From anti-colonial movements of the twentieth century to the ideological battles of the Cold War, the Soviet Union profoundly shaped the trajectory of global history, from its birth as a sovereign state in 1917 to its collapse in 1991. The Russian Revolution provided a blueprint for the overthrow of imperial powers and inspired hope that even the mightiest empires might fall. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union provided political support and military assistance to communist movements across the globe. For over seventy years the USSR helped shape the aspirations of oppressed peoples and the contours of international politics.
How Did Red October Lead to World Revolution?
The Russian Revolution of 1917 shook the world. Russia, one of the world’s most powerful imperial states, was overthrown in a sudden, dynamic uprising of workers and peasants. Steering this revolutionary wave was Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, a disciplined if somewhat ragtag assemblage of Marxist revolutionaries.
As outlined by Lenin in his popular treatise, What Is To Be Done (1902), the role of the Bolsheviks was to organize a disciplined party of the working class and agricultural peasantry, that would be ready to harness and guide their spontaneous uprisings. In October 1917 that time arrived.
Yet the October Revolution stood for something more than the national interest of Russian workers and peasants. As Lenin declared to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in May 1918 “We claim that the interests of socialism, the interests of world socialism, rank higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state” (Prashad, 2017). The October Revolution was, above all, a rallying call for world revolution.
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Did Soviet Union Impact the Colonial World?
The news that workers and peasants in Russia had brought the mighty Tsarist empire of Imperial Russia to its knees, was met in the colonial world with a mixture of astonishment and excitement. Central to this reaction was Lenin’s powerful declaration of the right of all nations to self-determination. In 1920, he formally extended Soviet solidarity to the “toilers of the East,” urging the colonial world to join hands and “march together in the common cause of liberation.” His message proved electrifying.
Following in the wake of 1917, revolutionary movements gained momentum across the colonial world. As early as 1913 Lenin wrote with anticipation that “everywhere in Asia a mighty democratic movement is growing, spreading and gaining in strength.” Marxist ideas and the example of the Russian Revolution inspired anti-colonial revolutionaries from Emiliano Zapata (Mexico) and James Connolly (Ireland), to Sun Yat-Sen (China) and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana).
What Were the Contours of the Cold War?
By 1948, the Soviet Union had emerged from World War II as a global superpower, extending its influence through the installation of communist governments in Eastern Europe, liberated by the USSR from Nazi occupation. This rise to prominence was accompanied by the onset of the Cold War – a prolonged period of geopolitical tension with the United States, whose leaders sought to counter the spread of communism through the capitalist world.
Determined to secure its borders, the USSR established pro-Soviet regimes in nations such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Meanwhile, the United States pursued a strategy of “containment”, bolstering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with its presence in 1949. The Soviet counter came in the form of the Warsaw Pact (1955).
The Cold War
The Cold War got decidedly hotter following the proclamation of the Soviet-backed People’s Republic of China (1949), North Korean invasion of South Korea (1950), and the Cuban Revolution (1959). Though Soviet and American soldiers never technically clashed, proxy wars – fueled by arms, money, and military expertise – raged across the globe, from Afghanistan to Vietnam.
For over seven decades, the Soviet Union exercised profound influence over socialist-learning countries and the communist world, through foreign policy, propaganda, political support, and military intervention. The Cold War officially ended when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formally dissolved as a sovereign state in 1991.
