History UsefulNotes / HistoryOfTheColdWar

* Post-revisionist - [[BlackAndGrayMorality USA bad, USSR worse]].

* Revisionist - [[GreyandGrayMorality Both bad, USA worse]].
* Post-revisionist - [[BlackAndGrayMorality Both bad, USSR far worse]].

* Traditionalist - [[BlackAndWhiteMorality America good, USSR bad]].
* Revisionist - [[GreyandGrayMorality Both bad, America worse]].
* Post-revisionist - [[BlackAndGrayMorality Both somewhat bad, USSR far worse]].

From about 1956-1961, China and the Soviet Union slowly split apart due to a myriad of issues and bad blood in general. One such issue was Stalin's insistence in the 1930s that the Communists remain allied with the Nationalists... at a time when the Nationalists were killing Communists. Mao for his part believed that Stalin's successors were too soft. In any case, tension mounted until it escalated into border clashes. China tested its own nuclear weapons partly as a deterrent against the Soviets. China began to compete with the Soviet Union for satellite states; notably, Enver Hoxha’s Albania switched to China’s side in 1961 [[note]]After Mao’s death Hoxha would pursue a paranoid isolationist policy, denouncing both the PRC and the USSR, and proclaimed Albania to be the world’s only Marxist-Leninist state[[/note]]

[[RedChina The People's Republic of China]] began in 1949, headed by MaoZedong. [[note]]You may know him as [[WhyMaoChangedHisName Mao Tse-tung]].[[/note]] Mao was a Communist who had been a somewhat inspiring resistance leader against the Japanese and the Chinese Nationalists. Unfortunately once he became a national leader [[ModernMajorGeneral his home policies]] [[DidntSeeThatComing proved disastrous]]. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, in particular, claimed lives in the tens of millions. These included many of the Communist Party’s own revolutionary leaders, [[{{Unperson}} unpersoned]] as “reactionary rightists”.

Other countries also had their share of decolonization messes - the Dutch, with the bloody campaign to hold Indonesia; and the Belgians with their evacuation of the Congo and the horrific aftermath. Notably, Spain and Portugal, both ruled by quasi-fascist dictators, did not let go of their colonies until the mid-1970s when both countries became democracies. Angola and Mozambique, two Portuguese colonies in Africa, soon became the scene of bloody, decades-long proxy wars, fought between Soviet-backed and Western-backed rebel factions, with occasional Cuban and South African interventions, which continued long after the Cold War ended.

There was also the question of what to do with the remains of Germany. Initially the Morgenthau plan proposed to essentially turn Germany into an agricultural state.[[note]]the Soviets wanted to make ''sure'' Germany would never again be a threat, by pushing them back into the MiddleAges.[[/note]] However, the occupiers feared that the whole of Germany would go Communist as a response to industrial destruction and continued poverty. When details of the Morgenthau plan were leaked it was very publicly dropped, but Germany faced limits on its industrial production until the early 1950s. In its place, a new plan was formed: Germany would be divided into four "occupation zones" - French, British, American and Soviet. Berlin itself, being the seat of government, would also be divided into four occupation zones, a microcosm within the Soviet zone.

From [[RedOctober 1917]] to 1923, The White Army, with the occasional aid of foreign troops [[note]](Japanese, British, Canadian, French, American, German, Australian (including two who received the Victoria Cross for their actions against the Red Army), Greek, Czechoslovak)[[/note]], battled for control of Russia against the Bolsheviks, aka The [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Communist Red Army]]. It should be noted that neither the Whites, Blacks, nor Greens were a single force, but several different armies led by different generals. In addition to fighting the Bolsheviks, these factions [[WeAreStrugglingTogether frequently fought each other]] as well. Both sides also had a tendency to be cruel to the local populations (and, for that matter, [[WeHaveReserves their own troops]]).

The Bolsheviks won, leading to the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]]. The Bolsheviks already made clear that they were seeking to export their revolution globally by force of arms, meaning that they were by default the enemies of any non-Communists, including the West. The level of foreign intervention in the Civil War, the lack of international recognition of the new state, and the repeated espionage attempts led to what's often termed a [[EverythingTryingToKillYou “siege mentality”]] in the Soviet Union -- materially, this meant a massive military budget and repressive domestic policies aimed against spies and saboteurs. [[note]]It's worth noting that, in turn, the most memorable repressions in the 20th century U.S. (the 1950's "Red Scare", etc.) were justified/excused by the "Red Menace." [[/note]]

But the end of the Empire and the Tsar had nothing to do with the fighting itself, in the end, and everything to do with his determination to decisively avert the trope of Russian soldiers being ill-armed and ill-equipped (even though they had more and better-quality artillery than Germany as early as 1910!)[[note]] One factoid often singled out is the fact that many Russian soldiers didn't have rifles. This is because 1/3 of all troops in all armies of this period were needed for logistics - they were needed ''not to'' fight, because without them everyone else would die of thirst while starving and drowning in their own shit. This same factoid comes up again with regards to the Red Army in World War Two.[[/note]] But converting ''all available industry'' to war-production, as he'd been pressured into doing (in 1915, when they were suffering numerous tactical defeats and all the other powers had already started doing this), meant that the normal industrial goods weren't being produced. Consequently, the amount of grain farmers sold at market fell because with no new industrial goods being produced, there was nothing of that kind left that they wanted to buy. Thus, the amount of grain available fell to the point that, not even a year after the full conversion to war-production (winter of 1916-17) Moscow and St Petersburg suffered urban ''famine'' - in a country that still had a healthy food-surplus![[note]] Fixing this problem would've required one of two things: re-conversion from war-production, or the seizure and distribution of the un-sold food still held by the farmers. Interestingly, the famine continued well into the Civil War and was only solved when the Bolsheviks abandoned their policy of food-seizure and moved instead to promoting free industry and trade - i.e. re-conversion. [[/note]]

Russia entered UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne as an Allied power to both the Western Powers on one hand and Serbia and Montenegro on the other. Over the course of the war, the "Russian Steamroller" was the dominant force holding up half of the war front and making the single largest land contribution by putting well in excess of twelve million men on the Eastern Fronts, forcing the Central Powers to tie down massive amounts of troops fighting them.

Unfortunately, the Tsarist Russian state was a tottering mess well before then. It was un-industrialized, rife with dissent, and ruled by an incompetent Emperor who was too oppressive to be loved but too indecisive and soft-hearted to be ruthless. Its armies were vast, but they were poorly armed, poorly trained, and poorly supplied to the point where conscription was seen as something approaching a death sentence (the traditional Russian folktradition for conscripts was for the family to go through a ''funeral ritual for them'' before they left.). Against the crack and modernized German Empire, it met disaster. Millions died on the front lines that the Central Powers were steadily pushing into the Russian Empire, and even more suffered when Russian leadership and industry alike broke down and caused shortages in basic necessities.

From [[RedOctober 1917]] to 1923, The White Army, with the occasional aid of foreign troops [[note]](Japanese, British, Canadian, French, American, German, Australian (including two who received the Victoria Cross for their actions against the Red Army), Greek, Czechoslovak)[[/note]], battled for control of Russia against the Bolsheviks, aka The [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Communist Red Army]]. It should be noted that the Whites were not actually a single force, but several different armies led by different generals. In addition to fighting the Bolsheviks, these factions [[WeAreStrugglingTogether frequently fought each other]] as well. Both sides also had a tendency to be cruel to the local populations (and, for that matter, [[WeHaveReserves their own troops]]).

For backstory, we have to go back to WW2. Britain and Russia both invaded Iran, both to stop Hitler from using the oil fields of the Middle East and to grab those fields for themselves. They installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran. He fled the country in 1951 when the popular Mohammad Mossadegh was democratically elected as Prime Minister. The CIA and MI6 launched a coup d'état that removed Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah. The autocracy then secularized and Westernized the nation- often ignoring the Iranian Constitution. This caused nationalist, Leftist and Islamist groups to resist, though usually they weren't united. This is possibly why conspiracy theorists lump Communists and Islamists together, despite many of them hating the other with a passion.[[note]]This isn't to say that there weren't some Islamist leftists; indeed, one of the biggest Islamist factions, the Mojahideen-e-Khalq (People's Mojahideen) followed the Islamic Socialism of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Shariati Ali Shariati]], which tried to synthesize Islam and socialism.[[/note]] The tension from the suppression and fighting culminated in the Iranian Revolution in 1979, leading to the current Islamic Republic of Iran, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The war is frequently compared to WW1 through the use of trench warfare, massive bombardments, human wave attacks (Iranian) and use of gas( Iraq). At the start, the balance of power was relatively equal, but by 1988, Iraq had a clear advantage in terms of machinery (armour, artillery, aircraft, etc). Iran started off with a stronger air force, but ended up only with much more infantry. [[EvilVersusEvil Human rights abuses were committed on both sides. Iran used many teenage soldiers, and employed children as mine clearers (yes, the hard way). Iraq attacked many civilian targets, killed hundreds-of-thousands of Kurds in the conflict and widely used biological and chemical weapons.]] Iran's officials state about 188,000 dead altogether (troops, civilians, etc), with other estimates up to 800,000. Iraq lost an estimated 300,000.

NeedsABetterDescription

Most leaders of the West, including UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, considered the Soviet Union the greatest threat to the world, only [[EnemyMine accepting the USSR as an ally]] when they finally realized that [[AdolfHitler something]] [[NaziGermany worse]] had risen in the center of Europe. Ironically, Fascism had gained prominence mainly as an anti-Communist movement, and earned a great deal of respect throughout the West for that reason. [[note]]UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill was a big fan of Mussolini, and admiration even for Hitler was okay in mixed company until they surprised everyone by attacking Western nations instead of the USSR.[[/note]]

JohnFKennedy increased aid to South Vietnam and sent more military advisors,[[note]] There were approximately 1000 U.S. advisors in Vietnam when Eisenhower left office. That number rose to 16,000 under JFK[[/note]] but Diem was getting increasingly unpopular, and the NLF were getting increasingly popular. A monk burned himself to death in public protest. The US administration, fearing a "domino effect" if Vietnam went Communist, backed the overthrow and murder of Diem without Kennedy's advance knowledge or approval.

Three weeks after Diem's death, Kennedy was himself killed. The incidents were [[WhoShotJFK probably]] not related. LyndonJohnson--the new President--initially did not make Vietnam a priority. That would soon change.

LyndonJohnson's attempt to finance both this and The Great Society led directly to the collapse of the "Bretton Woods" system of fixed exchange rates. It also meant the end to the last attempt the United States has made to eliminate domestic poverty.

Most leaders of the West, including UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill, considered the Soviet Union the greatest threat to the world, only [[EnemyMine accepting the USSR as an ally]] when they finally realized that [[AdolfHitler something]] [[NaziGermany worse]] had risen in the center of Europe. Ironically, Fascism had gained prominence mainly as an anti-Communist movement, and earned a great deal of respect throughout the West for that reason. [[note]]WinstonChurchill was a big fan of Mussolini, and admiration even for Hitler was okay in mixed company until they surprised everyone by attacking Western nations instead of the USSR.[[/note]]

In 1943, [[FranklinDRoosevelt Roosevelt]], [[JosefStalin Stalin]] and Churchill met in Tehran, Iran. There they agreed that Germany's new eastern border would be the Oder-Neisse Line and that the Polish eastern border would pretty close to the Curzon Line, which was also very close to the division of Poland in 1939. [[note]]The Curzon Line had been an earlier proposed Polish-Russian border - based on the third partition of Poland in 1795 - which had a lot of Soviet ethnicities on the east side.[[/note]] The Polish government-in-exile wasn't happy, but ultimately Stalin refused to reconsider. Naturally the Germans wouldn't be happy either, losing a quarter of their country, but [[ThoseWackyNazis for obvious reasons]] no one else was that bothered about them at the time.

So around 1953 a lot of things happened to the leadership of both superpowers. HarryTruman, who had proved to be unfortunately inexperienced at foreign policy (despite the fact that he had more sense than [[GeneralRipper MacArthur]] in that he thought dropping the Bomb on China was a bad idea), was out as president. UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower was sworn in in his place on a strong anti-communist platform. As the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the UsefulNotes/SecondWorldWar Senator [=McCarthy=] couldn't even begin to claim that he was soft on commies, which gave Ike much more room to decide his own foreign policy, unlike Truman who'd been pressured into a tough stance by [[RedScare the McCarthy brigade]]. It was Eisenhower that pushed the disastrous Korean War towards a close in the same year that he was sworn in.

''Apartheid'' naturally had a ColdWar dimension. South Africa was engaged in an occupation of what would become Namibia, being resisted by Soviet-backed guerrillas. The US and UK both had commercial interests in the area, especially the gold and diamonds. Many saw South Africa as a bastion against Communism. The African National Conference- which would eventually overthrow the apartheid government- was an avowedly socialist organisation, and still is. The US and UK put it on the terrorist organisation list, as the organisation carried out acts of sabotage and bombings which did kill civilians, as Nelson Mandela admits. He and ANC members would not be removed from the US list of terrorists until ''July 2008''. This kept them from going anywhere in the US, bar the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations headquarters in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, without a waiver from the US Secretary of State.

The ColdWar was all but over at this point, but the first Gulf War served as a demonstration of what the United States could have been capable of if things had gone hot in the 1990s or later. However, it must be kept in mind that while Iraq used mostly Soviet equipment and some of its officers received training in the USSR, it did not fight in a Soviet manner and was not at all representative of the Soviet military.

The ColdWar was all but over at this point, but it served as a demonstration of what the United States could have been capable of if it had wound up turning hot in the 1990s or later. However, it must be kept in mind that while Iraq used mostly Soviet equipment and some of its officers received training in the USSR, it did not fight in a Soviet manner and was not at all representative of the Soviet military.

Eventually, things reached a breaking point and the Tsar - long blamed for things he was both guilty and innocent of - was told by the military that they were no longer willing to follow him. This forced his abdication and the end of hundreds of years of Imperial Russian history. [[CommonKnowledge However, what followed him was not a Communist Revolution, but a Provisional Democratic Republic]] led by Alexander Kerensky, who decided to stay in the war to the anger of virtually everyone in the country, and many out of it.

Before long, many of those dissatisfied with it decided to try and "fix" that. The Central Powers had already been

[[RedOctober 1917]] to 1923, The White Army, with the occasional aid of foreign troops [[note]](Japanese, British, Canadian, French, American, German, Australian (including two who received the Victoria Cross for their actions against the Red Army), Greek, Czechoslovak)[[/note]], battled for control of Russia against the Bolsheviks, aka The [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Communist Red Army]]. It should be noted that the Whites were not actually a single force, but several different armies led by different generals. In addition to fighting the Bolsheviks, these factions [[WeAreStrugglingTogether frequently fought each other]] as well. Both sides also had a tendency to be cruel to the local populations (and, for that matter, [[WeHaveReserves their own troops]]).

Then, in 1978 something changed. For the first time in history, a Pole had been chosen as ThePope. That was in a way a slap in the face for the Polish and Russian Communists. He visited his motherland the next year, drawing incredible crowds. The Poles for the first time in history since 1569 had a powerful ally, and the feelings of national pride resurfaced. He publicly claimed that this land needs change.

The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) discussed what to do about the missiles on Cuba. JFK secretly recorded the meetings, which helps historians a lot. The Joint Chiefs were being GeneralRipper before that trope first appeared. Indeed Curtis [=LeMay=]- the inspiration for Ripper- was at the meetings advocating air strikes. Eventually they settled on a blockade. Since that is legally an act of war, they called it a "quarantine" and JFK announced the existence of the missiles to the world. The SAC went to [[DefconFive DEFCON 2]] for the only time in its history.

After a few very tense days, two contradictory letters, and the Soviets deciding not to challenge the quarantine line, a deal was reached. The missiles would be removed from Cuba, and the US would not invade Cuba. The US also secretly agreed to remove the Jupiter and Thor missiles, but they were obsolete anyway as the ICBM force was coming on-stream. When the dust settled, Kennedy looked like the victor, Nikita suffered a blow to his prestige that would later see him lose his job, and the world breathed a sigh of relief that the "Thirteen Days" had not been their last. To make further crises easier to solve, the HotLine was set up.

We came much closer to World War III than most people realized, though. The US was helped through the crisis by the presence of a mole in the GRU, Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky was caught during this and suddenly his handler received a coded message (involving breathing down a phone line) indicating an imminent Soviet nuclear attack. He wisely ignored it. Penkovsky was tried as a traitor and shot. Some reports claim he was actually thrown alive into a furnace.

As mentioned above, the end of the Second World War meant the colonial empires were collapsing. A particularly important case was French Indochina, i.e. the states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The French tried to keep this area under their control with covert American help, but failed. On May 7, 1954, the French lost the Battle of Dien Bien Phu to a Vietnamese independence movement known as the Vietminh. The subsequently withdrew from the area.

Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev was upset about this. He commented to a reporter that the Americans were targeting his "dacha", his summer home. He saw Cuba as a quick way to remedy the nuclear balance. The USSR started to deploy R-12 Dvina/SS-4 "Sandal" and R-14 Chusovaya/SS-5 "Skean" ballistic missiles to the island, sneaking them in on cargo ships. They also deployed some other stuff, like a regiment of [=MiG-21=] fighters. The SS-5 was capable of hitting pretty much all of the continental US, including Hyannisport, JFK's own holiday home. Since most of the US early warning infrastructure was pointed north, (for example, the DEW line referenced in an ''[[MysteryScienceTheaterThreeThousand MST3K]]'' movie), this would reduce launch warning time to virtually zero.

Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev was upset about this. He commented to a reporter that the Americans were targeting his "dacha", his summer home. He saw Cuba as a quick way to remedy the nuclear balance. The USSR started to deploy R-12 Dvina/SS-4 "Sandal" and R-14 Chusovaya/SS-5 "Skean" ballistic missiles to the island, sneaking them in on cargo ships. They also deployed some other stuff, like a regiment of [=MiG-21=] fighters. The SS-5 was capable of hitting pretty much all of the continental US, including Hyannisport, JFK's own holiday home. Since most of the US early warning infrastructure was pointed north, (for example, the DEW line referenced in an ''MST3K'' movie) this would reduce launch warning time to virtually zero.

The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) discussed what to do about the missiles on Cuba. JFK secretly recorded the meetings, which helps historians a lot. The Joint Chiefs were being GeneralRipper before that trope first appeared. Indeed Curtis [=LeMay=]- the inspiration for Ripper- was at the meetings advocating air strikes. Eventually they settled on a blockade. Since that is legally an act of war, they called it a "quarantine" and JFK announced the existence of the missiles to the world. The SAC went onto DEFCON 2 for the only time in its history.

The break opened up China to America more, starting with sporting tournaments and building to Richard Nixon's famous visit in 1972. [[note]]As an aside, the saying "only Nixon could go to China" is symbolic of Nixon's conservatism: a liberal would've been accused of Communist sympathies, but Nixon (like Eisenhower before him) couldn't be.[[/note]] Mao Zedong's death in 1976 brought the more capitalist Deng Xiaoping into power, and he instituted many economic reforms. By the end of the Cold War China had abandoned much of the Maoist ideology and fast moving towards becoming a market economy, though it remains to this day a one-party state.

In 1958, a man with an impressive beard called FidelCastro overthrew the Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista. Batista had been pro-[[BananaRepublic big business]]. Cuba was a major exporter of sugar, was famous for its cigars, and TheMafia had set up shop there. However, the US government had not been totally in love with Batista guy, and had actually arms embargoed him.

Some of the Cuban revolutionaries were staunch Communists. Arguably, Castro had not been one of them, seeming interested in more general ideas of independence from U.S. and foreign capital. Given the political climate of the day, though, a side had to be chosen. Very soon after the revolution Cuba established a partnership with the Soviet Union. This did not go down well with the U.S., who had been taking a wait-and-see approach up to this point. They quickly put a trade embargo on the place that remains to this day.

Castro also survived a number of CIA assassination plots- one of his bodyguards calculated it at 638. Some of these took a turn for the very bizarre, such as an exploding cigar and a fungal-infected diving suit. Understandably, these turned him further towards the USSR. The Soviets had a little problem nuclear-wise. The island of Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, was the perfect solution...

The break opened up China to America more, starting with sporting tournaments and building to Richard Nixon's famous visit in 1972. [[note]]As an aside, the saying "only Nixon could go to China" is symbolic of Nixon's conservatism- a liberal would've been accused of being a Communist.[[/note]] Mao Zedong's death in 1976 brought the more capitalist Deng Xiaoping into power, and he instituted many economic reforms. By the end of the Cold War China had abandoned much of the Maoist ideology and fast moving towards becoming a market economy, though it remains to this day a one-party state.

Anyway, the British had been having to deal with Indian civil disobedience for quite a while. So they decided to let India go. Messily, they attempted to appease two populations by splitting it into two states, India and Pakistan. This led to a great deal of violent chaos, one remnant of which is the "Kashmir Question" which lingers to this day. The partitions of Palestine and Cyprus, both British possessions, were also less than perfect, while the British fought bloody insurgencies in Kenya and Malaysia before granting both countries independence. The British did warn Hindu leader Jawaharlal Nehru and Muslim leader Ali Djinnah that the country wasn't ready for partition, and asked for another two years to put rail and road links in place, but Nehru and Djinnah refused. A similar situation occurred in Palestine, only this time it was the UN that pressured the British into leaving. As a result, the British became somewhat infamous in diplomatic circles for a "not our bloody problem, we warned you" attitude to the ArabIsraeliConflict in TheFifites and [[TheSixties Sixties]]. The rest of the Empire went pretty quietly.

With West Berlin being faced with starvation, the West started a massive airlift to keep the city going, using the air corridors. On top of the massive amounts of staples like foodstuffs, medicines and fuel being delivered, the air forces jumped at pilot [[PerpetualSmiler Gail Halvorsen's]] idea for the children of Berlin and [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming dropped tons of candy in little parachutes for Berlin kids]], becoming known as "Candy Bombers" to ''literally'' [[IncrediblyLamePun sweeten]] the propaganda effort (Halvorsen was eventually given the incredibly adorable nickname of 'Uncle Wiggly-Wings' by the mini-Berliners, because he would wiggle his wings on his descent as he dropped his candy). Since Stalin didn't want to start a war any more than the West did, he could do little to stop this. After about a year, the Soviets backed down, but the Western Allies remained in fear of the Soviets going for Berlin again, but the West had quite solidly won the hearts and minds of the children of Berlin, which ended up becoming a surprisingly significant factor in the future. [[note]]Halvorsen, a citizen of Salt Lake City, was subsequently asked by the German delegation to be their flagbearer during the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics, a request he happily granted.[[/note]] Halvorsen is still alive today, enjoying a happy and healthy retirement in his hometown of Salt Lake City.

There was also the question of what to do with the remains of Germany. Initially the Morgenthau plan proposed to essentially turn Germany into an agricultural state.[[note]]the Soviets wanted to make ''sure'' Germany would never again be a threat, by pushing them back into the MiddleAges if they could[[/note]] However, the occupiers feared that the whole of Germany would go Communist as a response to industrial destruction and continued poverty. When details of the Morgenthau plan were leaked it was very publicly dropped, but Germany faced limits on its industrial production until the early 1950s. In its place, a new plan was formed: Germany would be divided into four "occupation zones" - French, British, American and Soviet. Berlin itself, being the seat of government, would also be divided into four occupation zones, a microcosm within the Soviet zone.

There was also the question of what to do with the remains of Germany. Initially the Morgenthau plan proposed to essentially turn Germany into an agricultural state. However, the occupiers feared that the whole of Germany would go Communist as a response to industrial destruction and continued poverty. When details of the Morgenthau plan were leaked it was very publicly dropped, but Germany faced limits on its industrial production until the early 1950s. In its place, a new plan was formed: Germany would be divided into four "occupation zones" - French, British, American and Soviet. Berlin itself- being the seat of government- would also be divided into four occupation zones, as it was in the Soviet zone.

Eventually, things reached a breaking point and the Tsar- long blamed for things he was both guilty and innocent of- was told by the military that they were no longer willing to follow him. This forced his abdication and the end of hundreds of years of Imperial Russian history. [[CommonKnowledge However, what followed him was not a Communist Revolution, but a Provisional Democratic Republic]] led by Alexander Kerensky, who decided to stay in the war to the anger of virtually everyone in the country, and many out of it.

Russia entered UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne as an Allied power to both the Western Powers on one hand and Serbia and Montenegro on the other. Over the course of the war, the "Russian Steamroller" is the dominant force holding up half of the war front and making the single largest land contribution by putting well in excess of twelve million men on the Eastern Fronts, forcing the Central Powers to tie down massive amounts of troops fighting them.

Unfortunately, the Tsarist Russian state was a tottering mess well before then. It was un-industrialized, rife with dissent, and ruled by an incompetent Emperor who was too oppressive to be loved but too indecisive and soft-hearted to be ruthless. Its' armies were vast, but they were poorly armed, poorly trained, and poorly supplied to the point where conscription was seen as something approaching a death sentence (the traditional Russian folktradition for conscripts was for the family to go through a ''funeral ritual for them'' before they left.). Against the crack and modernized German Empire, it met disaster. Millions died on the front lines that the Central Powers were steadily pushing into the Russian Empire, and even more suffered when Russian leadership and industry alike broke down and caused shortages in basic necessities.

[[RedOctober 1917]] to 1923, The White Army, with the occasional aid of foreign troops [[note]](Japanese, British, Canadian, French, American, German, Australian- including two who received the Victoria Cross for their actions against the Red Army- , Greek, Czechoslovak)[[/note]], battled for control of Russia against the Bolsheviks, aka The [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Communist Red Army]]. It should be noted that the whites were not actually a single force, but several different armies led by different generals. In addition to fighting the Bolsheviks, these factions [[WeAreStrugglingTogether frequently fought each other]] as well. Both sides also had a tendency to be cruel to the local populations (and, for that matter, [[WeHaveReserves their own troops]]).

In 1943, [[FranklinDRoosevelt Roosevelt]], [[JosefStalin Stalin]] and Churchill met in Tehran, Iran. There they agreed that Germany's new eastern border would be the Oder-Neisse Line and that the Polish eastern border would pretty close to the Curzon Line, which was also very close to the division of Poland in 1939. [[note]]The Curzon Line had been an earlier proposed Polish-Russian border- based on the third partition of Poland in 1795- which had a lot of Soviet ethnicities on the east side.[[/note]] The Polish government-in-exile wasn't happy, but ultimately Stalin refused to reconsider. Naturally the Germans wouldn't be happy either, losing a quarter of their country, but [[ThoseWackyNazis for obvious reasons]] no one else was that bothered about them at the time.

By the Yalta Conference in February 1945, it was obvious to more or less everyone bar Hitler that Germany was going to lose the war. Stalin wanted a Soviet sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe, a "buffer zone" so to speak. No army since the Mongol Hordes had ever conquered the ''whole'' of Russia; they typically caused extensive death and destruction, which Stalin [[GenreSavvy wanted to avoid]]. He got his buffer, in return for all the territories holding free elections. Roosevelt hoped that the United Nations- created by this same agreement- would restrain Stalin. It didn't. During the [=McCarthy=] period, Roosevelt and his allies - particularly the U.S. Democratic party - would often be called "soft on communism".

The Soviets’ ICBM forces were a) very few, b) ''very'' vulnerable as they were not in silos, and c) time-consuming to launch.

->"You wanna talk about fear? When I was a kid I went to bed every night thinking the whole world was gonna blow up. That's just how things were. People just accepted it."