Curated category
Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
- NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization began its life on the 4th of April 1949 when twelve nations signed a document in Washington.
- Molotov PlanVyacheslav Molotov rejected the Marshall Plan in 1947, but his economic system had been operating since 1945. The Soviet Union began bilateral trade…
- KGBThe Committee for State Security emerged from the ashes of earlier Soviet security agencies on the 3rd of March 1954. Ivan Serov became its first chairman…
- Washington Summit (1987)The Washington Summit of 1987 took place on the 8th of December 10 between United States president Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
- German–Soviet Axis talksOn the 23rd of August 1939, the world watched as two enemies signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow. The German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentrop and…
- Reykjavík SummitThe former French consulate and British embassy, called Höfði, was the site of the Reykjavík Summit in 1986. This building stood on a hill overlooking the…
- Sinatra DoctrineGennadi Gerasimov stood before reporters in Helsinki on the 25th of October 1989. He spoke about a speech made two days earlier by Soviet Foreign Minister…
- Tehran ConferenceThe USS Iowa dropped anchor in the Caspian Sea on the 27th of November 1943. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stepped off a plane at Baku and traveled by…
- Soviet Union and the United NationsIn 1945, the Soviet Union became a charter member of the United Nations. Joseph Stalin initially hesitated to join the group. US president Franklin D.
- Warsaw PactThe Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, hosted a signing ceremony on the 14th of May 1955. Eight nations gathered to establish the Treaty of Friendship…
- Evil Empire speechAnthony R. Dolan, Ronald Reagan's chief speechwriter in 1983, coined the phrase evil empire for the president to use. Dolan had included similar language in…
- Able Archer 83In May 1981, a closed-session meeting of senior KGB officers and Soviet leaders took place. General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman Yuri Andropov…
- Active measuresThe word disinformation entered the Soviet lexicon in 1923. Joseph Stalin reportedly coined the term to sound French and deceive other nations into believing…
- Stalin NoteOn the 10th of March 1952, Andrei Gromyko delivered a diplomatic note to representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in Berlin.
- Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference opened on the 17th of July 1945 at Cecilienhof in Potsdam, near Berlin. Harry S. Truman had just assumed the presidency after Franklin…
- Nuclear arms raceIn early 1940, a French Deuxième Bureau agent arranged for the purchase of the entire Norwegian stock of heavy water, 187 liters.
- Revolutions of 1989On the 14th of August 1980, a massive general strike erupted at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Workers demanded better conditions and the right to…
- Congo CrisisKing Leopold II of Belgium created the Congo Free State in 1885, establishing a personal colony that later became the Belgian Congo.
- CominformIn September 1947, delegates gathered in Szklarska Poręba, a small town in the Sudetes mountains of Poland. Joseph Stalin called this meeting to address…
- Molotov–Ribbentrop PactThe outcome of World War I was disastrous for both the German and Russian empires. The Russian Civil War broke out in late 1917 after the Bolshevik…
- Iron CurtainTheater stages in the early twentieth century installed iron safety curtains to slow the spread of fire. This literal barrier became a metaphor for political…
- Warsaw Pact invasion of CzechoslovakiaIn the late 1950s, Czechoslovakia began a slow process of de-Stalinization under Antonín Novotný. This change moved much slower than in other Eastern Bloc…
- Berlin Crisis of 1961By 1958, East German leader Walter Ulbricht struggled to maintain control of a state facing severe economic hardships. War reparations demanded by the Soviet…
- Geneva Summit (1985)The Geneva Summit of 1985 began its planning in May 1985 when Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko approached U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz during…
- Soviet involvement in regime changeIn August 1921, Soviet forces crossed the border into Mongolia to rescue a fragile revolution. The Red Army moved from multiple directions to capture key…
- Soviet occupation zone in GermanyOn the 2nd of August 1945, the Soviet Union established control over a specific middle portion of Germany through the Potsdam Agreement.
- Curzon LineIn December 1919, the Supreme War Council published a map and description of a new border line. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, had proposed this…
- Common European HomeLeonid Brezhnev used the phrase Common European Home during a visit to Bonn, West Germany in 1981. This early usage likely aimed to sow discord between the…
- We will bury youNikita Khrushchev stood before Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow on the 18th of November 1956. The room held envoys from twelve NATO…
- Turkish Straits crisisThe Dardanelles and Bosporus form two sequential gateways between the Black Sea and Mediterranean. These waterways served as a vital trade route for Turkey…
- Berlin BlockadeThe Potsdam Agreement signed between the 17th of July and the 2nd of August 1945 divided defeated Germany into four temporary occupation zones.