Gwangju Uprising
The Gwangju Uprising, alternatively called the May 18 Democratic Uprising by UNESCO, known as May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, was a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju, South Korea, from May 18 to 27, 1980. Estimates suggest. During this period, Gwangju citizens took up arms when local Chonnam University students who were demonstrating against the martial law government were fired upon, killed and beaten by government troops; the uprising ended on May 27, 1980. The event is sometimes called 5 · 18, in reference to the date; some critics of the event point to the fact that it occurred before Chun Doo-hwan took office, so contend that it could not have been a simple student protest against him that started it. During Chun Doo-hwan's presidency, the authorities defined the incident as a rebellion instigated by Communist sympathizers and rioters. By 1997, a national cemetery and day of commemoration, along with acts to "compensate, restore honor" to victims, were established. In 2011, 1980 Archives for the May 18th Democratic Uprising against Military Regime located in Gwangju's city hall were inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
A series of democratic movements in South Korea began with the assassination of President Park Chung-hee on October 26, 1979. The abrupt termination of Park's 18-year authoritarian rule left a power vacuum and led to political and social instability. While President Choi Kyu-hah, the successor to the Presidency after Park's death, had no dominant control over the government, South Korean Army major general Chun Doo-hwan, the chief of the Defense Security Command, seized military power through the Coup d'état of December Twelfth and tried to intervene in domestic issues; the military however could not explicitly reveal its political ambitions and had no obvious influence over the civil administration before the mass civil unrest in May 1980. The nation's democratization movements, suppressed during Park's tenure, were being revived. With the beginning of a new semester in March 1980, professors and students expelled for pro-democracy activities returned to their universities, student unions were formed.
These unions led nationwide demonstrations for reforms, including an end to martial law, human rights, minimum wage demands and freedom of press. These activities culminated in the anti-martial law demonstration at Seoul Station on May 15, 1980 in which about 100,000 students and citizens participated. In response, Chun Doo-hwan took several suppressive measures. On May 17, he forced the Cabinet to extend martial law, which had not applied to Jeju Province, to the whole nation; the extended martial law closed universities, banned political activities and further curtailed the press. To enforce martial law, troops were dispatched to various parts of the country. On the same day, the Defense Security Command raided a national conference of student union leaders from 55 universities, who were gathered to discuss their next moves in the wake of the May 15 demonstration. Twenty-six politicians, including South Jeolla Province native Kim Dae-jung, were arrested on charges of instigating demonstrations.
Ensuing strife was focused in South Jeolla Province in the then-provincial capital, for complex political and geographical reasons. These factors were both deep and contemporary: region is the granary of Korea. However, due to its abundant natural resources, the Jeolla area has been the target for exploitation by both domestic and foreign powers. Oppositional protest had existed in Korea – in the South Jeolla Province region – during the Donghak Peasant Revolution, Gwangju Students Movement, Yeosu–Suncheon Rebellion, regional resistance to the Japanese invasions of Korea, more under the Third Republic of South Korea and Fourth Republic of South Korea, as can be seen by the excerpts below: Park Chung Hee's dictatorship had showered economic and political favors on his native Gyeongsang Province in the southeast, at the expense of the Jeolla region of the southwest; the latter became the real hotbed of political opposition to the dictatorship, which in turn led to more discrimination from the centre.
In May 1980 the city of Gwangju in South Jeolla province exploded in a popular uprising against the new military strongman, General Chun Doo Hwan, who responded with a bloodbath that killed hundreds of Gwangju's citizens. The city of Kwangju was subject to severe and violent repression by the military after martial law was imposed; the denial of democracy and the heightening authoritarianism that accompanied the coming to power of Chun Doo Hwan to replace Park prompted nation-wide protests which, because of Cholla's historical legacy of dissent and radicalism, were most intense in that region. On the morning of May 18, students gathered at the gate of Chonnam National University, in defiance of its closing. By 9:30 am, around 200 students had arrived. At around 10 am, soldiers and students clashed: soldiers charged the students; the protest moved to the downtown, area. There the conflict broadened, to
Hangul
The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, has been used to write the Korean language since its creation in the 15th century by King Sejong the Great. It may be written as Hangeul following the standard Romanization, it is the official writing system of Korea, both North. It is a co-official writing system in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County in Jilin Province, China, it is sometimes used to write the Cia-Cia language spoken near the town of Indonesia. The Hangul alphabet consisted of 28 letters with 17 consonant letters and 11 vowel letters when it was created; as four became obsolete, the modern Hangul consists of total 24 letters with 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters. In North Korea the total is counted 40, it consists of 19 consonant letters and 21 vowel letters as it additionally includes 5 tense consonants and 20. The Korean letters are written in syllabic blocks with each alphabetic letter placed vertically and horizontally into a square dimension.
For example, the Korean word for "honeybee" is written 꿀벌, not ㄲㅜㄹㅂㅓㄹ. As it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, it has been described as an "alphabetic syllabary" by some linguists; as in traditional Chinese writing, Korean texts were traditionally written top to bottom, right to left, are still written this way for stylistic purposes. Today, it is written from left to right with spaces between words and western-style punctuation; some linguists consider it among the most phonologically faithful writing systems in use today. One interesting feature of Hangul is that the shapes of its consonants mimic the shapes of the speaker's mouth when pronouncing each consonant; the Korean alphabet was called Hunminjeong'eum, after the document that introduced the script to the Korean people in 1446. The Korean alphabet is called hangeul, a name coined by Korean linguist Ju Si-gyeong in 1912; the name combines the ancient Korean word han, meaning "great", geul, meaning "script".
The word han is used to refer to Korea in general, so the name means "Korean script". It has been romanized in multiple ways: Hangeul or han-geul in the Revised Romanization of Korean, which the South Korean government uses in English publications and encourages for all purposes. Han'gŭl in the McCune–Reischauer system, is capitalized and rendered without the diacritics when used as an English word, Hangul, as it appears in many English dictionaries. Hānkul in the Yale romanization, a system recommended for technical linguistic studies. In North Korea it is called Chosŏn'gŭl after Chosŏn, the North Korean name for Korea after the old name of Korea; the McCune–Reischauer system is used there. Until the mid-20th century, the Korean elite preferred to write using Chinese characters called Hanja, they referred to Hanja as jinseo or "true letters". Some accounts say the elite referred to the Korean alphabet derisively as'amkeul meaning "women's script", and'ahaetgeul meaning "children's script", though there is no written evidence of this.
Supporters of the Korean alphabet referred to it as jeong'eum meaning "correct pronunciation", gukmun meaning "national script", eonmun meaning "vernacular script". Before the creation of the new Korean alphabet, Koreans wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing systems that predate the modern Korean alphabet by hundreds of years, including Idu script, Hyangchal and Gakpil. However, due to fundamental differences between the Korean and Chinese languages, the large number of characters, many lower class Koreans were illiterate. To promote literacy among the common people, the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, Sejong the Great created and promulgated a new alphabet; the Korean alphabet was designed so that people with little education could learn to write. A popular saying about the alphabet is, "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; the project was completed in late December 1443 or January 1444, described in 1446 in a document titled Hunminjeong'eum, after which the alphabet itself was named.
The publication date of the Hunminjeongeum, October 9, became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent, Chosŏn'gŭl Day, is on January 15. Another document published in 1446 and titled Hunminjeong'eum Haerye was discovered in 1940; this document explains that the design of the consonant letters is based on articulatory phonetics and the design of the vowel letters are based on the principles of yin and yang and vowel harmony. The Korean alphabet faced opposition in the 1440s by the literary elite, including politician Choe Manri and other Korean Confucian scholars, they believed. They saw the circulation of the Korean alphabet as a threat to their status. However, the Korean alphabet entered popular culture as King Sejong had intended, used by women and writers of popular fiction. King Yeonsangun banned the study and publication of the Korean alphabet in 1504, after a document criticizing the king entered the public. King Jungjong abolished the Ministry of Eonmun, a governmental institution related to Hangul research, in 1506.
The late 16th century, saw a revival of the Korean alphabet as gasa and sijo poetry flourished. In the 17th century, the Korean alphabet novels became a major genre. However, the use of the Korea
Politics of South Korea
The politics of the Republic of Korea takes place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state, of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly; the Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises a Supreme Court, appellate courts and a Constitutional Court. Since 1948, the constitution has undergone five major revisions; the current Sixth Republic began with the last major constitutional revision in 1987. The Economist Intelligence Unit has rated South Korea as the 20th most democratic country in 2017, the highest ranked Asian country and above Belgium, France or the United States. Under Lee Myung-bak's presidency, the South Korean intelligence services orchestrated campaigns to manipulate public opinion. NIS-led "NGOs" have conducted media campaigns against opponents of the government. In 2012, the NIS conducted a slander campaign against the presidential candidate Moon Jae-in in order to divert voters to the conservative candidate Park Geun-hye.
In February 2015, the former head of the NIS was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in these manipulations The head of state is the president, elected by direct popular vote for a single five-year term. The president is Commander-in-Chief of the armed force of South Korea and enjoys considerable executive powers; the president appoints the prime minister with approval of the National Assembly, as well as appointing and presiding over the State Council of chief ministers as the head of government. On 12 March 2004, the executive power of president Roh Moo-hyun was suspended when the Assembly voted to impeach him and Prime Minister Goh Kun became an Acting President. On 14 May 2004, the Constitutional Court overturned the impeachment decision made by the Assembly and Roh was reinstated. On 10 March 2017, Park Geun-hye became the first president to be removed by the Constitutional Court after impeachment by the National Assembly. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn temporarily served as an acting president between the suspension of Park since 9 December 2016 until the next presidential election, held in May 2017.
On 9 May 2017, Moon Jae-in became the 19th president of South Korea, replacing acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn. The National Assembly has 300 members, elected for a four-year term, 253 members in single-seat constituencies and 47 members by proportional representation; the ruling Democratic Party of Korea is the largest party in the Assembly. The South Korean judiciary is independent of the other two branches; the highest judiciary body is the Supreme Court, whose justices are appointed by the president with the consent of the National Assembly. In addition, the Constitutional Court oversees questions of constitutionality. South Korea has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction. South Korea elects on national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature; the president is elected for a five-year term by the people. The National Assembly has 300 members, elected for a four-year term, 246 members in single-seat constituencies and 54 members by proportional representation; the main two political parties in South Korea are the liberal Democratic Party of Korea and the conservative Liberty Korea Party.
The liberal camp and the conservative camp are the dominant forces of South Korean politics at present. South Korea's political history merges with other parties. One reason is that there is greater empathise around the'politics of the person' and rather than party, therefore party loyalty is not strong when disagreements occur; the graph below illustrates the extent of the political volatility within the last 10 years alone. These splits were intensified after the 2016 South Korean political scandal. Seat changes are compared to previous election, not the outgoing Assembly1 Comparison based on 2012 Democratic United Party result2 Comparison includes members elected in 2012 for the Liberty Forward Party3 Non-parliamentary grouping: not to be confused with the larger Democratic Party of Korea, more referred to as the Minjoo Party Federation of Korean Industries Federation of Korean Trade Unions Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Korean National Council of Churches Korean Traders Association Korean Veterans' Association National Council of Labor Unions National Democratic Alliance of Korea National Federation of Farmers' Associations National Federation of Student Associations One Special City, six Metropolitan Cities, nine Provinces and one Special Autonomous City.
Seoul Teukbyeolsi Busan Gwangyeoksi Daegu Gwangyeoksi Incheon Gwangyeoksi Daejeon Gwangyeoksi Gwangju Gwangyeoksi Ulsan Gwangyeoksi Gyeonggi-do Gangwon-do Chungcheongbuk-do Chungcheongnam-do Jeollabuk-do Jeollanam-do Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongsangnam-do Jeju Teukbyeoljachi-do Sejong Teukbyeol-jachisi AfDB, APEC, AsDB, BIS, CP, EBRD, ESCAP, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IEA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, ITUC, MINURSO, NAM, NSG, OAS, OECD, OPCW, OSCE, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMOGIP, UNOMIG, UNU, UPU, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTr
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are not inherited, but are attained through democracy, oligarchy or autocracy, it is a form of government. In the context of American constitutional law, the definition of republic refers to a form of government in which elected individuals represent the citizen body and exercise power according to the rule of law under a constitution, including separation of powers with an elected head of state, referred to as a constitutional republic or representative democracy; as of 2017, 159 of the world’s 206 sovereign states use the word “republic” as part of their official names – not all of these are republics in the sense of having elected governments, nor is the word “republic” used in the names of all nations with elected governments. While heads of state tend to claim that they rule only by the “consent of the governed”, elections in some countries have been found to be held more for the purpose of “show” than for the actual purpose of in reality providing citizens with any genuine ability to choose their own leaders.
The word republic comes from the Latin term res publica, which means “public thing,” “public matter,” or “public affair” and was used to refer to the state as a whole. The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 B. C. to the establishment of the Empire in 27 B. C; this constitution was characterized by a Senate composed of wealthy aristocrats and wielding significant influence. Most a republic is a single sovereign state, but there are sub-sovereign state entities that are referred to as republics, or that have governments that are described as “republican” in nature. For instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government". In contrast, the former Soviet Union, which described itself as being a group of “Republics” and as a “federal multinational state composed of 15 republics”, was viewed as being a totalitarian form of government and not a genuine republic, since its electoral system was structured so as to automatically guarantee the election of government-sponsored candidates.
The term originates from the Latin translation of Greek word politeia. Cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as "republic"; the term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. One of Plato's major works on political science was titled Politeia and in English it is thus known as The Republic. However, apart from the title, in modern translations of The Republic, alternative translations of politeia are used. However, in Book III of his Politics, Aristotle was the first classical writer to state that the term politeia can be used to refer more to one type of politeia: "When the citizens at large govern for the public good, it is called by the name common to all governments, government". Amongst classical Latin, the term "republic" can be used in a general way to refer to any regime, or in a specific way to refer to governments which work for the public good.
In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had signoria based governments. In the late Middle Ages, writers such as Giovanni Villani began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime, they used terms such as a free people, to describe the states. The terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term res publica has a set of interrelated meanings in the original Latin; the term can quite be translated as "public matter". It was most used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government during the period of the Roman Empire. In subsequent centuries, the English word "commonwealth" came to be used as a translation of res publica, its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica.
Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, but the word republic was in common use. In Polish the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term "republic" means a system of government which derives its power from the people rather than from another basis, such as heredity or divine right. While the philosophical terminology developed in classical Greece and Rome, as noted by Aristotle there was a long history of city states with a wide variety of constitutions, not only in Greece but in the Middle East. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many free cities developed again, such as Venice; the modern type of "republic" itself is different from any type of state found in the c
Confucianism
Confucianism known as Ruism, is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or a way of life. Confucianism developed from what was called the Hundred Schools of Thought from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who considered himself a recodifier and retransmitter of the theology and values inherited from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. In the Han dynasty, Confucian approaches edged out the "proto-Taoist" Huang–Lao as the official ideology, while the emperors mixed both with the realist techniques of Legalism. A Confucian revival began during the Tang dynasty. In the late Tang, Confucianism developed in response to Buddhism and Taoism and was reformulated as Neo-Confucianism; this reinvigorated form was adopted as the basis of the imperial exams and the core philosophy of the scholar official class in the Song dynasty. The abolition of the examination system in 1905 marked the end of official Confucianism; the intellectuals of the New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century blamed Confucianism for China's weaknesses.
They searched for new doctrines to replace Confucian teachings. In the late twentieth century Confucian work ethic has been credited with the rise of the East Asian economy. With particular emphasis on the importance of the family and social harmony, rather than on an otherworldly source of spiritual values, the core of Confucianism is humanistic. According to Herbert Fingarette's conceptualisation of Confucianism as a religion which regards "the secular as sacred", Confucianism transcends the dichotomy between religion and humanism, considering the ordinary activities of human life—and human relationships—as a manifestation of the sacred, because they are the expression of humanity's moral nature, which has a transcendent anchorage in Heaven and unfolds through an appropriate respect for the spirits or gods of the world. While Tiān has some characteristics that overlap the category of godhead, it is an impersonal absolute principle, like the Dào or the Brahman. Confucianism focuses on the practical order, given by a this-worldly awareness of the Tiān.
Confucian liturgy led by Confucian priests or "sages of rites" to worship the gods in public and ancestral Chinese temples is preferred on certain occasions, by Confucian religious groups and for civil religious rites, over Taoist or popular ritual. The worldly concern of Confucianism rests upon the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, teachable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue in a morally organised world; some of the basic Confucian ethical concepts and practices include rén, yì, lǐ, zhì. Rén is the essence of the human being, it is the virtue-form of Heaven. Yì is the upholding of the moral disposition to do good. Lǐ is a system of ritual norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act in everyday life in harmony with the law of Heaven. Zhì is the ability to see what is right and fair, or the converse, in the behaviors exhibited by others. Confucianism holds one in contempt, either passively or for failure to uphold the cardinal moral values of rén and yì.
Traditionally and countries in the Chinese cultural sphere are influenced by Confucianism, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly by Chinese people, such as Singapore. Today, it has been credited for shaping East Asian societies and Chinese communities, to some extent, other parts of Asia. In the last decades there have been talks of a "Confucian Revival" in the academic and the scholarly community, there has been a grassroots proliferation of various types of Confucian churches. In late 2015 many Confucian personalities formally established a national Holy Confucian Church in China to unify the many Confucian congregations and civil society organisations. Speaking, there is no term in Chinese which directly corresponds to "Confucianism". In the Chinese language, the character rú 儒 meaning "scholar" or "learned" or "refined man" is used both in the past and the present to refer to things related to Confucianism; the character rú in ancient China had diverse meanings.
Some examples include "to tame", "to mould", "to educate", "to refine". Several different terms, some of which with modern origin, are used in different situations to express different facets of Confucianism, including: Chinese: 儒 家. Three of them use rú; these names do not use the name "Confucius" at all, but instead focus on the ideal of the Confucian man. The use of the term "Confucianism" has been avoided by some modern scholars, who favor "Ruism" and "Ruists" instead. Robert Eno argues that the term has been "burdened... with the ambiguities and irrelevant
Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
The Korean Provisional Government, formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was a recognized Korean government-in-exile, based in Shanghai, in Chungking, during the Japanese colonial rule of Korea. On April 11, 1919, the provisional constitution was enacted, the national sovereignty was called "Republic of Korea" and the political system was called "Democratic Republic". Introduced the presidential system and established three separate systems of legislative and judicial separation, the KPG inherited the territory of the former Korean Empire and stated that he favored the former imperial court, it supported and supported the independence movement under the provisional government, received economic and military support from the Kuomintang of China, the Soviet Union and France. After the Surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945, figures such as Kim Gu returned. On August 15, 1948, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea was dissolved. Rhee, the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, became the first President of the Republic of Korea in 1948.
The Constitution of South Korea, amended in 1987, stated that the Korean people inherited the rule of the KPG. The government was formed on April 13, 1919, shortly after the March 1st movement of the same year during the Imperial Japanese colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. Key members in its establishment included An Changho and Syngman Rhee, both of which were leaders of the Korean National Association at that time. An Changho played an important part in making Shanghai the center of the liberation movement and in getting KPG operations underway; as acting premier, he would help reorganize the government from a parliamentary cabinet system to a presidential system. The government resisted the colonial rule of Korea that lasted from 1910 to 1945, they coordinated the armed resistance against the Japanese imperial army during the 1920s and 1930s, including the Battle of Chingshanli in October 1920 and the assault on Japanese military leadership in Shanghai's Hongkou Park in April 1932. This struggle culminated in the formation of Korean Liberation Army in 1940, bringing together many if not all Korean resistance groups in exile.
The government duly declared war against the Axis powers Japan and Germany on December 9, 1941, the Liberation Army took part in allied action in China and parts of Southeast Asia. During World War II, the Korean Liberation Army was preparing an assault against the Imperial Japanese forces in Korea in conjunction with American Office of Strategic Services, but the Japanese surrender prevented the execution of the plan; the government's goal was achieved with Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, but they were not approved by other governments as a member of allied nations, who signed peace treaty with Japan in San Francisco. The sites of the Provisional Government in Shanghai and Chongqing have been preserved as museums. In 1919, when U. S. President Woodrow Wilson ruled for national self-determination, Rhee Syng-man promoted the League of Nations mandate in the United States, Kim Kyu-sik pushed for independence under the approval of a victorious country in Paris; the provisional government gained approval from Poland through diplomatic efforts.
Meanwhile, in 1944, the government received approval from the Soviet Union. Jo So-ang, the head of diplomatic department of provisional government, met with the French ambassador in Chongqing and was quoted as saying that French government would give unofficial and substantively approve the government in April 1945. However, The government did not gain formal recognition from United States, United Kingdom and other world powers. Syngman Rhee - Impeached by the provisional assembly Yi Dongnyeong - Acting Park Eun-sik - Acting Park Eun-sik Yi Yu-pil -Acting Yi Sang-ryong Yang Gi-tak Yi Dongnyeong Ahn Chang-ho Yi Dong-nyeong Hong Jin Kim Koo Yi Dongnyeong Song Byeong-jo Yi Dongnyeong - Died in office Kim Koo Syngman Rhee - Became the first president of South Korea, from July 24, 1948 to April 26, 1960 History of South Korea Korean independence movements Korean Liberation Army Korea Times article "Provisional Government in Shanghai Resisted Colonial Rule" by Robert Neff Korea's Provisional Government established in 1919 in Shanghai - Arirang News
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states, the United States with its allies after World War II. A common historiography of the conflict begins between 1946, the year U. S. diplomat George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow cemented a U. S. foreign policy of containment of Soviet expansionism threatening strategically vital regions, the Truman Doctrine of 1947, ending between the Revolutions of 1989, which ended communism in Eastern Europe, the 1991 collapse of the USSR, when nations of the Soviet Union abolished communism and restored their independence. The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars; the conflict split the temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany and its allies, leaving the USSR and the US as two superpowers with profound economic and political differences. The capitalist West was led by the United States, a federal republic with a two-party presidential system, as well as the other First World nations of the Western Bloc that were liberal democratic with a free press and independent organizations, but were economically and politically entwined with a network of banana republics and other authoritarian regimes, most of which were the Western Bloc's former colonies.
Some major Cold War frontlines such as Indochina and the Congo were still Western colonies in 1947. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was a self-proclaimed Marxist–Leninist state led by its Communist Party, which in turn was dominated by a totalitarian leader with different titles over time, a small committee called the Politburo; the Party controlled the state, the press, the military, the economy, many organizations throughout the Second World, including the Warsaw Pact and other satellites, funded communist parties around the world, sometimes in competition with communist China following the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. The two worlds were fighting for dominance in low-developed regions known as the Third World. In time, a neutral bloc arose in these regions with the Non-Aligned Movement, which sought good relations with both sides. Notwithstanding isolated incidents of air-to-air dogfights and shoot-downs, the two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat. However, both were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war.
Each side had a nuclear strategy that discouraged an attack by the other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to the total destruction of the attacker—the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Aside from the development of the two sides' nuclear arsenals, their deployment of conventional military forces, the struggle for dominance was expressed via proxy wars around the globe, psychological warfare, massive propaganda campaigns and espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, technological competitions such as the Space Race; the first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The USSR consolidated its control over the states of the Eastern Bloc, while the United States began a strategy of global containment to challenge Soviet power, extending military and financial aid to the countries of Western Europe and creating the NATO alliance; the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the Communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the conflict expanded.
The USSR and the US competed for influence in Latin America and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. The Soviets suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956; the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the closest the two sides came to nuclear war. Meanwhile, an international peace movement took root and grew among citizens around the world, first in Japan from 1954, when people became concerned about nuclear weapons testing, but soon in Europe and the US; the peace movement, in particular the anti-nuclear movement, gained pace and popularity from the late 1950s and early 1960s, continued to grow through the'70s and'80s with large protest marches and various non-parliamentary activism opposing war and calling for global nuclear disarmament. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split complicate relations within the Communist sphere, while US allies France, demonstrated greater independence of action.
The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, while the US experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, which ended with the defeat of the US-backed Republic of Vietnam, prompting further adjustments. By the 1970s, both sides had become interested in making allowances in order to create a more stable and predictable international system, ushering in a period of détente that saw Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union. Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; the early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of KAL Flight 007 and the "Able Archer" NATO military exercises, both in 1983. The United States increased diplomatic and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was suffering from economic stag
.svg)
North Korea
South Korea.svg)
.svg)
