reflection

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The Cold War (1945-91) part 2

The Cold War Spreads – Asia We ended the last lecture by discussing the spread of the Cold War to Asia. The Soviet Union won a significant victory over the United States in the ideological conflict of the Cold War when the Chinse Communist Party took control of China in 1949. From there, both the Soviets and the Chinese sought to spread revolutionary Socialism into other parts of Asia, including Korea and Vietnam. Let’s backtrack a bit to understand the context: • During World War II (1939-45), Japan built a Japanese Empire in East Asia and the Pacific.

Japan occupied many East Asian countries, including Korea and Vietnam. See a map of the Japanese Empire here (Vietnam is listed as French Indochina).

• After the United States defeated Japan in August 1945, Korea and Vietnam were both divided. Each had a communist government in the north and a non-communist government in the south.

Communist Non-Communist Maps

North Korea South Korea here or here

North Vietnam South Vietnam here or here In both cases, the communists in the north sought to overthrow and conquer the non- communist governments in the south. And in both cases, the United States defended the non- communist governments in the south in order to “contain” the spread of communism. Let’s look at each case. As we do so, consider the following: • We’ve said the Cold War was an ideological conflict between the United States and the

Soviet Union. The Soviets tried to spread revolutionary Socialist ideas (communism) and the U.S. tried to spread Liberal democratic ideas.

• In some cases, though, the United States supported non-communist governments which were authoritarian, not Liberal democratic. This was the case in South Korea and South Vietnam.

o The U.S. logic was this: Although an authoritarian government is not good in itself, it is better than a communist government – the least bad of two bad options.

o Also, an authoritarian government might, over time, develop more Liberal and democratic practices, whereas a communist government would not. This turned out to be true of South Korea (as well as Taiwan).

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Korea The Communist Party of North Korea said it promoted “the revolutionary goals of national liberation and the people’s democracy.” • We’ve seen this kind of language before. Revolutionary Socialists use the rhetoric of

liberation and democracy to gain power. They become a government elite who rule over a mass population stripped of individual rights.

• We saw this back in 1917. The original Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin promoted his revolutionary Socialism as “democracy for the poor, democracy for the people.”

• We saw it again in the late 1940s. The Soviet Union described its spread of revolutionary Socialism into Eastern Europe as building “people’s democracies.” Critics of Soviet policy were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps known as the Gulag.

The Soviet Union continued to spread revolutionary Socialism in Asia by supplying the North Korean Communist government with money and military equipment. In 1950, with Soviet support, North Korea invaded South Korea. North Korea’s goal was to conquer South Korea and place it under communist rule. In addition to the Soviets supplying North Korea, the Chinese Communists entered the war on the side of North Korea. So the two major revolutionary Socialist systems – the Soviet Union and China – both helped North Korea try to conquer South Korea. The United States responded with its Cold War strategy of Containment. President Truman sent troops to defend South Korea and thus contain the spread of revolutionary Socialism. The Korean War was 1950-53. It’s a good example of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet and American militaries did not directly fight each other. But the Soviets supported the North Korean attempt to conquer South Korea and the Americans sent troops to defend South Korea. About 33,000 Americans died defending South Korea. When the Korean War ended in 1953, South Korea remained independent. Its government was authoritarian. Though over decades, South Korea became democratic and is a thriving democracy today. It’s a good example of American support in the Cold War for an authoritarian government which became more democratic over time. Today, South Korea produces all kinds of familiar products such as Samsung and LG. There would be no South Korea today without the Korean War of the early 1950s. North Korea remains communist. Its population lives in poverty and under oppression.

Vietnam Vietnam’s Communist Party was founded in 1930. Its leader was Ho Chi Minh. Ho was a follower of Joseph Stalin and an agent of the Soviet “Comintern.” The word “Comintern” stood

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for Communist International. It was the Soviet organization in charge of spreading revolutionary Socialism around the world. Like Korea, Vietnam was divided after World War II. Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party controlled North Vietnam. Since Vietnam had been a French colony before World War II, the French tried to re-establish a non-communist government in South Vietnam after the war. Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces – called Vietminh – sought to drive the French out of South Vietnam. Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s Communist China supported Ho and the Vietminh. Like their support of North Korea, the two major revolutionary Socialist systems – the Soviet Union and China – both helped North Vietnam try to conquer South Vietnam. The United States responded with its Cold War strategy of Containment. Presidents Truman (1945-53) and Eisenhower (1953-61) sought to prevent the spread of communism by sending financial aid to support the non-communist government in South Vietnam. Through the 1950s, Ho Chi Minh tightened his control of North Vietnam by using political terror. • In 1954-55 alone, Ho had about 50,000 peasants executed. Most were chosen at random in

order to spread terror through the rest of the population of North Vietnam.

• Ho had about 100,000 people thrown into prison camps.

• 1958 was the year Mao Zedong began the Great Leap Forward in China. It was part of Mao’s plan to build a “classless society.” It put the State in control of agriculture production in order to promote equality. The result was mass food shortages and mass starvation. Ho Chi Minh followed Mao’s lead. Ho also launched a Great Leap Forward in North Vietnam. The results were the same – mass shortages and mass starvation. The number of North Vietnamese who starved to death remains unknown.

• Estimates for the total deaths in North Vietnam from executions, prison camps, and starvation range from 300,000 to 900,000 in the 1950s alone. Another 800,000 escaped Ho’s terror by fleeing North Vietnam as refugees. By the end of the 1950s, North Vietnam was becoming an impoverished police state, kept alive by massive aid from the Soviet Union and China.

In the early 1960s, with continued Soviet and Chinese support, Ho increased his efforts to conquer South Vietnam. He promoted a revolutionary guerrilla force called the Vietcong and began sending combat units of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into the South. In 1965, the United States under President Lyndon Johnson sent 200,000 American marines to defend South Vietnam. By 1968, that number increased to over 500,000. From the American perspective, the Vietnam War was 1965-73. It’s another good example of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet and American

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militaries did not directly fight each other. But the Soviets supported the North Vietnam’s attempt to conquer South Vietnam and the U.S. sent troops to defend South Vietnam. In 1973, “An Agreement Ending the War” was signed called the Paris Peace Accords. It included the withdrawal of U.S. forces and a promise by North Vietnam not to try to conquer South Vietnam. U.S. troops withdrew. The North Vietnamese then violated the agreement and launched a massive invasion which conquered South Vietnam by 1975. • North Vietnam’s communist government then rounded up more than one-third of South

Vietnam’s population and sent them to prison camps called “re-education camps.” See image here.

• Between 100,000 and 200,000 died of disease and starvation in the camps. Over 50,000 more were simply murdered as opponents of the communists’ “people’s democracy.”

• Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese also fled the communist government in crowded, home-made boats which they sailed across the South China Sea hoping to find other countries to settle in. See map here. See images here, here, here, and here. These Vietnamese refugees from Ho’s revolutionary Socialism were called the “boat people.” Their numbers continued to increase in the 1980s and eventually reached well over one million, and perhaps as many as 2 million.

Unlike in Korea, the American attempt to contain the spread of revolutionary Socialism in Vietnam failed. About 58,000 Americans died defending South Vietnam.

The Cold War Spreads – Latin America & Africa The Cold War also spread to Latin America and Africa. Let’s look at Latin America, particularly Cuba. On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro tried to overthrow the Cuban government led by the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Castro failed. He and a hundred members of his guerrilla force were arrested and put on trial. Twenty-four lawyers defended them. Castro, who had a law degree, defended himself. Only one-third were convicted. Castro and his brother Raúl received a 15-year prison sentence, but were granted amnesty after less than 2 years. They were released from prison and began planning another attempt to overthrow the Cuban government. On January 1, 1959, Castro and his guerrilla force tried again. This time Castro succeeded and seized power in Cuba. At first, Castro pretended not to be a revolutionary Socialist interested in power. He pledged, “I am not interested in power nor do I envisage assuming it at any time.” Castro hired a public relations firm to promote his image as a man of the people. Many Americans hoped Castro’s revolution was the beginning of a democratic government in Cuba. Castro was greeted by a parade on his first trip to New York City in the spring 1959. See the parade here.

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Unfortunately, the image of Castro was a lie. Two years later, Castro acknowledged that he had been a revolutionary Socialist all along. He proclaimed: “I believe absolutely in Marxism! Did I believe on January 1st,” 1959? “I believed on January 1st! Did I believe on July 26th,” 1953? “I believed on July 26th!” Back in 1953, when Castro was arrested, his trial was not completely fair. But he was allowed to defend himself in court. He was allowed to speak in his own defense for as long as he wanted – he spoke for four hours. All the defendants had lawyers. Most defendants were acquitted. And Castro received amnesty after less than two years in jail. Castro did not offer the same opportunities to his political opponents. As soon as he took power in 1959, he began arresting, torturing, and killing his political opponents. • Castro’s government established “revolutionary tribunals.” These were not regular courts

with due process for the accused. Instead, they were show trials which assumed the guilt of the accused. They were staged in front of howling spectators. As Castro said, “revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts,” meaning not based on legal due process like evidence, an impartial jury, and innocence until proven guilty.

• Castro’s “revolutionary tribunals were sending a steady stream of men to the firing squad,” wrote Glenn Garvin. Garvin co-authored Diary of a Survivor: Nineteen Years in a Cuban Women's Prison.

• The Inter-American Human Rights Commission explained another element of Castro’s “revolutionary justice”: Many Cubans were “submitted to medical procedures of blood extraction of an average of seven pints per person. This blood is sold to Communist Vietnam at a rate of $50 per pint.” “Extracting this amount of blood . . . produces cerebral anemia and a state of unconsciousness and paralysis.” “By 1995, blood exports were Cuba’s 5th largest export product.”

Castro established the first revolutionary Socialist state in the Western Hemisphere. He spread the Cold War to Latin America. He built close ties with the Soviet Union. By the early 1960s, Cuba was increasingly dependent on the Soviets for economic and military aid. Cuba thus became another location for the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Cold War – the ideological conflict between the Soviets and the U.S – grew particularly tense in the early 1960s. • Bay of Pigs, April 1961. Thousands of Cubans fled Castro’s Socialism. The United States

trained some of these Cuban refugees and helped them return to Cuba with the aim of overthrowing Castro. The plan was called the Bay of Pigs and it failed in April 1961.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. American intelligence discovered that Soviet nuclear missiles were being constructed in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. U.S. President John Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from delivering additional missiles. As Soviet ships approached the U.S. blockade, a direct military confrontation between the Soviets and the U.S. appeared increasingly possible. Soviet leader Nikita

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Khrushchev blamed Kennedy for pushing humankind “to the abyss of a world missile- nuclear war.”

o After a 13-day standoff, Khrushchev agreed to turn the Soviet ships around and to remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba, against the wishes of Castro.

Fidel Castro brought the Cold War to Cuba. He also helped spread the Cold War beyond Cuba as he supported socialist guerilla movements from other Latin American countries. A socialist guerrilla force called the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) modeled itself after Castro’s earlier guerrilla force of the 1950s. FSLN trained in Cuba. It eventually brought revolutionary Socialism to Nicaragua when it overthrew the government there and established a new socialist state in 1979. The U.S. responded to the spread of the Cold War into Latin America by trying to contain the spread of revolutionary Socialism. • In 1965, the president of the Dominican Republic requested the Organization of American

States (OAS) – the U.S. and other Latin American countries – to provide troops to help suppress a socialist insurrection in the DR.

• In 1983, a revolutionary socialist guerrilla force murdered Grenada’s primes minister. The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) requested troops – U.S., Jamaican, and Barbadian troops – to restore order and suppress the socialist insurrection.

• In the 1980s, the U.S. also supported the opponents of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua called the Contras.

• In these ways, the U.S. tried to contain the spread of revolutionary Socialism in Latin America.

In building a socialist economy, Castro abolished private businesses in Cuba. His government took control of the Cuban economy, including industries like oil refining as well as farming and housing. The result of such government control was shortages, especially shortages of housing and consumer goods. With few opportunities for their own advancement, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled the island. This included large numbers of professionals and technicians who fled to the United States and who, given economic freedom, contributed to the American economy. By the 1970s and ’80s, only aid from the Soviet Union kept the Cuban economy from collapsing. In return for Soviet aid, Cuba’s government farms exported sugar to Soviet satellite nations. • The Soviets also used Castro’s army to spread revolutionary Socialism in Africa.

• Castro’s army was sent to Ethiopia and Angola.

• In Angola, Cuban troops supported a Marxist guerrilla force called the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). In 1975, MPLA announced a new socialist state called the People’s Republic of Angola.

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• Cuban and MPLA forces then began attacks on other non-communist movements such as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). The U.S. supported UNITA while the Soviets used Cuban forces to support MPLA. Fighting between these various groups in Angola continued after the Cold War was over in 1991.

There are many myths surrounding Fidel Castro. These myths are largely the products of Soviet and Cuban propaganda. Some have repeated the claim for a long time that Castro increased literacy in Cuba. Such claims usually fail to note that literacy was relatively high in Cuba before Castro seized power. And such claims fail to consider that other Latin American countries like Costa Rica increased literacy without destroying the economy and denying individual rights, and without the arbitrary arrests, torture, and executions which were central parts of Castro’s revolutionary Socialism. Another myth regards health care. Some have repeated the claim that Castro provided quality care to the Cuban people. Consider, though, how human behavior reveals quality. Every year thousands of Canadians travel to the United States and pay out of pocket for U.S. health care in order to avoid long waits in Canada. There has been no such travel to Cuba for health care. The claims of Cuban health care depend upon health statistics provided by Cuba’s communist government. • Statistics from communist governments are rarely accurate. When the Soviet nuclear power

plant at Chernobyl exploded in 1986 because of faulty design, the Soviets knowingly and repeatedly reported false-radiation statistics.

• We see a strange parallel today. Some have believed the statistics provided by the Chinese Communist Party about the number of coronavirus deaths in China. New York Times reporter Ginia Bellafante tweeted the following on February 27, 2020: “I fundamentally don’t understand the panic: incidence of disease is declining in China.”

Despite the myths surrounding Fidel Castro, the following two people provide a clear picture of Castro’s rule – Huber Matos and Armando Valladares. Matos supported Castro’s seizure of power in 1959. He participated in Castro’s revolution, believing the original myth that Castro was not a revolutionary Socialist, but wanted a democratic government. When Matos realized too late who Castro was, Matos criticized the imposition of revolutionary Socialism on Cuba. He expressed his ideas. For this, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Matos later wrote: • “I had to go on hunger strikes, mount other types of protests. Terrible. On and off, I spent a

total of sixteen years in solitary confinement, constantly being told that I was never going to get out alive, that I had been sentenced to die in prison.”

Another Cuban Armando Valladares also expressed his ideas. He also criticized revolutionary Socialism in Cuba. He was also arrested as a political “criminal.” Valladares spent 22 years in solitary confinement in Castro’s prisons. He lived to write a classic prison memoir, Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro’s Gulag.

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Just like the Cuban economy depended on Soviet aid, so too the Cuban system of political prisons – Castro’s Gulag – reflected the Soviet system of political prisons – the Soviet Gulag. These prison systems were concentration camps. The Soviet system was fully exposed to the world in the 1970s with the publication and translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Its socialist economy could not generate enough wealth to sustain its socialist system. This brings us back to the validity of statistics from communist governments. Just like Castro could publish his own health statistics, so too the Soviets published their own economic statistics. Recall the difference between official Soviet statistics in blue and the reality of the Soviet economy in green in the chart here. The Soviets manipulated their statistics from the start of the Soviet Union in the 1920s to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War. It also ended Soviet aid to Cuba. The terrible state of the Cuban economy became more obvious at that point. Castro continued his rule by trying to convince the Cuban people that it was the U.S., not his revolutionary Socialism, which kept the island from prospering.