Political Scenario of The World after Second World War

  During the forty-five years since the end of the Second World War, the world has changed dramatically. The political shape of the world has been completely transformed. The period has seen the almost total disintegration of the imperialist domination of the world and, with it, the collapse of Europe’s hegemony. In 1945, fifty nations had joined together in founding the United Nations. After Namibia’s emergence as an independent nation in March 1990, the number of member-countries of the United Nations has gone up to 160. Most of the new members are countries, mostly of Asia and Africa, which have won their independence after the Second World War.
   With the defeat of Germany, Japan and Italy, and the loss of their empires soon after by Britain and France, the greatest powers in the world after the Second World War were the USA and the Soviet Union. These two countries exercised a dominant role in world affairs and headed the two power blocs that came into being soon after the war. The USA headed the Western bloc, comprising countries of Western Europe, North America and the Pacific. These countries chose to describe themselves as constituting the ‘Free World’. The Soviet Union was the dominant power in the Socialist bloc which came into being as a result of the capture of power by communist panics in countries of Eastern Europe and later in China and North Korea. Many changes have taken place within and between these two blocs, or groups of countries, but the position of the USA and the Soviet Union as pre-eminent military powers in the world has remained unchanged.
   There have been vast political, economic and social changes in every part of the world. The direction and extent of changes vary from country to country but the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights with its stress on civil, political and economic and social rights may be regarded M a symbol of the main direction of change. As mentioned earlier, almost every country in the world has become independent and the people, at least in principle, everywhere have become masters of their own destiny. However, though the main direction of change has been in the growth of political freedom and establishment of universal franchise and representative institutions, many countries are still ruled by military dictators, autocrats and oligarchs. Significant changes have taken place in the political system of many European countries which were until recently ruled by Communist parties. The two main socioeconomic systems-capitalism and socialism-have also undergone many important changes. The recognition of economic and social rights in countries with a capitalist socioeconomic system has come about as a result of the struggles by workers’ unions and labour and socialist movements. Most of the advanced capitalist countries follow welfare policies which have mitigated the worst miseries associated with capitalism before the Second World War. The kind of socialist economies which were built in the Soviet Union and, after the Second World War, in Eastern Europe and China are also undergoing major changes. There is a much greater emphasis in these countries on the production of consumer goods now than during the period in which socialist economies were first built. The centralized control over these economies is also being ended. The newly independent countries are engaged in the task of building their socio-economic system to assure the economic and social rights to their people. The backwardness which they inherited from the colonial rule, however, continues to mark the socio-economic system of most of these countries. The world economic system continues to be inequitable and is a major factor in the continuing backwardness of the socioeconomic system of these countries which, together, are referred to as the Third World.
   Besides the changes in the socio-economic system, there have been technological changes of a dramatic nature during the past forty-five years. These technological changes have particularly transformed the economies of the advanced capitalist countries. Besides the USA, Japan and Germany have emerged as major economic powers. The advances in technology have tended to further widen the gap between the economically developed countries and the countries of the Third World which are called developing countries. The division of the world into developed and developing countries has become a major feature of the post-Second World War world.
   The period after the Second World War has been a period of tensions and conflicts. The alliance which had come into being during the war to defeat fascism came to an end soon after the war was over. Then followed a period of confrontation between what came to be known as the Western bloc and the Soviet bloc. This confrontation which continued throughout the greater part of the past forty-five years is known as the Cold War. It was accompanied by a race for more and more destructive weapons which threatened the very survival of human life. Many wais broke out in different parts of the world and although in many of these wars the countries; of the two antagonistic blocs were directly or in. directly involved, these wars remained localized. There were many occasions during this period when the world was brought on the brink of disaster but a general war was averted. There were periods of thaw and some lessening of tensions and, more recently, the era of detente seems to have begun. However with the kinds of armaments that have been piled up, only genuine disarmament and international cooperation, and not merely avoidance of war, can guarantee peace which has become synonymous with survival. There has already been a loosening of the military blocs and the military pacts of the late 1940s and of 1950s seem to have lost their importance. It is possible now to hope that the past forty-five years have been a prelude to a genuinely peaceful world.
   The nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America have played a crucial rule in bringing the Cold War to an end. By insisting on playing an independent role in world affairs, these countries, to begin with only a few of them but gradually comprising more than two-thirds of the countries of the world have helped in lessening of tensions. Their refusal to align with any of the military blocs itself has been a major factor in creating an atmosphere of peace. The emergence of these nations with their independent role in world affairs is a distinctive feature of the post-Second World War.

THE COLD WAR

  At the Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, agreements had been reached by the leaders of Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union on many questions relating to the future of the liberated countries of Europe. The Council of foreign Ministers set up at the Potsdam conference discussed the terms of the peace treaties with the Axis Powers and their allies. By 1947, in agreements were reached and treaties were signed with Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and inland. The Allied occupation of Austria was ended in 1955 when a treaty was signed with that country. On the question of Germany and Japan, however, no agreement could be arrived at. While the Western countries signed a treaty with Japan in spite of Soviet objections, the differences over Germany became a major source of conflict between the West, led by the USA and Britain, and the Soviet Union. Soon after the war, the wartime alliance had begun to wear out and a period of Cold War, or armed truce, had set in.

The Beginning of the Cold War

  Many historians trace the origin of the Cold War to the year 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution Wk place. As has been stated before, many Western countries had sent their troops to Russia to destroy the new Soviet government that had been set up after the Revolution. The foreign Intervention had, however, failed and had ended by 1920. After that, the Soviet Union was ostracized by most Western countries and it had taken them many years to recognize the Soviet government and establish diplomatic relations with her. After the triumph of fascism in Germany, the Western countries had hoped that Germany’s aggression would be directed against the Soviet Union. They had therefore, followed a policy of appeasement of the Axis powers and had refused to have any alliance with the Soviet Union to resist aggression. During the war, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union the Soviet British-US alliance was formed which led to the defeat of Germany and other Axis Powers. This alliance, however, even during the war, had not been free of tensions. The US and Britain conducted their military operations jointly under a unified command and they took their own independent decisions. This was particularly clear. On the question of the opening of the Second Front which, the Soviet Union felt, was being deliberately delayed. Differences over the future of Europe, for example on Poland, had emerged early during the war. Though most of these differences had been sorted out at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, the Western suspicions of the Soviet Union had persisted. The Soviet victories against Germany in Eastern Europe had created a feeling of unease in the Western countries. The British were particularly alarmed at the Soviet army’s advance towards Berlin although Berlin fell within the part of Germany which, by common agreement, had been allocated to the Soviet Union to liberate. Churchill tried hard to pressurize the US President to direct General Eisenhower, Commander of the Allied troops, to march towards Berlin rather than Leibzig.
   The developments in Eastern Europe revived the pre-war Western fears of communism. At Yalta, Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union had issued a ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’ according to which the three Allied Powers were to assist the liberated countries of Europe to create democratic institutions through free elections. However, each power tried to promote governments of its own choice in these countries. Within three years of the end of the war. Communist-dominated governments were set up in all countries of Eastern Europe. Immediately after liberation, most of these governments were coalition governments and included communists as well as others. The communist domination of the governments in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia particularly aroused British and US indignation at what they considered was a Soviet betrayal of promises regarding democratic institutions and free elections. In 1946, the provisional government of Poland, which included Polish leaders who had been associated with the anti-Soviet Polish government based in London, was split. In the elections which were held later, the two parties which later merged to form the Communist Party (called the Polish United Workers’ Party) won about 90 per cent of the seats. The leaders of the main opposition party alleged that the elections had not been free and that thousands of their workers had been arrested. In Czechoslovakia, a coalition government had been formed after elections in May 1946. The government included communists as well as leaders of other panics. In February 1948, the communists demanded that the government should be reconstituted as some of the government parties were harboring fascists. The President of Czechoslovakia Eduard Benes reconstituted the government under pressure; it was alleged, of the Soviet Union. A communist dominated government then came to power. Similar developments took place in Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary. In Yugoslavia and Albania also, communists who had led the national resistance, had come to power. Thus seven countries in Europe had governments dominated by Communist parties and the Soviet Union was no longer the only country in the world to be ruled by a Communist party. Britain and the USA were particularly concerned at this development which they viewed as a danger to what they called the ‘Free World’.
   The developments in Germany further aggravated the differences between the Soviet Union and the Western countries. Germany had been divided into four occupation zones, each under the Soviet Union, the USA, Britain and France. At the Potsdam conference, Germany had been visualized as a single economic zone with a common currency. An Allied Control Council comprising the army commanders of the four countries had been set up to jointly supervises various matters such as transport and finance. Gradually, however, Germany became divided into two pans-the three zones under the US, Britain and France becoming one, the western pan, and the Soviet occupation zone becoming another, the eastern part. The economic unity of Germany was broken with the western part stopping the dispatch of industrial machinery to the eastern part and the latter ending the supply of agricultural goods to the former. Each part now had a separate currency. The political and economic policies followed in each part became different. In the eastern part large landholdings were confiscated and redistributed among peas ants, many industries and mines were nationalized, and German communists, who had been living in exile since the fascist takeover, and other parties and groups who were willing to form an alliance with them were encouraged. In the western part, a capitalist type of economy began to develop with massive aid which the USA gave, and political parties and groups which were hostile to communists and the Soviet Union began to be dominant. The policies followed in the western part were now based on the fear of communism and the Soviet Union. By 1947, Germany had been divided into two distinct economic and political parts. Later this division was formalized with the setting up of two independent States.
   Another development which brought about the Cold War was the civil war in Greece. It has been mentioned in Chapter 4 that communists had been a major force in the resistance against fascist occupation of Greece. However, the British troops which had been sent to Greece wanted to restore the rule of the king who was brought back and the civil war broke out. There were 10,000 British troops which fought against the Greek communists in the civil war. Early in 1947, however, Britain decided to withdraw from Greece. She informed the United States that she could no longer bear the burden of supporting the Greek government in the civil war. The British withdrawal of military and financial support to the Greek government would have almost certainly led to communist victory in the civil war. The US government decided to take the ‘burden’ of supporting the Greek government in the civil war upon itself and supporting Turkey which, it thought, was threatened by the Soviet Union.
   The years 1945-47 are generally taken to mark the beginning of the Cold War. The first ‘shot’ in the Cold War was fired by Winston Churchill. No longer the Prime Minister of Britain, he said in a speech which he made at the University of Fulton, Missourie, in the US, in the presence of the US President Truman, “From the Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.” The ‘Iron Curtain’ referred to the division of Europe into the Soviet Union and the countries which in Churchill’s view were under Soviet control and the rest. It meant that in Churchill’s view the Soviet-US-British alliance was dead. Churchill also, in his speech, appealed for British-US political and military alliance to confront the Soviet Union. The US decision to intervene in the Greek civil war may be considered as formally ushering in the Cold War. President Truman, while asking the Congress $ 400 million as military and economic aid to the Greek h government, made a policy statement which has been called the Truman Doctrine. In his speech, he said, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support tree peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”
   The Truman Doctrine proclaimed communism as the threat to the Tree World’ which the United States, as the head of the ‘Free World’, would not allow to succeed anywhere in the world. Every revolution was seen as being the result of Soviet expansionism which had to be crushed by all the might of the United States. This Doctrine became the basis of the foreign policy of the United States for about three decades and every conflict in the world was seen in terms of a struggle between the .United States and the Soviet Union.
   The Crisis over Berlin and the Division of Germany By early 1948, the Western powers had started the process of the creation of a separate state of West Germany by merging the occupation zones of Britain, France and the United States. These zones were also being brought under the European Recovery Programme under which the United States was to provide massive aid for the building of the economies of Western Europe devastated by the war. The city of Berlin which came within the Soviet zone had also been divided into four zones, like the rest of Germany. The three Western powers treated West Berlin as a part of West Germany which was being created as a separate state. The Soviet Union was opposed to this development. In June 1948, she closed the road which passed through the Soviet zone connecting West Germany with West Berlin. The blockade of West Berlin was intended to force the Western powers to accept the Soviet position on Berlin. This created the danger of war because the Western countries were not willing to budge from West Berlin but they could not hold West Berlin without continuing supplies from outside. The Western allies responded to this situation by conducting a massive airlift of supplies to West Berlin. The blockade continued for about 11 months during which period over 275,000 plane-loads of supplies of food and fuel were sent to West Berlin by the Western allies. Thus danger of hostilities was averted. The Soviet Union ended the blockade in May 1949. In the meantime, a new Western military alliance had come into being. In April 1949, the United States most countries of Western Europe-Britain, France, Belgium. Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Portugal and Italy--and Iceland and Canada formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Through this alliance the Western countries launched a massive programme of rearmament to check what they called ‘Russian expansion’ in Europe and to ‘contain’ communism. During the next six years, the Unites States gave 17,500 million dollars in military aid to the NATO countries of Europe. In 1952, Greece and Turkey were also made members of NATO.
   In May 1949, Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was formed with her capital at Bonn. The rearmament of West Germany also began although West Germany was made a formal member of NATO only in 1955. The formation of a military alliance by Western countries within four years after the end of the Second World War was a major development which further worsened the confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union. A few months after the formation of West Germany, the Soviet zone of Germany became a State-the German Democratic Republic. Thus by the end of 1949, the division of Germany had been formalized and two separate states of Germany had emerged, each confronting the other. This division of Germany continued for forty-five years and ended only recently on 3 October 1990 when the two Germany’s were reunited.
   In 1955, when West Germany was admitted as a member of NATO, the Soviet Union and the East European countries ruled by Communist parties formed their military alliance which is known as the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact countries, like the NATO countries, had a joint military command. In the meantime, the Cold War which initial] y had been confined to Europe had spread to other parts of the world and besides NATO other US-sponsored military alliances had been set up in other parts of the world.
   The Unites States had emerged as the mightiest military power at the end of the Second World War. For four years, she was the only country in the world to have atomic weapons” The monopoly in atomic weapons had given her a sense of unquestionable military supremacy in the world. Some historians hold the view that the ' dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not so much the last acts of the Second World War, which in any case was coming to an end, but as a demonstration of US military supremacy in the post-war world, The possession of atomic weapons by the US, according to this view, was aimed at terrorizing the rest of the world into submission. The US monopoly in atomic weapons was broken when, in 1949, the Soviet Union conducted an atomic test. From then onwards, the development of more and more deadly weapons became a major consequence of the Cold War which, in turn, further aggravated international conflicts and tensions. By the end of the 1940s, Cold War had begun to spread to other areas of the world.

Conflicts in Asia

  The Soviet announcement in September 1949 that she had tested the atomic bomb came about five months after the formation of the NATO. This was a blow to the US military supremacy. The US was shocked at the news which was used to exacerbate further the fear of communism. During the next few years there grew in the US what has been described as “paranoic obsession with ‘godless communism’ ”. The US government leaders, some members of the US Congress and sections of the mass media added to the panic by spreading stories of Soviet agents subverting the US security by infiltrating the US administration. The Soviet Union success “It developing the atomic bomb attributed solely to the leaking out of British and US atomic secrets by spies to the Soviet Union. The loyalty of many scientists and others who had been associated with the atomic bomb project was suspected and some of them were tried and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment and even death. Some of the leading scientists of the time held the view that even though there was truth in the charges of the espionage and Some atomic secrets were leaked out to the Soviet Union, this would have “made little material difference to the Soviet scientific and technological capability in making me atomic bomb as the Soviet scientists had started working towards it almost at the same “time as the scientists in the US. It was also “pointed out by many public figures that the US,” law, Soviet Union and Britain had been allies during the war and sharing of secrets with allies could not be held treasonable. The spy scare was, however, whipped up and used to further worsen the climate of fear and hostility to the Soviet Union.
   Soon after, the United States and her allies received another shock. On 1 October 1949, the People’s Republic of China was established. During the Second World War, massive supplies of armaments had been made available by the US to Chiang Kai-shek’s government in China Mot the war against the Japanese. As has been mentioned in Chapter 3, the civil war in China (had been suspended when Chiang Kai-shek was forced to give primacy to the war against Japan instead of fighting against the communists. The lwo-Chiang Kai-shek’s government and the Chinese communists-had not really come together too tight against the Japanese unitedly. However, some semblance of not fighting against each other, if not of unity, had been maintained during the war. In July 1946, the civil war was resumed. In a little over three years, Chiang Kai-shek‘s forces were completely routed, in spite of their US-supplied sophisticated weaponry including a US-trained air force Chiang Kai-shek, along with the remnants of his forces, fled to Taiwan (Formosa) which had been freed from all Japan after the Japanese defeat in the Second World War. The communist victory in the most populous country in the world further aggravated the fear of communism. The overthrow of the communist rule in China and the restoration of Chiang Kai-shek’s government on mainland China became a major objective of the US policy in world affairs. For over two decades, the US refused to recognize the government of China. The US with the support of her allies, also kept China out of the United Nations. China’s seat in the United Nations, including in the Security Council as 3 Permanent Member, was occupied by Chiang Kai-shek’s government which with US military support was in occupation of only a Chinese island. Chiang Kai-shek’s army continued to be armed and prepared by the US to launch an invasion of the Chinese mainland.
   The fear of communism led the US to intervene in the affairs of the Asian countries and the Cold War was brought to Asia. The US was also involved in many military conflicts and wars in Asia. Seeing every issue in terms of Cold War, the United States also came in conflict with anti-colonial nationalist struggles for freedom and with many independent nations which were trying to strengthen their national independence and play an independent role in world affairs.

The War in Korea

  The first war in which the US got directly involved was the war in Korea which had broken out in 1950. After the Japanese occupation of Korea was ended as a result of the defeat of Japan, Korea had been divided into two occupation zones-the northern zone under the Soviet Union and the southern zone under the United States. The division was along the 38th parallel. In September 1948, the Soviet troops left North Korea which declared herself the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. The US troops left South Korea in June 1949 and in August 1949, the southern zone proclaimed herself as the Republic of Korea. The government of North Korea was headed by Kim Il-sung, leader of the Korean communist party, and of South Korea by Syngman Rhee, a right-wing dictator. Both governments accepted the division of Korea and both claimed reunification of the country as their objective. In June 1950, war broke out between the two, each side blaming the other for the war. It is, however, generally agreed that the war was started by North Korea. This was the view of the United Nations Security Council which voted to assist South Korea against North Korea. However, it may be remembered that the Security Council’s support to South Korea had become possible due to the Soviet Union’s decision at the time to boycott the United Nations for its refusal to admit China. Within two months, the North Korean armies had swept across almost entire South Korea, the South Korean capital, Seoul, having fallen during the first three days of the war. However, the US army, navy and air force intervened in the war massively and North Korean troops were pushed back. The US forces now carried the war inside North Korea. At this time, the Chinese troops moved in and the US troops were forced back. From mid 1951, the war entered a stalemate. There were negotiations for an armistice in which India played an important role. The armistice was signed in July 1953 which restored the position that existed before the war. In this war, 142,000 American soldiers and 17,000 soldiers from other countries who had taken part in the war as United Nations troops were killed. The number of Koreans killed in the war is estimated to be between three and four million.
   The Korean War was the first major war after 1945, and the first one in which the US had taken part in a massive way and had suffered heavy casualties. The US casualties during the entire period of the Second World War had been about 300,000. In spite of the heavy casualties, it may be remembered that the Korean war as a localized war. There was every danger that it might turn into a general war. General MacArthur who commanded US troops in the Korean War wanted to invade China. There was also a danger that the US might use atomic weapons in the war.

Further Intensification of the Cold War

  Even before the armistice in Korea was signed the Cold War had begun to intensify resulting in conflicts and wars in other regions. The US foreign policy during this period was dominated by John Foster Dulles who was the US Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959 during General Eisenhower’s Presidency. He condemned the US policy of containment’ of communism as in adequate and advocated a more aggressive policy of ‘rolling back’ communism by ‘liberating’ people from what he considered communist tyranny. He advanced some dangerous doctrines. One of these was called ‘massive retaliation which meant the use of nuclear weapons. The other was the doctrine of ‘brinkmanship’ which meant pushing the Soviet Union on the brink of war to force her to grant concessions. He claimed that “the ability to get to the verge of war without getting into war” was “the necessary art” for a states man and that “if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost”.
   During this period, the race for armaments had reached a new stage. In November 1952, the US tested her first thermonuclear bomb, popularly known as the Hydrogen Bomb. The Soviet ‘Union followed soon after in August 1953. The destructive power of these weapons was hundreds and thousands of times that of the atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and “Nagasaki. The doctrine of ‘brinkmanship’, when lithe two antagonistic powers possessed these weapons, was fraught with danger to the survival of humanity. However, the development of these weapons was sought to be justified by the dew trines of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and Nuclear Deterrence. The former meant that countries possessing these weapons would not go to war because they knew that even if they succeeded in destroying the enemy country with the use of these weapons, the other side would also succeed in destroying its enemy country. The second doctrine meant that the possession of nuclear weapons by a country was a ‘deterrent’ to any possible invasion by another. It was the belief in this doctrine that led Britain to develop her ‘independents deterrent’ in 1957. France and China later followed.
   The US also started forming military alliances in every part of the world, and establishing her military bases encircling the Soviet Union and China. In 1954, the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was set up, comprising Australia. Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand the Philippines and the United States. Soon after, the Baghdad Pact was signed which brought Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan into a military alliance with the United States. When Iraq left the Baghdad Pact after a revolution which overthrew the monarchy, the Baghdad Pact was renamed as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). These military alliances were used to maintain many undemocratic regimes in Asia. The massive inputs of arms in these countries created tensions between the members of these alliances and their neighboring countries which refused to join these alliances. The latter countries viewed alliances as sources of tensions in their region and the world and as threats to their independence. It was in this context that the non-aligned movement was born. Countries which wanted to retain their independent role in world affairs and wanted to play an active role in bringing about relaxation of tension became non-aligned, that is, they refused to join these military alliances. The countries which refused to align themselves with the US were condemned by Dulles as ‘immoral’.
   The US was led into conflicts with nationalist forces in Asian countries, particularly where the nationalist forces espoused programmes of radical social changes and economic reconstruction. All such forces began to be viewed as communists or allies of communists. Attempts were made to bolster unpopular right-wing regimes and even military dictatorships through massive aid, mainly of armaments. The region extending from Iran to North Africa became of vital importance because of its huge oil reserves. The extraction of oil and oil refineries in this region were under the control of Western companies, mainly of Britain and the US. This control was considered vital for the ecoriomies of the Western countries and maintaining it a legitimate objective of their foreign policy. The governments which tried to establish their rights over their natural resources for their own development were sought to be subverted. A major instrument of subversion was the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which was set up in 1947. The CIA had huge funds at its disposal which were closed to public scrutiny. It not only collected intelligence through its vast network of spies but also carried out undercover paramilitary operations against the governments of other countries.
   In 1951, Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) ordered the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British-controlled company. Mohammed Mussadeq was made the Prime Minister of Iran. The government was now controlled by the Tudeh party which advocated radical social changes. The United States was convinced that Mussadeq was friendly with the Soviet Union. The government led by Mussadeq was overthrown in a coup in which the CIA played an important part. The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, established his despotic rule with the support of the US. The Shah was closely tied to the US through a military alliance and gave the US oil companies concessions to develop the oil reserves of Iran. His despotic rule continued for over twenty-five years, until it was ended in 1979 by the Islamic revolution in Iran.

The Vietnam War

  The policy of ‘containment’ led to the US involvement in a protracted war with Vietnam. The rise and growth of the nationalist movement in Indo China has been mentioned in Chapters 3 and 4. The Vietnamese nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh had set up the republic of Vietnam in September 1945. The French who had been ousted from Indo-China by the Japanese tried to restore their rule there. In this, they were aided by Britain and, later, by the US. Thus from 1947, France was drawn into this war. Because the nationalist forces in Vietnam were led by the Communist Party, Dulles advocated the direct involvement of the US in the Vietnam War and continued to press France to continue the war for which the US provided the funds. The Vietnamese forces led by Ho Chi Minh received help from the Soviet Union and China but they relied mainly on their own strength and the popular support they enjoyed within the country. In 1954 the French forces suffered a debacle. The Vietnamese besieged 12,000 French troops at a place called Dien Bien Phu. President Eisenhower at this time did not accept the advice of Dulles that the US should send her own troops to Vietnam. In July 1954, an agreement was signed at Geneva according to which the French rule in Vietnam was ended. Vietnam was temporarily divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam but the country was to be reunited after elections which, it was decided, would be held in 1956. However, the US started building South Vietnam as an independent State under the dictatorial and corrupt rule of Ngo Dinh Diem. It was universally believed that Ho Chi Minh’s party was certain to win the elections. Diem’s government, on the advice of and with the support of the US refused to comply with the decision to hold elections. The US started building the South Vietnamese army to resist the North Vietnamese army and crush the South Vietnamese guerrillas. In spite of the US support, Diem’s government was on the verge of collapse in 1963 due to its growing unpopularity. It was brought down by a US-supported military coup. The US government increasingly committed itself to the maintenance of an anti-communist regime in South Vietnam. The US policy makers advocated what was called the ‘domino’ theory. According to this theory, if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all other South-East Asian countries would also collapse and come under communist rule and this would lead to the expansion of communism all over Asia. The US started sending her own troops, to begin with as military advisers, but gradually as regular combat troops. By the end of 1967, the number of US troops fighting in Vietnam had gone up to 500,000. It has been estimated that the power of bombs dropped on Vietnamese territory by the US by 1967, exceeded that of the bombs dropped all over Europe during the entire period of the Second World War. The US war in Vietnam War was the most unpopular US war in history. It was condemned by people all over the world, including in the United States. No other single event in the years after 1945 had united people all over the world as the opposition to the war in Vietnam. The war finally ended in 1975 when the last US troops left Vietnam and the South Vietnamese army was routed. Over 50,000 US soldiers were killed in this war and about 300,000 wounded. The Vietnamese casualties, both military and Civilian, were much higher. The entire country had been ravaged. Vietnam soon emerged as a united country: The defeat of the greatest military power in the world by the people of a small country in Asia was an event of great historic significance in the history of the contemporary world.

The Arab World

  The main cause of conflicts in the Arab world during the post-war period was the policy of the United States and her allies to prevent the spread of Arab nationalism. The was done in the name of preventing the spread of communism and the influence of the Soviet Union in the region. The Western countries determination to retain their control over the oil resources of this region has already been mentioned. Another major source of tension in this area, and the main ally of the US, was the State of Israel. The conflict between Britain and Arab nationalism over the question of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the creation of a Jewish ‘national home’ there has already been mentioned. In November 1947, the United Nations had agreed to partition Palestine into an Arab State and a Jewish State. However, on 14 May 1948, Britain which held Palestine as a mandate withdrew from there before partition could be affected. The Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed which was recognized by the Unites States the very next day. The establishment of the State of Israel was followed by an Arab-Israel war in which the Arabs were defeated. The Palestinian Arabs were deprived of their lands and homes and over a million of them had to live as refugees in other Arab countries. Jordan, formerly Transjordan, had become an independent Kingdom in 1946. In 1949, she occupied the territory of Palestine which lay to the west of the Jordan River, popularly called the West Bank. With the help of the US, Israel began to be built up as a powerful state in the region and she began to be used as an instrument to curb the rising strength of Arab nationalism.
   Egypt under the leadership of Gama! Abdel Nasser represented the forces of nationalism in the 1950s and the 1960s. Britain in 1954 was asked to withdraw her troops from Egypt. At this time, Egypt also began to build her independent military strength with the help of arms from the Soviet Union. The US had offered to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam across the river Nile. However, when Egypt started receiving Soviet s, the US aid for the Aswan Dam was stopped. On 26 July 1956, the Suez Canal was nationalized. On 29 October 1956, Israel invaded Egypt and on the next day British and French troops were landed there to occupy the Suez Canal. The British-French-Israel invasion of Egypt aroused world-wide protests, including in Britain and France. The United Nations, with the support of the US, also condemned the invasion. On 5 November; the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to the invaders to withdraw from Egypt and threatened to use missiles to defend Egypt. On 7 November 1956, the British-French military operations in Egypt were ended and their troops were withdrawn. Egypt and Israel agreed to a ceasefire.
   The end of the 1956 war in Egypt was acclaimed as a victory of Arab nationalism; it also led to the strengthening of the Soviet influence in the region. Egypt had now turned to the Soviet Union for help in building the Aswan Dam. Nasser also tried to strengthen Arab unity by uniting various Arab States. The US, alarmed at this development, proclaimed what is called the Eisenhower Doctrine. According to this Doctrine, the US decided to give economic and military aid to the countries in this region to protect them from what it called ‘international communism’. In July 1958, however, the pro-Western government in Iraq was overthrown: The US and British troops were sent to Lebanon and Jordan to prevent the pro-Western governments of these countries from falling. The US also continued to arm Israel.
   In 1967, another war broke out between Israel on one side and Egypt, Jordan and Syria on the other. This is known as the Six-Day War. The Arab States were defeated and Israel occupied Egyptian territory in the Sinai Peninsula, the Palestinian territory on the west bank of the river Jordan (from Jordan), and a part of the territory of Syria. Israel also established her control over the entire city of Jerusalem. In 1973, there was another Arab-Israel war. During this war, the oil producing Arab states announced that they would stop shipment of oil to countries which were supporting Israel. This meant mainly the Unites States and her NATO allies. The European members of NATO, however, refused to align themselves with the US in her support to Israel and the US herself was compelled to persuade Israel to agree to a cease-fire.
   During the past four decades, while Israel with the US support has continued to build her military strength and has refused to vacate many Arab territories that she occupied through her acts of aggression, the Arab countries have failed to unite. The US military support in this region is not confined to Israel. To protect her oil interests, she has extended her influence in the region by aiding conservative regimes in the region and by making use of the differences and conflicts among Arab States. A recent example of the conflicts among the Arab States is the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. A serious consequence of the US policy in the region and of the inter-Arab conflicts is the continuing suppression of the people of Palestine.

The Crisis over Missiles in Cuba

  One of the most serious crises in the history of the post-Second World War occurred on the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The development of nuclear weapons had been accompanied by the development of new systems of delivery, that is, of means of dropping these weapons. For this purpose, missiles were developed. These missiles or rockets, with nuclear warheads, could be directed to hit accurately targets thousands of kilometers away anywhere in the world. The US had set up these missiles aimed at Soviet targets at the bases which she had set up in different parts of the world. The Soviet Union generally had no bases and her missile sites were within her territory. Each side also had submarines carrying these nuclear missiles. To begin with, the range of these missiles was limited, say a few hundred kilometers, which had made the setting up of bases near the, territory of the enemy countries necessary. New technology for spying on other countries had also been developed. For example, aeroplanes flying at very high speeds and at very high altitudes could take accurate photographs of the enemy country’s territory and find out exactly where not only the armies, the tanks, the airports, the industries, etc. were located but also identify the exact spots where the missiles were located and could photograph them.
   In January 1959, there was a revolution in Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The United States turned hostile to Cuba when the new government started adopting radical social and economic measures, introducing agrarian reforms, and nationalizing industries. Another reason was the friendly relations which the new government began to have with the Soviet Union and China. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961 and stopped all economic relations with her. In April 1961, she landed 2000 Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to overthrow the Cuban government. However, the invasion ended in a fiasco and within two days it was crushed. Even though the entire world had condemned the US for the invasion of Cuba, the US government was not willing to give up its intention of overthrowing the Cuban government John F. Kennedy, the US President at that time, had openly declared after the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion, “We do not intend to abandon Cuba to the Communists”. This was the background of the crisis which broke out in October 1962.
   As has been mentioned earlier, while the Soviet Union was surrounded by the US bases, including those with nuclear missile, the Soviet Union had no bases anywhere near the US territory. In October 1962, the US found, from the pictures taken by her spy planes, that the Soviet Union was building missile sites in Cuba which is less than 150 km from the southernmost part of the US. All through the wars which the US had fought, her own territory had been inviolable and all the wars had been fought far away. The installation of missiles in Cuba would bring the US territory within easy range of attack. Although the Soviet Union had done for the first time what the US had been doing all along, that is establishing bases, and although it was within the sovereign rights of any country to receive military aid from any country, the US was alarmed and adopted a policy which could have led to the outbreak of war between the US and the Soviet Union, something which had not happened in spite of various tensions and conflicts between them. Such a war would have been a threat to all humanity. On 22 October 1962, President Kennedy announced a naval and air blockade around Cuba which meant that the US would stop any ship or aircraft moving towards Cuba. The US also prepared to launch an attack on the missile sites in Cuba This crisis which had brought the world close to disaster, however, ended on 26 October. On that day, Khrushchev, the Soviet Prime Minister sent a message to President Kennedy that the Soviet Union would remove her missiles from Cuba if the US pledged not to attack Cuba. This was agreed to and the crisis was over. The US also agreed to withdraw the missiles which she had installed in Turke close to the Soviet territory.

Towards the End of the Cold War

  It is possible to say with come certain that the Cold War has now ended. Many effort and been made since the 1950s to promote relaxation of tensions and on many occasions in the past it appeared that the two powers had entered the period of detente. It has been mentioned that the non-aligned movement had played a crucial role in promoting a climate of peace. Some of its efforts will be described separately. However, many developments marking the beginning of detente had been followed by new tensions and conflicts.
   One of the factors that has increasingly been important in changing the policy of confrontation is the realization that unlike at any time before in human history, the practicability of all out war simply cannot be the basis of conducting international relations. The reports prepared by scientists on the effects of a nuclear war and the voices raised by them against the armaments race and the doctrines of MAD and Nuclear Deterrence, and the popular anti-war movements in every part of the world have played an important role in creating an atmosphere of detente. The non-aligned movement has since its beginning been pressing for disarmament so that the vast resources released by it can be utilized for development and for ending misery in the world. The rigid military alliances also have shown tendencies of breaking down. After the split in the communist movement which began in the late 1950s, the theory of the expansion of communism lost much of its appeal, although many Western countries, particularly the United States, continued to view any effort at radical change with alarm and in many cases intervened in the affairs of other countries. However, the split between the Soviet Union and China destroyed the fear of communism which had been earlier viewed as a monolithic bloc. Albania went out of the Warsaw Pact in 1961 and Rumania began to play a role independent of the Soviet Union. The US relations with China improved in the early 1970s and China was admitted to the United Nations in 1971. There have been changes in the US-sponsored military alliances also. France withdrew her military contingents from the NATO forces in 1966 and NATO forces and bases from French territory were removed. In the early 1970s, the SEATO also began to be phased out as a military alliance. Pakistan withdrew from SEATO in 1973 and France in 1974.
   The process of the end of the Cold War has not been an easy one. In 1956, there was an uprising in Hungary and in 1968 a change of government in Czechoslovakia which would have meant these two countries going out of the Soviet bloc. In both these countries, the Soviet troops intervened, in Czechoslovakia along with troops from some other countries of the Warsaw Pact, and installed governments which were pro-Soviet. In 1961, East Germany built a wall between East and West Berlin which created widespread resentment in the West. In 1979, the Soviet Union sent her troops to Afghanistan to help the Afghan government crush the rebels who had been armed by the United States and were operating in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan. The US military intervention in many countries, particularly in Latin America, has taken place during the period after the Cuban missile crisis. In Africa also, the US has aided rebels against regimes which she considered pro-Soviet and pro-communist.
   Since 1989, further relaxation has taken place. A major factor for this has been the recent changes in the countries of Eastern Europe where the monopoly of the communist parties’ rule has been ended. This has been a major consequence of the policies followed by the new leadership headed by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. The unification of Germany after forty-five years, which has been referred to earlier, is considered marking the end of a phase in the history of the world after 1945. The unification of Korea also has become a realistic possibility.
   As has been indicated earlier, the destruction of the means of destruction alone can ensure peace. The existence of the weapons whose destructive power is beyond ordinary human imagination is itself a source of tension. The end of confrontation, therefore, must lead to disarmament, to begin with nuclear disarmament. The recent developments hold out the hope that significant steps in this direction would be taken soon. In 1963, a Test Ban Treaty was signed by the US, the Soviet Union and Britain which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water. France and China, however, had refused to sign the treaty and continued to carry out nuclear tests in the atmosphere. In 1969, negotiations aimed at reduction of arms began between the United States and the Soviet Union and in 1972 an agreement was reached on limiting certain categories of missiles. These negotiations were known as Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The negotiations for disarmament were hampered in the 1980s when the US started working on a new system of weaponry called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly known as the ‘Star Wars’ programme. This would mean taking the arms race to a new terrible height by extending it to outer space. In the new international climate, it is possible to hope that the work on this new system of weaponry would be halted. In the meantime, some further progress has been made in recent months, notably in the banning of underground nuclear tests and the reduction of troops in Europe.

USA, USSR AND EUROPE

  Certain events and developments connected with the USA, the USSR (Soviet Union) and some countries of Europe have been referred to in the preceding section, particularly in the context of the international conflicts in the period after 1945. It may be useful to study some other aspects of the history of these countries, particularly those relating to their internal development.

The USA

  The period after the end of the Second World War saw the emergence of the United States as the pre-eminent military and economic power in the world. Every part of the world came under the purview of US interests. The US also viewed herself as a great ‘moral force’ in the world. Many Americans liked to think that the period in which they were living could quite legitimately be described as the ‘American Century’.
   The Second World War had done no damage to the US economy. In fact, the problems created by the Great Depression had been finally, more or less, overcome during the war. The post-war period was one of unprecedented economic prosperity. From 1940 to 1985, the GNP rose from about $100 billion to about $ 4100 billion while the population rose from about 132 million to about 238 million. The affluence of the American people was reflected in the growth of what is usually described as ‘consumer culture’ or ‘consumerism’. There was an unprecedented growth in the production and consumption of a huge variety of consumption goods. The motor car became a symbol of this consumer culture. Every technological innovation, minor or major, made the existing product obsolete and worthless. The US was able to sustain this ‘consumerism’ because of her own vast natural resources as well as the control she exercised over a variety of natural resources of many other parts of the world.
   The growth of economy was, as in the earlier periods, accompanied by the growing centralization of the economy. Most of the economy was controlled by a relatively small number of companies and corporations. Certain aspects of this development are dealt with in Chapter 6. There was a tremendous increase in the growth of industries connected with armaments and huge amounts of government funds spent for procuring defence equipment benefited a few big corporations. The growing ‘interfusion’ of the military and the Industry in peace time alarmed many Americans and the US President Eisenhower, while laying down office in early January 1961, warned the country against “the acquisition of unwarrantable influence... by the military-industrial complex”. In the US, the relationship between political leaders and higher levels of government bureaucracy and military establishment, and the corporations and big financial institutions has been closer than in most other democratic countries with capitalist economies. Very often, the government, when faced with a deficit, resorted to cuts on expenditure in medical care and other social welfare programmes, rather than increase taxes on the corporations.
   During recent years, there has been a decline in the economic supremacy of the United States. From 1948 to 1952, the US had provided about $ 12 billion to the countries of Western Europe under the European Recovery Plan, popularly known as the Marshall Plan after the name of the US Secretary of State. This plan had helped the European economies to recover to their pre-war levels within a very short period. In the following years, the economies of West European countries developed at a very fast rate. Japan also emerged as a major economic power in the world and Japanese goods began to compete with the US goods not only in the world market but also in the US domestic market. The decline in the US pre-eminence would be clear from the data on industrial production. In 1950, the US share of world industrial production was more than 60 per cent; in 1980, it was about 45 percent. Western Europe and Japan have become the major economic rivals to the United States.
   The US faith in her world supremacy had been first shaken when the Soviet Union lamched. in 1957, its first satellite in space, Sputnik. This was followed three years later by the first Soviet manned flight in space. These ‘shocks’ led to vigorous efforts being made in areas in which the US thought she had been surpassed by the Soviet Union. Vast resources were made available to the space research programme. The US made a great achievement when two US astronauts landed and walked on the surface of the moon in 1969.
   The Cold War had a vitiating influence on, life in the US for many years. The ‘paranoic obsession’ with ‘godless communism' which emerged in the US has been mentioned before. The anti-communist and anti-radical hysteria led to branding every opinion which did not conform to the US view of the Cold War as ‘un American’ and subversive. During the Presidency of Truman (1945-52), loyalty of government officials was investigated and thousands of people were thrown out of jobs. Thousands of school, college and university teachers were dismissed from their jobs for teaching what was considered ‘un-American’ ideas. Many film writers and producers were jailed and many blacklisted and debarred from employment in Hollywood for refusing to disclose their past communist connections. The anti-medical hysteria continued for some years during the Presidency of Eisenhower who was elected President twice, in 1952 and 1956. In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s were executed on charges of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, in spite of protests and appeals from all over the world. J. Robert Oppenheimer, popularly known as the father of atom bomb (had been the head of the US atomic bomb project), was denied security clearance. He had opposed the Hydrogen Bomb project and was accused of having concealed his past connections with communists. The leader of this crusade against communism within the United States was Senator Joseph McCarthy. From 1950 to 1954, he is described as having ‘terrorized American public life’ by branding many innocent people as traitors and leveling accusations even against the State Department and the military of harboring ‘traitors’. He himself was disgraced in 1954 and there was a gradual decline in the hysteria even though most victims of the hysteria were not rehabilitated.
   The ‘containment’ of communism remained the objective of the US foreign policy for most of the period after the Second World War. The US policy in Latin America continued more or less as before and the US either sent her troops or actively aided rebels to overthrow regimes in many Latin American countries which she suspected of being leftists and, therefore, anti-American. John F. Kennedy, who was elected US President in 1960, inaugurated a period of new dynamism in US domestic policy. However, it was during his Presidency that the US began to get directly involved in the war in Vietnam and the fiasco of the Bay of Figs and of the confrontation on Soviet missiles in Cuba, mentioned earlier, took place. A major peace initiative was taken in 1963 when the US under President Kennedy and the Soviet Union under Khrushchev signed a treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere. in the outer space and under water. President Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963. The man who was believed to be his lone assassin was killed soon after while in police custody and millions of people saw this act of killing on their television screens as it took place. Later, doubts were raised about the view upheld by a judicial commission that there was only one person behind the killing of President Kennedy.
   The US support to many unpopular regimes sometimes created problems for the US and led to acts which were illegal under the US law. The US had long supported and sustained the regimes of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and Jean-Claude Duvalier, commonly referred to as Papa Doc, in Haiti. But these regimes became so unpopular that the US had to support the overthrow of these dictators. In the case of Iran, the US first took an adventurous step which ended in c. fiasco and later US officials had dealings with Iran which according to her own laws were illegal. In 1979, the Shah of Iran who was one of the most important supporters of the US in Asia fled the country following a revolution in Iran. The government of Iran asked the US to hand over the Shah, who had come to the ‘US for treatment; it wanted to put him on trial. On the US refusal, the Iranians took ‘many Americans as hostages. In April 1980, Jimmy /Carter who had become President in 1977 sent US commandos to rescue the hostages. The commando action ended in disaster. The hostages were finally released in early 1981 when the US returned the Iranian assets in US banks which had been frozen by the US government earlier. Later in the 1980s during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), a major scandal broke out. High US officials had entered into illegal deals with Iran to support the rebels against the government of Nicaragua. These officials were believed to have entered into the illegal deals with the approval of the President.
   The war in Vietnam which ended in the ignominious defeat of the US has already been mentioned. The war had begun to escalate during the period when Lyndon Johnson was the US President (1963-69). It was further escalated during the Presidency of Richard Nixon (1969a 74). Cambodia was bombed and the government of Cambodia was overthrown, and a pro-US government under a military general was installed there. The US had also extended the war to Laos, the third country of Indo-China. President Nixon had started the process of normalizing relations with China and China was admitted to the United Nations in 1971. In 1972, Nixon went to China. The SALT talks referred to earlier were started with the Soviet Union. In 1973, the US agreed to end the war in Vietnam and to withdraw her troops from there. However, the war continued for another two years and ended when the North Vietnamese troops and the troops of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam entered Saigon, the capital of the pro-US regime in South Vietnam, in April 1975, soon after the last US planes and helicopters had left the city.
   The war in Vietnam came to an end after Nixon had resigned as President after a major scandal popularly known as the Watergate scandal. He had been re-elected President in 1972 but was soon after accused of serious charges of corruption, and authorizing planting spying devices and stealing of files from the office of the Democratic Party. Although he claimed that he was not a crook, he was faced with the prospect of impeachment and resigned. An issue which the succeeding administrations in the US have had to contend with is the persistence of poverty. In the most prosperous country in the world, about 15 per cent of the population (over 30 million people) was officially classified as poor in the 1980s. The incidence of poverty in different ‘racial’ groups reflected the continuing ‘racial’ inequalities in the US society. In the 1980s, about 33 percent of black people, about 20 per cent Hispanics (or Spanish-speaking inhabitants and immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc.) and 12 per cm. whites in the US were poor. Homelessness in urban areas has been another major issue.
   The issue which rocked the US for over quarter century after the end of the war and continues to be a major issue is of racial equality, The oppression of the black people and their movement for equality in the earlier period has been mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3. A powerful civil rights movement arose in the 1950s which during the following two decades achieved significant successes. The major objectives of this movement have been the ending of segregation and discrimination against the black people, the exercise of the right to vote by the black people and the ending of the black people‘s poverty. Even the US armed forces had been following the policy of segregation. This was ended during the Presidency of Truman. In the southern States of the US schools, colleges and universities, buses and trains, cafes, hotels, theaters and other public places, were all segregated. The black people were not allowed to even register as VOICES. In 1896, the Supreme Court had legalized segregation and had advanced the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’. In 1954, the Supreme Court rejected that doctrine and said. “We conclude that in the Field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. This led to efforts by black children to gain admission to schools which were all white. These efforts were sought to be put down by force by governors of some States. In 1957, 17 black children were selected for admission to a school in the town of Little Rock in Arkansas. The governor of the State posted guards outside the school to prevent them from entering the school. The federal government was then forced to send 1000 paratroopers to Little Rock to prevent the governor and the Suite guards from violating the law. These paratroopers stayed there for the entire duration of the school year. A similar development took place in 1962 when a black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi.
   The most powerful leader of the civil rights movement was Martin Luther King. Deeply influenced by Gandhi ji, he launched a movement of non-violent protest against segregation. The protest began ‘in Montgomery in the State of Alabama where the black people started a boycott of buses. The bus companies had to yield and ended segregation in buses. The movement extended to other areas and took new forms. In restaurants, for example, ‘sit-ins’ were started. People would go to the segregated restaurants and ask to be served and on being refused, would continue to sit there. Students played a very significant role in this movement. Groups of Them, both black and white, went on what came 20 be called ‘freedom rides’ to non-violently protest against racial segregation and discrimination. A powerful movement was also launched for the registration of blacks as voters. The participants in these movements suffered tremendous hardships, physical injuries at the hands of police and white hoodlums, and arrests. There were many killings. The famous ‘We shall overcome’ was the theme song of these freedom riders. In 1963, a huge mass rally was organized near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, the capital of the US. It was at this rally that Martin Luther King made his stirring ‘I have a dream’ speech. In the following years, much legislation on civil rights were passed which helped in establishing civil rights as legal rights. However, the legal rights by themselves were not very effective and the civil rights movement increasingly became a ‘radical movement. Many civil rights leaders also became actively involved in the anti war movement. A militant black movement called Black Power also began to gain ground. In 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The assassination sparked off race riots in many cities of the US. Martin Luther King was posthumously awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.

I HAVE A DREAM

  I have a dream that one day men will rise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers. I still have a dream this morning that one day every Negro in this country, every coloured person in the world, will be judged on the basis of the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin and every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. I still have a dream today that one day the idle industries of Appalachia will be revitalized, and the empty stomachs of Mississippi will be filled, and brotherhood will be more than a few words at the end of a prayer, but rather the first order of business on every legislative agenda. I still have a dream today that one day justice will roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. I still have a dream today that in all of our state houses and city halls men will be elected to go there who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. I still have a dream today that one day war will come to an end. that men will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, neither will they study war any more I still have a dream today that one day the lamb and the lion will lie down together and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. I still have a dream today that one day every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill will be made low, the rough places will be made smooth and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. I still dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when there will be peace on earth and goodwill toward men. It will be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy.

Martin Luther King

Similar movements have also arisen among the American Indians who number about one million and the Hispanics whose population is about 15 million. New radical groups began to emerge in the US in the 1960s, mainly among the youth and the intellectuals. A major factor behind their rise was me Vietnam War which had created a powerful anti-war movement. There were anti-war demonstrations in universities. Thousands of students refused to be drafted into the army. Many fled to Canada and other countries. There were many incidents of violence in the university campuses and the police resorted to brutal methods in suppressing the demonstrations in many places. In one university, the Kent State University, four students were killed by the in police. The new radical groups, later, increase ingly concerned themselves with various global issues such as peace, disarmament and environmental protection.

The USSR

  The role which the Soviet Union played in bringing the Second World War to an end by defeating fascism had won her the admiration of the anti-fascists all over the world. To the people Of the Soviet Union the war which they fought was the ‘Great Patriotic War’ which they made every possible sacrifice to win. The Soviet Union suffered most as a result of the war. As mentioned earlier about 20 million Soviet people were killed. The devastation caused to her economy also had no parallel. About 70,000 villages and about 1700 cities of the Soviet Union had been destroyed. Thousands of industrial establishments had been demolished and vast tracts of land laid waste. The Soviet Union launched a massive effort at reconstruction as soon as the war over. In 1946, the Fourth Five Year Plan was launched and before the end of the 1940s, the industrial production had been restored to the pre-war level. Through greater mechanization of agriculture and by having longer collective farms, agricultural production had also been restored to the pre-war level by the beginning of the 1950s. The development of the Soviet economy continued through a series of Five Year Plans in the subsequent period and it became the second most powerful economy, in terms of GNP, in the world.
   In spite of its growth, however, the Soviet economy was continuously dogged by certain serious problems. The emphasis on heavy industries had helped build a strong infrastructure but the consumer goods industries fell far short of the requirements. The result of this disproportion was that in spite of its economic might, the rise in the standard of living of the people was far slower than in the developed countries of the West. Even in terms of rate of economic development, the Soviet leaders began to admit in the mida1980s that the economy had been stagnating for many years. The failure in agriculture had been particularly conspicuous. In terms of advances in technology, except in areas connected with defence and space research, the Soviet Union lagged behind some advanced capitalist countries. This was in spite of the fact that in terms of numbers the Soviet Union was ahead of any other country in technical and scientific manpower.
   The Soviet Union’s failures in economy are attributed to what is described as the ‘command system’. The kind of economic planning which was followed in the Soviet Union led to it’s over centralization and killed all initiative at the level of individual industrial enterprises. Certain sectors of industry produced goods in quantities for which there was no demand. Prices of products were fixed artificially and caused further strains. A serious debate has been going on in the Soviet Union during the past five years about devising new strategies for overcoming the ills of the economy and makes it more responsive to the needs of the people.
   One sector in which the Soviet Union is more or less equal, in its effectiveness, of the US is her military capability. The advances in technology relating to military requirements have been much greater than in other areas, and are comparable to the highest in the world. The same is also true of development of science and technology relating to the space programmes. In fact, at one time the Soviet space research was considered to be ahead of the US space research as was evidenced by the first satellite launched in space and first manned flight in space as well as space station with cosmonauts on board over long periods which were launched in subsequent years. The massive expenditure on military and the technology of armaments has given the Soviet Union parity in military strength with the US. It can be said to have maintained the ‘balance of power’ in the world. At one time it was justified for having prevented the US from imposing her will on the world. However, it has been a major factor in the weakening of the Soviet economy by diverting vast resources away from productive and useful channels.
   Some of the features of the political development of the Soviet Union since the Bolshevik Revolution have been described in Chapter 3. By the late 1930s, Stalin had established his dictatorial rule in the Soviet Union. The ruthlessness of his dictatorship did not diminish after the war. Stalin ruled as the supreme leader of the Soviet Communist Party but the Communist Party and its various bodies such as the Party Congress, the Central Committee and the Polit Bureau, had been reduced to no more than a rubber stamp of whatever Stalin decided According to the party’s constitution, a party congress was required to be held every four years. However, the first party congress after 1939 was held in 1952 after a gap of 13 years. Through the 1930s and 1940s, all most every leader of the Bolshevik Revolution 15 had either died or had been liquidated. A system of repression had been institutionalized. Every dissent was considered an act of treason. Thousands of people had been sent to labour camps and thousands of others languished in prisons. The Soviet security police was an important instrument of the policy of repression. The repression caused grave damage to intellectual life and to art and culture and science. The science of biology was all but destroyed in the Soviet Union due to the suppression of what Stalin considered ‘bourgeois’ tendencies in the work of Soviet biology and the State support to a person who was considered a charlatan by biologists, and whose theories were thought to be in accordance with Marxism or with Stalin’s version of Marxism. It has been recently reported that physics it; the Soviet Union escaped a similar fate because many physicists who were to be attacked for being under the influence of ‘bourgeois’ physics were found to be working on the atomic bomb project and removing them would have hampered that project. In January 1953, nine doctors were charged with the murder of a Soviet leader in 1948. It was alleged that they had also plotted to damage the health of several high military officers who were under their medical care. The arrest of these doctors was believed to be the starting point of yet another wave of repression. However, on 9 March 1953, Stalin died.
   A number of significant changes took place shortly after the death of Stalin. In September 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the First secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. In 1958, he also became the Prime Minister. Although the two posts gave Khrushchev immense powers over the Party and the government, they did not lead to the rise of dictatorial rule. The Party and the government were now controlled by a Collective leadership. This was proved when in 1964 Khrushchev was removed from leadership and Leonid Brezhnev became the First Secretary of the Party and Alexei Kosygin as the Prime Minister.
   Soon after the death of Stalin, the policy of lare-scale repression was ended. The doctors were released and it was stated that they had been arrested illegally. Thousands of people who had been charged with all kinds of offences against the State and had been sent to labour camps and prisons were released and rehabilitated. In February 1956, the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party was held. This Congress has become famous for many major a departures that it made in political and economic policies at home and in foreign policy as well as a for Khrushchev’s report on Stalin’s crimes against the party and the people. Although this report was made at a secret session of the Congress and was not released, its main contents became known It throughout the world soon after. Though these developments did not lead to the establishment of a democratic political system and the restoration of full intellectual freedom and civil liberties, the period of terror and of large-scale repression was definitely over. Two literary works which symbolized this change were a novel by Ilya Ehrenburg entitled, very appropriately, The Thaw, and a novel by Solzhenitsyn entitled One Day in the Life of lvan Denisovitch, which dealt with life in a labour camp. However, restrictions continued to be imposed on civil liberties, on publications, on travel abroad and many repressive measures continued to be resorted to for another almost thirty years after the Twentieth Congress. The system of repression began to be fully demolished and a truly democratic system established only in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the leader of the party and, recently, as the President of the Soviet Union.
   The foreign policy of the Sovet Union had been deeply influenced by the fact that right from her birth she was surrounded by countries which were quite openly hostile to her and to the social and economic system that she was trying to build. She had been the only major power in the 1920s and 1930s which extended full support to the peoples of the colonies in their struggle for freedom. During the 1930s she had also been consistent in her opposition to fascism and fascist aggressions until she entered into a nonaggression pact with Germany. The main allies she had in that period were the communist parties in various countries who considered the defence of the Soviet Union, which was the only country of socialism, as their important duty. The tremendous goodwill that she won during the war, however, had suffered due to the policies that she followed in the countries of Eastern Europe where, with her backing, the rule of the communist parties was imposed. In most of the countries, though the communists enjoyed much popular support, this support was nowhere that of the majority of the population. The result was that these communist parties lost much of the goodwill of the people that they enjoyed at the time of liberation and as partners in the coalition governments which were formed in these countries after their liberation. Afterwards under Stalinist influence and pressure, similar types of repressive systems were built in these countries as Stalin had built in the Soviet Union. In 1948, Yugoslavia was expelled from the world communist movement. Following this, some of the most prominent leaders of the communist parties in the countries of Eastern Europe were expelled on the charge of being agents of Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav communists. Many of them were jailed and many executed. The policy of interference in the governments and communist parties of Eastern Europe continued throughout the period up to Stalin‘s death. It can be said that this policy was Stalin response to the US policy of ‘containment’. In the immediate post-war period, communist parties in many countries tried to engineer revolutions. Many of these attempts, it is believed, were at the instance of Stalin. It may be remembered that during this period, all the imperialist countries had the backing of the military might of the US and that the US made frequent use of her military might to put down nationalist and revolutionary regimes and instal despotic governments in many countries. The Soviet policies, however, did little to diminish the Cold War or to end the situation of great power confrontation.
   A major change took place in Soviet foreign policy after Stalin. The most significant shift was in the new emphasis on ‘peaceful coexistence’ between countries following different social, economic and political systems. The policy of peaceful coexistence which was the most significant feature of the policy of non-alignment adopted by newly independent countries like India was, as far as Soviet foreign policy is concerned, the contribution of Khrushchev. The communists had always believed that though they were opposed to war as an instrument of national policy, war was inevitable as long as imperialism existed. The policy of peaceful coexistence meant the giving up of the theory of the inevitability of war. The Soviet leaders along with the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement stressed that war in the present day world would destroy all humanity and must, therefore, be replaced by a policy of peaceful coexistence and a policy of peaceful competition between the different social, economic and political systems. The Soviet Union made many important proposals for disarmament throughout the period from the late 1950s but, as has been mentioned before; little progress was achieved in the direction of disarmament or in outlawing war. It may be necessary to mention here that the Soviet Union also almost consistently supported the various initiatives taken by the Non-Aligned Movement regarding disarmament and at least some nonaligned countries expressed the view that the Soviet Union and other socialist countries were the ‘natural allies’ of the Non-Aligned Movement. The Soviet foreign policy also became an important factor in strengthening the national in. dependence of many newly independent countries and many freedom movements through Soviet material and political support to them The Soviet Union also extended support to them in their efforts at building their national economics. The advocacy of the policy of peaceful coexistence became a major cause of the split in the communist movement which began in the later 1950s. The Chinese communist party under the leadership of Mao Zedong continued to believe in the theory of the inevitability of war. Mao Zedong stated that even in a nuclear war though many millions would die, socialism would be victorious. Some Chinese communist leaders and their supporters in other communist parties were of the view that the policy of peaceful co existence would weaken the struggle for socialist revolution.
   In spite of the policy of peaceful coexistence, the Soviet Union did not cease her efforts at building an arsenal of destructive weapons to match those of the US even though it went on making proposals for nuclear as well as general and complete disarmament. She did, however, take many unilateral decisions. For example, she declared that she would never use the nuclear weapons first and she appealed to the US to make a similar commitment. She ceased underground tests of nuclear weapons and declared that she would not resume those tests as long as the other side did not hold these tests. Many of these unilateral initiatives, however, did not receive a positive response from the US.
   For many years the changes in Soviet policy towards Extern Europe were less radical than the changes mentioned above. On two occasions, as already mentioned, she resorted to massive military intervention min Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968-to overthrow the communist leadership in those countries which wanted to Change policies of their countries in the direction of greater democracy In fact, Brezhnev, who had replaced Khrushchev as the First Secretary of the party and had later also become the President of the Soviet Union, had declared that it was the duty of a socialist country to interfere in another socialist country if in that country the continuance of socialism was threatened.
   The changes which have taken place in the Soviet Union during the past five years are often referred to as marking the second Soviet revolution. Many questions have been brought out in the open and are the subjects of free, frank and intense debate, including the question of the Soviet Union as it is constituted today. There is much uncertainty about almost everything that is going on in the Soviet Union. However, there is little doubt that if it is possible to say that in the year 1990 the Cold War has probably finally come to an end and that the world may be now moving in the direction of peaceful development than ever before in this century, then this is very much due to the policies pursued by the new leaderships in the Soviet Union headed by Mikhail Gorbachev. As this book reached the final stage of printing the news came that Gorbachev had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the second head of a state to have been ever given this award. The first one to be given this award was Theodore Roosevelt 84 years ago. However, the two Nobel Peace Prize winner heads of state have been very different in their personalities, and in their pursuits and achievements.

Europe

  Certain aspects of developments in Europe in the postwar period have already been referred to in this chapter. While for a fuller understanding it would be necessary to deal with each country separately in some detail, only a very brief survey of some major features is attempted here.
   The first major feature of post-war Europe, as has already been mentioned, is the division of Europe with the countries of Eastern Europe coming under the rule of the communist parties and allied with the Soviet Union and the other countries of Europe having a variety of democratic political systems and allied with the US The main exceptions to the latter were the three backward countries of Europe-Spain, Portugal and for many years, Greece. In Portugal, the dictatorial rule of Salazar which had been established as far back as 1922 had continued till 1968 when ill health forced him to retire. In 1974 the dictatorial government was overthrown by a group of junior army officers with the support of Portuguese socialists, communists and other democrats and a new democratic constitution was promulgated. In Spain, the fascist dictatorship established by Franco after his victory in the Civil War continued till his death in 1975. His death was followed by the beginning of liberalization and the release of political prisoners. In 1977, first free elections were held after over forty years. The socialist party in Spain emerged as a major political force in the country. In Greece, the end of the civil war had not led to the establishment of a stable democratic political system. In 1967, a group of army officers seized power and established a tyrannical regime. For many years the restoration of democracy in Greece became a major issue exercising the people of Europe. A number of famous Greek political and cultural figures had fled the country and many others languished in prisons in Greece. While a movement of resistance grew inside the country, it was supported by a powerful protest movement outside the country. In 1974 the rule of the colonels, as the Greek military dictatorship was called, ended and Greece once again became a republic.
   In these three countries as well as in some other counties of Europe, particularly France and Italy, socialists and communists have been major political forces though the influence of the communist parties in Italy and France has declined in recent years In West Germany and many other countries of Europe, social democratic parties have been a major political force and often, alone or in coalition, have been the ruling parties. In Britain, the Labour Party has come to power at different times. The Second World War had a radicalizing influence on the political thinking of the people of Europe. Soon after the war, left-wing governments had come to power in many countries of Europe. In France and Italy, till 1947, communists were also a part of the government. These governments had introduced many important legislations which helped end many gross inequalities which had characterized most European societies before the war. Some important sectors of industry in these countries were nationalized. The existence of powerful labour unions prevented any major reversals in welfare programmers even when the conservative or centrist parties came to power.
   A reference has been made earlier to the European Recovery Programme. The plan helped the economies of Western Europe to recover to their pre-war level. This was followed by a tremendous growth in the economy of these countries with France and West Germany emerging as industrial giants. The economic development of West Germany was particularly spectacular and it outstripped all other countries of Europe. The countries of Eastern Europe did not receive the benefit of the European Recovery Programme and had to rely mostly on their own resources. The Soviet Union was in no position to provide the kind of massive aid which the US had given to Western Europe. Most of these countries had been backward in agricultural economies. They had also been ravaged during the fascist rule and occupation. However, in view of the recent turmoils in these countries, it is likely that significant economic development that took place in these countries is lost sight of, though it is true that the level of their economic development was not comparable to that of advanced West European countries. The industrialization of these economically backward countries was a significant achievement. While the imposition of Soviet type socialism on these countries hampered their growth, many of the evils connected with the concentration of economic power in private hands were avoided. The old ruling classes, the big landlords etc., were eliminated in these countries. The economic development of East Germany was particularly significant. She had become the major industrial country in this region. It is too early to say anything about the direction of change that the socialist economies of these countries will take now that the rule of the communist parties in most of these countries has ended.
   For many years after the war, Europe became the main centre of Cold War conflicts. The major Cold War issues in Europe have already been mentioned. Most of the West European countries were the members of the NATO military alliance and had NATO troops and military bases, epuipped with nuclear weapons and missiles supplied by the US in their territories. These further added to tensions in Europe. The removal of NATO bases became a major demand of the peace movements which grew powerful in many countries of Europe from the late 1950s. Britain and France began to develop their own nuclear weapons, or ‘independent nuclear deterrents’, as they called them. Britain still continued to believe that she was a great world power and, therefore, it was necessary for her to have her own nuclear weapons besides those of the US in her territory. One of the most powerful peace movements in Europe emerged in Britain. Led by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), it demanded the closing of the US bases in Britain and unilateral nuclear disarmament by her.
   The most significant feature of the position of Europe in the post-war world was the end of her world hegemony. Within about two decades after the end of the war, most of the European empires in Asia and Africa had collapsed. The European imperialist countries were not willing to give up their empires and in some cases they got involved in protracted wars with the nationalist movements. For example, the French continued to light a war to retain Indo-China from 1947 to 1954 and Algeria from 1954 to 1962. It is odd but true that the European imperialist country that hold on to her empire the longest was the most backward country of Europe Portugal. The nationalist armed resistance against the Portuguese rule in Angola and Mozambique lasted as long as the dictatorship in Portugal lasted. After the revolution, the new Portuguese government entered into negotiations with the freedom movements of Mozambique/and Angola. Mozambique became free in 1975 and Angola in 1976.
   A significant development which would help the emergence of Western Europe as a great world power was the emergence of a movement for the unification of Western Europe. To begin with, the major country to take a lead in this direction was France. She believed that she was the natural leader of a United Western Europe. The first major step in this direction was taken in 1957 with the setting up of the European Economic Community (EEC). The countries comprising the EEC-France, West Germany, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Italy-set up what is known as the Common Market. This was to be a prelude to the formation of a federation of West European countries. Initially Britain kept herself out of the-EEC but in 1961 when she wanted to join, France did not let her join. She was finally admitted to the EEC in 1973 along with two other countries-Denmark and Ireland. The nine members of the EEC later set up the European Parliament. Later, Greece, Spain and Portugal were also admitted to the EEC. During the next few years, the emergence of a united Western Europe as a political entity has become a real possibility. Already, plans are afoot to introduce a common currency in the EEC countries and to do away with the requirement of a passport for Europeans to travel from one EEC country to another. In the meantime, West Germany has emerged as the strongest economic power in the EEC. With her unification, the influence of Germany is likely to grow even further. In spite of the loss of their empires, the counties of Western Europe together have emerged as a new power in the world. Their economic dependence on the US has diminished and they are likely to play an increasingly independent role in world affairs.

ASIA, AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA

Emergence of Independent Nations

  Within about 25 years of the end of the Second World War, most countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America which had been under imperialist rule won their freedom. Most of the others that remained became free during the next few years. Today, in the year 1990, with the exception of a few small pockets in different parts of the world, every country in the world is free from the direct political control of another country. A major country which in a fundamental sense is not free is South Africa. This country is free-in fact she is a republic-in the sense that it is not ruled by another country but she is ruled by the white minority and about 80 per cent of the country's population is denied any say in the political system of the country on grounds of race. However, even in South Africa, there are grounds to hope that fundamental changes to end the existing system of white domination would take place soon. Another country where a somewhat similar system of ‘racist’ rule has been imposed is Palestine. In this country, a ‘Jewish’ State, Israel, has been set up by people who have come there from other pans of the world, mainly from Europe, and after establishing their rule, they have displaced the inhabitants of the country and those Palestinians who continue to live in the territories occupied by Isreal have been subjected to colonial type rule. With the ending of the system of white rule in South Africa and the creation of an independent State of Palestine almost every part of the world will become free.
   The rise of nationalism and the growth of nationalist movements in Asia and Africa have been referred to in the earlier chapters. The role played by the nationalist movements during the Second World War and the defeat of Axis Powers has also been briefly referred to. The Second World War had been viewed everywhere as the war to defend freedom and democracy and had strengthened the forces of the freedom movements in countries which had remained under the rule of the imperialist countries who were allied against the fascist aggressions as well as in those where the old imperialist countries had been ousted by the Axis Powers. In Asia, for example, the British rule over India had continued but in many other countries, the British, the French and the Dutch had been ousted by the Japanese. In all these countries, nationalist movements had grown powerful during the war and there was a wave of anti-imperialist upsurge in all these countries when the war ended. The old imperialist countries tried to re-establish their rule over the colonies from which they had been ousted, for example, in Indo-China, Indonesia and Burma. However, they met with strong resistance, in many cases armed resistance, by the nationalist movements. As has been mentioned earlier in this Chapter, some of the conflicts between the imperialist countries and the nationalist movements became Cold War conflicts and brought in the US in support of the imperialist countries. In many parts of Africa where nationalism had began to emerge during the inter-war period, powerful nationalist movements took shape after the war.
   Many other factors helped in speeding up the collapse of imperialism after the war. The Second World War had, besides destroying fascism, weakened the imperialist countries of Europe. Many of these countries had themselves fallen victim to fascist aggressions. For example, three imperialist countries of Europe-France, Belgium and Holland (the Netherlands)--themselves had been under German occupation during the war. Their military power as well as economies had been shattered during the war. Britain which had the biggest empire, had also emerged from the war with a shattered economy. None of these countries was a great power any more. In their place the greatest powers in the world now were the USA and the Soviet Union. The setting up of socialist governments in Eastern Europe under the rule of the communist parties also was a factor which weakened the power of the imperialist countries of Europe. They were no longer in a position to sustain a protracted colonial war. The countries which carried on long colonial wars faced serious internal problems. For example, France’s colonial war in Indo-China and Algeria created serious political crises in France which at one time threatened her political system. The colonial wars waged by Portugal in Africa were a major factor in the downfall of the Portuguese dictatorship. In the changed political climate in the world, imperialism was no longer considered a mark of ‘superior’ civilization. On the contrary, it was now associated in the minds of the people everywhere, including in the colonial countries, with brute force, injustice, exploitation, inhuman and immoral. The dominant ideas in the world after 1945 were ideas of self-determination national sovereignty and equality, and cooperation in international relations. Thus the efforts to maintain colonial rule were no longer popular with the people even of the imperialist countries. The colonial wars waged by France were opposed by vast sections of the French people. Some of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in Britain were seen in 1956 when Britain, along with France and Israel invaded Egypt. The imperialists now put forward other reasons for holding on to their power for example, preparing the people in the colonies for peaceful transition to independence, preventing fratricidal and tribal wars, safeguarding the interests of the minorities, resisting terrorism and communism, educating the people of the colonies in democracy, etc.
   An important factor which strengthened movements for freedom was the growth of solidarity among the freedom movements of different countries. Each country’s freedom movement supported the freedom struggles in other countries. In India, for example, mass demonstrations were held in 1946 against Indian troops being sent by India’s British rulers to Indonesia and Indo-China to help restore there the Dutch and the French rule, respectively and in support of the independence of Indonesia and Indo China countries.
   This solidarity played a crucial role as countries gained independence. As a country became independent, she actively aided the independence movements in other countries, politically, in international organizations and in many cases, materially. The forums of the commonwealth and much more importantly, of the United Nations, were used by the newly independent countries to support the cause of the countries still under foreign rule. Anti-colonialsm and anti-imperialism were among the most important objectives of the Non-Aligned Movement since its foundation and it has pursued these objectives by extending support to the movements of national independence. It is not surprising that the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) which led Namibia’s struggle for independence was a full member of the Non-Aligned Movement since long before Namibia became independent in 1990. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) became a full member of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1976. The independent States of Africa have played a crucial role in strengthening the struggles for freedom in Africa. In 1963, they set up the Organization of African Unity (OAU) with one of its purposes being, the eradication of all forms of colonialism from the continent of Africa’. The freedom movements have also received the support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
   The United Nations also has been a major force in promoting the process which has brought about the ending of imperialism. The United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have already been mentioned. These documents symbolize the universal aspirations of the international community. The question of colonies was taken up by the United Nations from the very beginning of its foundations. As the number of former colonies joining the United Nations rose, the question of ending Colonialism received great importance in the United Nations and it played an increasingly active role in facilitating the achievement of independence by the colonies. Recently its role was crucial in bringing about the independence of Namibia.
   One of the first countries to achieve independence after the Second World War was India. Though the British rulers had succeeded in partitioning the country, India’s independence was of great historic importance. India’s freedom movement had been a source of inspiration to freedom movements in all countries of Asia and Africa. Even before independence the leaders of India's freedom movement had brought together the leaders of many Asian countries on it a common platform at the Asian Relations Conference which they organized. This conference symbolized the emergence of Asia as a new factor in the world. Independent India became a source of strength to all peoples fighting for their independence. Early in 1948, Burma (now Myanmar) on 4 January and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 4 February became independent. Malaya which had been reoccupied by the British troops in 1945 after the defeat of Japan became independent in 1957. In 1963 she proclaimed herself the Federation of Malaysia which included Singapore, also a former British colony. However, in 1965 Singapore declared herself is a separate independent State. In Indonesia, soon after the surrender of Japan, the Republic of Indonesia had been proclaimed by the nationalists. However, the Dutch, supported by the British troops, came back to re-establish their rule and a war followed. The war ended in 1949 and on 27 December that year Holland recognized Indonesia’s independence. The war in Vietnam which ended in the defeat first of France and then the US has already been mentioned. The Vietnamese nationalist movement led by the Communist Party of Indo-China had fought against the Japanese occupation during the war. On 2 September 1945, the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed. However, soon after, the French supported by the British troops tried to reestablish their rule. The French colonial war in Vietnam ended in 1954 after the debacle of Dien Bien Phu. The war against the US ended in 1975 and on 30 April 1975 Saigon, the capital of the US-sponsored regime in South Vietnam, was liberated. It 1976 Vietnam was united. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh city, after the great leader of Vietnamese people who had launched the freedom movement in Vietnam and had led it till his death in 1969. He had become the hero of the youth and the freedom loving peoples everywhere. Laos, one of the three countries comprising Indo-China, had proclaimed her independence in 1945. However, first the French and later the US intervention in Laos continued. The US intervention in Laos was ended in 1973 when monarchy was abolished. In Cambodia, the third country of Indo-China, also the French returned after the defeat of Japan. The French finally left in 1953 and Cambodia became independent. In 1970, the US installed a puppet government there and the US war in Vietnam was extended to Cambodia. The pro-US government was overthrown in 1975 at the time when the US military intervention in Vietnam ended. However, a most barbarous government came to power in Cambodia, commonly known as Pol Pot’s government, which followed a policy of genocide against its own people. This government was overthrown with the help of Vietnamese troops in 1979. However, the conflict in Cambodia continued. For many years, the US and a few Asian countries supported Pol Pot’s troops. During the past few months, negotiations have been going on between three main Cambodian groups-the present government of Cambodia, the group led by Prince Sihanouk whose government had been overthrown in 1970 with the support of the US and the group led by Pol Pot.
   The rise of Arab nationalism and the freedom movements in a few Arab countries has already been referred to. Lebanon had been made a separate State by the French. During the war, the French authorities in Lebanon were allied With Vichy France but had been ousted and the country was occupied by Free French forces. In November 1943, the independence of Lebanon was recognized though the French troops continued to stay there till 1946. Since the 1950s, Lebanon has seen many turmoils and political instability. In Syria, there was an uprising against the French who were supported by the British. On 17 April 1946, Syria became independent and the French troops were withdrawn. In Egypt, the monarchy was overthrown when a group of military officers led by Colonel Gama] Abdel Nasser seized power in 1952. The new government asked for the withdrawal of British troops which were stationed in Egypt, in the Canal zone. In July 1956, the British troops left but, as has been mentioned earlier, British and French troops invaded Egypt, along with Israeli troops, in October 1956 but were soon forced to withdraw. Nasser became the leading figure of Arab nationalism. He was also one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement. The revolution which overthrew pro-British government and the monarchy in Iraq has already been mentioned. Kuwait had come under British control at the end of the nineteenth century. Her vast oil resources were controlled by the British and the US oil companies. On 19 June 1967, Kuwait became a fully sovereign state. North Yemen had become an independent state after the destruction of the Ottoman Empire but in South Yemen, the British had consolidated their rule. The city of Aden had been made a part of British India but had become a separate colony in 1937. It was made the part of the new state of South Arabia which the British had created. In 1963, an armed revolt began in South Yemen. In November 1967, South Yemen became an independent state and the British troops left the country. The two Yemens have been recently unified. In Tunisia and Morocco, the French rule came to an end in 1956. Libya had come under Italian rule and. during the war, many important battles were fought there between the German and the Allied troops. The country was later occupied by the British and the French troops. She became an independent monarchy on 24 December 1951. In1969, the monarchy was overthrown and Libya became a republic. The Arab League, comprising the Arab States, was formed at the end of the Second World War. For many years, the Arab League played a very; important role in bringing the Arab States together in promoting Arab nationalism and strengthening the independence of Arab States. One of the main concerns of all Arabs has been the question of Palestine where with Western support the State .of Israel was created and sustained and the formation of a Palestinian State prevented. The Arab nationalists looked upon Israel as an outpost of imperialism in their territories. In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization which under the leadership of Yasser Arafat has been carrying on the struggle for the creation of an independent state of Palestine was set up. Recently, the PLO proclaimed the setting up of a government of Palestine which has been recognized by many countries.
   One of the longest struggles for freedom was launched in Algeria. The French occupation of Algeria had begun in 1830. After the Second World War, France was engaged in a protracted colonial war to retain her rule over Algeria. Unlike other French colonies, a large number of French colons had settled in Algeria. In 1960 they numbered about a million. They controlled most of the economy and the administration of Algeria and were determined to hold on to their domination even when the people of France and even the government, favored a settlement. The situation was comparable to some other colonies, such as South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, where white settlers were totally opposed to any settlement which would end their domination. In 1954 the nationalist movement in Algeria gave a call for a popular uprising. Soon after, a full-scale war of national liberation began. The National Liberation Front (FLN) of Algeria set up its own liberation army which had its regular armed troops as well as guerrilla units. The French army in Algeria now numbered over 800,000 soliders who resorted to large-scale atrocities and tortures. In 1958, the FLN set up its Provisional Government which was recognized by many countries. In 1958, a revolt by the French settlers and the French army in Algeria led to the overthrow of the Fourth Republic, as the French government since 1946 was called. General de Gaulle came to power in France and a new constitution creating the Fifth Republic came in force. The French settlers and the army in Algeria had hoped that the new government would support the war to maintain French rule in Algeria. However, when they discovered that de Gaulle favored a settlement with the Algerians, they organized unsuccessful revolts against him. In March 1962, de Gaulle’s government opened negotiations with the FLN which led to a ceasefire in Algeria. Agreement was also reached on Algeria’s independence and the complete withdrawal of French forces from Algeria. A referendum was held in France on the question of Algerian independence in April 1962 and the French people voted overwhelmingly in favour of Algeria’s independence. In a similar referendum held on 1 July 1962, 99 per cent of the people in Algeria voted in favour of complete independence. On 3 July 1962, Algeria’s independence was recognized by France. About 1,500,000 Algerians had been killed in the war of national liberation by the French troops.
   In most countries of southern Africa (sub Saharan Africa), nationalist organizations to fight for independence were formed in the year following the Second World War. The' imperialist countries had realized that they would not be able to hold on to Africa for long. The first country to gain independence in southern Africa was Ghana (Gold Coast during the British rule). The struggle for freedom in Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah. He was an outstanding leader of African nationalism and played an important role in uniting the African people for freedom as well as for asserting their national sovereignty and independent role in world affairs. In 1949 he had founded the Convention People’s Party. In 1956, this party won more than 70 per cent seats in the elections and on 6 March 1957 Ghana became independent. In 1958 Guinea became the first French colony in southern Africa to become independent. In 1960, seventeen countries of Africa became independent. This has given that year the title of the Africa Year. Out of them, 13 had been French colonies. These 17 countries were Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo (formerly French), Zaire (formerly Belgian Congo), Central African Republic, Somalia and Madagascar. The wave of anti-imperialism that engulfed Africa in 1960 influenced even the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. During a tour of British colonies in Africa in March 1960, he sopke about the wind of change which was blowing through the continent of Africa and said, “...whether we like it or not this growth of national consciousness is a political fact and our national policies must take account of it.”
   The British imperialism had long been trying to prevent this ‘wind of change’ from blowing. In Kenya the nationalist ’movement had been launched in the 1920s and one of its leaders who emerged into prominence was Jomo Kenyatta. In 1943 was formed the Kenya Africa Union which later became the Kenya African National Union which was led by, besides Jomo Kenyatta, Odinga Oginga. In 1952 the Man Mau rebellion broke out in Kenya. This rebellion which was mainly a peasant rebellion by the people of the Kikuyu tribe whose lands had been taken away by the British colonial authorities. Many Western writers have described Man Mau rebels as terrorists who committed inhuman atrocities. The British suppressed the rebellion with the use of brute force, killing about 15,000 Kenyans. In 1953 Kenyatta was arrested and sentenced to seven years imprisonment on the charge of leading the Man Mau rebellion. The British were compelled to end their repression which had won them world-wide condemnation. In 1961 Kenyatta was freed. On 12 December 1964, Kenya became a republic with Jomo Kenyatta as its first President.
   Most of the remaining British colonies in Africa became independent in the 1960s. These included Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika and Zanzibar) and Sieria Leone in 1961, Uganda in 1962, Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) and Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) in 1964, Gambia in 1965, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho in 1968. Ruanda and Burundi which had been under Belgian rule since the end of the First World War became independent in 1962. By the end of 1960s, most countries bf Africa had became free. The countries where the struggle for independence was still going on included the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique which have already been mentioned and Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde Islands. All these countries became free in the 1970s. Namibia (South-West Africa) which had been ruled as a colony by South Africa since the end of the First World War became independent on 21 March 1990. Another country which had to undergo a long period of struggle before she became independent was Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia). She had been a British colony but the white settlers there, under the leadership of Ian Smith, captured power in 1965. They were alarmed at the prospect of the country being granted independence which would have meant black majority rule. The white minotiry government was established there on the pattern of South Africa and with South African support and it declared what it was called the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Most countries of the world at the instance of the United Nations and the Commonwealth imposed sanctions against Southern Rhodesia. A powerful guerrilla movement grew in Southern Rhodesia. It was aided by the neighboring African States, the Non-Aligned Movement and the socialist countries. Realizing that they could never succeed in suppressing the war of national independence in spite of South Africa’s support, the white minority government submitted. In 1980 elections were held in Southern Rhodesia in which everyone-black and white-had one vote. The nationalist parties swept the polls and the country became independent with a new name Zimbabwe. The government there was headed by Robert Mugabe who became the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement at its conference held in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, in 1986.
   One of the major forces which accelerated the process of the eradication of imperialist rule in Africa was the Organization of African Unity which has been mentioned earlier. It was set up in 1963 at a Pan-African conference held in Addis Ababa. Its role in the 1960s was particularly crucial in promoting African nationalism. Britain had continued to retain a few colonial possessions in South America and the West Indies. Beginning in the 1960s, these countries became independent-Jamaica and Trinidad Tobago in 1962, Guyana and Barbados in 1966 and Grenada in 1976. Another colony, Surinam, situated to the east of Guyana, had been under the rule of Holland since the early years of the nineteenth century, became independent on 25 November 1975.
   The transition to independence in the countries mentioned here has in no case been smooth. In most cases the colonial powers have tried to retain their influence even while conceding independence to their colonies. In some countries, particularly when the colonial countries or their supporters thought that the colonial rule was being replaced by governments dominated by radical leaders, they tried to intervene more directly. In 1953, before British Guiana (now Guyana) became independent, elections we‘re held in which the Progressive People’s Party won 18 of the 25 seats. The party, led by Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, had been the main anti-imperialist party in Guyana and drew its support from all sections of the population, viz. people of Indian origin and black people, Cheddi Jagan became the Prime Minister and he started implementing a radical social and economic programme. However, after about font months the government was dismissed and the constitution suspended. British troops landed there and the leaders of the PPP-Jagan and Burnham-were arrested. All this was done in the name of ‘repelling’ communism. After that, the British fomented ethnic conflicts in Guyana and the PPP was split. In the 1957 elections, Dr. Jagan’s party again won elections and intensified the demand for independence. In the 1961 elections again, this party won a majority but the government was denied financial help and ethnic disturbances and violence were fomented. In the 1964 elections, Burnham who had broken away from the PPP and had joined another party polled less votes than the PPP but by allying with another party, he became the Prime Minister of Guyana. In 1966, Guyana became independent with Burnham as the Prime Minister. Ethnic conflicts continued in Guyana for many years.
   In Zaire (Belgian Congo), the freedom movement was led by Patrice Lumumba who had set up the National Congolese Movement (MNC). On, 30 June 1960, Congo became independent with Lumumba as the Prime Minister. However, soon after, the governor of the province of Katangar, supported by the Western companies which controlled the vast mineral (copper) resources of the provinces, announced the secession of the province from Congo. A number of mercenaries were employed to support the secession. On the request of the government of Congo, United Nations troops were sent to Congo to end the secession and the foreign intervention in Congo. However, they failed to protect Lumumba who was murdered. Later; however, they succeeded in ending the secession of Katanga. In 1965, Colonel Mobutu who headed the army of Congo captured power and became the President country which was now named Zaire. Lumumba was regarded as one of the greatest leaders nationalist resurgence in Africa and his murder it is believed, had been planned by the US intelligence agency, C.I.A. Similar efforts Were made in Angola where a government led by Agostinho Neto was formed after independence However, this government was sought to be overthrown by the US and South Africa aiding and arming rival groups of Angolans. The South African troops also entered Angolan territory and fought against the Angolan troops. Angola requested Cuba’s help in resisting foreign invaders and attempts at destroying Angola’s independence were thwarted. Recently agreements were reached on the ending of foreign intervention in Angola and the withdrawal of Cuban troops from there.
   The most vicious system of racial oppression was set up in South Africa. Some aspects of the developments in South Africa have been mentioned in Chapter 3. The system of racial segregation, called apartheid, was enforced in the country by the government of the white minority led by Daniel Malan who came to power in 1948 and by the successive governments. The nonwhites, over 80 per cent of the population, were denied the right to vote, strikes were banned, Africans were deported from some specified areas, education was segregated, mixed marriages were declared illegal (and immoral) and all dissent was banned under what was called the Suppression of Communism Act. Some of greatest works of world literature, and not just political writings, were banned under the suppression of communism Act. Strict restrictions were imposed on the movement of Africans and they were required to carry a pass permitting them to do so. South Africa left the Common wealth when the policy of apartheid came under attack at the conference of the Prime Ministers, of Commonwealth countries. The system of heid created widespread revulsion everywhere and most countries banned all relations with South Africa. The United Nations called for the imposition of military and economic sanctions 3 against South Africa and under pressure from it world opinion and from their own people, the Western countries also began to apply these sanctions. However, despite the condemnation of her policies, South Africa for a long time was not deterred from pursuing her inhuman policy with a brutality comparable only to that of the Nazis. In 1960, an anti-apartheid rally at Sharpeville was dispersed by resorting to a massacre. I Later, many other acts of brutal repression took I place. By the nearly 1960s, every leader of the anti-apartheid movement was arrested and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The struggle against apartheid and the white minority rule has been led for many decades by the African National Congress (ANC). In 1955, a Congress of the People was held which adopted ‘The Freedom Charter’. This Charter laid down the basic objectives of the South African people’s struggle. The Charter declared -
   We, the people of South Africa declare for all our country and the world to know.
   That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people;
   That our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
   That our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
   That only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;
   And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together-equals, countrymen and brothers adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.
   The African National Congress had so far followed a policy of peaceful non-violent struggle. In the face of the brute violence with which all peaceful protest was suppressed, it decided to launch an armed struggle. It trained its guerrillas and soliders inside South Africa and in the independent States of Africa. Some of the prominent leaders of the ANC had been able to escape arrest. A powerful underground movement was built up and many daring acts of sabotage were committed. The ANC received full support from the African States, the Non-Aligned Movement and the socialist countries in its struggle.
   With her almost total isolation in the world and the growing strength of the struggle inside the country, the white rulers of South Africa have been forced to open negotiations to end the policy of apartheid. Nelson Mandela, who has been the Vice-President of the ANC, has been recently released from jail after about 26 years. He has become the indomitable symbol of the struggle of the South African people. During his visit to India in October 1990, he was given the honour of a head of state. He was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.
   Some elements of the policy of apartheid such as segregation in public places have been ended during the recent weeks. However, the system will end only when the fundamental demand of ‘one person one vote’ has been won.

Japan

  Japan was occupied by the US forces after her defeat in the war. A number of reforms were initiated in the political system of Japan and in economy and society which laid the foundations of the post-war development of Japan. The power of the big landlords was broken. Workers’ unions were given freedom to function. Educational system was reformed and its misuse for inculcating militaristic and chauvinistic values was prevented. In May 1947, a new constitution prepared mainly by the occupation authorities, came in force. It introduced a democratic parliament form of government and universal adult franchise in Japan. Though the institution of monarchy was retained, the emperor was divested of powers and was viewed as “the symbol of the state.” The new Japanese constitution renounced war as a national policy. It also prohibited Japan from having a standing army or navy. In 1952, the US occupation of Japan was ended though by a security pact she retained the right to station her troops in Japan. The country has been ruled by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party which, in spite of many cases of corruption involving the Prime Ministers of the country, has been returned to power over and over again. The second most popular party is the socialist party which advocates nationalization of industry and wants the security pact with the US scrapped which has aligned Japan with the US. The Japanese communist party also has a substantial following. These two parties are opposed to any revival of militarism in Japan. The security pact with the US provoked countrywide protests in Japan when it was renewed in 1960 and later. A number of small right-wing groups have emerged in recent years in Japan which advocates the revival of the greatness of Japan as a military power, and inculcation of the traditional values some of which are closely related to militarism.
   Japan has, during the post-war decades, emerged as a great world economic power, challenging US supremacy in many areas of economy. Her economic growth is often referred to as a ‘miracle’. Lacking most of the natural resources herself, she has made tremendous advances in technology which has become her main asset. In many fields of manufacture requiring high technology, she has surpassed every other country in the world. As one of the economic ‘giants’ in the world today, she is closely allied with the most advanced capitalist economies of the West in her international economic relations. In her foreign policy, she has generally followed the US. She started normalizing her relations with China, her main victim since her rise as a modern nation, in the early 1970s, and with the Soviet Union only recently.

Developments in Latin America

  Most Latin American countries continued to suffer-from most of the same ills as before the war. The emergence of regimes which promised to introduce radical economic and social changes were always considered a threat to the United States and led her to intervene in the political affairs of the Latin American countries. These countries faced much the same problems as the developing countries of Asia and Africa and often suffered from political instability which had become a common feature of many developing countries’ political life. The US had vast economic interests in almost every country in Latin America; in the case of some countries, the US companies almost totally dominated their economy. To maintain their domination, these companies, with the support of the US government, encouraged undemocratic regimes with a powerful influence exercised by the army. The US policy, besides the threat it always perceived from the radical regimes in Latin America, now also began to see these regimes as being communist-inspired or under communist control and, therefore, a danger to her security. In many cases, the US interference in Latin America directly or through the C.I.A.’s covert operations, has been caused by an alleged communist threat. Very few countries in the region have had a Continuous history of elected government since the end of the Second World War.
   Since the late 1940s, in the political life of most Latin American countries radical and leftwing trends have become powerful. They have been able to form governments and introduce reforms, and stay in power for varying lengths of time, only to, be overthrown through coups, almost invariably with the support of the US. The two major exceptions have been Mexico and Cuba. The case of the latter has already been mentioned in the context of the Cold War. Guatemala for over a hundred years had been ruled by military dictators. The first free elections were held in 1944 and a reformist government came to power. From 1950, this government was led by Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. It introduced many social and economic reforms in the country and expropriated the United Fruit Company, a US company which dominated the economy of Guatemala. This alarmed the US government. Dulles believed that the government of Arbenz was potentially communist. A US-supported military coup overthrew this government in 1954. The sentiment against the US was so deep that when Richard Nixon, then US Vice-President, visited Latin American countries in 1958, he was ‘greeted in city after city by angry, hostile, occasionally dangerous mobs’.
   The most important event in Latin America in the 1950s which inspired radical and left-wing movements throughout the region was the revolution in Cuba. On 1 January 1959, after Batista, a military dictator who had been a close ally of the US had fled the country; Fidel Castro who had led the revolutionary movement in Cuba formed the revolutionary government of Cuba. Castro’s movement had not been a communist movement but when his government started implementing radical land reforms and taking over foreign companies, the US government turned hostile to it. The US had been the main importer of Cuba‘s sugar, which was Cuba’s main product. This was stopped. Gradually, the Cuban government established close links with the Soviet Union. Many attempts were made by the C.I.A. --a member of the US Congress has recently listed 15 --attempts-to assassinate Castro. The Bay of Pigs fiasco and the missile crisis during the Presidency of Kennedy have been mentioned earlier in this chapter. The Cuban revolution has survived for over thirty years now against heavy odds and continues to be a major radicalizing force in Latin America.
   One of the most inspiring leaders which the Cuban revolution produced was Che Guevara. He was born in Argentina but had joined Castro in 1956. He played a leading role in the revolutionary movement in Cuba which led to the fall of Batista’s dictatorship. He became a minister in the new Cuban government but left Cuba in 1965 to help organize a revolution in Bolivia. He was captured and killed by Bolivian troops in 1967. He became a major source of inspiration to the radical youth in Latin America and elsewhere in the world.
   An event which shocked the world in the 1970s was the overthrow of the government headed by Salvador Allende in Chile. One of the founders of Chilean Socialist Party, he was elected President of Chile in 1970. Like other radical regimes in Latin America which had come to power in the past, Allende also started introducing radical land reforms and nationalizing industry. On 11 September 1973, a military junta headed by general Pinochet, again with the support of the C.I.A., overthrew the government of Allende. Allende himself was killed in his Presidential Palace while fighting. A brutal military regime was established in Chile which remained in power till recently.
   The events mentioned above indicate a major trend of developments in Latin America. The US has intervened in many more countries than have been mentioned above-in Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, E1 Salvador, Grenada, etc. There have been too many military coups, mainly directed against elected governments which tried to introduce social and economic reforms, to be recounted here. However, radical political movements have been strengthened. One of the significant developments has been the change in the attitude of the catholic clergy in Latin America. Traditionally hostile to all radical ideologies and movements, the church and the clergy have become more responsive to the needs of social arid economic reform. Many priests have actively involved themselves in radical social and political movements.

The Non-Aligned Movement

  Many references have already been made to the rise and growth of the Non-Aligned Movement and the role played by it in international affairs. It arose at a time when many countries, particularly of Asia and Africa, had first emerged as independent States and they were deeply interested in preserving their own independence and playing an independent role in shaping the world and in speeding up the process of the destruction of imperialism. They had emerged on the stage of world history which had already been engulfed in a Cold War, with military alliances and race for weapons of destruction, which posed a threat to men in dependence as well as the survival of humanity. The world economic order in which they found themselves was based on gross inequalities and exploitation and the requirements of their development made fundamental changes in the world economic order-a necessity. It was in these conditions that the Non-Aligned Movement emerged and shaped itself.
   While the Non-Aligned Movement was formally set up in 1961 when the first conference of non-aligned countries was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, its antecedents can be traced back to the early post-war years. The leaders of the Indian freedom movement convened the Asian Relations Conference in March 1947 in Delhi, At this Conference, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was to become the first Prime Minister of independent India in a few month’s time, declared: “Far too long have we of Asia been petitioners in Western courts and chancelleries. That story must now belong to the past. We propose to stand on our own legs and to cooperate with all others who are prepared to cooperate with us. We do not intend to be the playthings of others.... The countries of Asia can no longer be used as pawns by others they are bound to have their own policies in world affairs”. He warned of the new dangers that threatened the world and said, “The West has...driven us into wars and conflicts without number and even now, the day after a terrible war, there is talk of further wars in the atomic age that is upon us. In this atomic age Asia will have to function effectively in the maintenance of peace”.
   By the end of the 1940s, the Western countries’ military alliance, NATO, had been set up, w in the early 1950s, military alliances had begun to be set up in Asia. The Cold War was being extended throughout the world leading to tensions and conflicts. In this context India, along With China, enunciated the Panchsheel or the five principles of peaceful coexistence. These principles were incorporated in the preamble to an agreement which India and China signed in 1954. These principles became integral to the Non-Aligned Movement. Many outstanding leaders had emerged in Asia in the early 1950s who wanted to build the unity of Asian and African countries to bring about the end of colonialism and imperialism and to keep themselves non-aligned from the Cold War confrontations. In 1955 Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia hosted a conference of Asian and African countries at Bandung from 17 to 24 April. The conference was attended by 29 Asian and African countries. Among the outstanding leaders who participated in this conference were Jawaharlal Nehru. China’s Prime Minister Chou En Lai and Gamal Abdel Nassar, then Prime Minister, later President of Egypt. Although the conference was attended by many countries-Pakistan, Iran, Iraq the Philippines, Turkey, Thailand-who were members of the US-sponsored military alliances, the communique unanimously adopted at this conference clearly stated ideas which expressed some of the fundamental principles of non-alignment. The Bandung conference was a major milestone in the history of the Non-Aligned Movement. It was also the biggest conference of the countries of Asia and Africa representing half of the population of the world.
   From the mid-1950s, leaders of some nonaligned countries had started holding meetings. Gradually, the idea grew that a conference of all non-aligned countries should be held. The 1960 session of the UN General Assembly was a historic one. Seventeen newly independent countries of Africa were admitted to the United Nations that year. The growing members of new nations, recently become free, brought about significant changes in the United Nations which became truly an international organization representing, in course of time, almost every country in the world. At this time when the process of ending colonialism had been accelerated, the United Nations started playing a crucial role in furthering that process. On 14 December 1960, the United Nations adopted the historic Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial, Countries and Peoples. This historic session of the United Nations was attended by the leaders of five leading non-aligned nations-Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Sukarno of Indonesia, Nasser of Egypt, Tito of Yugoslavia and Nkrumah of Ghana. They took the historic decision of convening a conference of all non-aligned countries in the following year.

DECLARATION ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER

  The new international economic order should be founded on full respect for the following principles - (a) Sovereign equality of States. Self-determination of all people’s inadmissibility of the acquisition of territories by force territorial integrity and non-interference in the iternal affairs of other States.
(b) The broadest co-operation of all the States members of the international community, based on equity, whereby the prevailing disparities in the world may be banished and prosperity secured for all.
(c) Full and effective participation on the basis of equality of all countries in the solving of world economic problems in the common interest of all countries, bearing in mind the necessity to ensure the accelerated development of all the developing countries, while devoting particular attention to the adoption of special measures in favour of the least developed, land-locked and island developing countries most seriously affected by economic crises and natural calamities without losing sight of the interests of other developing countries.
(d) The right of every country to adopt the economic and social system that it deems the most appropriate for its own development and not to be subjected to discrimination of any kind as a result.
(e) Full permanent sovereignty of every State over its natural resource and all economic activities. In order to safeguard these resources, each State is entitled to exercise effective control over them and their exploitation with means suitable to its own situation, including the right to nationalization or transfer of ownership to its nationals, this right being an expression of the full permanent sovereignty of the State. No State may be subjected to economic, political or any other type of coercion to prevent the free and full exercise of this inalienable right.
(f) The right of all States, territories and peoples under foreign occupation, alien and colonial domination or apartheid to restitution and full compensation for the exploitation and depletion of and damages to, the natural resources and all other resources of those States, territories and peoples...

[Adopted by the General
Assembly of the United
Nations on 1 May 1974]

  The first conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned countries was held at Belgrade, Yugoslavia, from 1 to 6 September 1961. It was attended by 25 countries as full members. These member countries were Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Congo (Zaire), Cuba, Cyprus, Ethopia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Mali, Morocco, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Republic (then comprising Egypt and Syria), Yemen and Yugoslavia. (Algeria had not yet become independent but the provisional government set up by the FLN was admitted as a full member, as later SWAPO and PLO were admitted as full members.) The conference adopted a declaration which stated that “the principles of peaceful coexistence are the only alternative to the ‘Cold War’ and to a possible general catastrophe” and that lasting peace would be achieved only in “a world where the domination of colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism in all their manifestations is radically eliminated”. The conference also addressed letters to Nikita Khurshchev, Prime Minister of Soviet Union, and John F. Kennedy, President of the United States and urged them to resume negotiations aimed at reducing the risk of war and at ensuring peace.
   The basic objectives of the Non-Aligned Movement were laid down at the first conference itself. Some of these objectives were later elaborated and made more specific. The most important objectives included ending of imperialism and colonialism, promotion of international peace and security and disarmament, creation of a New International Economic Order, ending of racism and racial discrimination, and ending of information imperialism.
   During the past thirty years, the membership of the Non-Aligned Movement has increased to 103. Almost all of them are members of the United Nations and thus constitute more than two-thirds of the total membership of the United Nations. The Charter of the Organization of African Unity has as one of its principles ‘Affirmation of a policy of non-alignment with regard to all blocs’. Nine summit conferences of the Non-Aligned Movement have been held: Belgrade(1961), Cairo (1964), Lusaka (1970), Algiers (1973), Colombo (1976), Havana (1979), Delhi (1983), Harare (1986) and Belgrade (1989). At the Fourth Summit conference held at Algiers, it was decided to establish a Coordinating Bureau which was later charged with the task of coordinating their joint activities aimed at the implementation of the programmes adopted at the summit conferences, at ministerial conferences at meetings of groups of non-aligned countries in the United Nations and at other meetings of the non-aligned countries.
   The activities of the Non-Aligned Movement constitute a major contribution to the creation of One World.