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EN
The Polish-Dutch relations have been shaped by the course of the international politics in Europe. After a period of rebuilding of the diplomatic structure in The Hague came a period of organization of permanent diplomatic services. The services were aimed not only at relations between the two respective governments but also at the thousands of Poles which lived here before the war or stayed in Holland with the 1st Armored Division of general Stanislaw Maczek when the war was over. The relations between official representatives of People's Republic of Poland and Poles were bad. The Cold War had victims on all fronts. Poles were afraid to return to communist Poland and had to decide to pick the land to begin the new life in. Some of them immigrated to the U.S., some went to Australia, Brazil, France and Germany to work in the coalmines. The official reports from the Polish embassy in The Hague show the feeling of isolation not only from the Polish emigrants but also from the Dutch political elites. The low-key relations, which fluctuated with the political atmosphere in Europe, were eased and normalized in 1971 with the new liberal communist leaders in Poland as a result of the official visit of J.M. Luns, the Dutch minister of International Affairs, to Warsaw. This new era in Polish-Dutch relations has ended in December 1981.
EN
The Second World War has brought fundamental changes to the structure of world political powers and in sphere of influences. The 'anti-Nazi' coalition was led by the 'Big Three': United States of America, which in 1941 gave up its isolation doctrine, Soviet Union, totalitarian state, and Great Britain, the representative of the democratic traditions of old Europe. With the approaching end of the military struggle with the Nazis one could notice different opinions of the Big Three confining the future of the world order. In author's opinion the most important issues, which created the post-war political order in Europe were: the future of Germany, relations with Central and Eastern Europe and relations with the Soviet Union. The latter was the key to the global politics. Stalin's policy to promote the communist parties in Europe, which gained much support, took part in after-war democratic elections, and joined some government coalitions, brought a fear that Russians would be a key-player in Western Europe. In August 1949 Soviet Union presented the world its own atomic bomb, which ended the American supremacy in nuclear armament. The Cold War created such milestones in the international politics as NATO, Warsaw Pact and European Economic Community.
EN
Looking at events from the perspective of the “official” US Government during the specific historical “era of imperial rivalry” – it seems that the US recognized the political potential of Central European refugees, who made a very remarkable contribution to keeping the ideological Cold War alive. The present study focuses on the issue of how the US Government looked at and treated Central (or East) European political emigres during the Cold War period. Looking through historical glasses at these processes, we can identify a gradually declining influence of Central European emigres in the West and in especially in the USA. With the passing of time, Central European emigres gradually lost their political bases first at home (in their respective home countries) then in their “shelter“ countries.
EN
The following article discusses chosen examples of Soviet intelligence activities on the African continent during Cold War. It contains events in Angola, Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia and Mozambique. The author presented interference of the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) and allied intelligence services in internal and foreign policy of these states.
EN
The diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and France saw a dramatic decline after February 1948. The involvement of several French diplomats in the preparation of escape of J. Sramek and F. Hala impaired the mutual relations of both countries already in spring 1948. The people's democratic Czechoslovakia, whose foreign policy was now controlled from Moscow, systematically reduced the diplomatic representation of capitalist states in its territory. In 1951, after a secret police intervention, the French consulate in Bratislava was closed, and in a couple of weeks only the embassy in either country's capital remained, dealing with the most urgent matters only. The main focus of mutual relations moved over to the unofficial level of contacts between the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of France. Starting from 1954, Czechoslovakia restored the official contacts with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the rapprochement efforts culminated with a 1956 agreement on exchange of parliament delegations. Further development of mutual relations, however, was interrupted by the events taking place in Hungary and Egypt in autumn 1956. As a result, the relations just restored declined and reached the freezing point again.
Vojenská história
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2019
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vol. 23
|
issue 2
61 - 92
EN
The study addresses the specific topic of the Military Intelligence of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Czechoslovak People´s Army - ČSĽA) during the so called Cold War. It focuses on each capabilities of the Military Intelligence built in the context of the tasks performed by the ČSĽA within the Warsaw Pact. Emphasis is put on the intelligence reconnaissance on operational level, intelligence reconnaissance on strategic level and their task in the individual areas of interests. These were located within a predictable area of a future war conflict. The study also focuses on the building of intelligence networks, legal and illegal residencies, the recruitment of assets, the building of contingency wartime intelligence networks, the deployment of reconnaissance assets against central and auxiliary objects of interests in the zone of frontline operations of the ČSĽA, the training of contingency assets units and the exploitation of illegal border crossings to the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and Austria for assets’ training. The emphasis of the study lies on the preparation of the Military Intelligence for a potential war conflict with a presumed adversary - NATO.
EN
The paper explores changing attitude of the international society to war rape and other sexual violence that took place in the armed conflicts after the end of the Cold War. The evolution from shameful misprision to dynamic efforts aiming at penalization of the crime of sexual violence is marked, firstly, by the statutes of the international tribunals (two ad hoc and one permanent) and, secondly, by judgments of these criminal courts. The crucial documents of tribunals (e.g.of cases Furundžija, Akayesu, Kunarac) constituted milestones on the way to punishing perpetrators of abhorrent sexual crimes. They reflect the process of preparing or even creating international law terms and instruments that have been necessary to prosecute and punish rapists and other violators. The effects are inter alia a progressive definition of rape, determination to prosecute perpetrators of the most massive and systematic crimes and recognising (under specific circumstances) sexual crime as crimes against humanity and genocide.
Ad Americam
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2011
|
vol. 12
141-148
EN
The Mediterranean was a main region in the policy of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This part of the world was one of the most important areas of rivalry during the Cold War after 1945. At that time it was the most militarized region in the world. In the postwar world, despite rapid advances in all types of communication, the Mediterranean retained its importance as a unique strategic maritime passageway because of the continuity of naval routes, air routes and strategic directions which largely coincide with the strategies of bloc activity. This article describes the presence of the naval forces of the USA and the USSR in the basin of the Mediterranean, the diplomatic and military rivalry between these superpowers and the implications of this competition for international relations at the end of the Cold War.
EN
While many definitions of “political exile” exist across disciplines, they tend to focus on three areas: the social and psychological experience of exiles before leaving their homeland, the causes, motivations, means of departure, and the adjustment, assimilation of exiles in the country of asylum. None of these address the question of what the exiles actually do abroad politically in an attempt to return to their home country. My research begins where these assumptions stop. In my paper I define a political exile as a person compelled to leave his homeland whose material and psychological status is a dynamic one. Furthermore, a political exile wishes to contribute to the host society, share his assets (knowledge, skills) in exchange for support of his cause. A political exile is engaged in a collective project usually originating in the homeland which is realized in the host country, unwaveringly determined to return. “Unwilling” to fully assimilate, a political exile claims legitimacy in representing his compatriots abroad while adaptation and integration with the host society are in progress. I propose that the legacy of the political exile activities in the West during the Cold War be considered in the context in which they were created: being influenced by transnational and multiethnic spaces. Formed, pressed and spelled out in the conditions that are multifaceted, rather than simply transmitted from the pre-Soviet traditions, or resulting from the contacts with the “captive” compatriots.
EN
The article attempts to define the role of Plovdiv International Fair in the foreign trade relations of Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia – countries belonging to the same economic and political world in the inter-bloc confrontation during the Cold War. The period from the middle 1940s and the 1950s was chosen, because then Czechoslovakia was the second most important trade socialist partner for Bulgaria, which provided machinery, equipment and complete projects for Bulgarian industrialization. The study traces the gradual weakening of the importance of the fair for their trade relations with the increase of integration processes in the COMECON since 1956, when the international socialist division of labour was created and the processes of coordinating business plans were centralized. The analysis of the set problems is based on archival material not yet in scientific circulation, stored in the State Archives of Plovdiv, as well as on studies examining the Bulgarian-Czechoslovak economic relations for the period.
EN
In recent years a growing intelligence activity of the People’s Republic of China has been observed by U.S. counterintelligence services. The increasing expansion of Chinese intelligence in the United States of America is a serious threat to American national security. Chinese espionage on U.S. territory is so common and so intensive that it became a topic of national debate. A real breakthrough in perceiving this threat was issuing the so -called Cox report which took place during Bill Clinton’s second term. The conclusions of the report were alarming, to put it mildly. The article shortly presents the crucial theses of the Cox report and controversies regarding its conclusions. Moreover, it raises the question of cyberespionage and cyberwarfare – a kind of Chinese intelligence activity that is very troublesome to various U.S. institutions. The highly computerized and informatized United States seem to be extraordinarily vulnerable to acts of cyberterrorism and cyberespionage. It is a real Achilles’ heel of the USA. Apart from that, the article enumerates and describes the most characteristic features of Chinese spying activities in the USA. The presidency of George W. Bush witnessed further intensification of unfriendly activities of Chinese spies. It was reflected by many well -known cases of Chinese spies identified and arrested by U.S. counterintelligence institutions and then found guilty by U.S. courts. Several examples of such cases are presented in the article as well as the spheres and fields that are especially susceptible to Chinese intelligence penetration.
ARS
|
2015
|
vol. 48
|
issue 2
118 – 135
EN
The main subject of this article is the texts of Soviet (and Soviet Estonian) art historians to Renaissance art at the time of Stalin to the thaw period - the period of the Cold War in the years 1945 - the 1965. They are compared with the texts that have been published on the opposite side of the iron curtain. The renaissance art history of both ideological camps had many similarities, because the treatise framework has been formed by the artistic discourse developing in the West since the 19th century.
EN
At the beginning of May 1948 US-ambassador in USSR W. B. Smith conveyed to chief of Soviet diplomacy V. Molotov a memorandum about American reservations concerning contemporary Soviet Policy. This action not only evokes a political replay from J. V. Stalin, but arouses a big interest from Leadership of Czechoslovak communist government in development of American-Soviet Relations. At the Initiative from Prague the Czechoslovak charge d´affaires in Washington Josef Hanc had written a series of eight memoranda, where he analyzed actual state of relations between USA and USSR. The texts of these memoranda are published as an annex to this article. In his documents Hanc concluded, that American diplomacy does not aspire to some solutions of basic problems between both states, but only to troubleshooting of some partial problems. It has been the last attempt at some objective analysis of relationship between the super-powers at the beginning of Cold War from Czechoslovak view.
EN
The author tries to capture how the western, which originally existed as the American form of historical and, actually, realistic novel, took root in the countries where the tradition of winning the Wild West and patriotic tendencies were more or less absent or they were depicted by using different genres and techniques. He contemplates whether the western in its essence exists until now or it is just in the position of a romanticizing and fossilized genre. Alongside the conscious exotism of the western, the genre – from the historical point of view, especially in the territory of Czechoslovakia - is able to function in its transformed meaning as a trigger for the tramp movement (and thus can also be seen as one of many roots of the Leftist Avant-garde), as well as a moral and social solution. Idealizing the „American“ element, which dates back to the 1930s, was also a moving force for liberal and free thinking, which in its black-and-white distinction often helped to overcome oppression and totalitarianism. The stereotypical battle between good and evil complemented by freedom simply works in any totalitarian society better – although with hindsight. He admits it was partly just a precursor of the Ideology of Consumerism. Since the second half of the 20th century the western imagery has moved from the literary form mainly to film adaptations and recently it has reached a stage when the western has de facto lost its opponent as well as its essence and the motivation for existence. Its current form undergoing a worldwide transformation from Romanticism preferably to Realistic-Naturalistic depictions then naturally has to seek its own purpose as well as the users, who often incline to other sources of pleasure in Pop Culture.
EN
The history of the Czechoslovak monetary gold began to be written at the end of the 1930s at the time of the mutilation and breakup of the Czechoslovak Republic. The gold was forcibly and illegally seized by Nazi Germany. At the end of the, the American army of occupation found it in salt mines at Merkers in Germany with gold from other countries. It was only in 1982 that an adequate part was returned to the vaults of the State Bank of Czechoslovakia in Prague. Soon after the Second World War, the USA, Great Britain and France established the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold on the basis of decisions by the Paris Reparations Conference. Its task was to secure the just and proportional return of recovered gold to all the affected countries including Czechoslovakia. During the following decades of the Cold War, gold was a regular subject of conflict, dispute and negotiations, especially between Washington and Prague. The agreements reached were cancelled by one side or the other, and they repeatedly went back to the beginning. This study is directed towards the period 1980–1981, when the United States Congress significantly intervened in the question of the return of the Czechoslovak gold.
Asian and African Studies
|
2022
|
vol. 31
|
issue 2
318 – 339
EN
This study examines the turbulent development of Czechoslovak-Egyptian relations from 1948 to 1955. The initially rather strained relations in the late 1940s were replaced by a close partnership between the two countries that resulted in the development of various projects in the fields of political, economic, military, cultural, and scientific cooperation. Such a shift was encouraged both by the internal political changes in Egypt following the events of the July Revolution in 1952 led by the Free Officers Movement, and also by the changing priorities of the Eastern Bloc in the Middle East and North Africa. Czechoslovakia as a Soviet satellite echoed to some extent Soviet attitudes towards the region. The detailed examination of Czech archival sources confirms the importance of Czechoslovak involvement in Egypt at the onset of the Cold War for the whole Eastern Bloc, as in the 1950s Czechoslovakia was not only able to use its former experience and contacts in the country to become one of the most active socialist countries in the area but these activities also had a significant international impact on both the contemporary political situation in the region and the development of the Cold War rivalries that later escalated during the famous Suez Crisis (1956).
EN
In the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union launched a new course in their contacts called 'détente'. One of the main reasons for this remarkable turnabout was a radical change of views of the two countries' leaders. President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev openly expressed their readiness and willingness to overcome ideological barriers to build and keep permanent peace. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the two leaders' views by analyzing two speeches, one made by Nixon during his visit to the Soviet Union in 1972 and the other made by Brezhnev during his stay in the United States in 1973. Examination of their rhetorical strategies - such as choice of words, arguments, and emphasis - reveals how Nixon and Brezhnev understood peace and how they aimed to achieve it. Confronting the two leaders' goals with the actual outcomes of their actions, and taking the significance of political changes as a yardstick of fulfilled declarations, it can be demonstrated whether Nixon and Brezhnev truly desired to achieve enduring peace or whether they used peace rhetoric as a tool to weaken each other's vigilance and take the lead in the Cold War race.
EN
The study is concerned with the activities of Vladimir Clementis (1901-1952) in directing the diplomacy of Czechoslovakia, especially in the role of minister of foreign affairs in the period 1948-1950. Clementis, leftist intellectual and 'undogmatic' communist as a head of Prague diplomacy, after the communist coup of February 1948, still attempted to achieve some degree of autonomy in the foreign policy of people's democratic Czechoslovakia. However, the growing Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West reduced the space for such a policy almost to zero. The views of Moscow became the deciding factor for the diplomatic activity of Czechoslovakia. The majority of specific steps, including the appointment of personnel to the Prague diplomatic apparatus, were not decided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but by the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In February 1949, Clementis was forced to introduce a radical reorganization of his office according to the model of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which gave the Prague foreign ministry roughly the organizational structure. In relation to the overall development of world politics, Clementis had to give up most of his more independent positions. However, pressure from the 'Stalinists' led by V. Siroky, led him being deprived of his post in March 1950 and replaced by Siroky himself. Clementis was fallen victim to the fabricated political trial in 1952.
EN
The coming to Power of Lyndon B. Johnson and the expulsion of Nikita Khruschev from the Kremlin brought about important changes in the relationship between the superpowers and the Arab states. The period witnessed a steady deterioration of both inter-Arab and US-Arab relations. By the end of 1964 US-Egyptian relations reached a crisis. Several developments led to this point: 1. further Egyptian economic and military dependence on the Soviet Union; 2. Egypt’s involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict; 3. Egyptian military and political support of the rebels in the Congo; 4. Egypt’s armed presence in Yemen; 5. the fire of the Kennedy Library in Cairo; 6. US economic threats against Cairo. The calm that marked the period was deceptive; the storm was never far away.
EN
The number of Czech and Slovak post-February (1948) exiles in Australia, according to the Australian national census of 1954, amounted to some 10 to 12 thousand people referred to as displaced persons. The rather high number was mainly due to the fact that Australia offered the shortest repatriation waiting time and, at least at the turn of the 1940s, actively fostered immigration from Europe. For that purpose the Australian government launched a media campaign that found its echo primarily in the refugee camps in Germany and Austria. The group of Czech post-February (1948) exiles, numbering some 400-500 persons in the 1950s, was developing rather separately (perhaps even in voluntary isolation) from the main exile centers. The above group in Australian exile faced many personal, collective, organizational, financial and political controversies and problems. In the fall of 1969 the first stage of Czech and Slovak emigration to Western Australia was closed and another stage started in connection with the new wave of post-August (1968) exiles.
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