WORLD WAR II TO COLD WAR

From World War II to the Cold War

FROM WORLD WAR II TO THE COLD WAR: AN INTRODUCTION

The first major Cold War conflict was the Congo Crisis of 1960 that followed the Congo's decolonization from Belgium. To a large extent the Congo Crisis was a disproportionate Cold War conflict, in that the intervenes were overwhelmingly from the United States and its NATO allies. Belgian-supported mercenaries and mining interests helped engineer the secession of mineral-rich Katanga Province, which functioned as a de facto Belgian puppet state for several years. The political turmoil led to the dispatch of a United Nations peacekeeping force that soon became the largest and most important peacekeeping operation of the entire Cold War period.

Recent documentation shows that the UN peacekeepers were sympathetic to American and European interests in the Congo, and they secretly coordinated their activities with those of the United States. In response, the Soviet Union and its allies made a brief effort to furnish military assistance to the elected Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. However, the Soviets lacked the long range transport capability that would have been necessary to match the North American interventions. For the Congolese, these external interventions proved highly destabilize. Lumumba assassinated by Belgian military forces and allied mercenary groups (with at least indirect encouragement from the CIA). The accession to power by General Joseph-Desire Mobutu in 1965, with strong U.S. and European support, inaugurated one of the more corrupt and divisive rulers of recent African history (Bueno,2002).

Overall, the Soviet support for Lumumba, however brief and ineffectual, probably gained the Soviet Union some degree of popular support in Africa, especially educated classes. With regard to the war of ideas, the Soviets enjoyed additional advantages. The Soviet Union itself was (at least in theory) strongly opposed to colonialism. That the Soviets had a record of semi colonial domination of various non-Russian groups within the Soviet Union widely overlooked at the time. In addition, a new generation of young people throughout Africa became increasingly inclined toward various forms of Marxism and socialism, and these factors also weighed in favor of Soviet influence. These advantages outweighed, however, by the former colonial powers that were of course noncommunist retaining significant economic, cultural, and in some cases military links to their former colonies. In the majority of African states, U.S. and European influence far exceeded Soviet influence throughout the Cold War (Gilbert, 2006).

The 1930s were clearly a troubled decade throughout much of the world. In the United States the stock market crash and Great Depression that followed brought rampant unemployment reaching up to 25 percent of the workforce by early 1933, or over 12 million workers. President Herbert Hoover's (served 1929-1933) ineffective response through 1932 brought considerable social unrest with hunger marches and food riots. President Franklin Roosevelt's (served 1933-1945) arrival in early 1933 brought hope with his massive New Deal programs. But as the Depression lingered on, support for Roosevelt's programs slipped.

Meanwhile, in Europe dire economic problems in Germany following its defeat in World War I provided a fertile environment for ...