Netflix’s “Turning point. The bomb and the cold war”. Episode 2

Netflix’s “Turning point. The bomb and the cold war”. Episode 2 – Poisoning the Soil.

This episode mainly covers the period in Russia 1930s through, 1950s, and then the USA, with remarkable pictures and interviews, sometimes very moving ones, with people involved in the events. It shows how the Soviet Union developed into a cruel totalitarian regime, and how in the West, ideas of defence morphed into paranoia about the “red menace”, and the further development of nuclear weapons.

Soviet Union.

Stalin. Russia failed to come to terms with the past Stalin still revered “his glorious accomplishments” “His crimes not well known, not understood“ The most evil person in Russia’s history“

Deep and irreconcilable conflicts between the great powers – for 50 years – out to destroy each other’s way of life – existential struggle between the capitalist world and the communist world

1848 – capitalist industrial society – child labour. Marx and Engels came up with a utopian solution – communism. Lenin in Russia, inspired by Marx and Engels, took power and proclaimed Russia a state run by workers and peasants. Bolsheviks felt besieged, and this brought on the red terror, and a bloody civil war. Stalin, basically a gangster, rises. In 1922 the Soviet Union is established and Stalin takes over.

The promise of equality was not kept. The 1929 collectivisation of agriculture is told in apersonal and dramatic way. It resulted in famine across the Soviet Union. Stalin fixed on Ukraine – a special program of food collection. 1932, Ukrainians were controlled, with borders closed, some 4 million died of starvation – the holodomor

The Soviet Union becomes truly totalitarian – 1937-38 – the Great Terror – great purge trials. Stalin paranoid about secret enemies – many colleagues exterminated. Huge system of concentration camps all across the Soviet Union – the gulags – to punish. to frighten – and also to provide slave labour, 15-20 million people – several million died. .

Stalin was genocidal to his own people – poured toxic materials into the soil. Very personal and heart-breaking testimonials and visuals of this period

1945 – the Soviet army stole everything they could from the conquered lands. Soviet Union had lost 20 million soldiers, and was now occupying lands of Eastern Europe. George Kennan tells Truman that Stalin wants more power, defines Soviet as an adversary, that understands only force and the threat of force. He says that the two world powers would one day fight for dominion over the world. This was the beginning of the Cold War.

The USA and “the West”

In the USA this mood of necessity to defend against the Soviet Union – led to the creation in 1947 of the Pentagon. Air force, Army, Navy all together under the Secretary for Defense, The National Security Council, the CIA. USA transitions into a vast military and intelligence apparatus.

March 1946 Winston Churchill gives his “Iron Curtain” speech. Berlin becomes the centre for the growing divide between the Eastern and the Western blocs. the Soviets trying to take over the whole of Berlin, with a sort of siege, the Berlin blockade, countered successfully by western countries flying in supplies.

1949 NATO established. Moscow formed the Warsaw Pact. Meanwhile in China Mao Zedong takes over with a communist government – furthering the cold war and the feeling that communism was expanding around the globe – kicking off the red hysteria. Then the news that Moscow has the atomic bomb – huge project for Russia. Helped by spies – Klaus Fuchs, who saw Russia as an ally against Nazism, (he got 14 years gaol).

The son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg tells their tragic story. The crimes of Stalin’s Russia were not at that time understood, while capitalism’s injustices and antisemitism were rife in USA and Europe. Ethel was almost certainly innocent. Julius and Ethel refused to give up the names of communists, and therefore were executed, (botched in Ethel’s case) – one of the prosecutors was the zealous young Roy Cohn.

The House Un-American Activities Committee – focussed on the Red Menace in the media, and Senator Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn expanded this persecution to other areas, even the army. This fear of communist spies stoked the cold war – but McCarthy never found a single spy. McCarthy was finally discredited. Roy Cohn went on to later teach “hardball politics” to the young Donald Trump.

Meanwhile Edward Teller comes on the scene in the early 1950s – with his plans for the thermonuclear bomb, and the fear that Russia too is developing this even more monstrous weapon. Daniel Ellsberg copied the papers on the nuclear war plans – strange and horrible” – recognises this project as “institutional insanity”