Talk:Cold War (1953–1962)/Archive 3

CJK

There is hardly anything worth salvaging in your version. Just about any addition is irrelevant, unsourced POV, or not even English. Restoring edits so sloppy and ungrammatical practically borders on vandalism, and I insist that you cease from doing so. I have gone through them starting at the top and working my way down:

• To stabilize his European position, Khrushchev created the Warsaw Pact in 1955 (to counter West German rearmament) and built the Berlin Wall in 1961 (to stop the Germans from leaving the communist East).
  • You removed the reference to countering West German rearmament. Your edit strips the sentence of the context, and is utterly baffling.

• If the Soviets were allowed to gain influence in the Middle East, it would be a devastating economic blow to the non-communist world.
  • Unsubstantiated, vague, unsupported POV. This sentence warrants immediate removal.

• Many Third World nations, however, did not want to align themselves with either of the superpowers, so the US formed the Non-Aligned Movement. Lead by Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt and Tito of Yugoslavia it attempted to unite the third world against what was seen as imperialism by both the East and the West. Nevetheless, even these leaders were slanted one way or another.
  • What does this even mean? Slanted how so? BTW, run your edits through a spell checker.

• Still, many Marxist insurgencies backed directly or indirectly by the Soviets sprang up accross the globe during the Cold War. The Soviets did arm many communist factions and continually broadcasted statements supporting them. The notion that the Soviets did not look to expand Communism thus is looked upon by skepticism by many in the world.
  • This is already established in its proper context later in the article in the sections dealing with Cuba. Given where you inserted it, this sentence is an irrelevant tangent. Further, such statements are not even passable in a high school history course, where you will be expected to be concrete and specific with reference to space and time.

• …was assassinated and replaced by nationalist and ‘’pro-Soviet’’ Mohammed Mossadegh.
  • To call him "pro-Soviet" is meaningless unless you are more concrete. At any rate, the edit was irrelevant, as the article already established his interests in deepening Iranian ties with the Soviet Union.

• and subsequently received aid from the Eastern block
  • It's spelled "bloc." Your spelling does not inspire much confidence that you have done sufficient reading to master the relevant vocabulary, which is necessary if one is going to edit an encyclopedia.

• Eventually massive human rights violations convinced the Carter administration from cutting of aid to the government in 1977. Aid was reinstated in 1982 and suspended for good in 1995.
  • The article ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This tangent is unnecessary.

• Still, the United States maintains a high quality economy.
  • This comment is so obtuse I have no idea why it was placed where it was placed.

• It was one example of a country playing the "East-West Game" in which it would sell its allegiance to the highest bidder.
  • You inserted this sentence, but it is unclear if you are referring to Mobutu or the U.S.

• Removal of the following: "The 1950s left the pro-Soviet bloc in a precarious position. In 1956, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary which was in a state of revolution. While this revolution was not anti-communist, it was anti-Soviet. The crushing of the revolution in Hungary only saw muted criticism in the west. Hungary had been allied with the Axis Powers in World War II and the West was concurrently divided and discredited over the Suez Crisis. Other events left the Soviet government with little popular or international support at a period when the Soviet strategies of international institutions and peace projects had been popular. Sino-Soviet relations were deteriorating. In reality, the Communist world was never a monolith. Now, this was becoming more and more obvious."
  • Granted the section on Hungary could be expanded, but you actually left it less specific and useful, replacing it with a couple of sentences filled with spelling and grammatical errors and emotive POV. [1] Further, to call Khrushchev "supposedly reformist" is comically POV. While the Soviet Union remained a single-party repressive regime, one would have to be utterly blind to reality to fail to see the scope of the changes since the death of Stalin.
• Insertion of the following: After Franklin Roosevelts "Good Neighbor" policy the U.S. halted its intervention in Cuba.
  • Not even a sentence.

• Soon after the Cuban Revolution, Cuban inspired guerrilas sprang up accross Latin America and continued throughout the 1960s, hoping to emulate Castro's Revolution. None of them succeeded. Despite high hopes at home and abroad, the real results of the Cuban Revolution was oppressive one party rule and economic failure despite extensive Soviet assistance and land reform.
  • POV on the surface, featuring multiple spelling and grammatical errors.

172 | Talk 20:06, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Where to begin? About removing W. German re-armament the sentences read something like this:

"To stabilize his European position, Khrushchev created the Warsaw Pact in 1955 (to counter West German rearmament) and built the Berlin Wall in 1961 (to stop the Germans from leaving the communist East). The Warsaw Pact was formed by the Soviets to counter NATO."

So was it the Warsaw pact formed to counter re-armament or NATO? Maybe my grammar is bad, at least its not contradictory.

Rearmament of Germany since the Nazi era. The West came first. Not contradictory. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Sure its not contradictory. Look at the next sentence. CJK

Again, West German rearmament came before East German rearmament, and NATO came before the Warsaw Pact. I don't see what your point is. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Whatever, it would be okay if it said "to ccounter NATO and W. German re-armament because the way it is worded is confusing. CJK 20 July 2005

But the issue was not NATO rearmament, but German rearmament. I fail to see how it's confusing. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I've already added a similar phrase in the Hungarian Revolution on how it would be a devastating political blow. Is it POV to say that a gasoline run car won't run without gasoline?

You seem to be overestimating the share of imports of oil in the U.S. coming from Iran at the time, which is what happens when you insert POV without reference to academic sources. I have read just about all of the relevant literature on the subject, and come across no one who makes the argument that without the coup, the U.S. would have faced a situation on its hands as severe as the 1973 world oil shock... Keep the POV out of Iran and Hungary. U.S. strategic interests in Iran, and Soviet strategic interest in Hungary have already been established in this article and the previous article in the series. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I said the Middle East as a whole, not Iran alone. CJK 20 July 2005

But we are not talking about the Middle East as a whole, we're talking about Iran, given that Wikipedia is not the place for counter-factual history. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

The "devastating blow" remarks referred to the Mid East in general. CJK 20 July 2005

You can make this argument, but Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View leaves readers entitled to draw this conclusion on their own from their independent knowledge and the information presented in this article. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Really? Then why does the article say that it is "realist" to reject Dulles policies or that Nasser is a "hero". CJK 20 July 2005

Realism is a paradigm in international relations, and realists in international relations like Kennan were strong critics. The article does not call Nasser a hero, but states the fact that he became a popular hero to many in the Arab world for standing up to Britain and Israel, which is an indisputable fact. 172 | Talk 23:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It says "The true hero to emerge was Nasser". And your calling people "realists" in an encyclopedia! Incredible considering that my point about the Middle East makes perfect sense. CJK 20 July 2005

Again, realism is a school of thought in international relations, it's not a complement any more than calling someone (say) a "functionalist." "The true hero to emerge was Nasser" comment just makes reference to his rising popularity, but I'll change it to make sure that no one comes to the same misunderstanding. 172 | Talk 00:56, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

See [2] 172 | Talk 00:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The way "realist" was used was to discredit Dulles. CJK 20 July 2005

No, it wasn't. I was used to identify people like Kennan and Niebur. 172 | Talk 01:10, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

It said Kennan and Niebur were "more realist" I believe.

No, Kennan and Niebur were criticizing Dulles from a realist perspective. I think that you're confusing the popular association with the term "realistic" with a school of thought in international relations that just as value neutral of a term as (say) "institutionalist" or "functionalist." 172 | Talk 01:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The article already said Dulles was "laughed at". Couldn't this just be called a "different perspective" to get rid of any ambiguity? CJK 21 July 2005

I'll take a look again, but I think that you're misunderstanding a lot of the content here. 172 | Talk 14:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I made the following change. The sentence was accurate, but I saw how it could possibly be misunderstood. 172 | Talk 15:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

As for the non-aligned movement both the Philippines and North Korea were part of it. If you don't know what I'm saying then you require serious help. And by the way, the US did not form it...

There is an article on the Non-Aligned Movement, and the subsequent article deals with the subject in greater detail too. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

So some of these details are unimportant to you? This is a perfectly legitimate statement.CJK

This article is already one of Wikipedia's longest. If something is established in the subsequent article in the series, there's no reason not to keep it short here. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

But I added a mere sentence which was important to know and was factual. CJK 20 July 2005

Diversity within the Non-Alignmed Movement is covered already in related articles. In this article we are just discussing concerns related to the Cold War in the 1950s. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

And What I wrote concerned the Cold War in the 50s. CJK 20 July 2005

Again, we have an article on the Non-Aligned Movement. I don't see what it clears up in the article where you inserted it. 172 | Talk 23:56, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It clears up the fact that some members of the "Non-aligned Movement" were perfectly aligned. CJK 20 July 2005

The ones worth noting at this stage, though, are Yugoslavia, Egypt, and India, which were really positioning themselves between the two blocs. 172 | Talk 01:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

No, Egypt was a pro-Soviet state. I'm merely pointing out that some states weren't genuinely non-aligned. CJK 20 July 2005

Still, it's relationship with the USSR was not at all like the relationship between the USSR and other members of the Warsaw Pact. It had much more autonomy. 172 | Talk 01:41, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

But that doesn't mean it can't be aligned...CJK 21 July 2005

The article is not saying that Egypt was "not aligned." It says that it participated in a movement calling itself the Non-Aligned Movement; if readers want to know more about this movement, they can click on the Wikilinks. 172 | Talk 14:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we just eliminate it entirely if we are eliminating certain details?CJK 21 July 2005

The discussion of the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement is essential for understanding developments in the emerging Third World arena of Cold War competition in the 1950s. If this is unclear to you, pick up copies of the two leading survey texts on the Cold War used in undergraduate and even graduate courses on the Cold War: LaFeber's America, Russia, and The Cold War and Gaddis' Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History. 172 | Talk 16:26, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

So why can't we include the minor detail about some of the members actually being aligned? It was one sentence long. CJK 21 July 2005

Fine, I'll add something, even though it's a misunderstanding that I have never run across in my decades of actually teaching the Cold War, if it just gets you to stop reinserting that flawed version of the article. 172 | Talk 17:17, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what is so flawed about my statements. If you have not mentioned it in your teachings you should have because otherwise there is a misleading impression that all members were actually "non-aligned". CJK 21 July 2005

I'm sorry for getting a bit impatient; the fact that this dialogue has been going on so long has just been leaving me a bit frustrating... The misunderstanding was thinking that the article was objectively calling them "non-aligned," as opposed to merely reporting that they were part of a movement that happened to call itself "non-aligned." Think of it this way-- the Democrats in the U.S. do not really advocate pure democracy. The Republicans do not advocate a pure republic. But these terms can describe the organizations. At any rate, I made the edits clearing up the fact that some Non-Aligned states had a close orientation to the USSR. We can drop the issue now. 172 | Talk 18:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Its spelled "Bloc" not "block". Maybe you need to pick up a history book.

Yes, it is spelled "bloc." In your version it was spelled "block." 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

About the "high quality economy" it was to counter some POV phrases about the US economy in rapid decline.

No one is saying the U.S. economy is in "rapid decline." The article was making reference to balance of trade and the decline in U.S. GNP as a share of world GNP. These trends have no direct relationship with GNP growth or decline. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It said the US, once workshop of the world, is having difficulties with competition. I just didn't want the impression to be made that the US is about to writhe in poverty.CJK

Okay, but this your impression earlier was a misunderstanding of the text. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

About the East-West game, yes I was referring to Mobutu.

Then take it to another article. The article ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Mobutu did not come to power until afterwards. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There are other examples in the Third World as well. CJK

The subsequent article goes in great detail on the Non-Aligned Movement. This is best covered in the next article. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

FIne, but I think it is important to know in general. CJK 20 July 2005

Okay. Then this can be established in articles that cover the time period. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It includes this time period. CJK 21 July 2005

The Hungarians wouldn't have revolted if they hadn't thought Kruschev was less tough than Stalin. The paragraph I replaced was POV about how there was no Communist Monolith. Even if you think its true, it doesn't deserve to be in an Encyclopedia.

No, the point on divisions within the Communist world is indisputable. The break with Yugoslavia already took place, and differences with China were beginning to appear. Further, despite the intervention in Hungary, to call Khrushchev "supposedly reformist" is utterly misleading. You will never find a single historian who denies the changes in the USSR taking place after Stalin's death. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There were changes, but the Hungarians thought this meant that Revolution would not be suppressed. As for the monolith the article had said there was never a monolith in the Communist world. And still, Soviet Communism alone was a monolith even without Yugoslavia and China. The Soviet style Communists supported each other. CJK

There are way of covering this without making a misleading statement calling Khrushchev "supposedly reformist." One could simply state that despite Khrushchev's internal reforms, the Soviet Union remained unwilling to loosen its tight grip on Eastern Europe. Regarding the monolith, the coverage is correct as there were indigenous communist factions all along that were not directly dependent on or controlled by Moscow, most notably the CPC in China. 172 | Talk 21:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'd go along with that on Kruschev's reforms, but ask for the monolith China was the exception not the rule. There was still a powerful pro-Soviet monolith. CJK 20 July 2005

In the Warsaw Pact, but not the world Communist movement. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Vietnam, Angola, and Cuba were part of the "monolith" as they supported the spread of Communism and cooperated with the Soviet Union. CJK 20 July 2005

The term monolith is a common term in reference to the idea that the Soviet Union was the only game in town for world communism. It was for much of the world, but it was not a world monolith. 172 | Talk 23:53, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Soviet style Communism was the monolith, not the Soviet Union itself. CJK 20 July 2005

You're reading a lot more into this than there really is, but I changed the wording so that the misunderstanding does not happen again. [3] 172 | Talk 01:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

About the Cuban inspired guerrilas they did exist in Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia. And if you actually believe Castro's policies helped Cuba...well, lets hope you didn't. I'm sorry if the other side of the story is so POV to you.

Do not assume what my POV is. Evaluating the overall positive and negative effects of revolutions is none of the business of Wikipedia editors. Report the facts in relevant articles, and let the reader draw his or her own conclusions. 172 | Talk 20:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

So when something bad happens in a Revolution we have to cover it up? CJK

This article stops after 1962, meaning that this matter is better covered in a more specific and factual way in the subsequent article in the series and articles related to Castro's Cuba. 172 | Talk 21:25, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

But this is about the Cuban Revolution, and results, particularly political, were immediate. CJK 20 July 2005

It is a section on the Cuban Revolution, but an article ending in 1962 does not give us sufficient historical perspective just yet for discussing the legacy of the Cuban Revolution today. 172 | Talk 22:39, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Then should we delete the sentences about previous American involvement in Cuba as well? CJK 20 July 2005

No, background information is necessary to establish the context, not looking into the future. I am not ready to assume that what has happened in the future plays a role in causing what is happening now or in the past. 172 | Talk 23:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

And after effects are necessary for understanding the consequences of the Revolution. To have to put this in another article is misleading. CJK 20 July 2005

No, the article does not end on this page. This is one article in a series. The next article covers Cuban Communism today. 172 | Talk 00:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Look: there was political oppression in Cuba and there was Cuban inspired guerrillas between 1959-1962 which is covered in this article. CJK 20 July 2005

The guerrilla movements did not take off until the mid-to-late 1960s, making it something better left covered in the subsequent article, which deals with matters like the Nicaraguan Revolution. 172 | Talk 01:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Some began to occur in the early 60s. CJK 20 July 2005

On a very small scale. Cuban support for foreign guerrilla movements did not become a major international issue until decades later following the Sandinista Revolution. 172 | Talk 01:40, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

The Cubans did not neccessarily aid the insurgencies. And at least the insurgencies began to organize themselves after the Cuban Revolution. CJK 21 July 2005

This article is already one of Wikipedia's longest. It makes sense to cover the issue of Cuban-backed guerrilla movements in the subsequent article, covering the time period when the issue started receiving major international attention. There is a "see next page" link toward the bottom of the page; readers can simply click on it to find out more about the Cold War in Latin America in later years. 172 | Talk 14:59, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Its perfectly legitimate to bring up this point. Immediately after the Cuban Revolution, certain people in Latin America began organizing insurgencies because they wanted the same type of country Cuba had become. I added a sentence or two and don't think that made the article too long. CJK 21 July 2005

It was redundant because we already have content dealing with Cuba and Latin American guerrilla movements in this article; Cold War (1962-1991) is the third page of a single article spread out on three pages because of space constraints. 172 | Talk 16:29, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

One or two sentences is not "too long". CJK 21 July 2005

Again, I will now add something if it gets you to stop reinserting so many of those problem edits that I have explained over and over again for hours. 172 | Talk 17:17, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

CJK, these changes should clear up your remaining concers. No please stop restoring all those problematic edits that I have gone through over and over again for hours on talk. 172 | Talk 17:25, 21 July 2005 (UTC)