What are the foreign policies of Soviet Union during Cold War?

Answer 1

The foreign policies of the Soviet Union changed as did the leaders of the countries. Joseph Stalin remained in power of the USSR for 8 years after WW2 was over. His foreign policies were pretty straightforward, with tight control over his European satellite nations ( those annexed by the Soviet Union as they pushed west into Europe to drive back the Nazis in WW2, however, they never really left after the war, and divisions were created in which country [either the U.S. or Soviet Union] controlled, these lines or divisions became to be known as the iron curtain. The iron curtain was made famous by Winston Churchill in the post years of the war.)

However, after Stalin died, a power struggle erupted over his successor, and although historically Georgy Malenkov is listed as the leader, in reality, he was in a power struggle with Nikita Kruschev. I honestly don't know about Malenkov's foreign affairs, but I believe that it is assumed that his foreign policies had little lasting impact, as they are not widely known today. I could assume that he may have copied Stalin's policies or not been involved at all, instead trying to consolidate his power over the USSR.

The next leader of the Soviet Union you could talk about is Nikita Kruschev, he ended up winning the power struggle after Stalin's death, and his foreign policies were extensive, as his reign of power in the Soviet Union was, however, his policies can be broken down into subcategories:

China-In the earlier years after the successful communist revolution led by Mao Zedong, the Soviet Union gave arms and political support to the new communist regime. However, when the Soviet Union was about to give China an atomic weapon in 1959, it never happened, and tensions between the two flared until they became almost enemies. They never went to war with each other, and in case your wondering, Mao Zedong led his communist revolution against Jang-Kai-Shek, a democratic, U.S.-backed leader who actually fled to Taiwan after the successful communist coup.

Eastern Europe- Possibly the most important issue regarding Soviet foreign policy, Kruschev tried to keep the satellite nations loyal to the USSR, however, the Poles and the Hungarians to a lesser extent began to revolt against the Soviet Union, several clashes persisted throughout the region between nationalist liberation groups and the Soviet overlords. This area continued to plague the Soviet Union throughout the remainder of its existence.

Cuba- The infamous Cuban Missile Crisis, and the valiant figure of JFK poised and ready to strike at the Soviets. However misinterpreted the U.S. government has twisted that time in history, the truth remains that JFK told the Soviet Union to uninstall the missiles, and they did. This shows that Kruschev was willing to submit to Western demands if it meant saving the world from nuclear war.

Eastern/Western Germany- After WW2, the original borders that separated Soviet held East Germany and East Berlin and the Western Germany and Western Berlin were open for people to come and go as they pleased. However, the Soviets were displeased because of the "Brain Drain" occurring because many of the brilliant Nazi minds of WW2 who had developed weapons such as the V-2 rockets were now in the allied occupied zones, as a result, the border was closed off, and West Berliners began to starve. The Berlin Airlift was essentially an 11 month operation to airlift supplies to the West Berliners. The Soviets gave up their attempts to starve them after that. However, the infamous Berlin wall still remained until 1989.

Although more areas of Kruschev's foreign policy exist, I will not get too specific and go into greater detail.

The next USSR leader was Brezhnev. He was in office for almost 20 years, and his foreign policies affected the U.S. and other Western powers like no one before him (Save Stalin.)

Many of Brehznev's policies reflected that of Kruschev's, however, he allowed more Western discussion and peace talks with the U.S as the infamous "Red Phone" was installed as the only source of communication between the Kremlin and the White House. The Vietnam War was fought during this time. The Soviet Union provided financial, military, and political backing to the Vietnamese. { EDIT: by military, I mean guns/ammunition explosives/ etc. The Soviet Union never had its troops directly meet the Western troops in battle, hence Cold War} I will not go into detail about the Vietnamese war, however the general reason why he went there was to continue the policy of containment, which was the driving force behind the Korean War, the Greek invasions of 1949, and the Berlin airlift.

Overall, the position of the Soviet Union was deteriorating as its possessions such as Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia, began to revolt against the Soviet Union, many of these revolutions were put down by Soviet troops.

After Brezhnev, came Andropov and Chernenko. Note: they did have power in different times, however, both of the ruled less than 3 years, and it is easier to explain it if I clump the two together. Andropov came first, then Chernenko. They put down revolts seriously and quickly, the Prague spring(Hungarian Revolution) was put down as well as the Afghanistan invasion. They both didn't do much to ease the tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, however, they did ease tensions between China and later in their reign, they talked arms reduction with the U.S.

The last leader of the Soviet Union was Mikail Gorbachev. Mikail essentially was marked with his models of Glasnost- or openness to the West and Petroiska- or economic restructuring of the USSR. He was open to the West and reduced arms. He essentially set the stage for the Soviet Union to fall back in competition from the West. Ronald Reagan's famous quote " ...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall..." refers to the Brandenburg Gate, or the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev let some Western influence come into the country as well, such as radio signals and political prisoners were finally released.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union is 1991 can be seen as rapid and unexpected. The Soviet Union seemed, to the West at least, to simply vanish off the face of the Earth.