N I C K O F T I M E
love
dad
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Saturday, June 7, 2025
Josef Stalin
Mom wanted him to enter the priesthood but
the Josef that entered the seminary had already
decided it was Karl Marx that showed him the
way of the world.
By the time of Lenin's death in 1923, it was apparent
Stalin had fundamental differences with the founder of
the Soviet Union. Lenin increasingly chose practical
solutions to his country's economic problems, setting
aside his communist teachings.
Stalin was a True Believer.
Lenin's measures led the Soviet state away from
the teachings of Marxism. Fortunately, death stepped in.
Industrialization was Stalin's top priority once he
took power. His program rocketed the Soviet Union
from fifteenth most industrialized nation to being
second only to the United States.
Stalin directed his same brutal urgency towards
his country's farming. Families lost their farms
and they were sent to large government farms
called Collectives. Crop yields dropped drastically.
Millions lost their lives in the famine that spread
across the land.
Stalin got his way, though.
You don't disappoint Stalin.
Everyone must fear you.
First rule of Rule.
Trust no one.
Paranoia comes with being leader.
Stalin did not tolerate opposition.
Millions of everyday people of the Soviet Union were
sent off to the Gulag, labor camps in the Arctic zone.
An untold number of these people were executed.
Don't do anything that could be construed as disloyal.
Do what you're told no matter how stupid it seems.
Keep your head down.
Stalin ruled by terror.
Stalin and Hitler despised one another.
But hatred did not stand in the way of their
making a deal.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939
assured Hitler he would be taking on France
and Britain only. There would be no two front war.
Russia promised to remain on the sidelines.
This arrangement with Hitler bought Stalin the time
he would need to prepare his army to fight the
Wehrmacht in a war both sides knew would come.
By 1947 Truman wasn't tolerating Stalin.
The Kremlin controlled all of Eastern Europe
and, still, the Soviets were probing about
for weakness in the West.
Iran, Turkey, Greece.
Truman was forced to respond.
First came the Truman Doctrine which laid out
a plan to contain Soviet Expansion.
Then the Marshall Plan was introduced
in order to revitalize the European economy.
Finally, the United States promised to defend
Western Europe from attack through NATO,
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Stalin's probing would continue with a war
in Korea and a blockade of Berlin.
Every global argument became us versus them.
The Cold War was underway.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Nuclear War
Genie out of the bottle.
Turns out Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved
the bomb wasn't big enough to destroy the city.
The blast needed to exceed twice its current size
if it were to destroy European cities made of stone,
concrete and steel. Meeting this requirement
meant a whole new bomb for the
engineers to design.
Duck and Cover drills in school.
Get under your desk, knees doubled
under your body. Hands behind your neck.
Your mouth should be as open as you can make it.
This protects your eardrums from the burst of
hot air headed your way.
Imagine the plane that could haul this beast.
Only the specially made B-29 "Silver Plate" bomber
was capable of handling this nearly five ton bomb.
There were more than forty of these planes
at war's end. The number drifted down to eighteen
by 1947. Stalin knew this through his spies.
He also knew there were very few A-Bombs
among Uncle Sam's weapons.
America was not a military threat to Stalin.
Not yet.
One hundred nuclear bombs erases the Soviet Union.
There was confidence the Air Force could evade
Russian air defense and deliver the goods.
Victory. No need to maintain a very costly
large army as well as an expensive fleet.
It was the all or nothing strategy and that was
its problem. Stalin attacks Berlin and Truman
annihilates all Soviet cities. Who would believe
the Yanks capable of such a response?
A few divisions of soldiers with tanks in Berlin
would provide better protection for the city
than this over-the-top empty threat.
Both Russia and the United States
quickly learned the skills of crisis management -
preventing a superpower confrontation from
getting out of hand.
One bomb erases thousands of men and their armor.
All that expensive defense quickly evaporated...
your enemy now passing through the door left wide open.
Just like that.
But first the A-Bomb needed to be reduced to a size
capable of being fired from a cannon or small enough
to be the warhead on a truck launched missile.
An atomic bomb small enough for cannon to fire.
The nature of war was changed. Or so it seemed.
Korea broke out in war at a time when Stalin
already had the bomb. The fighting remained
conventional for the duration of the conflict.
One reason being that American troops were
fighting Stalin's proxies - Koreans and Chinese,
not Russians... not officially.
The better reason was that life was good.
People were watching Sid Caesar on their
new TVs while their car sat in the driveway
out front of the family's home.
What person in their right mind would trade
in all this for a nuclear war?
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Divided World
Iron Curtain.
East versus West.
Communism confronts capitalism.
Bad guys and good guys.
How do you avoid conflict
when it gets really personal?
It would take more than money to revive the West.
Britain bankrupt. Germany in shambles.
Both France and Italy collapsed socially and politically.
There needed to be a strategy directing the funding.
Certainly people needed access to food and coal now,
but industry and transportation also needed to be
quickly revived. Along the way, a measure of
success would give political institutions
badly needed credibility.
Truman entrusted the State Department to handle
foreign policy because George Marshall
was his Secretary of State.
What the President got from him was
an economic strategy for Europe that would
come to be known as the Marshall Plan.
Uncle Sam was glad to give you money right now...
so long as you believed in America's vision.
Not on your life.
Stalin counted on America bringing the boys home
once the war ended. This Marshall Plan popped
that notion. America would make policy in Europe with
its money as lure. Yankee influence would be political
as well as economic.
Here was a clear challenge to Stalin's leadership.
He could not afford this persistent and growing threat
to his Eastern Europe alliance.
You can't have economic security without providing
the means to defend it. With American aid came
NATO, the transatlantic military alliance between
Western Europe and the United States.
Its reach would increase over the coming years.
Looking at the map Stalin had to wonder:
Who dropped the ball?
Europe today is what George Marshall had in mind.
There was no quick, easy plan to get here.
Diligence helped. Having the right people mattered.
Luck. A good amount required.
It's never easy.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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