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The main features of the Yalta Potsdam system of international relations. Features of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations and the formation of a new political map of the world after the Second World War. See what the "Yalta-Potsdam system" is

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations is the designation of the system of international relations adopted in historiography, fixed by the treaties and agreements of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

For the first time, the issue of a post-war settlement at the highest level was raised during the Tehran Conference in 1943, where even then the strengthening of the position of the two powers - the USSR and the USA, which were increasingly taking a decisive role in determining the parameters of the post-war world. That is, even during the war, the prerequisites for the formation of the foundations of the future bipolar world are emerging. This trend has already been fully manifested in Yalta ((February 4–11, 1945) - the second multilateral meeting of the leaders of the three great powers of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain)And Potsdam(from July 17 to August 2, 1945) conferences, when the two superpowers of the USSR and the USA played the main role in solving the key problems associated with the formation of a new model of the Defense Ministry.

The Potsdam era set a historical precedent, because never before had the whole world been artificially divided into spheres of influence between two states. The bipolar alignment of forces quickly led to the beginning of the confrontation between the capitalist and socialist camps, referred to in history as the Cold War.

The Potsdam era is characterized by an extreme ideologization of international relations, as well as the constant threat of a direct military confrontation between the USSR and the USA.

The end of the Potsdam era was marked by the collapse of the world socialist camp, following a failed attempt to reform the economy of the Soviet Union, and was sealed by the 1991 Belovezhskaya Agreement.

Peculiarities:

1. The multipolar organization of the structure of international relations was liquidated, a bipolar structure of the post-war MODs arose, in which two superstates, the USSR and the USA, played the leading role. A significant separation of the military, political, economic, cultural and ideological capabilities of these two powers from other countries of the world led to the formation of two main, dominant "centers of power" that had a system-forming influence on the structure and nature of the entire international system.

2. Confrontational nature - a systemic, complex confrontation in the economic, political, military, ideological and other spheres, a confrontation that from time to time acquired the character of an acute conflict, crisis interaction. This type of confrontation in the format of mutual threats to use force, balancing on the brink of a real war, was called the Cold War.

3. Post-war bipolarity took shape in the era of nuclear weapons, which led to a revolution, both in military and political strategies.

4. The distribution of the world into the sphere of influence of two superstates both in Europe and on the periphery, the emergence of "divided" countries (Germany, Korea, Vietnam, China) and the formation of military-political blocs, under the leadership of the USSR and the USA, led to globalization and deep geopolitical structuring systemic confrontation and confrontation.

5. Post-war bipolarity took the form of a political and ideological confrontation, an ideological confrontation between the "free world" of Western democracies led by the United States and the "socialist world" led by the USSR. The USA wanted to establish American hegemony in the world under the slogan "Pax Americana", the USSR - asserted the inevitability of the victory of socialism on a world scale. The Soviet-American confrontation looked primarily as a rivalry between a system of political and ethical ideals, social and moral principles.

6. The post-war world has ceased to be predominantly Eurocentric, the international system has turned into a global, global one. The destruction of colonial systems, the formation of regional and subregional subsystems of international relations was carried out under the dominant influence of the horizontal spread of the systemic bipolar confrontation and the trends of economic and political globalization.

7. The Yalta-Potsdam order did not have a strong contractual and legal basis. The agreements that formed the basis of the post-war order were either oral, not officially recorded, or were fixed mainly in a declarative form, or their full implementation was blocked as a result of the sharpness of contradictions and confrontation between the main subjects of post-war international relations.

8. The UN, one of the central elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system, became the main mechanism for coordinating efforts to exclude wars and conflicts from international life by harmonizing relations between states and creating a global system of collective security. Post-war realities, the intransigence of confrontational relations between the USSR and the USA significantly limited the ability of the UN to realize its statutory functions and goals. The main task of the UN was mainly focused on the prevention of an armed clash between the USSR and the USA both at the global and regional levels, that is, on maintaining the stability of Soviet-American relations as the main prerequisite for international security and peace in the postwar period.

Theoretical schools in international studies. Real-Political School of International Relations Studies (Realism and Neorealism)

Realism

The main provisions of classical realism boil down to the following:

International relations are

interaction between states that are essentially homogeneous, are unitary participants and, as people,

selfish in their aspirations.

The interaction of states is carried out chaotically, since

there is no "supranational power center". As a result international relations are "anarchic".

· Striving for power, in particular to military superiority

stuyu, which guarantees the security of states, is the main

tiv their activities.

· States first of all proceed from their own interests. At

In this they may take into account moral considerations, but not a single

of them does not have the right to determine "what is good,

abuse of moral speculation.

The political reality is different from the economic one: for

power is the main thing for politics, wealth is for the economy.

In the world of international relations dominated by power

factor, states should always be on full alert.

Morgenthau's Six Principles of Political Realism:

1. the probabilistic nature of political activity in the field of international relations.

2. the principle of national interests, understood in terms of power and might.

3. Foreign policy cannot be viewed through psychological phenomena.

4. political realism recognizes the moral significance of political action

5. Political realism denies the identity of the morality of a particular nation and universal moral laws.

6. The political sphere is autonomous;

Common to representatives of political realism are the following key provisions:

1. The main participants in international relationsare sovereign states. The realists believe what strong states do what they can, and weak states do what the strong allow them.
2 . "National interests" - the main category theories of political realism, the main motive and key incentive for state policy in the international arena.

As for the state of peace between states, it is ideal, because it always has a temporary character.
3 . The main goal of the state in international politics is to ensure its own security. However, they can never feel safe and are constantly striving to increase their own resources and improve their quality.

4. The power of the state is inseparable from its strength, which is one of the decisive means of ensuring national security in the international arena

The most famous representatives- Reinhold Niebuhr, Frederick Schumann, George Kennan, George Schwarzenberger, Kenneth Thompson, Henry Kissinger, Edward Carr, Arnold Wolfers and others - determined the paths of the science of international relations for a long time. Hans Morgenthau and Raymond Aron became the undisputed leaders in this direction.

5. Is it possible to change the nature of international relations? Realists regard this question as central to the study of international politics. However, in their opinion, as long as states exist, they will remain the main participants in international politics, functioning according to their own immutable laws.

6. In other words, according to supporters of political realism, it is possible to change the configuration of political forces, mitigate the consequences of international anarchy, establish more stable and more secure interstate relations, but the nature of international relations cannot be changed.

neorealism

The main provisions of neorealism:

§ International relations are considered as an integral system functioning in accordance with certain laws. Only system analysis can reveal the nature of international relations.

§ Neorealism shifts the center of explanation of international behavior to the level of the international system. Relations between the great powers and other states are not unequivocally anarchic, as they depend mainly on the will of the great powers.

§ In addition, Waltz identified three basic principles of the structure of international relations ("structural triad"). First, states are primarily driven by the motive of survival. Secondly, only states remain participants in international relations, since other actors have not caught up and have not surpassed the leading powers in terms of the presence of powers and power capabilities. Thirdly, states are heterogeneous, and differ in capabilities and potential.

§ Neorealism seeks to find and isolate economic relations from political ones.

§ striving for methodological rigor.

§ The main actors are states and their unions.

§ Them main goals - protection of national interests, the security of the state and the preservation of the status quo in international relations.

§ The main means of achieving these goals are force and alliances.

§ The driving force of international relations lies in the harsh, deterrent effect of the structural constraints of the international system.

Similarities between neorealism and political realism:

§ Both realists and neorealists believe that, since the nature of international relations has not changed for thousands of years, there is no reason to believe that they will acquire any other character in the future.

§ Both theories believe that all attempts to change the international system, based on liberal-idealistic grounds, are doomed to failure in advance.

Introduction

Chapter 1. Creation of the Yalta-Potsdam peace system

Crimean (Yalta) Conference of the Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and Great Britain

Potsdam Three Power Conference

Chapter 2. Development of the Yalta-Potsdam peace system. System stability and nuclear factor

Chapter 3. The collapse of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, causes, results

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Since 1648, the Westphalian system of international relations has undergone a number of modifications, each of which was the result of major military upheavals. After the Thirty Years' War, the first of these upheavals, much larger and more bloody, were the Napoleonic Wars. They ended with the defeat of Napoleon by a coalition of European powers with the dominant role of the Russian Empire, which made the main contribution to the victory of the coalition. The Congress of Vienna in 1815 secured another redistribution of the world and formed the "Holy Alliance" under the actual leadership of Russia. In 1830, the Union collapsed - not least as a result of the anti-Russian intrigues of Austria and England.

The next shock to the Westphalian world order was the Crimean War of 1854-56, which ended in the defeat of Russia and the Congress of Paris in 1856. The Congress secured a new redistribution of the world in the Balkans and in the Black Sea not in favor of Russia: she was forced to return Kars, agree to the neutralization of the Black Sea and cede Bessarabia. However, Russia rather quickly - within 13-15 years - restored the geopolitical status quo.

The Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, which ended in the defeat of France and the triumphant victory of Bismarck's Germany, led to the establishment of a short-lived Frankfurt Peace.

This modification was destroyed by the First World War of 1914-18, in which Turkey and Germany were defeated. The result was the fragile Treaty of Versailles, in which for the first time in history a serious attempt was made to create a universal international organization - albeit on the scale of the European continent - responsible for peace and security in Europe: the League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles was based on a broad and ramified legal base and included a well-established mechanism for making and implementing collective decisions. This, however, did not save him from complete collapse already on the eve of World War II. In addition, the Treaty of Versailles was not universal enough: it did not include not only such large Asian countries as China, India and Japan, but also the United States, which, as you know, never joined the League of Nations and did not ratify Treaty of Versailles. The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations after the invasion of Finland.

The Second World War also involved in hostilities those countries that were not part of the Versailles Peace. This most terrible war in world history, which ended in the total defeat of Germany, Japan and their allies, created another modification of the Westphalian system of international relations - the Yalta-Potsdam world order, which was both its heyday and the beginning of its decline as an international system of united national sovereignties.

The main difference between the Yalta-Potsdam world order and the Versailles one was the formation - instead of the collapsed multipolar - bipolar world order, in which two superpowers - the USSR and the USA - dominated and competed with each other. And since they were the bearers of two different projects of world development (and even two different historical projects) - communist and capitalist - their rivalry from the very beginning acquired an acute ideological character of confrontation.

Immediately after World War II, this confrontation became known as the Cold War. At the same time, the US and the USSR acquired nuclear weapons, and such a confrontation developed into a very specific and hitherto unknown in world politics regime of interaction between the two subjects of confrontation - the regime of “mutual nuclear deterrence” or “mutual assured destruction”. The peak of the Cold War was the Caribbean Crisis of 1962, when the USSR and the USA were on the brink of nuclear war. This crisis, however, marked the beginning of nuclear disarmament and international detente.

Thus, the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations had a pronounced confrontational character, although the successful cooperation of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Second World War gave certain grounds for believing that the post-war world order would also become cooperative.

The dominance and significant military-strength separation of the two superpowers from all other countries of the world, the ideological nature of the confrontation, its totality (in all parts of the globe), the confrontational type of interaction, the competition between two projects of the world order and historical development forced all other countries of the world to make a tough choice between the two world poles.

Although the Yalta-Potsdam world order did not have a solid contractual and legal basis, the level of stability and manageability of the international system was very high. Stability was provided by a regime of mutual nuclear deterrence, which, among other things, made it vital for the two superpowers to have a strategic dialogue on arms control and disarmament and some other global security issues. And manageability was achieved by the fact that in order to resolve complex international issues, it was enough to coordinate the positions of only two main actors - the USSR and the USA.

The bipolar world collapsed in 1991, immediately after the collapse of the USSR. At the same time, the erosion of the Yalta-Potsdam world order began. It is from this time that the decline of the Westphalian system, eroded by the processes of globalization, becomes especially noticeable. These processes are inflicting more and more crushing blows on the foundation of the Westphalian system - national state sovereignty.

Chapter 1. Creation of the Yalta-Potsdam peace system, its essence and content

. Crimean (Yalta) Conference of the Heads of Government of the USSR, USA and Great Britain

After the end of the Tehran Conference, many important events took place on the fronts of the war. The Red Army completed the expulsion of the Nazis from the territory of the Eastern European states and created a springboard for the offensive on Berlin. The hour of the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition was approaching, in which the Soviet Union played an exceptional role, bearing the brunt of the war. The problems of the post-war structure were increasingly brought to the fore. In this situation, the meeting of the "Big Three" acquired special significance.

The goals of the allied powers at the conference were to coordinate plans for the defeat of Nazi Germany and to establish the foundations of the post-war world. Specifically, the conference was supposed to discuss issues related to the final defeat of fascist Germany, its unconditional surrender and future structure. It was also necessary to solve the reparations question; determine the general line of policy of the allied states in relation to the liberated countries of Europe; to resolve the issue of Poland's borders and its place in the post-war system of international relations. At the conference, it was necessary to resolve issues related to the creation of an international organization for the security and cooperation of peoples that had not been resolved in Dumbarton Oaks. In addition, the United States and Great Britain wanted to agree on the terms and conditions for the USSR to enter the war against militaristic Japan.

The Yalta Conference, which took place from February 7 to 11, 1945, occupied an important place in the diplomatic history of the Second World War. This was the second meeting of the leaders of the three great powers of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USSR, the USA and England, and, like the Tehran Conference, it was marked by the predominance of the tendency to develop agreed decisions both in organizing the final victory and in the field of post-war organization. According to US Secretary of State E. Stettinius, the Yalta Conference "was the most important meeting of the leaders of Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States during the war", during which "for the first time the three leaders reached fundamental agreements on post-war issues, in contrast to the usual statements about goals and intentions ".

Reports heard at the Crimean Conference on the situation on the fronts, made by the Chief of the General Staff of the USSR, General of the Army A.I. Antonov and the Chief of Staff of the US Army, General J. Marshall, confirmed the readiness of the army to inflict "strike from the east, west, north and south" on Germany. The conference participants confirmed that hostilities would be stopped only after the unconditional surrender of fascist Germany.

The main place at the conference was occupied by the political problems of the post-war settlement, and the Soviet side considered it expedient to begin it with a discussion of the question of Germany. In the statement adopted by the heads of government, referring to Germany, the goals of the allied occupation were clearly defined - "the destruction of German militarism and Nazism and the creation of guarantees that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the whole world." In addition, methods for achieving these goals were discussed - the elimination of the Wehrmacht, the military industry, taking control of the rest of Germany's industrial potential, the punishment of war criminals, compensation for losses to the victims of aggression, the destruction of the Nazi Party and its institutions, Nazi and militaristic ideology.

The Agreement on Occupation Zones and the Management of Greater Berlin agreed that the Soviet Union would occupy the eastern part of Germany, England the northwest, and the United States the southwest. The Allied Powers invited France to take part in the occupation of Germany, and she was allocated part of the British and American zones. "Greater Berlin" was part of the Soviet zone of occupation, but as the seat of the Control Commission, which has the functions of supreme power in Germany, it was subject to occupation by the troops of the three powers, but the admission of their troops to Berlin was not provided.

At the Crimean Conference, Britain and the United States again put forward plans for the dismemberment of Germany. Roosevelt said that breaking up Germany into five or even seven states was a good idea and that he saw no other way out.

Churchill was not so categorical. Nevertheless, as follows from the minutes, he expressed his general agreement with the idea expressed by Roosevelt, although he declined to support any specific plans. His position boiled down to the fact that unconditional surrender gives the Allied Powers the right to "determine the fate of Germany" themselves. In addition, at the suggestion of Churchill, supported by Roosevelt, it was decided to create a special committee on post-war questions in Germany, which was supposed to discuss the issue of dismemberment.

The Soviet delegation resolutely opposed the dismemberment of Germany and was in favor of the creation of a single, democratic, peace-loving German state. It should be noted that this position was defended both before and after the Yalta Conference. Stalin's order, published on February 23, 1942, dedicated to Red Army Day, noted: "It would be ridiculous to identify the Hitler clique with the German people, with the German state." The same order emphasized that the Soviet people and the Red Army "do not and cannot have racial hatred towards other peoples, including the German people." The same idea was present in Stalin's address to the people on May 9, 1945 in connection with the surrender of Nazi Germany. "The Soviet Union," the appeal said, "is triumphant, although it has no intention of either dismembering or destroying Germany."

As a result, the question of the future of Germany was referred to a special commission for study.

The next critical moment was the question of reparations: the British generally refused to talk about specific figures, and the Americans agreed to accept the value of 20 billion dollars proposed by the Soviet side (half of which was in favor of the USSR).

Of particular importance was the "Declaration on Liberated Europe" adopted at the conference, which established the agreed principles of the policy of the three powers in relation to the peoples liberated from the domination of fascist Germany and its former allies. The Declaration confirmed the right of all peoples liberated from fascism to destroy the last traces of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice, to freely choose their own form of government.

The Polish problem occupied an important place at the Crimean Conference. Significant disagreements arose at the meetings of the heads of government on the question of the future of Poland. As for the problem of the formation of the Polish government, the delimitation of positions was quite clear: Stalin sought recognition of the government of the "Warsaw Poles" (shortly before the conference, the provisional government moved to the capital of Poland, liberated by the Red Army), Churchill and Roosevelt - its practical elimination and restoration of the powers of the London government in exile with the possible inclusion of "Warsawians" in it. After lengthy disputes, a compromise agreement was reached, which provided for the "reorganization" of the Polish government with the inclusion of figures from Poland itself and Poles from abroad, that is, representatives of the "Londoners".

At the same time, the question of the borders of Poland was considered. Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to force Stalin to change the "Curzon Line" in important areas in favor of Poland. Thus, the US President proposed to leave the city of Lvov and part of the oil fields in the southern part of Eastern Poland to Poland. Churchill first reiterated the British agreement with the new Russian western frontier: "The Soviet Union's claim to this area is based not on violence, but on law." After that, he began to lead Stalin to adjust the borders in the spirit of the proposals of the President of the United States. The Premier said that if the Soviet Union made a generous gesture towards a weaker power, then England would admire Soviet behavior and would welcome it.

Stalin demonstrated complete intransigence and uncompromisingness by declaring: - The "Curzon Line" was determined by Curzon, Clemenceau and those Americans who took part in the peace conference from 1918 to 1919. The Russians were not invited there and therefore did not participate in it. Lenin did not accept the Curzon Line. Now, according to some people, we have become less Russian than Curzon and Clemenceau were. We should be ashamed now. What will Ukrainians and Belarusians say about this? They will say that Stalin and Molotov defend Russia worse than Curzon and Clemenceau.

As for the western borders of Poland, no final decision was made, but the heads of the three governments recognized that "Poland must receive significant increases in territory in the north and west." At the same time, the need was recognized to include East Prussia to the west and south of Koenigsberg, Danzig and the “Polish corridor”, the Baltic coast between Danzig and Stettin, lands east of the Oder and Upper Silesia into the Polish state.

At the Yalta Conference, an agreement was reached on a key issue in the creation of the United Nations - the procedure for voting in the Security Council. The Soviet delegation agreed to meet the American proposals and allowed deviations from the principle of unanimity in the peaceful settlement of disputes. This was an important concession on the Soviet side. The Soviet delegation also withdrew its proposal for the participation in the UN of all the union republics and limited itself to two of them - Ukraine and Belarus.

Then it was decided to convene on April 25, 1945. United Nations conference in San Francisco to prepare and adopt the UN Charter.

At a conference in the Crimea, an agreement between the three great powers on the Far East was discussed in detail and signed. It provided for the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan, since this created the decisive preconditions for the defeat of their dangerous enemy in the Far East. US Secretary of State E. Stettinius writes “about the enormous pressure exerted on the president by military leaders in order to achieve Russia's entry into the war in the Far East. At that time, the atomic bomb was still an unknown quantity, and our defeat in the battle of the ledge was fresh in everyone's memory. We still haven't crossed the Rhine. No one knew how long the European war would last, or how great the losses would be.

In an effort to reduce American casualties in the operation, the US Chiefs of Staff, in a memorandum addressed to the President, dated January 23, 1945, stated: “The entry of Russia (in the war against Japan) ... is absolutely necessary to provide maximum assistance to our actions in the Pacific. The United States will provide the greatest possible support that our main effort against Japan allows. The objectives of Russian military efforts against Japan in the Far East should be the defeat of Japanese forces in Manchuria, air operations against Japan proper in cooperation with the United States Air Force based in Eastern Siberia, and maximum interference with Japanese shipping between Japan and the Asian continent.

The USSR, giving its consent to go to war with Japan, pursued the goal of destroying the most dangerous center of aggression in the Far East, eliminating the consequences of Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, assisting the peoples of Asia, primarily the Chinese people, in their struggle against Japanese aggressors, as well as to fulfill the allied duty towards the United States and Great Britain. The Soviet Union agreed to enter the war against imperialist Japan two to three months after the end of the war in Europe on the terms:

1.Maintaining the status quo of Outer Mongolia (Mongolian People's Republic).

2.Restoration of the rights belonging to Russia, violated by the perfidious attack of Japan in 1904, namely:

a) return of the southern part of about. Sakhalin and all adjacent islands;

b) the internationalization of the commercial port of Dairen with the provision of the predominant interests of the Soviet Union in this port and the restoration of the lease on Port Arthur as a naval base of the USSR;

c) joint operation with China of the Chinese-Eastern and South-Manchurian railways, giving access to Dairen, while maintaining China's sovereignty in Manchuria.

USSR transfers of the Kuril Islands

The document further stated that an agreement regarding Outer Mongolia of the above ports and railways would require the consent of the Chinese side and that "the claims of the Soviet Union must be unconditionally satisfied after the victory over Japan."

Thus, at the Crimean Conference, the allies coordinated not only their policy, but also their military plans, successfully resolved the most important issues of warfare and the post-war world order, which contributed to strengthening the anti-fascist coalition at the final stage of the war and achieving victory over Nazi Germany.

2. Potsdam Conference of the Three Powers

After the signing of the Act of Unconditional Surrender in Germany, there was no state power for some time. The four powers recognized the need for joint government of Germany. To this end, on June 5, 1945, representatives of the USSR, the USA and France signed in Berlin the "Declaration on the defeat of Germany" and the assumption of supreme power in relation to Germany by the governments of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The Declaration demanded from Germany, in accordance with its unconditional surrender, a complete cessation of hostilities, the surrender of weapons, the extradition of Nazi leaders and war criminals, and the return of all prisoners of war. The Declaration of the Defeat of Germany served as a legal document for the legislative and administrative activities carried out by the occupying authorities on German territory in the early post-war years.

From April 25 to June 26, 1945, a founding conference on the creation of the United Nations (UN) was held in San Francisco to maintain general peace and security of peoples and develop cooperation between states in various fields. The conference was attended by 50 states, the only issue on the agenda of the conference was the development of the Charter of the United Nations. A sharp struggle unfolded, mainly on questions about the goals and principles of the UN; about the role and place in the UN system of the Security Council and the General Assembly; about their rights and the procedure for their decision-making; about the International Court of Justice; on the international guardianship system.

June conference in San Francisco completed its work with the adoption of the UN Charter. In doing so, it established an international organization for the maintenance of peace and the security of peoples. The UN Charter recognizes the principle of peaceful coexistence between states of two social systems; equality and self-determination of peoples; principles of international cooperation and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states; settlement of international disputes by peaceful means; refraining from the threat of force and the use of force. The creation of the UN became possible as a result of the victory of the peoples of the anti-Hitler coalition in the war against the fascist bloc and was a major international event.

The last conference of the heads of government of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain during the war took place on July 17 - August 2, 1945 in the Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam (a suburb of Berlin). The USSR delegation was headed by I.V. Stalin, USA - G. Truman, Great Britain - W. Churchill (since July 28 - K. Attlee). The task of the Berlin Conference was to consolidate in its decisions the historic victory of the Soviet Union and other allied countries over fascist Germany, to solve the main problems of the post-war settlement, to work out a program for a just and lasting peace in Europe, to prevent new aggression from Germany and to consider questions associated with the war against Japan.

The conference in Potsdam was held against the backdrop of a new balance of power in the international arena, which was characterized, on the one hand, by the growth of the prestige and influence of the USSR as the main winner in the war against Nazi Germany, and, on the other, by a qualitative leap in strengthening the military potential of the United States as a result of the acquisition of atomic weapons, which, however, was somewhat offset by the situation in the sphere of ideology: socialist tendencies were strong in Europe, and the American model of free enterprise was not popular. Anti-Soviet tendencies noticeably intensified in the policy of the ruling circles of the USA and Great Britain, which was caused by the growth of the international prestige of the USSR, but, in the final analysis, the tendency towards a reasonable compromise prevailed at the conference.

For the Soviet side, the most important thing was to achieve coordinated and clear decisions on the German problem, to make up for what had been lost in this regard at Yalta. It was about fixing the eastern border of Germany, reparations, punishing the leaders of the defeated Reich, concretizing the program for restructuring the political system in Germany. The easiest way was to achieve unity of views on the last point.

In Potsdam, political and economic principles were adopted aimed at the implementation of the demilitarization, denazification, democratization and decartelization of Germany. This program, called "4D", gave quite clear guidelines for the elimination of the "German threat" in the future. First of all, it provided for the complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany, the liquidation of all German industry that could be used for military production, the abolition of all its land, sea and air forces, the SS, SA, SD, Gestapo, General Staff and all other military organizations.

The Potsdam Accords also proclaimed the need for the denazification and democratization of Germany. The agreement called for the destruction of the National Socialist Party, the dissolution of all Nazi institutions and organizations, the punishment of war criminals, the prevention of Nazi and militaristic propaganda, and the provision of conditions that ruled out the revival of fascism in any form.

Provision was made for the reorganization of German political life on a democratic basis in order to prepare the country for peaceful international cooperation. The agreement provided for the implementation of measures to democratize Germany: the abolition of all racial and discriminatory laws issued by the Nazi government, the restoration of local self-government, the activities of all democratic parties, trade unions and other public organizations, preparations for the final reconstruction of German political life on a democratic basis and the peaceful cooperation of Germany with other states.

As for decartelization, the Allies decided to liquidate the German monopolies, which were the bearers of militarism and revanchism, and the entire German industry should be transferred to a peaceful track. The representatives of the three powers agreed that during the period of occupation, Germany should be considered as a single economic entity.

Relatively easily in Potsdam, important points relating to the creation of an International Tribunal for the trial of the main Nazi war criminals were agreed. The solution to this problem was prepared by the extensive preliminary work of the representatives of the four powers, which began as early as 1942.

The Potsdam Conference considered a number of territorial issues related to the end of the war in Europe, including the transfer of the city of Konigsberg and the area adjacent to it to the USSR, which was enshrined in the decisions of the conference. In accordance with the proposal of the Soviet delegation, the issue of establishing the western border of Poland along the line of the river was resolved. Oder - r. Western Neisse. Poland included part of the territory of East Prussia, as well as the city of Danzig (Gdansk). Thus, according to the implementation of the decisions of the Yalta Conference, Poland received "a significant increase in the territory in the north and west."

The conference reached an agreement on reparations with Germany, which established that the reparations claims of the USSR would be satisfied by withdrawals from the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany and from the corresponding German investments abroad. In addition, it was decided that the USSR should receive from the western zones 25% of the industrial capital equipment seized for reparation purposes. At the conference, it was also decided to divide the German navy and merchant fleet equally among the three powers (most of the submarines, at the suggestion of England, were to be sunk). As a result of the division of the German fleet, the USSR received 155 warships, including the Nuremberg cruiser, four destroyers, six destroyers and several submarines.

At the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union reaffirmed the commitment made at the Yalta Conference to go to war with Japan. The extreme interest of the United States in helping the USSR in the war against militarist Japan undoubtedly contributed to a more successful solution of the complex problems that arose in Potsdam.

Despite serious disagreements on a number of issues, the conference showed the possibility of a positive solution to complex international problems. In this regard, the testimony of I. Berlin, who was appointed in August 1945 to work at the US Embassy in Moscow, is also very revealing. “The Potsdam Conference,” he wrote, “did not lead to an open rupture between the Allies. Despite gloomy forecasts in some circles in the West, the general mood in official Washington and London was optimistic: the exceptional courage and heavy sacrifices of the Soviet people in the war against Hitler generated a powerful wave of sympathy for their country, which in the second half of 1945 overwhelmed many critics of the Soviet system and its methods; there was a broad and fervent desire for cooperation and mutual understanding at all levels.”

It should be noted that the Potsdam Conference went down in history as an event of great international significance, its decisions were the basis of the post-war peace order in Europe. They have full legal force in terms of international law. Their implementation is mandatory for all participants of the conference, as well as those countries that are directly or indirectly affected by its decisions.

Chapter 2. Development of the Yalta-Potsdam peace system. System stability and nuclear factor

The post-war world order was supposed to be based on the idea of cooperation between the victorious powers and maintaining their agreement in the interests of such cooperation. The role of the mechanism for the development of this consent was assigned to the United Nations, whose Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 and entered into force in October of the same year. He proclaimed the goals of the UN not only to maintain international peace, but also to promote the realization of the rights of countries and peoples to self-determination and free development, to encourage equal economic and cultural cooperation, to cultivate respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms of the individual. The UN was destined to play the role of a world center for coordinating efforts in the interests of excluding wars and conflicts from international relations by harmonizing relations between states.

But the UN was faced with the impossibility of ensuring the compatibility of the interests of its leading members - the USSR and the USA, because of the sharpness of the contradictions that arose between them. That is why, in fact, the main function of the UN, which it successfully coped with within the framework of the Yalta-Potsdam order, was not the improvement of international reality and the promotion of morality and justice, but the prevention of a military clash between the USSR and the USA, stability between which was the main condition for international peace in the world. throughout the second half of the 20th century.

By the beginning of the 1950s, the bipolar confrontation had only just begun to spread to the periphery of the international system. It was not felt at all in Latin America and little in the Middle East, where the USSR and the USA acted more often in parallel than against each other. The Korean War played a key role in the "export of bipolarity", that is, in its spread from Europe to other parts of the world. This created the prerequisites for the emergence of hotbeds of Soviet-American confrontation on the periphery of the international system.

In the mid-1950s, the world military-strategic situation changed radically. The Soviet Union has largely eliminated its backlog from the United States in the field of defense. In the world, there was a change in the correlation of geopolitical positions between the old colonial powers (Britain, France, the Netherlands) and both superpowers. There has actually been an equalization of the significance of European and non-European issues in international relations and dialogue between the two superpowers.

By the autumn of 1962, tensions in the post-war international system were at their peak. The world has actually found itself on the brink of a general nuclear war. From the "third world war" the world was kept only by fear of the use of super-powerful atomic weapons. The Caribbean crisis became the highest point of military-strategic instability in international relations throughout the second half of the 20th century.

The end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s were generally characterized by a weakening of international tension at the global level and in the European direction of world politics. In fact, for the first time in the international relations of the 20th century, the principle of the status quo gained universal recognition, despite the ideological differences between East and West. This trend has come to be known as the détente, or simply détente.

The bipolarity of the Yalta-Potsdam system provided it with a certain stability. The two poles, the guarantors of the system, balanced each other, maintained its overall balance, controlled the allies, and regulated the conflicts that arose to one degree or another. Both powers, with all the deepest contradictions, were interested in preserving the "rules of the game" inherent in the existing system.

A characteristic feature of the Yalta-Potsdam system was the tacit mutual recognition by the superpowers of their spheres of influence. More precisely, it was about the recognition by the West of the sphere of influence of the USSR, because outside it, in one form or another, the influence of the West prevailed. Discussing with G. Dimitrov in August 1945 the decisions of the Potsdam Conference regarding Bulgaria and the Balkans as a whole, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. Molotov noted: “Basically, these decisions are beneficial to us. In fact, this sphere of influence is recognized for us.” Determination of the boundaries of the Soviet sphere of influence took place in a tense struggle, through a series of foreign policy clashes. However, after the end of the split in Europe, the West did not interfere in the events in the "socialist community" even during acute political crises (Hungary - 1956, Czechoslovakia - 1968, etc.). The situation was more complicated in the "third world", in the countries of the intermediate zone. It was anti-colonialism, combined with the desire of the USSR to assert its influence in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, that gave rise to a number of serious international conflicts from the mid-1950s.

The nuclear factor played an important role in the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations. The United States was the first to possess nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union became the owner of the atomic bomb in August 1949, this was announced in September. Great Britain - 1952, France - 1960, People's Republic of China - 1964 also became members of the "atomic club".

Thus, the US had an atomic monopoly from 1945 to 1949. But even during this period, American atomic weapons, combined with the means of their delivery (strategic bombers), did not create a real possibility for the US victory in a new world war. Therefore, even then, the atomic bomb rather reinforced American foreign policy, made it tougher and more assertive. At the same time, the Stalinist leadership sought to demonstrate that it was not too accommodating to American atomic pressure, which made Soviet foreign policy less prone to compromise. Nuclear weapons contributed to the genesis of the confrontation between the US and the USSR, to the formation of a bipolar system. A strategic arms race unfolded and became an integral part of the post-war international order.

The situation changed noticeably after 1949, when both the USA and the USSR became the owners of nuclear arsenals. Significant new elements have appeared in the situation since 1957, with the successful launch of the first Soviet artificial Earth satellite, when the Soviet Union began production of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting US territory. Nuclear weapons have become a tool of "deterrence". Neither of the two superpowers could risk a large-scale conflict in the face of a retaliatory strike capable of causing unacceptable damage. The USSR and the USA, as it were, blocked each other, both powers sought to prevent a major war.

Nuclear weapons introduced qualitatively new elements into international relations. Its use threatened the destruction of a huge number of people and colossal destruction. In addition, its impact on the atmosphere and radioactive contamination of the area could have a detrimental effect on vast regions of the globe and on the planet as a whole.

The possibility of using nuclear weapons forced us to reconsider the classic formula of the German military theorist of the 19th century. K. Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of politics by other means." Achieving the set political goals by war turned out to be impossible. Nuclear potentials had a stabilizing effect on the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations. They have helped to prevent the dangerous escalation of conflicts that in the past often led to war. Nuclear weapons have had a sobering effect on politicians of all sizes and levels of responsibility. It forced the leaders of the most powerful states to measure their actions against the threat of a global catastrophe that would not spare anyone living on Earth.

At the same time, stability within the framework of the Yalta-Potsdam system was unstable and fragile. It was based on the balance of fear and was achieved through conflicts, crises, local wars, through a devastating arms race. This was the undoubted danger of a nuclear-missile arms race. And yet, the Yalta-Potsdam system proved to be more stable than the Versailles-Washington one, and did not give rise to a major war.

Yalta Potsdam Nuclear Deterrence

Chapter 3. The collapse of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, causes, results

December 8<#"justify">1.In Western political science literature, one can often come across the assertion that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused by its defeat in the Cold War. Such views are especially prevalent in Western Europe, and most of all in the United States, where they have replaced the initial amazement caused by the rapid collapse of communist regimes. In such a system of views, the main thing is the desire to take advantage of the “fruits of victory”. Not surprisingly, the US and its NATO allies are increasingly outspoken in winning style. Politically, this trend is extremely dangerous. In scientific terms, however, it is untenable, because it reduces the whole problem to an external factor.

2.Of great interest are the points of view expressed at the major international conference "The Causes of the Collapse of the Soviet Union and Its Influence on Europe" held in Beijing in May 2000 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The convening of such a conference in China was not accidental. The Chinese leadership, which began its “perestroika” back in 1979 and achieved impressive economic success, was deeply puzzled by the socio-political upheavals in Eastern Europe, and then in the Soviet Union. It was then that Chinese scientists began to implement the "Russian project" in order to find out the reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the socialist community, as well as to assess their impact on Europe and the world. Chinese scientists believe that the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy for all mankind, which turned out to be thrown back a whole era back in its development. Moreover, such an assessment is given not from the standpoint of classical Marxism, but on the basis of an analysis of the consequences of the changes that have taken place. In their opinion, it was the largest cataclysm of the twentieth century.

.There is also an opinion that the collapse of the Union did not take place at all in December 1991, but much earlier. So, according to Sergey Shakhrai, "Three doctors - and not a surgeon, but a pathologist - simply gathered at the bedside of the deceased to record his death. Someone had to do this, because otherwise it was impossible to obtain an official certificate or enter into inheritance rights ". Sergei Shakhrai names three factors as the reasons for the destruction of the "Unbreakable Union". The first "delayed-action mine," according to him, was dormant for decades in that article of the Soviet Constitution, which gave the union republics the right to freely secede from the USSR. The second reason is the “information virus” of envy, which manifested itself in full force in the late 80s and early 90s: in the conditions of the most severe crisis in Tbilisi and Vilnius they said: “Stop working for Moscow”, in the Urals they demanded to stop “feeding” the republics Central Asia, while Moscow blamed the suburbs for "everything goes into them like into a black hole." The third reason, according to Shakhrai, was the processes of so-called autonomization. By the early 1990s, perestroika fizzled out. The political weakening of the center, the flow of power to the "lower levels", the rivalry between Yeltsin and Gorbachev for political leadership - all this was fraught with the transformation of the map of the RSFSR into a "piece of cheese" with huge holes, the loss of 51 percent of the territory of Russia and almost 20 million of its population. The monolith of the CPSU began to crack: the last straw was the August coup of 1991. From August to December 1991, 13 of the 15 union republics declared their independence.

The Yalta-Potsdam order, which was based on the regulated confrontation between the USSR and the USA, the status quo in the military-political and political-diplomatic areas, began to collapse. Both powers - for opposite reasons - went over to its revision. The issue of a coordinated reform of the Yalta-Potsdam order arose on the agenda, the participants of which, however, were no longer equal in power and influence.

The Russian Federation, which became the successor state and successor of the USSR, could not perform the functions inherent in the Soviet Union as one of the pillars of bipolarity, because it did not have the necessary resources for this.

Tendencies towards unification and rapprochement of the former socialist and capitalist countries began to develop in international relations, and the international system as a whole began to develop the features of a “global society”. This process was fraught with new acute problems and contradictions.

Conclusion

The destruction of the Soviet Union completely changed the nature of international interaction. The watershed between the two opposing blocs disappeared. The subsystem of international relations, the basis of which was the "socialist camp", ceased to exist. The peculiarity of this grandiose transformation was its predominantly peaceful character. The collapse of the USSR was accompanied by conflicts, but none of them resulted in a major war that could threaten the overall peace in Europe or Asia. Global stability has been preserved. Universal peace and overcoming the half-century split of the international system were secured at the price of the destruction of multinational states.

The democratization of a large group of former socialist countries became the most important feature of international relations for almost a decade. But their other characteristic was the fall in the controllability of the international system, which resulted in a crisis of world-system regulation in the first half of the 1990s. The old mechanisms of international governance were based on "confrontation by rules" between the USSR and the USA and the observance by their allies of "bloc discipline" - rules of conduct based on the principle of "equalizing with the elder" within the framework of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The cessation of confrontation and the disintegration of the WTO undermined the effectiveness of such a system. one

The UN-based regulation, which had previously been ineffective, in the new conditions coped with the tasks of ensuring peace even less successfully. The UN, in the form in which it was formed, was adapted mainly to prevent war between the great powers.

In international relations, the role of force began to grow again. Its importance increased for two reasons. First, the collapse of bipolarity caused the emergence of a number of relatively small, but numerous armed conflicts - primarily on the territory of former multinational states. Secondly, the United States and NATO countries, not fearing the opposition of the Soviet Union, began to use force more widely to defend their interests in regional and local conflicts, doing this under the slogans of supporting democracy and protecting human rights. By the mid-1990s, peacekeeping began to occupy a large place in international relations, which meant the use by the countries of the international community of various, including forceful, measures to stop bloodshed in individual conflicts.

The first half of the 1990s was the final phase of the disintegration of the bipolar system, in other words, the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations. Despite the outbreak of dispersed conflict, a new world war did not arise, and the threat of its unleashing was not visible at any of the most tense moments in international development in 1991-1996. This was the first time in centuries that a radical reconfiguration of the international system did not involve extensive armed conflict.1

By the end of the period under review, it became obvious that the Russian Federation does not have the resources to oppose the United States and does not show any intention to oppose the West in international relations. On the contrary, she strove for cooperation with him, even if the conditions thereof did not correspond much to her national interests. At the same time, it was obvious that China, which in the United States began to be regarded as the main competitor in international politics, did not accumulate the potential that would allow it to play the role in international relations that it had in 1945-1991. occupied by the Soviet Union - the role of a counterweight to the United States.

The second half of the 1990s was marked by an increase in the interdependence of the states of the world as a result of a sharp increase in the intensity of international financial, economic, trade and related political ties between them, a gigantic increase in the volume of world information flows, and tremendous progress in the means of communication. The liquidation of the global political division of the times of bipolarity gave these ties a truly global character. All these trends, which led to the emergence of a new state of the international system, began to be described using the term "globalization".

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Occurred within two international orders- first bipolar (1945-1991), then unipolar, which began to form after collapse of the USSR. The first one is known in the literature as the Yalta-Potsdam conference, after the names of two key international conferences (in Yalta February 4-11, 1945 and in Potsdam July 17 - August 2, 1945), at which the leaders of the three main powers of the anti-Hitler coalition (USSR, USA and Great Britain) formed the post-war world order.

The Yalta-Potsdam system had a number of important features.

1) It did not have a solid legal framework. The agreements underlying it were either verbal, not officially recorded and remained secret for a long time, or declarative. Unlike Versailles Conference, which formed a powerful legal system, neither the Yalta Conference nor the Potsdam Conference led to the signing of international treaties.

This made the Yalta-Potsdam principles vulnerable to criticism and dependent on the ability of the interested parties to ensure their actual implementation by methods of economic and military-political pressure. The element of regulation of international relations by force or its threat was more pronounced in the post-war decades than in the 1920s. Nevertheless, the Yalta-Potsdam order survived (unlike Versailles And Washington) for more than half a century and collapsed with the collapse of the USSR.

2) The Yalta-Potsdam system was bipolar. After the Second World War, the USSR and the USA sharply broke away in power and influence from all other states. The multipolarity of the world has disappeared.

3) The post-war order was confrontational- the main characteristic of this era was cold war. Only in 1985-1991, during the years of " new political thinking» M. S. Gorbacheva, he began to transform into cooperative bipolarity, but it did not strengthen due to the destruction of the USSR.

In conditions confrontations relations between the USSR and the USA sometimes reached sharp conflicts, threatening even a nuclear war. This gave rise in the second half of the 20th century. arms race on an unprecedented scale.

4) Post-war bipolarity took the form of an ideological confrontation between the "free world" led by the United States and the "socialist camp" led by the Soviet Union. It looked like a confrontation between ideals and moral values: equality and egalitarian justice, on the one hand, and freedom, competition and democracy, on the other.

Soviet propaganda attributed to the United States the dream of destroying the socialist system, and American propaganda attributed to Moscow the intention to spread communism throughout the world. However, the ideological confrontation softened over time, being increasingly replaced in practice by geopolitical arguments.

5) The Yalta-Potsdam system took shape in the era of nuclear weapons, which contributed to the emergence in the second half of the 1960s of a mechanism for preventing a world nuclear war - the “confrontational stability” model. The USSR and the USA began to avoid situations that could provoke an armed conflict between them. The concept of mutual nuclear deterrence and the doctrines of strategic stability based on it on the basis of the "balance of fear" were formed.

6) The Yalta-Potsdam system was distinguished by a high degree of controllability of international processes. As a bipolar system, it was based on the agreement of the opinions of only two powers, which simplified the negotiations. The USA and the USSR acted not only as separate states, but also as group leaders - NATO And Warsaw Pact, which they managed to subdue quite rigidly.

The collapse of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, causes, results

On December 8, 1991, the heads of 3 republics - Belarus, Russia and Ukraine - at a meeting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (Belarus) announced that the USSR was ceasing to exist and signed the Agreement on the Creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The signing of the agreements caused a negative reaction of the population. On December 11, the USSR Committee for Constitutional Supervision issued a statement condemning the Belovezhskaya Accord, but this statement had no practical consequences.

On December 12, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, chaired by R. I. Khasbulatov, ratified the Belovezhskaya Accords and decided to denounce the RSFSR union treaty of 1922 (a number of lawyers believe that the denunciation of this treaty was pointless, since it became invalid in 1936 with the adoption of the USSR constitution) and about the recall of Russian deputies from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (without convening a Congress, which can be regarded as a violation of the Constitution of the RSFSR in force at that time). As a result of the recall of the deputies, the Council of the Union lost its quorum.

On December 16, the last republic of the USSR - Kazakhstan - declared its independence. Thus, in the last 10 days of its existence, the USSR, which had not yet been legally abolished, was in fact a state without territory.

On December 17, the Chairman of the Council of the Union, K. D. Lubenchenko, stated the absence of a quorum at the meeting. The Council of the Union, renamed the Meeting of Deputies, turned to the Supreme Council of Russia with a request to at least temporarily cancel the decision to recall Russian deputies so that the Council of the Union could resign itself. This appeal was ignored.

On December 21, 1991, at a meeting of presidents in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, 8 more republics joined the CIS: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, the so-called Alma-Ata agreement was signed, which became the basis of the CIS.

The CIS was founded not as a confederation, but as an international (interstate) organization, which is still characterized by weak integration and the absence of real power in the coordinating supranational bodies. However, membership even in such an organization was rejected by the Baltic republics, as well as at first by Georgia (it joined the CIS only in October 1993 during the struggle for power between supporters of Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Eduard Shevardnadze).

The authorities of the USSR and the USSR as a subject of international law ceased to exist on December 25-26, 1991. Russia declared itself the successor of the USSR membership (and not the assignee, as is often erroneously indicated) in international institutions, assumed the debts and assets of the USSR and declared itself the owner of everything property of the USSR abroad. According to data provided by the Russian Federation, at the end of 1991 the liabilities of the former Soviet Union were estimated at $93.7 billion and assets at $110.1 billion. Vnesheconombank's deposits amounted to about $700 million. The so-called "zero option", according to which the Russian Federation became the legal successor of the former Soviet Union in terms of external debt and assets, including foreign property, was not ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

On December 25, the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev announced the termination of his activities as President of the USSR "for reasons of principle", signed a decree resigning as the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Armed Forces and transferred control of strategic nuclear weapons to the President of Russia B. Yeltsin.

On December 26, the session of the upper house of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which retained the quorum of the Council of the Republics, from which at that time only representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were not withdrawn, adopted under the chairmanship of A. Alimzhanov a declaration on the demise of the USSR, as well as a number of others documents (decree on the dismissal of judges of the Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Courts of the USSR and the Collegium of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, resolutions on the dismissal of the chairman of the State Bank V. V. Gerashchenko and his first deputy V. N. Kulikov). December 26, 1991 is considered the day the USSR ceased to exist, although some institutions and organizations of the USSR (for example, the USSR State Standard) still continued to function for several months, and, for example, the USSR Constitutional Supervision Committee was not officially dissolved at all.

There are different opinions of various political scientists about the reasons for the breakdown of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations: the collapse of the USSR, the collapse of the military-strategic bloc of the Warsaw Pact, fundamental changes in the countries of Eastern Europe and the states of the former USSR, the formation of a number of independent states in these territories, the unification of Germany, as well as the end of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA.

According to the author of this term paper, the main reason for the breakdown of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations is the collapse of the USSR, since this system of international relations was called "bipolar", that is, the world was actually split into two blocks formed on the basis of military and political superiority two superpowers - the USSR and the USA over the rest of the countries, which was determined primarily by the presence of nuclear weapons, which guaranteed multiple mutual destruction. The cessation of the existence of one of the superpowers, in this case the USSR, caused the breakdown of the system of international relations that was formed after the end of World War II.

As for the collapse of the USSR, in this case, as well as in the case of the collapse of the Yalta-Potsdam system, there is a variety of opinions:

1. In Western political science literature, one can often come across the assertion that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused by its defeat in the Cold War. Such views are especially prevalent in Western Europe, and most of all in the United States, where they have replaced the initial amazement caused by the rapid collapse of communist regimes. In such a system of views, the main thing is the desire to take advantage of the “fruits of victory”. Not surprisingly, the US and its NATO allies are increasingly outspoken in winning style. Politically, this trend is extremely dangerous. In scientific terms, however, it is untenable, because it reduces the whole problem to an external factor.

2. Of great interest are the points of view expressed at the major international conference "The causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its impact on Europe", held in Beijing in May 2000 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The convening of such a conference in China was not accidental. The Chinese leadership, which began its “perestroika” back in 1979 and achieved impressive economic success, was deeply puzzled by the socio-political upheavals in Eastern Europe, and then in the Soviet Union. It was then that Chinese scientists began to implement the "Russian project" in order to find out the reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the socialist community, as well as to assess their impact on Europe and the world. Chinese scientists believe that the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy for all mankind, which turned out to be thrown back a whole era back in its development. Moreover, such an assessment is given not from the standpoint of classical Marxism, but on the basis of an analysis of the consequences of the changes that have taken place. In their opinion, it was the largest cataclysm of the twentieth century.

3. There is also an opinion that the collapse of the Union did not take place at all in December 1991, but much earlier. So, according to Sergey Shakhrai, "Three doctors - and not a surgeon, but a pathologist - simply gathered at the bedside of the deceased to record his death. Someone had to do this, because otherwise it was impossible to obtain an official certificate or enter into inheritance rights ". Sergei Shakhrai names three factors as the reasons for the destruction of the "Unbreakable Union". The first "delayed-action mine," according to him, was dormant for decades in that article of the Soviet Constitution, which gave the union republics the right to freely secede from the USSR. The second reason is the "information virus" of envy, which manifested itself in full force in the late 80s - early 90s: in the conditions of the most severe crisis in Tbilisi and Vilnius they said: "Stop working for Moscow", in the Urals they demanded to stop "feeding" the republics Central Asia, while Moscow blamed the suburbs for "everything goes into them like into a black hole." The third reason, according to Shakhrai, was the processes of so-called autonomization. By the early 1990s, perestroika fizzled out. The political weakening of the center, the flow of power to the "lower levels", the rivalry between Yeltsin and Gorbachev for political leadership - all this was fraught with the transformation of the map of the RSFSR into a "piece of cheese" with huge holes, the loss of 51 percent of the territory of Russia and almost 20 million of its population. The monolith of the CPSU began to crack: the last straw was the August coup of 1991. From August to December 1991, 13 of the 15 union republics declared their independence.

Yalta-Potsdam system
Yalta Conference (February 4-11, 1945) and Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945)
The main feature of this system was "bipolarity" based on the military-political superiority of the two superpowers (SuperPower) - the USSR and the USA, which was determined mainly by the presence of nuclear weapons. There was a formation of military-political blocs around them. The UN was created, the goals of which were (and remain) the following points:
"maintain international peace and security...
to develop friendly relations between nations on the basis of respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples...
to carry out international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian nature and in promoting and developing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion...
to be the center for harmonizing the actions of nations and for the achievement of these common aims."

The concept of "balance of power" (in the Cold War, in particular) became one of the key elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations.
In general, the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, according to the estimates of the domestic researcher A.D. Bogaturov, is characterized by:
the absence (unlike, for example, of the Versailles-Washington system) of a powerful legal base, which made it very vulnerable to criticism;
bipolarity based on the military-political superiority of the two superpowers (the USSR and the USA)
confrontation, which meant that the parties constantly opposed their actions to each other. Competition, rivalry, and not cooperation between blocs were the leading characteristics of the relationship;
having nuclear weapons
political and ideological confrontation between West and East
a relatively high degree of controllability of international processes due to the fact that it was necessary to coordinate the positions of only two superpowers.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that, as M. M. Narinsky notes, “the bipolarity of the Yalta-Potsdam system was not absolute, the USSR and the USA could not control all the subjects and events of international life.”

For the first time, the issue of a post-war settlement at the highest level was raised during the Tehran Conference in 1943, where even then the strengthening of the position of the two powers - the USSR and the USA, which were increasingly taking a decisive role in determining the parameters of the post-war world. That is, even during the war, the prerequisites for the formation of the foundations of the future bipolar world are emerging. This trend was fully manifested already at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, when the two superpowers of the USSR and the USA played the main role in solving the key problems associated with the formation of a new model of Defense Ministry.

The Potsdam era is characterized by an extreme ideologization of international relations, as well as the constant threat of a direct military confrontation between the USSR and the USA.

The end of the Potsdam era was marked by the collapse of the world socialist camp, following a failed attempt to reform the economy of the Soviet Union, and was sealed by the Belovezhskaya Accords of 1991.

Peculiarities

The multipolar organization of the structure of international relations was liquidated, and a bipolar structure of post-war MODs arose, in which two superstates, the USSR and the USA, played the leading role. A significant separation of the military, political, economic, cultural and ideological capabilities of these two powers from other countries of the world led to the formation of two main, dominant "centers of power" that had a system-forming influence on the structure and nature of the entire international system.

confrontational character - a systemic, complex confrontation in the economic, political, military, ideological and other spheres, a confrontation that from time to time acquired the character of an acute conflict, crisis interaction. This type of confrontation in the format of mutual threats to use force, balancing on the brink of a real war, was called the Cold War.

Post-war bipolarity took shape in the era of nuclear weapons, which led to a revolution in both military and political strategies.

The distribution of the world into the sphere of influence of two superstates both in Europe and on the periphery, the emergence of "divided" countries (Germany, Korea, Vietnam, China) and the formation of military-political blocs, under the leadership of the USSR and the USA, led to globalization and in-depth geopolitical structuring of the system opposition and confrontation.

Post-war bipolarity took the form of a political and ideological confrontation, an ideological confrontation between the "free world" of Western democracies led by the United States and the "socialist world" led by the USSR. The USA wanted to establish American hegemony in the world under the slogan "Pax Americana", the USSR - asserted the inevitability of the victory of socialism on a world scale. Ideological confrontation, the "struggle of ideas", led to the mutual demonization of the opposite side and remained an important feature of the post-war system of the Defense Ministry. The Soviet-American confrontation looked primarily as a rivalry between a system of political and ethical ideals, social and moral principles.

The post-war world has ceased to be predominantly Eurocentric, the international system has turned into a global, global one. The destruction of colonial systems, the formation of regional and subregional subsystems of international relations was carried out under the dominant influence of the horizontal spread of the systemic bipolar confrontation and the trends of economic and political globalization.

The Yalta-Potsdam order did not have a strong contractual and legal basis. The agreements that formed the basis of the post-war order were either oral, not officially recorded, or were fixed mainly in a declarative form, or their full implementation was blocked as a result of the sharpness of contradictions and confrontation between the main subjects of post-war international relations.

The UN, one of the central elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system, became the main mechanism for coordinating efforts to exclude wars and conflicts from international life by harmonizing relations between states and creating a global system of collective security. Post-war realities, the intransigence of confrontational relations between the USSR and the USA significantly limited the ability of the UN to realize its statutory functions and goals. The main task of the UN was mainly focused on the prevention of an armed clash between the USSR and the USA both at the global and regional levels, that is, on maintaining the stability of Soviet-American relations as the main prerequisite for international security and peace in the postwar period.

15 International processes (minimum 5 out of 8).

1. 1.internationalization

2. 2.globalization

3. 3. regionalization

4. 4.migration

5. 5.revolution

6. 6. economic crisis

7. 7.national self-determination

16 Russian publications of documents of the pre-revolutionary period on the history of Russian foreign policy and international relations.

Yearbook of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1861-1916):

Domestic international documents

Composition of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Composition of diplomatic departments

clergymen

Foreign exchange rate

Collection of treatises and conventions concluded by Russia with other states

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