Sarah Paine: We Thought The Soviets Were Going to Win

Prof. Sarah Paine argues the US genuinely believed it was losing the Cold War, and explains why Soviet propaganda masked catastrophic domestic failure.

• Wars end when losers decide they’ve had enough — not when winners win; the USSR quit, it wasn’t defeated militarily.
• The US felt it was losing the Cold War most of the way through due to effective Soviet propaganda.
• Travel restrictions hid Soviet poverty: Moscow and Leningrad were the only plausible cities in the entire USSR.
• US civil rights unrest, Vietnam protests, and the women’s movement gave the Soviets credible contrast material.
• The Bush administration dismissed Gorbachev until 1988, when signals shifted to ‘whoa, maybe it really is ending.’
• Bush then teamed with Helmut Kohl to execute the fastest removal of Russian forces from Eastern Europe on record.
• This is a preview clip for a three-part lecture series covering Cold War South Asia, Mao’s catastrophes, and Bushido in WWII Japan.

2025-01-15 · Watch on YouTube