Stalin died in 1953. Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) was now in charge. He is the Soviet leader from 1953 to 1964. The Russian (again, it is actually the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991) secret police power was broken for the first time. Khrushchev let up. He put industry to making cars, apartment buildings, etc. Life got better. He diverts money to where it needs to be. He cracked down less on writers, etc. In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a murderer and de-Stalinized the country. Most of Russia was content cuz it was better than it had been.
The Chinese used to be good. General Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) was running China before World War II. A revolution against him was led by Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976), who had been trained in Russia. Japan invaded China (2nd Sino-Japanese War). Mao and Chiang fought with each other against the Japanese. After the Japanese were put out, there was civil war again. The United States supplied Chiang with everything he needed but he had a corrupt government which the Chinese didn't want so they supported Mao. The peasants supported Mao. Chiang was put in charge of Formosa (Taiwan), but he still claimed to control China and we pretended he was right. Mao hated the U.S. for interfering. Mao declared the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
In Vietnam, the French Catholic-types were the 10% of the population that got the good jobs. Vietnam was military-minded by tradition. Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) studied the revolution in Russia. He put together the Viet Minh (rebels trying to free Vietnam). The Japanese came and booted the French out. The Viet Minh fought the Japanese, too. England accepted the surrender of Japan in southern Vietnam and wanted to turn it back over to France cuz it was their colony. The United States supported the French Foreign Legion with weapons. There were a lot of ex-Nazis in the French Foreign Legion. They took Vietnam, but the civilians won it back. We gave 80% of the money to this war. We didn't want communists there. In 1954, France wanted out. It left peace and things were supposed to settle for a year with the Vietnamese in Northern and Southern zones and then the Vietnamese would hold free elections. We used that year to set up a Democratic leader in the South who refused free elections cuz everything would go to Ho Chi Minh if elections were held. We didn't have many Vietnamese on our side. We first sent military advisers in, then men to protect the military advisers, then half a million fighting men. There was nasty fighting and we were spending too much money so we pulled out eventually. Finally, there was one Vietnam.
In 1950, there was the Korean War. North Korea was Chinese Communist while the south was under British control. The North attacked the South. The United Nations was made up of the five powers that won World War II–England, France, United States, China, and Russia. The Security Council must agree unanimously and Russia always votes against the Western powers. The United States asked the United Nations to interfere so it would look like their decision, not the United States's. The Russian delegate boycotted the United Nations, and we got into Korea (under the guise of it being a United Nations effort) before the Russian delegate came back. The United States troops were led by General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), who was a good general but rather nutty. At the end of World War II, MacArthur stayed in the East to reorganize the Japanese. He wanted "Total Victory" (total surrender of the North Koreans) in Korea. He wanted to get North Korea even though that would bring the Chinese into the war. MacArthur drove north to the 38th Parallel. Eastern experts said that China would come into the war on the side of the North Koreans. MacArthur said no way on the same day China got into it. China took the South. The Chinese got into the war and MacArthur wanted to bomb China. MacArthur took the South back. President Truman settled for the 38th Parallel line and fired MacArthur (who had gone to Republicans leaders asking to take all of Korea after Truman said no). MacArthur never came back to the United States again. Did we win? It depends on how you look at it. If our goal was to get the North Koreans out of South Korea, then we won. If the goal was to get the whole thing, we didn't win. We have never had an official peace treaty. We are officially still at war in Korea.
We were scared that the Russians would get something going in Europe, so N.A.T.O. (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was put together as a defensive league to prevent Russia from attacking the West while we were fighting in Korea. It said that if the Soviet Union attacks anyone, we will all declare war on the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact is the Soviet response to N.A.T.O.–it is a Communist defense league.
Some Jews were still left after World War II. Understandably, they were not anxious to remain in Europe since their Christian neighbors had waved goodbye to them as they went away to death camps. They want their own homeland back. Their old homeland was currently called Palestine. Palestine was divided in two for the Arabs and Jews. Israel is the Jewish state of Palestine. The English were in Palestine and gunned by Arab Liberators.
Russia declared Peaceful Coexistence under Khrushchev. It meant that Russia and the United States wouldn't bug each other, but Russia would show us its superiority. There were riots in Hungary in 1956. Russia sent tanks to break it up, which looked really bad. Russia got the Sputnik (October 4, 1957) satellite up before we got the Vanguard up. It surprised and depressed the United States cuz we had always thought that Russia just stole our ideas. The United States really started pushing hard science due to this. Actually, Russia concentrated everything on getting Sputnik up while we were doing lots of things at once. Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) succeeds Khrushchev as leader of the Soviet Union in 1964. He rules until his death in 1982. Yuri Andropov (1914-1984) is the leader of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1984. Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985) rules in 1984 and 1985. He is succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev (1931- ), who rules the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.
In 1961, Eastern Europe was having problems. Berlin was split in two. We built up our half to make capitalism look good. France stripped their part and left. The British didn't take anything. All the Germans want to get to the U.S. section of Germany. East Berlin (controlled by the Russians) put up the Berlin Wall to stop the East Germans from going to West Berlin.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. He inherited a plot to overthrow the Communist leader, Fidel Castro, in Cuba. Castro had overthrown Batista, who was a pretty corrupt guy, but he was our corrupt guy. We thought that most Cubans hated Castro and communism, so they would join in once we landed there. Counter-guerrillas (Cubans who had come to the United States rather than live under Castro) were trained and landed at the Bay of Pigs and were overwhelmed and captured. The Cubans actually had it better under Castro, so the natives didn't help. It made us look really bad for meddling and losing. In 1962, the Russians (under Khrushchev) shipped missiles to Cuba, which is awfully close to Florida. Kennedy put up a naval blockade around Cuba and forced the missiles out and promised not to overthrow Castro (this is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis). Actually, Russia won cuz it scared everyone. The next year Khrushchev was fired for not being conservative enough.
SUMMARY:
The West got in on the ground floor of the Industrial Revolution through capitalism. The early capitalists got the governments to help with tariffs and other aid. It made the capitalists and their countries rich. It also produced miserable workers who formed labor unions and required more government regulation. Capitalism is an economic sorting system through Social Darwinism (the good people float to the top of society, the bad people sink to the bottom). Poverty should motivate you to rise.
The Depression of 1929 shook everybody up. Before the depression, people always thought anyone who was out of work was just a lazy drunkard.
The Russian Revolution shook people up, too. The rich people's property was confiscated and redistributed. It attacked religion which had always backed the government in power at the time. Western Christianity is a Sunday religion with beliefs in certain doctrines. But most people have trouble being religious during the rest of the week.
Up until World War II, everyone had ignored Russia. We needed them in World War II. Russia was strong after World War II and didn't want to leave Eastern Europe. Russia was backwards. They saw themselves as picked on in the 20th Century and before that in the Crimean War. They can't catch up if they are second place in capitalist techniques. The government had to help them cuz the government could afford to lose the money to industry.
Communists are against religion. The New Testament backs Communism more than capitalism, actually. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they were shifting more towards capitalism while the United States was shifting more towards socialism (support of railroads, health insurance, etc.). China has just begun to open up.
The real problems for the future are going to be atomic and/or biological warfare, birth control/overpopulation, and pollution.