Prosperity After WWII

[South]

Good afternoon Globalization 41,

Yes, indeed, their homes were show-cases; museums !

Of course the main reason Stalin could not work with the Western allies was that the West wanted the disestablishment of the USSR. There's a reason FDR did not recognize the USSR until late: 1935 [?]. The Czar's government quietly helped the US during our Civil War (via secret loans and repaid hidden in the publicly announced cost of Alaska).

I don't know id Beria is the best example. My nominee is Anastas Mikoyan. He was the Commissar of Internal Trade and later, Foreign Trade. He took trips to the US.....visited Macy's department store and a Howard Johnson's on the New Jersey Turnpike, met Sophia Loren, attended JFK's funeral.

Although he was a real survivor, individuals didn't count that much. Forgot the specifics but his brother was a founding engineer of the MIG aero factory/company.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[Globalization41]

Mikoyan reached No. 2 under Khrushchev. ... Stalin canned Mikoyan as Minister of Foreign Trade in 1949. I agree Bob, maybe if Mikoyan had reached No. 1 he might of been in favor of better trade relations with the West. ... Didn't Mikoyan attend the funeral of Lenin, F.D.R., Stalin, and J.F.K., the only person to do so? ... ... Beria had his own police force. He micro-managed the Soviet atomic bomb project. He kept a large model of an oil refinery in his office. He liked industrialization. ... However, the Red Army leadership was not a big fan of Beria.

Globalization41.

[South]

Good morning Globalization 41,

Good points; All the big ... and I know that "all" is an absolute, comprehensive term ... nation-states have their people spanning the political spectrum.

Don't know much about Mikoyan. He's referenced in "Khrushchev Remembers" an assembled autobiography loaded with additional material by Edward Crankshaw and Strobe Talbott. He was "well-traveled".

If budgets were austere, Stalin's daughter from his second marriage was granted political asylum by LBJ and lived in Milwaukee or Minneapolis for a few years before returning "home" but had heard she's buried in the US. In direct contrast so as to display the political spectrum, US President Grant had a grand daughter who moved to Czarist Russia and married into their nobility. Still, of the "Old Bolsheviks", Mikoyan is premier for representing a nation-state. Many candidates available to serve as "representative".

Meanwhile, we can't forget the financial sponsors. Voyages and lodging and resettlement costs require the bills to be paid. The political spectrum is less about personalities and more so the organizations sponsoring the personalities.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[Globalization41]

Morning Bob. ... The Cold War indoctrination was really intense. I remember watching TV as a kid and one of the characters in a typical cowboy yarn was Russian. I was shocked because he looked human. ... Stalin's policy was to weaken America by any means necessary. Seemingly, the Korean War and Berlin blockade worked well for Stalin's idea. (The Cold War defense industry without trade deficits actually stimulated the U.S. economy.) ... Mega fake news hid the truth. Americans became paranoid from the communist conspiracy. Everything bad was due to the overall communist plan. Later after Stalin, for example, some Americans believed water fluoridation was part of the vast communist conspiracy to take over the U.S.A. ... There was no internet, but underground printers generated almost infinite anti-communist propaganda. ... Meanwhile, communists absorbed eastern European countries one-by-one. Mass executions facilitated communist control over China. South Korea and South Vietnam were invaded. And communist-inspired mass murders developed in Cambodia after America's retreat from S.E. Asia left a power vacuum.

Globalization41.

[South]

Good afternoon Globalization 41,

I remember the Cold War indoctrination - and the actual aspects of it such as "fall out shelters" and what foreign languages Americans spoke or studied.

Concur with the Korean War but the Berlin Blockade did generate the Berlin Airlift which was a clear demonstration of American resolve.

There is a - huge - corpus of material on whether the US defense industry, during the Cold War, stimulated the US economy or created "lost opportunity costs", that is, funds were reallocated to the Defense Department and not available to commercial and industrial ventures. In the background to this is the 1935 Social Security program and the follow-on 1965 Medicare program with both programs' non-discretionary funding obligations.

Next, we must not overlook the 2 Arab oil embargoes. Plus, the Allies like the UK, Japan and South Korea placed economic pressure on the US economy via their high-quality activity. Much involved US national policy trade-offs such as allowing Japan to prosper so that it would not go neutral in the Cold War. I'm holding off mentioning West Germany for now but will mention France recognized China in 1964. The implications are obvious. Circa 1982, along comes Teng Hsi Ping and the new China...which eventually added 50 % capacity to the US economy. Here, too, a trade-off decided by Washington, D.C. Boeing (and some other major corporations) could not enter China without a reciprocal deal. Otherwise Boeing was going to join the Penn Central Railroad in the history books. Recall the 3 pending, but avoided bankruptcies in 1975: Chrysler Corp, Lockheed Corp and the city government of New York City.

Were not the eastern European countries (less perhaps East Germany [I don't know if Potsdam or Yalta established. Forgot formation agreement re the 4 sectors of Berlin]), with their new Communist governments, products of Yalta ?

The Civil War in China involved mass executions but also everything else. What was going on in China was initially clearly explained to Washington, D.C. by General Joseph Stillwell. FDR had fired Stillwell. Yes, South Korea was invaded in 1950 and by coincidence, the USSR became a nuclear power in 1949. Americans weren't sold ("convinced" about ) about fall-out shelters to help the construction industry ! There was real fear. South Vietnam....somewhat different - includes Cambodia - ......Indochina, less northeast Laos, was an event waiting to happen. When the French left and the US arrived to fill the void - a "bribe" or "agreement" with DeGaul to allow West Germany to rearm and help confront the Warsaw Pact - the US absorbed problems, social, economic and political, it could not handle. Northeast Laos was already defacto absorbed into North Vietnam (Sam and Sally provinces).


~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA