was dropped after some of the weapons developed were realized to be suicide weapons (ex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29).
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Sep 15, 2014 13:17
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The Door Frame posted:Early Cold War stuff is horrifying. Literally everything that could be was nuclear equipped on the American side. The thought that maybe razing an entire nation with nuclear fire would be A Bad Thing never seemed to cross anyone's mind.... You're right that it scary to think about, but I always thought it was also a little funny that they went so far as to make what amounts to a nuclear gun. (For Fallout fans, this is where they got the idea for the Fat Man). Cuntpunch posted:Here's another: I don't about Yeltsin, but there was a fairly famous Soviet defector named Viktor Belenko who thought the first grocery store he visited was some kind of "showcase" setup to give him a good impression of the US because of the variety/quantity of goods. He talks a little about this and what he was told about the US while still in the USSR too. Of course the guy went to pretty crazy lengths to defect and he was military, so I don't know if he reflects the common view. Kimmalah fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 13:33
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One of the professors in my department is Russian roughly my age-she's maybe 41 and I'm in my late 30s. Since one of my particular interests is political memory, I compared notes with her once about the Cold War. While the other posters here who experienced the Cold War for the Soviet perspective might be more detailed, I remember our conversation being eye opening even though it really shouldn't have been. In essence she describes the Soviet experience being remarkably similar to my own (I am American), at least when it came to fear of war. Essentially she said that the Soviet fear of nuclear war centered on a fear of an aggressive American military launching a first strike against the Soviet Union. A perfect mirror image of what I experienced as an American and in American culture.
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Sep 15, 2014 15:30
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Kimmalah posted:I don't about Yeltsin, but there was a fairly famous Soviet defector named Viktor Belenko who thought the first grocery store he visited was some kind of "showcase" setup to give him a good impression of the US because of the variety/quantity of goods. So, at the time at least, you guys didn't have grocery stores as we know them now? This sounds like an incredibly dumb question, but how did you have things set up?
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Sep 15, 2014 16:40
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Thunderfinger posted:So, at the time at least, you guys didn't have grocery stores as we know them now? This sounds like an incredibly dumb question, but how did you have things set up? I'm just guessing, but I think he was more surprised at the amount and variety of stuff available for sale rather than there being no Russian food stores. Also the size of the store and the lack of really long lines. But I'm not Russian, so like I said that's a guess. I think that's why he makes such a big thing of trying new stuff from the store and accidentally eating cat food. 
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Sep 15, 2014 19:08
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ZombieLenin posted:In essence she describes the Soviet experience being remarkably similar to my own (I am American), at least when it came to fear of war. Essentially she said that the Soviet fear of nuclear war centered on a fear of an aggressive American military launching a first strike against the Soviet Union. A perfect mirror image of what I experienced as an American and in American culture. With the added caveat that America has actually nuked a country in real life, unlike the Soviet Union...
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Sep 15, 2014 19:56
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You might want to check this doc out https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOQm_eUXD7refxe2zn4cWWxF4NzRx2Ut2 it's 24 parts and covers just about everything with a pretty decent perspective from both sides.
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Sep 17, 2014 06:03
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feedmegin posted:With the added caveat that America has actually nuked a country in real life, unlike the Soviet Union... And if we let our generals have their way it would have been a few more. There was some tension in the Korean war, MacArthur really wanted to drop some bombs.
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Sep 17, 2014 16:32
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:Pretty sure the soviets did the same thing. Backpack nukes, nuclear powered planes, all that poo poo. Not to mention a 50 MT bomb (that they only tested at half yield because they were freaked out about it.) The Americans used tactical precision and medium sized warheads while the soviets used pure quantity and raw firepower to supplement their less precise weaponry. Is there anything actually wrong with the bolded? I mean, we do nuclear powered submarines okay. I'm guessing there's some unique engineering challenges that make it not be a good idea.
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Sep 17, 2014 18:03
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Kimmalah posted:I'm just guessing, but I think he was more surprised at the amount and variety of stuff available for sale rather than there being no Russian food stores. Also the size of the store and the lack of really long lines. But I'm not Russian, so like I said that's a guess. That'd be correct. Soviet grocery stores were far more Spartan. There would often be one brand for a particular item and it wouldn't be uncommon for things to be out of stock frequently. You would also have to line up at numerous counters to buy things too so there would often be long lines. So a place with no lines and several kinds of beans and several brands for each would seem like pure luxury. It'd be like sensory overload. Not a perfect analogy: Imagine shopping at the Boedega all your life and then one day somebody showed you a Whole Foods.
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Sep 17, 2014 18:13
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Ytlaya posted:Is there anything actually wrong with the bolded? I mean, we do nuclear powered submarines okay. I'm guessing there's some unique engineering challenges that make it not be a good idea. Radioactive exhaust that irradiates the land below the flight path. Also NIMBY spoil sports. Project Pluto I think. blugu64 fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Sep 17, 2014 |
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Sep 17, 2014 18:16
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Ytlaya posted:Is there anything actually wrong with the bolded? I mean, we do nuclear powered submarines okay. I'm guessing there's some unique engineering challenges that make it not be a good idea. Back to this: If a nuke sub goes bad you can scuttle it and all that open ocean water would do a decent job of keeping things from becoming a complete disaster. Meanwhile a military pilot in control of a nuclear aircraft pulls a "Hey guys watch this" and crashes in a residential area. And if you don't think pilots are irresponsible idiots when flying military aircraft watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjFIB1L3BPU B52 pilot hotdogging kills 4 people, including a guy who was on it as his last flight before retirement.
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Sep 17, 2014 19:45
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blugu64 posted:Radioactive exhaust that irradiates the land below the flight path. Also NIMBY spoil sports. Shielding is also very heavy which has some distinct disadvantages for air planes.
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Sep 17, 2014 20:10
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Ytlaya posted:Is there anything actually wrong with the bolded? I mean, we do nuclear powered submarines okay. I'm guessing there's some unique engineering challenges that make it not be a good idea. I'd consider "flying an atomic bomb around" a pretty significant engineering challenge.
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Sep 17, 2014 20:27
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blugu64 posted:Radioactive exhaust that irradiates the land below the flight path. Also NIMBY spoil sports. Close, but apparently Project Pluto was for nuclear powered cruise missiles meant to give them enough range for striking the Soviet Union. It was basically rendered unnecessary once the ICBM. ANP and Project NEPA were the aircraft programs. The official reasoning was time and money. They threw over a decade and a billion dollars into it, but still weren't close to getting anything they could use regularly. Also I know people tend to be overly afraid of nuclear power, but I think this one's justified and not a case of "Oh you spoil sports."
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Sep 18, 2014 00:46
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Tupolev also had a modified Tu-95, and I'll settle for killjoys. 
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Sep 18, 2014 01:25
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