Modernization of Eastern Type Societies after the Second World War. The main trends in the development of the countries of the Near and Middle East after the Second World War

The most extensive modernization in the East unfolded after the Second World War. She had as her goal:

1) accelerate development, industrialization;

2) the preservation of fundamental civilizational values, that is, the self-preservation of the community from destruction under the pressure of the values ​​of another type of civilization.

In the middle of the XX century. decolonization of the East. The liberated countries sought to find their destiny in a world that was becoming more and more impersonal under the rink of industrial progress. Ways of modernization were chosen different. There are three most common options.

1. The introduction and adaptation of elements of a progressive type of development to their own conditions in full: the market and everything that accompanies it; democracy and the rule of law.

Modernization according to this option was not easy and brought success to those countries that had made significant progress along this path before the Second World War. Played a role and the renewal of Western civilization, the help of Western countries. Here is what historians Y. Murakami, S. Kumon, S. Sato wrote about modernization in Japan: “The history of pre-war Japan is an endless chronicle of trial and error, attempts to mutually adapt Western principles and the principles developed by the “ie society” (i.e. existing in Japan - L.S), in order to achieve the goal - "industrialization" (catching up modernization). Those of these attempts, which had already begun to bear the first fruits, were resumed with renewed vigor after the war (we are talking about World War II - L.S.).” Characteristically, the transfer of elements of the progressive path of development did not occur automatically. They adapted to the characteristics of society, transformed.

Let's just give some examples. There are two democracies in the East with a parliament and developed party-political systems: Japan and India. However, these democracies, while externally similar to Western ones, are strikingly different from them. Political parties in Japan are tightly organized, with strict discipline. In fact, these are patronage parties in relation to their members, controlling everyone. The party that wins the election acquires such a dominant influence that it actually leads to a one-party system - the dictatorship of one party. The Liberal Party of Japan was at the helm of the state for 38 years and completely determined the course of the country. It was only in 1993 that a coalition government was created and a new situation arose.

The East is still characterized by a special "charismatic" attitude towards the national leader, the leader. Politics is largely personalized. For a European who is used to choosing between programs, it is strange to see, for example, a struggle in the Indian parliament, where no one pays attention to programs, ideological platforms, and everything is centered around personalities. The outcome of the struggle determines the authority of the individual and nothing else. Hence such a peculiarity that the replacement of the higher legacies everywhere in the East - from Lebanon to Japan - often occurs according to the principle of inheritance. A classic example in this regard is the chain of prime ministers of India: Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, his grandson Rajiv Gandhi. The same in Pakistan. The political capital of Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto, who was killed by extremists, serves as the basis for his daughter Benazir Bhutto to come to this post.

Even in such an ultra-modern power as Japan, traditional values ​​are very strong, in particular, collectivism, the subordination of the interests of the individual to the collective. The American representatives who led the administration in Japan after the Second World War, when launching the mechanism of modernization, far-sightedly chose not to touch the Japanese community. And the community at different levels in different forms plays a huge role today. The Japanese themselves call Japanese capitalism "corporate", that is, collective. Principle prevails; "Corporation First". A Japanese company is, in fact, a corporate community where a worker, employee, manager, shareholder is guided not by their personal interests, but only by the interests of the company. For the individualized Western man, this is irrational behavior. For the Japanese, it is a law that cannot be broken. Otherwise, being outside the corporate community, a person is deprived of powerful social protection.

Japan, which achieved the greatest success in radical modernization, went through this path after the Second World War with difficulty: the difficult socio-economic and political situation after the defeat, the corruption of government officials, which reached an extraordinary peak. Rampant disciplined in Japanese mafia - yakuza. But the Japanese managed to overcome all this, however, not without the help of the West at first. For half a century, they passed the industrial stage and were the first of the Eastern peoples to enter the post-industrial era - the information society. Powerful strata of small and medium proprietors have been created, which serve as the backbone of democracy and market development.

This creates a new situation. If at the industrial stage the collectivist principles traditional for Eastern societies are preserved and work for modernization, then at the post-industrial stage, this is a question. With the emergence of powerful middle classes, there is a threat of erosion of traditional collectivist values. In particular, Japan now faces the problem of choosing development priorities. Either the “new middle strata” will be recognized as a long-term, promising phenomenon and stakes will be placed on them, then the individualization of society will take place and the social organization will approach the European one. Or there will be a strengthening of traditional collectivist priorities, and the middle strata will not play such a role as in the West.

With this version of modernization, the greatest successes are observed. Japan is a prime example of this.

2. The introduction of organizational and technological elements of an industrial society, market relations while maintaining the social system of the eastern type.

It would seem, bearing in mind the above tasks of modernization, this option is sparing; The market provides a mechanism for progressive self-development and, at the same time, traditional values ​​are preserved. With this option, there are examples of prosperity, but they are explained by exceptionally favorable natural conditions - Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf. This is oil. The heyday was created at the expense of petrodollars. Industrial potential, modern production and life, universities and libraries side by side with the usual Bedouin households, women in a veil, charismatic features of public consciousness. In most countries that have also followed this path, the achievements are more modest but significant. In South Korea, small-scale private ownership of land was introduced only in 1949. At the same time, the introduction of market relations began. Today it is a country with a developed market economy, which occupies an important position in the world.

However, countries that have chosen this option of modernization face the following problems. The market with its social class differentiation, industrialization with its materialism and rationalism destroy the system of compensators and lead to protests against the rigid system. The softening of social organization, the introduction of democratic institutions becomes an urgent need. The absence of a mechanism for coordinating social and class contradictions leads to mass protests from below against the system of power. South Korea has made amazing strides in developing a market economy, however, the lack of developed forms of democracy leads to speeches in its favor. No matter how limited the market-type zones in China, but their existence raises questions so far at least about liberalization (that is, mitigation), and in the future - inevitably about the democratization of society. Since 1978, China has been carrying out market reform while carefully preserving the characteristics of the social structure. However, experts predict that the growth of the economic power of the provinces to the detriment of the center, social and class differentiation can lead the country to conflicts and even civil war. The need for fundamental changes is obvious. Scientists advise establishing a federal structure similar to the American one, turning the National Assembly into a full-fledged parliament, into a democratic body of power, so that it can legally settle conflicts between the center and the provinces, between opposing social groups.

As experience shows: the market and democracy are interconnected. And all countries, sooner or later, will come to the first option. South Korea and Turkey have begun modernization according to the second option, and now they are actively developing according to the first one.

3. Transferring only the organizational and technological structures of an industrial society while denying the market and democracy. The banner of this variant of modernization was the socialist idea in the Marxist version, which preaches industrial progress under conditions of social equality and collectivism.

With this option, an industrial base, scientific potential, and a layer of qualified specialists are created. However, such a society has nothing to do with socialism. In Marxist categories, the constitution of traditional political institutions and culture took place. Technocrats are coming to the fore, who, under the banner of socialism, create a technicalized society in which a person is subordinate not only to the state, but also to the machine. Since there is no market and democracy, that is, there are no mechanisms for the self-development of society, the role of the state is further enhanced. It assumes the functions of managing the creation and enhancement of industrial potential, training, and control. Everything is aimed at serving the industrial potential. Since progress requires a high pace of development (otherwise society will fall behind again), the pace is ensured by violence. The system of power from an authoritarian, despotic one turns into a totalitarian one. Applied total violence and total control over society.

The state organization remains classically Eastern: the restriction of rights and freedoms, the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, the deification of the communist ruler (the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the president or just the leader). The control of the collective over the individual is further enhanced.

The most striking examples of modernization of this type are China of the Mao Zedong era, Cuba, modern North Korea. In some countries, the idea of ​​industrial socialism by K. Marx and F. Engels was transformed into Islamic socialism (Libya, Syria, Iraq), which was distinguished by its appeal to religious doctrine.

The total crisis of Western civilization in the first half of the 20th century, social class upheavals and conflicts, and the heavy legacy of the colonial era led to a rather widespread use of this option. Socialism, at first glance, made it possible to avoid everything that Western civilization suffered from. In addition, the countries of the East are closest to the socialism sung by K. Marx. They have no market, no private property, no antagonistic classes. At the same time, workers' socialism made it possible to bring technological progress, industrialization and urbanization into these societies. In this variant of modernization, it was also attractive that the main lever of progress was collectivism, traditional for the East.

However, this option turned out, as historical experience has shown, to be a dead end. Society does not receive mechanisms for progressive self-development, and violence on an unlimited scale acts destructively on society. Mass terror, genocide on a social or ideological basis knocked out the most active forces of society. Fortunately, in historical terms, for many countries, movement along this path turned out to be short-lived - three to four decades.

There is something else to be noted. The socialist idea is a product of the Western class-differentiated society. It has existed and developed for more than two thousand years, it is very fruitful in the context of Western culture, because it helps to improve the contradictory, cruel reality. It is no coincidence that in modern conditions the socialist and social democratic parties are so strong in the developed countries of the West, especially in Europe. In some countries they have been ruling for decades. However, transferred to another cultural soil, the socialist idea became a justification for violence, an instrument for the destruction of centuries-old culture. The process of primitivization of the elite unfolded, new generations were brought up negatively in relation to the past and the spiritual values ​​of the people.

The variant of modernization based on Marxist socialism, in a literal form or mediated by national characteristics, was actively promoted by the CPSU. The help of the USSR was versatile: the provision of gratuitous loans, the supply of weapons, the training of personnel, the construction of factories, hydroelectric power stations, hospitals, etc. This played a role, especially in countries that were not able to create an industrial base on their own. There was also the example of the USSR itself, a powerful, well-armed state, which was considered in the Western world, which had a public organization of the Eastern type.

However, this path has led society to the brink of self-destruction. Most of the countries that have launched modernization based on the socialist idea have abandoned this. The last bastions began to crumble. Iraq has announced a massive privatization program for non-defense industries. Cuba began to introduce elements of a market economy. So far, North Korea remains indestructible. Most countries switched to the second, and then inevitably to the first option of modernization.

The modernization of societies of the eastern type, industrialization, as it succeeds, leads, oddly enough, to the limitation of Western influence. The complex of social and civilizational inferiority is a thing of the past. The fundamental foundations of life, worldviews based on religion, have been preserved. The state still plays a dominant and patronizing role in relation to society, possesses colossal property in most countries (including the treasury). Religiously determined social behavior persists, especially in Muslim countries. Private property does not enjoy prestige, although it exists and is being strengthened. The priority of spiritual values ​​dominates in the public consciousness. East remains East.

All of the above testifies; the world retains its originality and diversity, but life does not become easier.

East to West

However, not only the East masters Western values, but also the West adopts Eastern ones. Pay special attention to this. Now no less important is the "reverse" movement - from East to West. It is recognized that not only individualism, but also collectivism can be progressive. In Western countries, interest in the culture of collectivism is growing: special services are being created, training of specialists in establishing relations in a team, community (industrial, professional, any) has been launched. Much attention is paid to the restoration of the primary collective family unit in its traditional form.

There are changes in the public consciousness: a shift in priorities from specific goals to semantic attitudes. An attempt is made to spiritualize the business, mercantile Western civilization. Enough of arrogant Europeanism, - voices are heard. In the West, the philosophical and aesthetic teachings of the East are popular. Sinologist E. Zavadskaya wrote: “The American tradition, the Western tradition, even the Tibetan tradition does not give us enough resources to cope with the fatal problems surrounding us, no matter how rich and worthy of study these traditions are, if we cling to them and only to them. we will be guilty of narrow and perhaps self-destructive provincialism.” Thus, there is a search for material for innovations, including in the spirituality of the East.

These are the main provisions of the civilizational approach. It must be emphasized that Western historical science for the most part believes that civilizational differences matter only in the cultural sense, and in the general historical are insignificant. The main thing is that some countries are rich, others are poor, some are developed, others are backward. The history of societies is most often divided into three stages; traditional society, industrial society, post-industrial (or information) "society. It is proposed to be guided in assessing the historical path only by the idea of ​​material and scientific and technological progress and the degree of its implementation. Such an approach is possible. However, the life of society is not reducible to the achievements of science, technology and their application The principles of the civilizational approach make it possible to study the world more widely and fully, under the motto: unity combined with diversity.

TOPIC II. PHENOMENON OF RUSSIA

LECTURE 1. ORIGINS

Iran

During the Second World War, the territory of northern Iran was occupied by Soviet troops, and southern - by British troops. The military presence of the USSR provoked a movement for the autonomy of Iranian Azerbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan. In the second half of 1945, autonomies of Azerbaijanis and Kurds were created in the zone of the Red Army. However, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the Iranian government liquidated these autonomies.

In the post-war period, the rise of the national movement began in Iran. In the economic field, this was reflected in the nationalization in 1951 of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the expulsion of all British specialists from it and the taking control of the oil industry. In the political sphere, this found expression in the firm desire to remain neutral in the Cold War. However, at that stage, Iran was defeated in the struggle for its oil. In 1953, a military coup ousted the nationalist government from power.

Shortly after the coup, Iran received generous military and economic aid from the United States, agreed to the creation of an international consortium to extract and export Iranian oil, and sided with the West in the Cold War.

After 1953 the chessmen managed to gradually consolidate their regime and establish a monarchical dictatorship. In the early 60s, the shah decided on large-scale reforms aimed at modernizing the country according to the Western model. From 1963 to 1975, transformations were carried out, which were called the "white revolution", since they were carried out from above.

In a short period of time, high-tech industries emerged in the country - mechanical engineering, metallurgy, automotive industry. The standard of living of the population has increased significantly. Western culture began to penetrate into traditional Iranian society. Restaurants, bars, cinemas, video libraries that are incompatible with the norms of Islam have opened in Iranian cities. The clergy became in opposition to the Shah's reforms.

In 1975, the Shah, in order to clear the way for reforms, banned all political parties in the country. The clergy began active anti-Shah propaganda in mosques, among believers.

By the end of the 1970s, a deep socio-political crisis had matured in the country. It became obvious that the course towards accelerated modernization not only failed to mitigate the contradictions in society, but, on the contrary, exacerbated them even more.

This led to the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. The main result of the revolution was the overthrow of the Shah and the proclamation of the Islamic Republic in Iran (April 1, 1979). The most conservative representatives of the Muslim clergy came to power. Islamization of all spheres of society began.

Some Iranian leaders have become fascinated with the idea of ​​exporting the Islamic Revolution. Soon a conflict arose with Iraq, which resulted in the war of 1980-1988. The war, which caused enormous destruction and loss of life, did not bring victory to either side.

The first post-war years were marked by a review of the concept of the country's development. The control over the press was weakened, the creation of opposition political organizations was allowed. The results of this process immediately affected - the People's Republican Party, which was created by M. Kemal and ruled the country for more than a quarter of a century, lost its monopoly on power. In 1950, the opposition won the parliamentary elections. Since then, a real multi-party system has finally formed in Turkey.

During the Cold War, Turkey took the side of the Western countries. In 1948, she joined the Marshall Plan. In 1952, Turkey joined NATO and took an active part in the creation of the Baghdad Pact (1954).

A characteristic feature of post-war Turkey is that the army plays a leading role in the socio-political life of the country. The Turkish army considers itself the guarantor of stability in the state. Repeatedly, the military took power into their own hands or exercised forceful pressure on the government.

In the 1980s, Turkey began to implement economic reforms, the "father" of which was T. Ozal. Ozal's program was based on the idea of ​​the need to liberalize the economy and strengthen market relations. As an end result, Turkey was supposed to become a full member of the European Economic Community (EEC). However, this goal has not been achieved to date.

The implementation of Ozal's program allowed Turkey to achieve high rates of economic development, to sharply increase the production of electricity, steel, the production of cars and household appliances, clothing and footwear. By the end of the 1980s, Turkish exports had quadrupled since 1980, with the share of industrial products in exports rising from 35% to 80%. However, according to a number of socio-economic indicators, Turkey lags far behind Western countries. Unemployment (5 million people) remains an acute problem. The growing public tension was intensified by the conflict between the official authorities and the Kurdish rebels.

The role of the Islamic factor in the development of Turkish society is increasing. In the 2002 early parliamentary elections, the Islamist Justice and Development Party won.

Afghanistan

In the post-war period, Afghanistan remained an agrarian country. Up to 3/4 of cultivated land was owned by landowners. The expansion of foreign capital intensified in the country. Economic difficulties caused an aggravation of social contradictions.

In the 1950s, the government proclaimed a policy of "managed economy", within the framework of which important transformations of the state-capitalist type were carried out: strengthening control over foreign trade, expanding the credit system through the creation of new banks, and expanding the construction program with the participation of the state. In 1956, a five-year plan for the development of the economy was adopted. Of great importance was the abolition in 1959 of the obligatory wearing of the veil by women. The implemented economic measures contributed to the capitalist evolution of the country.

In 1973, an anti-monarchist coup took place. The royal power in the country was eliminated, and Afghanistan was proclaimed a republic. However, subsequent years did not bring significant changes to Afghan society. The internal political situation in the country was heating up. The opposition was strengthened, on the left flank of which was the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).

In April 1978, a revolution took place, as a result of which the PDPA came to power. The country was named the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The new leadership put forward a program of revolutionary changes, provided for the implementation of land reform, the elimination of illiteracy and the emancipation of women. These steps of the government provoked discontent and resistance from Islamic fundamentalists and tribal nobility. A rebellion has begun. By the summer of 1979, the rebels already controlled a significant part of the rural areas of the country. The positions of the PDPA government were shaken.

On December 25, 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to support the PDPA government. A long war began, inflicted enormous material losses on Afghanistan, led to the death of 1 million people, mass migration of the population (the number of refugees amounted to 3-5 million people), the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and the emergence of the Taliban movement.

After the change of Soviet leadership, from the end of 1986, a phased withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan began, which ended in February 1989. Without Soviet military support, the PDPA regime could not hold out for a long time in power. In April 1992, power in the country passed into the hands of the former opposition.

But the opposition, having won, turned out to be fragmented (including those based on ethnoterritorial grounds). With ongoing military conflicts, the Taliban came to the fore.

In 1996, the Taliban defeated government troops and occupied Kabul. Their leader proclaimed himself "Emir of the Faithful", renamed the country the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan". Through outright support of international terrorism, the Taliban government found itself in international isolation and was overthrown in 2002 as a result of US military intervention.

Formation of the State of Israel. The emergence and aggravation of the Middle East problem

In November 1947, the UN General Assembly decided to create two states on the territory of Palestine, which was under the control of Great Britain: Arab - Palestine and Jewish - Israel. The city of Jerusalem stood out as a separate international zone. The Arabs opposed the formation of a Jewish state, sharply increased tension in the Middle East.

Once at the end of British rule in Palestine, on the night of May 14-15, 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed. According to the form of government Israel is a republic. The head of state is the president. The highest legislative body is the Knesset. The highest executive body is the government headed by the prime minister, whose role in public life is extremely important. The government is subordinate to the Knesset, while the judiciary is independent. The peculiarity of the State of Israel is that from the moment of its proclamation and today it does not have a constitution. It is replaced by a number of legislative acts adopted at different times.

Arab-Israeli Wars

Neighboring Arab states did not recognize Israeli statehood. On May 15, 1948, the armies of 7 Arab states invaded its territory. The First Arab-Israeli War began, which is called the Palestinian War, or the Israeli War of Independence. It lasted from May 1948 to January 1949. The war ended with the actual victory of Israel. He managed not only to repel the offensive of the Arab forces, but also to annex to his territory 6.7 thousand km2 of territory allocated by the UN for an Arab state, as well as the Western part of Jerusalem. The eastern part of the city and the western bank of the Jordan River were occupied by Jordan. Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. From the territory of Israel and the lands occupied by it emigrated (according to various sources) from 500 to 900 thousand Palestinian Arabs. Thus, along with the birth of the State of Israel, one of the most painful problems of our time arose - the Palestinian problem.

The 1949 agreements with the Arab states did not result in the signing of a peace treaty. These countries continued to regard the states of Israel as an unjust act. They organized an economic and political boycott of the Jewish state. Tensions continued to grow in the region, intensified by the supply of weapons from outside.

The second Arab-Israeli war took place in 1956. It is known in history as the Sinai-Suez war. This war was provoked by the actions of the Egyptian President G. Nasser, who in 1956 nationalized the Suez Canal, closing the passage through it for Israeli ships. Nasser's actions aroused the displeasure of Great Britain and France, which had their own interests in the Suez Canal zone. These countries agreed to a joint military operation with Israel against Egypt. In October 1956, the combined troops of the three countries began hostilities and occupied almost the entire Sinai Peninsula. But the USSR and the USA got into the conflict. As a result of severe political pressure from the "superpowers", Great Britain, France and Israel were forced to withdraw their troops from the territories occupied during the Sinai campaign. Thus, the second Arab-Israeli war ended in the same positions from which it began.

In subsequent years, no real steps were taken to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The situation on Israel's borders with the Arab world remained difficult. On June 1, 1967, under pressure from the army, the well-known General Moshe Dayan becomes the new Minister of Defense of Israel. And already on June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt. The Third Arab-Israeli War began, which went down in history as the Six Day War. It lasted from 5 to 10 June 1967 Egypt was supported by other Arab states: Jordan, Syria and Iraq. However, military success was on the side of the Israelis. Within a few hours, their aircraft disabled the Egyptian planes that were on the airfields, and the troops quickly captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Within six days, the Arab armed forces were defeated.

The war radically changed the situation in the Middle East. Israel, due to the occupation of new lands, expanded its territory by 4 times. He annexed the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the western bank of the Jordan River, and also took control of the eastern part of Jerusalem, which was later proclaimed "the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel." In June 1967, the USSR and its allies terminated diplomatic relations with Israel.

The next stage of the Middle East crisis was the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, which lasted from 6 to 24 October 1973 and went down in history as the Yom Kippur War. The Arab countries started the war: Egypt and Syria simultaneously launched an offensive in the Suez Canal zone and in the Golan Heights. After fierce fighting, the Israeli army, at the cost of heavy losses, managed to stop the advance of the Arab troops and go on the offensive. Formally, the war ended with the victory of Israel, who managed to defend the territorial gains of previous years. But this victory was given to him at a high price: the losses amounted to 10 thousand killed and wounded.

The results of the war dealt a powerful blow to the prestige of the Arab and determined a radical revision of the entire strategy of confronting Israel. Egypt went furthest in revising its policy, signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

The Arab-Israeli conflict destabilized the situation in Lebanon, where the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was located. Since 1975, a civil war began in Lebanon between various religious and ethnic communities. In 1982, Israel launched the Lebanese War - launched an armed strike against Lebanon in order to neutralize the militant Palestinian groups that were there. Israeli troops occupied southern Lebanon and Beirut. As a result, the Palestinian military presence in Lebanon was effectively eliminated and a so-called "security zone" was created on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

In September 1993, the first Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement was signed on temporary Palestinian autonomy within Israel. In July 1994, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan. In December 1998, the leadership of the OZU withdrew from its program documents the provisions calling for the destruction of Israel (that is, it actually recognized this state). To date, however, no final Israeli-Palestinian settlement has been reached.

NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST. POST-WAR PERIOD
Although the Near and Middle East was not the main theater of war, World War II had a major impact on the region, accelerating the economic and political changes that had begun there in the preceding decades. Military operations in North Africa, the supply of allies of the USSR under the Lend-Lease system through Iran and the widespread mobilization of economic resources stimulated the development of local agriculture, industry and the sphere. The Second World War brought an end to European dominance in the Arab world and at the same time consolidated the political boundaries established after the First World War. Syria and Lebanon gained independence from France between 1941 and 1946. Egypt and Iraq achieved this status in the 1930s, but the war contributed to the growth of those forces that, with military coups in Egypt in 1952 and Iraq in 1958, ended their privileged position. UK in these countries. Sudan gained independence in 1956. In the same year, British guardianship over Jordan was abolished. Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria achieved independence from France between 1956 and 1962. Kuwait became independent in 1961, South Yemen in 1967, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in 1971. The most important exception in this series was Palestine, which became the scene of acute conflict between the State of Israel, established in 1948, by the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab governments of the region. The second major change in the Near and Middle East was the transformation of this region into a major oil producer. Iran and Iraq were producing oil before World War II, and there were large oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries. However, oil has not yet become the main energy source for industrialized countries, the demand for it was met mainly by producers from the Western Hemisphere, primarily the United States and Venezuela. The post-war recovery and development of the European and Japanese economies and the growth of fuel consumption in the United States stimulated the rapid development of oil production and the necessary export infrastructure in the Middle East. After the war, European and other consumers of oil in the Eastern Hemisphere began to receive it mainly from the Near and Middle East. The third important post-war change in the Near and Middle East was the decline of the influence of France and Great Britain and the strengthening of the position of the United States. An important factor was also the rivalry between the US and the USSR, which lasted until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. After the Second World War, the most acute problems in the Middle East remained the Palestinian issue and the protracted conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. An equally important factor was the revolution of 1979 in Iran, led by the Shiite clergy, and the ensuing eight-year war in the Persian Gulf between Iran and Iraq.
Iran and the Truman Doctrine. The first post-war political crisis erupted in Iran. Although Iran remained a formally independent country during the colonial era, the greatest influence since the end of the 19th century. Great Britain used here, which controlled the Iranian oil industry. Another major external force was tsarist Russia, and from 1917 to 1991, the USSR. The Soviet-Western alliance against the fascist powers after 1941 largely relied on a reliable supply route for the USSR through Iran. Reza Shah's connections with Germany forced Great Britain to occupy southern Iran, where the main oil fields were located, and the USSR entered northern Iran. The post-war crisis engulfed Iran's northern province of Azerbaijan, which bordered on the USSR. One reason was the long-standing demand by the Azerbaijanis for autonomy from the Persian-dominated central government in Tehran. In 1945, the creation of an autonomous government of Azerbaijan was proclaimed. Another component of the crisis was the struggle between Great Britain, the USSR and the United States for control of Iranian oil. The third reason was the desire of the USSR to prevent the emergence of an unfriendly regime in post-war Iran and, accordingly, the US concern to reduce Soviet influence to a minimum. As a result of negotiations in April 1946, an agreement was reached on the withdrawal of Soviet troops. In the fall of 1946, Iran sent troops into Iranian Azerbaijan and annulled an earlier agreement under which it promised to grant the USSR an oil concession in northern Iran. In Turkey, the main post-war problems were that the USSR had claims to the Turkish border provinces, which at one time were controlled by Tsarist Russia. The USSR also demanded that Soviet ships be granted the right of free passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. From the perspective of the US government, the confrontation in Iran and Turkey, as well as in Greece, where the Greek communists fought against the British-backed conservative monarchy, dictated the creation of a political and military alliance to contain the USSR and provide industrialized capitalist countries with access to cheap oil reserves in the Persian region. bay. By April 1947, with the adoption of the Truman Doctrine, the United States declared the Near and Middle East a sphere of vital interests in the unfolding Cold War.
Arab-Israeli war 1947-1949. Immediately after World War II, the struggle for Palestine intensified. Initially, both the US and the USSR supported the UN plan for the partition of Palestine. The new state of Israel was recognized within days of its creation on May 15, 1948. As a result of the mass emigration of Jews before the Second World War to Palestine, which was then under British rule, the proportion of the Arab population was reduced from nine-tenths to two-thirds by 1939. The war and Nazi Germany's policy of exterminating Jews in Europe led to a critical refugee situation in 1945. Most countries, including the United States, were not eager to accept displaced European Jews who managed to survive the war. The Jewish National Movement in Palestine used political and military methods to attract Holocaust survivors to the country. In 1947, Zionist attacks on British targets became more frequent, Great Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine and referred the issue to the UN for consideration. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly recommended that Palestine be divided into two states - Arab and Jewish, and that international control be established over Jerusalem. Although this did not quite meet the expectations of the Zionist leadership led by David Ben-Gurion, they accepted the UN plan. The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states rejected the partition of Palestine. Over the next few months, the confrontation between the Zionists and the Palestinian Arabs escalated, and Britain announced that it would completely withdraw from Palestine by May 14, 1948. Earlier that year, thousands of Arabs fled their homes, fearing that they would become victims of a larger conflict that began to emerge after the proclamation of the State of Israel and the entry into Palestine of troops from neighboring Jordan, Egypt and Syria. The unity of the Palestinian Arabs was undermined after their defeat in the anti-British uprising of 1936-1939 and as a result of the confrontation that preceded the creation of Israel. The armed forces of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Transjordan attacked Israel. However, Israel had a more experienced command, its army received weapons from Czechoslovakia in a timely manner. All this, coupled with the diplomatic support of the United States and the USSR, allowed the Israelis to defeat the Arab troops. When Israel signed an armistice agreement with the Arab states in 1949, it already controlled 75% of the former Palestine. Egypt retained control of the coastal strip around Gaza. Transjordan captured and soon annexed the West Bank of the Jordan River. By the time the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 was over, up to 700,000 Palestinian Arabs had become refugees. 160,000 Palestinian Arabs remained in Israel, whose Jewish population numbered 650,000. Only a small number of refugees were allowed to return to Israel, whose authorities cited an ongoing state of war with neighboring Arab countries. Israel encouraged the mass immigration of Jews from Arab countries, primarily Iraq and Yemen, and then Morocco. By 1951 its population had doubled. By the early 1950s, Israel had obtained vital aid from Germany and the United States. In the Cold War, Israel sided with the United States. In May 1950, the United States, France, and Great Britain issued a declaration warning against the use of force to change Israel's borders and promised their assistance in maintaining Israel's military parity with neighboring Arab states.
Iranian oil crisis. A new crisis erupted in Iran in April 1951, when Parliament nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. At first, the Iranian government demanded an increase in the financial contributions of the company in its favor, but soon a unanimous decision was made to nationalize it, in which Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh, leader of the National Front, played a major role. The Iranian oil crisis reflected the dissatisfaction of local patriotic forces with foreign control over major political and economic structures. The United States supported the British boycott of Iranian oil exports. As a result, Mossadegh was overthrown in August 1953, and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi came to power. Behind the struggle over control of a vital resource was another rivalry - between British and American companies and their governments. The post-crisis order of management of the Iranian oil industry provided for the preservation of the facade of nationalization, leaving the industry in the ownership of the National Iranian Oil Company. However, a consortium of companies secured the exclusive right to manage the oil industry and own oil produced in Iran until 1994. In this consortium, an Anglo-Iranian company owned 40% of the shares, five giant American companies - Exxon, Mobil Texaco, Gulf and Chevron owned another 40%, the rest were in the hands of the French, the Dutch, and others. The American government justified its intervention in the affairs of Iran by saying that the national movement, which sought to eliminate the economic privileges of the West, was allegedly playing into the hands of the communists. Economic resources that remained outside the direct control of the West could well, as the Americans argued, be under the control of the USSR.
National Movement in the Arab World. In Iraq, crises and popular unrest broke out for a decade. Egypt was constantly in a fever due to political instability and mass demonstrations - from February 1946 until the Free Officers organization took power in July 1952. Military coups took place in Syria in 1949, 1951 and 1954. The main reason for these speeches there was dissatisfaction with Western interference in political, military and economic matters, American and British control of the Iraqi oil industry, British and French control of the Suez Canal, and the defeat that Arab troops suffered in 1948 in the war with Israel. The largest pan-Arab political entities were the Ba'ath Party (Arab Socialist Renaissance Party, PASV) and the Movement of Arab Nationalists (DAN). The creation of DAN is associated with the name of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Palestinian wing of this movement later transformed into the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front (DFLP). DAN was represented by the Arif brothers' regimes in Iraq from 1963-1968, and was influential in North Yemen and South Yemen in the 1960s. The ideology of the Arab national-patriotic movement, formulated in particular by the Baath Party, was essentially secular, while recognizing that Islam is the main unifying force in the Arab world. This ideology called for Arab political and economic unity and overcoming the artificial borders established by Europeans. Unlike the DAN, the Ba'ath did receive state power in Syria and Iraq, although it quickly split into two independent and even hostile movements. The rivals of the Arab national-patriotic movement were local communist parties. In Iraq and Sudan, where the communists were strong, they organized trade unions and worked among the poorest sections. In the non-Arab Near and Middle East, the Communists enjoyed significant influence in Iran, where they operated through the Tudeh (People's) Party. Less powerful but still influential communist parties existed in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian movement. Although the communists were persecuted everywhere, they had a significant impact on the Arab national-patriotic forces. The concept of Arab nationalism developed by Abdel Nasser and the Baathist regimes was a modified version of the demands and programs originally formulated by the communists. This partly explains why Abdel Nasser and the Ba'athists were considered leftists.
Egypt and the Arab National Movement. Egypt, with its largest population, military, and industrial base among the Arab countries, dominated the post-war Arab world. The military coup carried out by the Free Officers in July 1952 was preceded by friction with Great Britain, which kept military forces in the Suez Canal zone under the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936. After the war, combined with the growing social demands of the unemployed and wage earners, this led to large-scale strikes and street demonstrations that began in February 1946 and ended with the imposition of martial law in May 1948. The campaign against the British occupation resumed in October 1951: the new Wafdist government denounced the 1936 treaty, and a guerrilla war began against the British military contingent. Egypt rejected the proposal of Great Britain, France, the United States and Turkey to create a defense organization of the countries of the Near and Middle East, whose headquarters would be located on the site of a British military base. In January 1952, British tanks shelled a police station in Ismailia, killing dozens of Egyptians, the incident led to riots during which much of the center of Cairo was burned and many foreigners died. The tense situation persisted for six months, after which the Free Officers organization, led by Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, took power on July 22, 1952 and forced King Farouk to abdicate. June 18, 1953 Egypt was proclaimed a republic. In March 1954, the struggle for power intensified within the Free Officers organization. The winner of this struggle was Abdel Nasser, who became president as a result of a plebiscite in 1956. The new regime compromised with Britain on a number of issues. If earlier Egypt demanded its sovereignty over Sudan, which was occupied by the British, then in 1953 he agreed to give Sudan the right to choose between entering into an alliance with Egypt and declaring independence. In August 1954, Great Britain agreed to evacuate its base at Suez, but retained the right to reoccupy it for seven years if any Arab state or Turkey was subjected to aggression. Egypt's attempt to chart a new course ran into opposition from the United States, which sought to create an alliance of Arab states directed against the USSR. Although Abdel Nasser, like other Arab rulers, did not hesitate to repress the communists, he was firmly convinced of the need to pursue an independent foreign and military policy. After the Israeli attack on the Egyptian post in Gaza in February 1955, Egypt tried to purchase American weapons, but the US continued to insist that such supplies should be part of a full-fledged military alliance. In April 1955, at the first conference of non-aligned countries in Bandung (Indonesia), Abdel Nasser most consistently defended "positive neutrality," which US Secretary of State John Dulles regarded as immoral and playing into the hands of the USSR. The US and UK tried to strengthen the monarchy in Iraq as a counterweight to Egypt by creating a military alliance known as the Baghdad Pact. Great Britain, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Iraq became members of the pact. Attempts by Western countries to attract other Arab countries were unsuccessful due to the opposition of Abdel Nasser. Negotiations on Western economic assistance, in particular on financing the construction of the high-rise Aswan Dam, continued into 1956, but Abdel Nasser's consistent advocacy of the principles of "positive neutrality" forced Dulles to withdraw the offer of American assistance in July 1956. Great Britain followed the example of the United States. In response, Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, saying that the profits from its operation would go to the construction of a high-rise dam. Abdel Nasser pledged to compensate the owners of the channel's shares and to abide by all international agreements governing its use. But the challenge was political, not legal. Egypt now controlled the waterway that brought most of the oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe. More significant was the impact this move could have on the Arab oil-producing countries. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, strikes and demonstrations called for nationalization. The influence of Abdel Nasser was also seen in the political unrest in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. Over the next few months, Great Britain and France developed a plan to attack Egypt in order to overthrow Abdel Nasser, return the Suez Canal and stop Egyptian aid to Algeria, where an armed struggle for independence from France had been going on since 1954. Israel saw this as an opportunity to lift the Egyptian blockade of its maritime traffic in the Gulf of Aqaba and the Suez Canal. On October 29, 1956, Israel attacked Egypt and occupied most of the Sinai Peninsula; British and French aircraft bombarded the country, and the troops of these countries occupied Port Said under the pretext that hostilities between Egypt and Israel posed a threat to the canal. However, the US considered the aggression inexpedient and joined the diplomatic campaign for the withdrawal of troops. Britain and France withdrew their troops from Egypt in January 1957, the last Israeli military left its territory in March 1957.
Eisenhower Doctrine. The Suez crisis was a turning point, after which the leading role in the region passed from the UK to the US. US approval of Abdel Nasser as a spokesman for a sustainable nationalist alternative to communist influence in the region has been replaced by a growing conviction that Nasser's version of Arab nationalism, with its emphasis on neutrality in the Cold War, is capable of undermining the position of the West. In January 1957, US President Eisenhower announced a program of military assistance to governments threatened by countries "controlled by international communism." Egypt and Syria were meant, buying weapons from the USSR and other socialist countries. The Eisenhower Doctrine called on pro-Western regimes to attribute their internal difficulties to the intrigues of the USSR or its agent Egypt. In April 1957, King Hussein of Jordan, citing the threat of "international communism," arrested Prime Minister Suleiman Nabulusi, dissolved parliament, banned political parties, and imposed martial law. The US responded with arms shipments, economic aid, and naval maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean. The Eisenhower Doctrine was received more lukewarmly in Syria, where five military coups took place after 1949 as a result of internal struggles. In August-September 1957, Syria announced that it had uncovered a US-backed plot to overthrow the government. Near the northern borders of Syria, Turkish troops carried out large-scale maneuvers and were ready to intervene under any pretext. The powerful diplomatic support provided by the USSR to Syria helped to prevent the development of events according to this scenario. In Lebanon, the Maronite-dominated government of Camille Chamoun declared its anti-communist stance in order to gain US support in the fight against local nationalists.
United Arab Republic. February 1, 1958 Egypt and Syria announced the creation of a union of two countries, called the United Arab Republic (UAR). The Ba'athist-led Syrian regime proposed to Abdel Nasser to unite the two states. Abdel Nasser agreed, but on terms that gave Egypt an edge and kept all other political forces, including the Ba'athists and the Communists, out of influence. In Lebanon, the civil war continued between the Arab national forces and their opponents. On July 14, 1958, the Arab national forces came to power in Iraq as a result of a revolution. In response, the US and Britain sent troops to Lebanon and Jordan to thwart national advances in those countries and prepare for a possible invasion of Iraq. However, repeated assurances by the new leader of the Iraqi regime, Abdel Kerim Qassem, that Western oil interests would not be harmed, and the absence of any political base for counter-revolution, prompted the US and Britain to abandon military intervention. These events, which seemed to promise benefits to Abdel Nasser, in fact turned into new difficulties. A political struggle for power broke out in Iraq between coalitions of varying composition, which included Arab national forces, communists and Kurdish nationalists, a struggle that continued until the second Baathist coup in July 1968. Neither Qasem himself nor his successors were ready to join the OAR. Despite the enormous personal popularity of Abdel Nasser, no Arab state joined the UAR. The Syrian-Egyptian alliance itself collapsed in September 1961, mainly because of the contradictions associated with the predominance of Egypt. After the Baathist revolutions of 1963 in Syria and Iraq, attempts to negotiate a tripartite alliance with Egypt ended in failure. In November, conservative nationalist officer Abdel Salam Arif ousted the Iraqi Ba'athists from power.
War in Yemen. The national revolution came to the Arabian Peninsula on September 26, 1962, when army officers deposed the ruling imam and proclaimed the Arab Republic of Yemen. The Imam and his predecessors kept Yemen in political and economic isolation. The Imam enjoyed the support of some tribes, as well as Saudi Arabia, but Egypt came to the aid of the new republican regime. Up to 70,000 Egyptian soldiers participated in the ensuing civil war, but they never succeeded in bringing the country under the new regime. The war in Yemen exhausted Egypt politically and financially, and Egyptian troops were withdrawn from the country after the war with Israel in 1967. The war also contributed to the start of an insurgency in the British colony of Aden and the surrounding hinterland. Great Britain left Aden at the end of November 1967, and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen was created on the site of the former colony. The presence of Egyptian troops in the Arabian Peninsula facilitated the transfer of power from King Saud to Crown Prince (later King) Faisal. Together with King Hussein of Jordan, Faisal launched a counteroffensive against the radicals inspired by Abdel Nasser. Saudi Arabia in 1962 created the League of Islamic States, and in 1966 convened the first Conference of Islamic Heads of State. Subsequently, the League became the main channel for financing Islamic political forces throughout the Arab world and even outside the Near and Middle East. After the victory of the Algerian national forces over France in 1962, the ranks of the radical nationalists were replenished. However, by the mid-1960s, the inability of the national-patriotic forces to solve the problem of Arab unity became clear.
OPEC. When the conflict over the nationalization of oil production in Iran reached a critical point, the main companies made a preemptive move against the advancement of similar political demands by the Arab countries, proposing in 1950 to divide oil profits in the proportion of 50:50. Companies were in charge of calculating profits, and by controlling processing, transportation, and marketing, they were able to distribute income in the most profitable way for themselves. Oil exports increased quickly enough to meet the growing world demand and compensate for the interruption of supplies from Iran in 1951-1953. Together with the increased share of the Arab oil-producing countries in the income, this provided an influx of huge funds. Between 1948 and 1960, the oil-producing countries of the Near and Middle East generated $9.5 billion in revenues. The net income of oil companies in the Near and Middle East during this period amounted to more than $14 billion. The influx of such sums had serious political consequences. . These funds were under the control of regimes, most of which were brought to power by Western countries or relied on their support. The money was also used to create a political base among merchants, landowners and other representatives of the upper strata. At the same time, educational and medical institutions, transport and communication facilities were built, which created new jobs throughout the region. Especially many Palestinians and Egyptians came to the countries of the Persian Gulf. In Iraq, huge sums were spent on irrigation and other economic development projects. However, in Iraq, where land and other wealth were unevenly divided, the main benefits were received by a small part of the population. The proceeds from the sale of oil influenced the dynamics of political processes throughout the region. The economy developed, the positions of the state bureaucracy, the army and the secret police strengthened. In April 1959, the First Arab Petroleum Congress was held in Cairo. In September 1960, after the unilateral decision of oil companies to reduce prices, and hence the incomes of producing states, a meeting was convened by the oil ministers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela, at which the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established. More than a decade passed before OPEC, whose membership had risen to 13, achieved a recovery in oil prices to the levels of early 1959. When prices fell from about $1.8 to $1.2 per barrel in the 1960s, prevent a decline in the income of producing countries by forcing companies to cover losses. By 1969 the real distribution of profits was about 62:38 in favor of producing countries.
Palestinian movement. In the mid-1960s, a new force emerged in the Arab world. For the first time since the Palestinian uprising of 1936-1939, independent Palestinian groups began to gain strength. After 1956, Yasser Arafat and other activists who lived outside of Palestine created an underground organization that later became Fatah (Arabic for "victory" is a reversed abbreviation of the organization's full Arabic name, the Palestine Liberation Movement). At a summit meeting in Cairo in January 1964, the heads of Arab states created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); The PLO remained a creature of the Arab regimes until 1967. On January 1, 1965, Fatah, then not part of the PLO, carried out the first armed action - an attack on a water pumping station in Israel. For most Palestinians, this date marks the beginning of the liberation movement. In Syria, in February 1966, the left wing of the Ba'ath Party came to power. The new regime allowed Palestinian militias based in Syria to carry out raids against Israel directly from its territory or through Jordan. In response, Israel attacked the village of el-Sama in the West Bank in November 1966, the same time that Egypt and Syria restored relations and signed a defensive pact. Abdel Nasser intended to contain Syrian military activity against Israel. An Israeli air raid on Syria in April 1967 sharply aggravated the situation in the region. In May 1967, Israel warned Syria about the inadmissibility of new Palestinian actions. Abdel Nasser, referring to Soviet intelligence reports, accused Israel of preparing a large-scale attack on Syria. He sent troops into the Sinai, violating the ceasefire that ended the 1956 war. Syria and Jordan claimed that Abdel Nasser was hiding behind UN peacekeepers. Nasser asked the UN to withdraw these forces. The request was granted. When Abdel Nasser announced the resumption of the blockade of Israeli shipping through the Straits of Tiran at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been carried out until 1956, Israel enlisted the support of the Western powers and prepared for a preemptive strike.
June war 1967. On June 5, 1967, Israeli air forces attacked Egyptian airfields and destroyed most of the Egyptian aviation on the ground. The Israeli ground forces crushed the Egyptian army and, after two days of fighting, reached the Suez Canal. Two days later, Israel defeated the Jordanian forces, taking the West Bank and old Jerusalem. About 200 thousand Palestinians fled across the Jordan River. In the next two days, Israel captured the Syrian Golan Heights. Abdel Nasser knew that his armed forces were inferior to the Israelis, but he could not have foreseen such a lightning defeat. Most likely, the Egyptian leader overestimated the possibilities and desire of the United States to influence Israel in order to resolve the crisis diplomatically, as well as the readiness of the USSR to take the side of Egypt. Unlike the Suez War of 1956, the Six Day War of 1967 resulted in a diplomatic stalemate. Egypt and some other Arab countries severed relations with the US and Britain, accusing them of complicity in the aggression. The USSR severed relations with Israel. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242 in November 1967, calling on Israel to withdraw from territories occupied during the war in exchange for peace treaties and diplomatic recognition. However, the resolution did not specify whether this applied to all occupied territories. The Palestinians were mentioned in it only as refugees. The Arab states at the summit meeting in Khartoum (Sudan) in September 1967 approved the readiness of Egypt and Jordan to seek a political solution, while declaring, together with Syria, Iraq and Algeria, that this does not mean recognition of Israel or the conclusion of a peace treaty. The June 1967 war changed the balance of power in the region, giving Israel military superiority over any coalition of Arabs. It dramatically changed the alignment of political forces in the Arab world, accelerating the fall of the influence of radical national regimes and the rise of conservative monarchies. At the same time, the war contributed to the growth of the Palestinian resistance movement and the strengthening of radical liberation forces in South Yemen and Oman. Internationally, the closing of the Suez Canal exacerbated the financial crisis in the UK and contributed to the fact that she surrendered her military and political positions in the Persian Gulf. Finally, as a result of the war, there has been a gradual but decisive shift in US policy from a "hands-off" approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict to a closer military and political alliance with Israel. The June war of 1967 increased the significance of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in comparison with the Arab-Israeli one. The leading Palestinian military organizations were Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The latter grew out of the former Arab Nationalist Movement and by the end of 1968 split into the PFLP and the Democratic Popular Front. Fatah represented a broad front of forces that believed that not the Arab states, but the Palestinian movement should lead the fight against Israel. The Popular Front and the Democratic Front occupied Marxist positions. In 1968, these organizations merged with the PLO, created by the Arab states in 1964. Smaller groups enjoyed the support of the Arab states, mainly Syria, Iraq and Libya. In March 1968, a large formation of Israeli ground forces attacked a Palestinian camp in the Jordanian village of Karameh. The Palestinians held their ground and hit the Israelis with a heavy retaliatory blow. After the incident in Karameh, the popularity of the Palestinian resistance forces in the Arab world has increased dramatically, and thousands of Palestinians have joined its ranks. Palestinian forces clashed with Jordanian, Lebanese and other Arab armies, as well as Israel. The indiscipline and cruelty of the Palestinian detachments exacerbated the conflicts between the Arab states, especially Jordan and Lebanon, on the one hand, and the PLO, on the other. For several years, numerous and popular Palestinian organizations in Jordan threatened the power of King Hussein. Hostilities between Israel and Egypt resumed in 1969 when Egypt fired on Israeli positions in the Sinai and thus began a two-year "war of attrition". In the summer of 1970, in an attempt to disrupt US-sponsored negotiations between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, the PFLP carried out several hijackings and directly challenged the Jordanian regime. This led to the fact that in September 1970 the Jordanian army launched a full-scale offensive against Palestinian bases and refugee camps. Iraq has refused to fulfill its previous promises to help the Palestinians with the 30,000 Iraqi troops stationed in Jordan. Part of the Syrian troops intervened, but this caused a split within the Syrian leadership and led to a military coup led by the commander of the air force, Hafez al-Assad. The US-backed Israeli threat to intervene on King Hussein's side convinced the Syrians of the need to quickly withdraw their troops. As a result, 25 thousand Palestinian fighters were forced to confront the Jordanian army of 60-75 thousand, which had a significant superiority in firepower. The ceasefire agreement was reached as a result of the diplomatic intervention of the Arab countries under the leadership of Abdel Nasser. In September 1970, Abdel Nasser died of a heart attack. Anwar Sadat became president. Almost immediately, in February 1971, Sadat expressed his readiness for a political settlement, abandoning the demands of the Arab states for the complete withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories, and offered to reopen the Suez Canal in exchange for a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula. In May 1971, Sadat arrested the main rivals in the government and took control of the country into his own hands. A crisis erupted in Egypt, riots swept through schools and factories. This forced Sadat to establish close allied relations with the United States in foreign policy and with the big Egyptian bourgeoisie in domestic policy. In July 1972, encouraged by King Faisal, Sadat expelled 17,000 Soviet military advisers from the country. However, neither Israel nor the United States reacted to the change in the situation. From 1971-1973 US military supplies to Israel continued to increase. So Sadat prepared to break the political stalemate by taking the initiative on the Suez front.
The oil factor after 1967. After the June war of 1967, important changes took place that affected oil production in the Near and Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Iran sought to increase government revenues by boosting oil exports. However, the political future looked uncertain. In 1968-1971 Great Britain formally withdrew from the dependent Arab territories. The seven emirates in the Persian Gulf, formerly known as the Trucial States, became the United Arab Emirates, while Bahrain and Qatar became independent states. In July 1970, Britain ousted the Sultan of Oman, Said bin Taimur, putting his son Qaboos in power to continue the war against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Gulf (OPLF), which was based in Dhofar province in western Oman, bordering South Yemen. After the June 1967 war, Egypt withdrew its troops from North Yemen. The Republican regime held on to power there after its defenders repulsed Saudi-backed royalists during a ten-week siege of the capital Sana'a in December 1967-February 1968. The prospects for the US to take Britain's place in the Persian Gulf were overshadowed by the Vietnam War. In May 1972, President R. Nixon and National Security Adviser H. Kissinger went to Iran, where they agreed to supply the shah with the latest weapons systems, with which Iran could guard the interests of the West in the Persian Gulf region. Over the next six years, Iran made purchases of American weapons worth $10 billion. After the Suez War of 1956, Western oil companies, seeking to reduce their dependence on cheap oil from the Persian Gulf, made large investments in Libya. Libya was close to European markets and oil did not need to be transported through the Suez Canal. Libya delivered its first oil in 1963; by 1968, it exported approx. 3 million barrels per day. In an effort to avoid dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf, the oil magnates allowed Libya to become the main supplier of oil for some companies and several European countries. September 1, 1969 a group of Libyan army officers led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi seized power. The new Libyan government, taking advantage of the vulnerability of Western companies, sought to achieve parity in oil revenues with the countries of the Persian Gulf. In 1971, some members of OPEC took advantage of this situation and raised the price of crude oil, reversing a more than decade-long downward trend in prices. Some states achieved both political and economic goals: Iraq, Algeria and Libya established control over the oil industry and ensured that the issue of nationalization remained on the agenda of OPEC meetings until the end of the decade. Two other events contributed to the sharp rise in oil prices in 1971. One of them was due to the economic difficulties experienced by the leading Western capitalist countries, especially the United States. Since oil exports were paid in US dollars, inflation and exchange rate instability posed a threat to the economies of oil-exporting states. In addition, the major oil companies had nothing against the rise in prices, as a result of which their incomes increased significantly. The second factor that contributed to the rise in prices in the early 1970s was the growing political tension in the region. Part of the exported oil went through pipelines from Saudi Arabia and Iraq to terminals in Lebanon and Syria.
October war 1973. This war revealed two different conflicts: one between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the other related to the efforts of the oil-producing states, which, together with Western oil companies, sought to take advantage of a temporary shortage of oil to significantly increase prices. On the morning of October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched an offensive against Israeli troops who occupied the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. The impressive gains of the Arabs in the early stages of the war were partially lost as a result of the successes of the Israelis in the second week of battles. Nevertheless, Sadat managed to achieve his goal - to involve the United States in negotiations on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula. In early 1974, a ceasefire was reached, and in September 1975, Israel partially withdrew its troops from the peninsula. On October 16, 1973, ten days after the start of the war, the OPEC countries raised the price of crude oil by 70% (from $3 to $5 per barrel). On October 22, Arab oil-producing states responded to Egyptian and Syrian demands to cut oil production and impose an embargo on US oil sales in retaliation for US arms sales to Israel. American, European and Japanese oil companies immediately raised oil prices. At the OPEC meeting on December 22, it was decided to raise prices by another 128%, so that the price per barrel exceeded $11, of which exporting countries received $7. Increasing incomes and budgets in the oil-producing states have enabled them to embark on gigantic construction projects that have attracted large numbers of skilled and unskilled labor from the Arab world and beyond. The Near and Middle East has become a major export market for the US and other industrialized countries.
Camp David Accords. In early 1977, the new American administration of President John Carter tried to organize multilateral negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict, but it failed to solve the problem of the representation of the Palestinians. The PLO refused to make serious concessions. Israel, especially after the victory in the elections in July 1977 of the right bloc Likud under the leadership of Menachem Begin, rejected this possibility. The joint Soviet-American communiqué of October 1, 1977, calling for the convening of an international conference in Geneva, did not suit Israel, since it mentioned "the legitimate rights of the Palestinians." Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was extremely interested in the negotiations. They would allow him to get the extra American help and investment that the country's economy needed. Earlier, in January 1977, his government had been forced to raise the price of basic foodstuffs, including bread, in order to obtain loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Then unrest began in Cairo and other large cities. In the autumn of 1977, when President Carter's diplomatic efforts seemed to have stalled, Sadat announced that he was ready to go to Jerusalem to negotiate with Israel without any preconditions. This happened at the end of November. Several inconclusive meetings followed between Begin and Sadat. In an attempt to advance negotiations, Carter invited the two leaders to Camp David, the presidential residence near Washington. There, a package of agreements was drawn up that dealt mainly with Israeli-Egyptian relations and offered "autonomy" for the Palestinians. The Camp David Accords became the basis for further negotiations, which culminated in the signing of a peace treaty by Israel, Egypt and the United States on March 26, 1979 in Washington. The agreement took into account Israeli conditions - the Palestinian issue was taken out of the context of Israeli-Egyptian relations. The PLO and most of the Arab states condemned the treaty. Probably, it was the rejection of the treaty that became the reason for the assassination attempt on Sadat by the opposition-minded military on October 6, 1981, as a result of which he was killed. Sadat's successor was Vice President and former Air Force Commander Hosni Mubarak, and the peace treaty went ahead. Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in April 1982.
Civil War in Lebanon. After the Palestinian resistance movement was defeated in 1970-1971, Lebanon became its main base, where more than 300,000 Palestinian refugees have lived since the 1948 war. The stability of the Lebanese political system was hampered for a long time by intertwined religious and class contradictions and strife, and once, in 1957-1958, the situation was already close to an explosion. The economic and political life of Lebanon was controlled by a handful of families of large landowners and merchants. State posts were distributed in accordance with the established procedure among various religious movements, with the highest posts being reserved for Maronite Christians. New social forces - the middle class of Sunni Muslims, students and the Shiite peasantry, among which radical sentiments were growing rapidly - were unhappy with the dominance of the old ruling families. The Christian Maronite party, the Falange, fought to save the existing system. Fighting for the Palestinian cause was a rallying cry for the Lebanese left, and the Palestinians were also looking for allies among opposition parties and militias. Using the Israeli raids against the Palestinian camps as a pretext, the Maronite old guard and the Phalanx blamed the Palestinians for social tensions in Lebanon. Tensions escalated over the course of several months, and in April 1975, the Phalangists attacked a bus filled with Palestinians, thus starting a civil war. In 1975, the main battles were fought between the militia formations of the right and left forces of Lebanon. In early 1976, right-wing forces laid siege to the Palestinian camps. Thereafter, the PLO forces joined forces with the Lebanese opposition militias, and by July 1976 the "joint forces", as they were called, were close to defeating the Phalangist-led right. Syria, which used to support the Lebanese opposition, now came out on the side of the right with a force of 5,000 troops to restore the truce. As a result, the balance of power more or less stabilized. Israel attacked Palestinian civilian targets, and in March 1978, in response to a Palestinian sortie, invaded southern Lebanon. One consequence has been an even closer rapprochement between Israel and the Falangist-led right. Another was the birth of the Shia political movement Amal. Fighting in the south continued for more than three years as Israel escalated its efforts to force the Lebanese to expel the Palestinians. During an Israeli air raid on the center of Beirut in July 1981, more than 1,000 Palestinians and Lebanese were killed and wounded. Then, with the mediation of the United States, a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and the PLO, which lasted almost a year. The July 1981 ceasefire agreement was beneficial to Israel. It allowed the PLO to demonstrate that it is a powerful political force in Lebanon and even more insistently demand the representation of the Palestinians in any political negotiations regarding their future. On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim of destroying the PLO and securing victory in the upcoming presidential elections in Lebanon for Falangist leader Bashir Gemayel. By the end of the first week, Israel had isolated Syria and laid siege to Beirut. The siege continued until the end of the summer, when American, French and Italian troops entered the city to oversee the withdrawal of PLO forces from there. At the end of August, when the Lebanese parliament building was surrounded by Israeli tanks, Bashir Gemayel was elected president of Lebanon. After his assassination a few weeks later, Israel occupied western Beirut, and the Phalangists massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Beirut camps of Sabra and Shatila. In place of Bashir Gemayel, his brother Amin was elected. American troops returned to Lebanon as "peacekeeping forces" and turned into a combatant, as the administration of US President Ronald Reagan tried to help Gemayel establish control over this country. However, in February 1984, American troops were withdrawn from Lebanon after the death in October 1983 of more than 240 US Marines. Amin Gemayel remained president, but most of the country, including large areas of Beirut, was out of government control. After the Israeli invasion, the PLO and most of the Lebanese forces split. The Fatah organization, which occupied a special position, supported by Syria and Libya, forcibly ousted the units loyal to Arafat from northern Lebanon. The Shia opposition split into several factions that collaborated with Syria and Iran, and within the Falange there were movements oriented towards Israel and Syria. The Palestinians in the camps endured a series of long and bloody sieges, mostly by the Syrian-backed Amal movement. These tests contributed to the reunification of the main forces of the PLO inside and outside Lebanon, primarily due to Arafat's desire to negotiate in alliance with King Hussein of Jordan and Egyptian President Mubarak. Israel, backed by the US, rejected these attempts at reconciliation, and the alliance between Arafat and Hussein was destroyed.
Iranian Revolution. The rise in oil revenues in the 1970s led to major social upheavals and political tensions. In Iran, as in other countries, there was a migration of poor peasants to large cities. The inflationary boom of the beginning of the decade by 1977 was replaced by a period of recession in business activity. The economic crisis turned into a political revolution because the regime failed to create a political base among the middle classes, employees and students, i.e. among the groups whose numbers increased significantly in a quarter of a century after the restoration of the Shah's power in 1953. The Shah's government destroyed and banned independent political parties, trade unions and professional associations. In 1975, it created the only state party, the Renaissance Party, to bring under direct control the powerful and numerous market traders and the Shia religious elite. The alienation of basic social classes, old and new, led to the rapid collapse of the old order. In November 1977 and January 1978, the first clashes between students and the police took place. The commemoration of the dead on the fortieth day, as prescribed by Shiite religious institutions, resulted in a series of new performances. Throughout May 1978, students, qualified specialists, small traders and part of the clergy joined the ranks of the opposition. By July they were joined by city factory and construction workers. On September 7, 1978, half a million Iranians from all walks of life took to the streets of Tehran. The regime imposed martial law, and the next day troops opened fire and killed hundreds of demonstrators. The ensuing demonstrations, strikes and clashes forced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to flee Iran in January 1979. A broad opposition front represented old and new classes, expressed secular and religious political tendencies, but only one person personified the revolution - Ayatollah Khomeini. He first showed himself as an open opponent of the Shah in 1962-1963, and by the end of 1981 Khomeini and his associates from the Shiite clergy in the Islamic Republican Party reigned supreme in the country. Most of the other organizations and leaders who played an important role in the overthrow of the Shah ended up in prison or exile.
Iran-Iraq war. An important factor in strengthening the Islamic regime in Iran was the Iraqi invasion of this country in September 1980. The reason for Iraq's dissatisfaction was the 1975 treaty, which provided Iran with access to the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway along which the border between the two countries passes in the extreme south. In exchange, Iran agreed to stop helping Kurdish rebels fighting against the Iraqi government. A more specific reason was Iraqi concern about propaganda carried out by Iran among the Iraqi Shiites, who made up about half of Iraq's population but were poorly represented in the political and economic elite. The main motive, however, was Iraq's belief in the fragility of the regime in Iran. Iraq's goal was to establish itself as the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. By February 1981, it was clear that Iraq's strategic plans had failed. Both sides hardened their positions, adding to the previously announced military goals the overthrow of the enemy regime. In March 1982, Iran went on the offensive, and in June, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would withdraw troops from Iran. Iran conducted several more major offensives in the area along the border, but failed to break through the Iraqi defensive lines. The threat of Iranian victory in 1983 contributed to the emergence of an unusual alliance of regional and international forces, which were united by a common goal - to prevent the defeat of Iraq. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia provided huge loans, Kuwait became a transshipment point for maritime transportation of Iraqi military and civilian imports. Egypt and Jordan provided weapons and military advisers. Only Syria and Libya sided with Iran. Internationally, Iraq was dependent on France and the USSR as its main arms suppliers. Although the US was officially neutral, it provided Iraq with agricultural loans, helicopters and transport aircraft. The US has also built military installations in Saudi Arabia, Oman and other areas of the Persian Gulf. In the spring of 1984, Iraq attempted to resolve the ground war stalemate by attacking Iranian oil export facilities and tankers. Similar sorties were made in the future, but did not greatly affect Iranian oil exports. Another goal of Iraq was to use the threat of an expansion of the war in order for the Western powers and the USSR to jointly force Iran to begin negotiations on the end of hostilities. At the end of 1986, information was made public that the United States, at least since 1985, had been secretly selling weapons to Iran through Israel. The Reagan administration said this was done in order to establish long-term working relationships with key Iranian leaders. The immediate goal was to secure the release of Americans who were being held hostage in Lebanon by a group close to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The Reagan initiative failed to achieve any of its goals, which caused a political crisis in the United States. In 1987, Kuwait asked the US and the USSR to protect its tankers from the threat of an Iranian attack. The Reagan administration, seeking to reduce Soviet influence in the Gulf and divert attention from arms sales to Iran, re-registered Kuwaiti tankers as US-flagged ships and sent warships to escort them across the Gulf. After an Iraqi missile attack on the American destroyer USS Stark in May 1987, Washington was forced to increase its military presence in the Persian Gulf, which caused clashes with Iranian naval forces. These developments, along with Iran's failure to score a single decisive victory in recent ground offensives, have piqued its interest in reaching a UN-brokered ceasefire. The United States made great efforts to ensure that the Security Council in July 1987 adopted a ceasefire resolution No. 598, which took into account the interests of Iraq as much as possible. In 1988, during ground offensive operations (including the use of poison gases), Iraq managed to dislodge Iranian troops from most of Iraqi territory, which they had captured in the previous four years, and Iraqi warplanes and Soviet-supplied missiles attacked major Iranian cities. and economic entities. US intervention on the side of Iraq - diplomatic in the UN and military in the Gulf - turned bloody on July 3, 1988, when a US warship mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft, killing 290 people. Two weeks later, the Iranian government accepted the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 598. The ceasefire agreement continued into 1989, but little progress was made in negotiations even on such basic issues as the mutual withdrawal of troops and the repatriation of prisoners of war. Inside Iran, the political struggle continued between those in the regime who advocated strengthening the gains of the revolution by addressing urgent economic and social needs, and those who called for more decisive action against Iran's enemies. This struggle did not stop even after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini on June 3, 1989. President Ali Khamenei became the head of state. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, after the cessation of hostilities, launched an offensive against the Iraqi Kurds, using chemical weapons, and expelled tens of thousands of peaceful Kurds into Turkey. Iraq continued its longstanding rivalry with Syria by providing military assistance to Maronite Christians in Lebanon.
Palestinian intifada. At the summit meeting of the Arab League in Amman (Jordan) in November 1987, the main topic of the agenda was to support Iraq in the war with Iran. For the first time in almost 30 years, the Arab and Palestinian conflict with Israel was barely mentioned in the discussions and resolutions of the summit. Later, some Palestinian observers noted that the meeting in Amman was one of the reasons for the mass uprising (intifada) against the Israeli occupation, which broke out in early December 1987 in the Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Arab Summit and the meeting between R. Reagan and MS Gorbachev a month later showed that the problems of the Palestinians would not be taken seriously and that an "external" solution would not follow. By January 1988, it became clear that the intifada was qualitatively different from previous massive Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military domination. It quickly went beyond the refugee camps and covered the entire Palestinian population of the territories occupied by Israel. After a year and a half of the intifada, a regime of dual power has taken shape in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While the Israeli military still held administrative power, the United National Rebellion Command, which represented the four major political groups (Fatah, Popular Front, Democratic Front, and Communist Party), as well as Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, held political power. The uprising had important political implications for the Palestinian national movement. It has helped to shift the center of political gravity "outside" in the Palestinian communities of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world "inside" to the Palestinian communities under Israeli rule. The National Council of Palestine, meeting in Algiers in November 1988, recorded this shift by unambiguously declaring a plan to create an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital. On July 31, King Hussein of Jordan cut off all contacts with the West Bank through the judiciary and the executive branch. The uprising increased political polarization within Israel. Parliamentary elections held in November 1988 did not provide an unconditional mandate to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinian leadership, but the uprising ended the illusion that the status quo could continue. The uprising also had some foreign policy impact, including on the United States. In mid-December 1988, following a meeting of the Palestinian National Council and in response to diplomatic moves by the Palestinians, the US government lifted a long-standing ban on negotiations with the PLO.
Gulf War (1990-1991). After its success in the war with Iran, Iraq began to increasingly aggressively seek military and political leadership in the Arab world. However, its economy was extremely sensitive to any decline in oil prices, since Iraq spent most of its income on military needs. Overproduction of oil in Kuwait accelerated the fall in prices, which caused a crisis that culminated in the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. The United States, under the auspices of the UN, created a coalition of more than 20 countries that was ready to start a war against Iraq to drive out its troops from Kuwait. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Syria and the smaller Gulf states joined the US-led coalition, while Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan and the PLO called for a settlement through inter-Arab negotiations. Turkey and Saudi Arabia blocked oil pipelines from Iraq and provided airfields for coalition aviation. The United States persuaded Israel not to participate in the war, despite the fact that Iraq launched missile attacks on it, rightly assuming that the Arab members of the multinational force would refuse to participate in a coalition that would include Israel. The war against Iraq began in January 1991. After intense bombing for five weeks, coalition ground forces invaded Kuwait and southern Iraq and defeated the Iraqi army.
Accords in Oslo. After the Gulf War, the US managed to find a diplomatic formula that allowed Israel and its Arab adversaries to attend a peace conference on the Middle East. The conference opened in Madrid on October 30, 1991, and featured bilateral discussions between Israel and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, between Israel and Lebanon, and between Israel and Syria. In February 1992 Israeli and Palestinian delegations began direct negotiations on self-government in the West Bank and Gaza. In parallel with the Madrid Conference, secret negotiations took place between Israel and the PLO in Oslo, which ended with the signing in Washington on September 13, 1993 of a joint Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles. The document determined the conditions for granting autonomy to the Gaza Strip and Jericho by December, after which limited self-government was introduced in the West Bank for a five-year transitional period. It was envisaged that during this period an elected Palestinian state body would exercise power functions in relation to the Palestinians permanently residing there, and the armed police of the PLO would maintain order. The agreement, as one might expect, met with the support of the world community. Morocco recognized Israel, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan. However, within Israel and among the Palestinians, the agreement has sparked new, even sharper conflicts and outbreaks of violence. The hopes for immediate results that the parties associated with the agreement turned out to be unrealistic. The Palestinians soon faced financial and administrative chaos in Gaza and Jericho due to the lack of structures to coordinate the transfer of power. While the international community promised billions of dollars to the PLO, much less was actually provided, and many Palestinians began to accuse Arafat of corruption and misappropriation of funds. After a series of bus bombings in Israel by terrorists, which injured many people, including children, the Israelis began to actively oppose the agreement and demand that Arafat put an end to terrorism. In response, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin closed the Palestinian territories, cutting off Palestinian access to Israel. This, in turn, has become a new justification for terrorist attacks against Israel. Tensions were rising in Israel, and Rabin's peace policy was facing increasingly fierce right-wing opposition. It culminated in the assassination of Rabin by a young Jewish religious extremist on November 4, 1995. Rabin's death marked a turning point in the peace process. Shimon Peres, who succeeded him as prime minister, was seen as committed to the peace process. This was confirmed by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize (together with Rabin and Arafat) to him the previous year. However, in the elections in May 1996, right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister, who declared his commitment to the Oslo agreements, but made it clear that he would not contribute to the emergence of an independent Palestinian state. An increase in terrorist attacks against Israelis and Arafat's apparent unwillingness to stop these activities forced the Israeli government to take an even tougher stance, and by the end of Netanyahu's first year in office, the peace process had all but ground to a halt.
post-war Iraq. The harsh economic sanctions imposed by the UN on Iraq after the Gulf War did not prevent Saddam Hussein from ruling with a firm hand. Kurdish uprisings that began after the war, seeking autonomy in northern Iraq, were quickly suppressed, forcing thousands of Kurdish refugees to flee to neighboring Iran and Turkey. Several coup attempts were thwarted, and Saddam Hussein continued to reject UN resolutions to send teams of UN inspectors to Iraq to oversee military programs. In 1995, Saddam Hussein's two sons-in-law, Hussein Kamel and Saddam Kamel, fled to Jordan. Both held high official positions. The former was in charge of Iraqi military programs, while the latter headed the presidential security service. Their high position and the support they most likely received from King Hussein of Jordan raised unfounded hopes that Saddam's regime would soon be overthrown. In response, Saddam Hussein ordered a purge of senior officials associated with defectors, followed by a spate of arrests and executions. A referendum held in October by the National Assembly solidified Saddam Hussein's grip on power by allowing him to continue as president for another seven-year term. The flight of Saddam's sons-in-law to Jordan highlighted the specifics of interstate relations in the Middle East. King Hussein quickly took refuge in the defectors and even mentioned a period of Hashemite rule in Iraq's history, which was a veiled manifestation of his expansionist aspirations. He also helped the Iraqi opposition establish bases in Amman and allowed the US to deploy fighter jets in Jordan to guard the no-fly zone in southern Iraq, which was created by the UN after the Gulf War. However, close economic ties between these countries ruled out a real gap between them. Iraq was Jordan's main supplier of oil, and a significant portion of Iraqi imports passed through the Jordanian port of Aqaba. By 1997, with international economic sanctions still in place, Iraqi trade ministers met with the Jordanian prime minister and promised customs benefits on the main Jordanian exports.
Islamic fundamentalism. At the end of the 20th century The Near and Middle East remains the center of religious and territorial conflicts. Islamic fundamentalism, which received impetus for its development as a result of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, continues to threaten the stability of many regimes. Egypt has been the target of particularly strong outbursts of militant Islamism, firstly in response to its peaceful policy toward Israel (President Sadat was assassinated by a militant Islamist), and later as a reaction to the economic failures of the Mubarak administration. Smaller and more extremist fundamentalist organizations such as Islamic Jihad direct terrorist attacks against Christians, government officials, intellectuals and foreign tourists. Larger and more influential organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are trying to impose political Islamic fundamentalism through representation in parliament, without giving up political terror against the "enemies of Islam", in particular Israel.
Terror and coup in Algiers. In Algeria, Islamic fundamentalism manifested itself in one of the most brutal forms of terror. In 1991, the Islamic opposition party FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) won a majority in the parliamentary elections, but not enough to establish FIS control over parliament. The required second round of voting was canceled following the resignation of President Chadli Bendjedid and the dissolution of the National Assembly. A state of emergency was declared, and an armed struggle began between militant Islamists and the ruling military regime. By 1994, estimates of Algerians killed in the conflict gave different numbers - from 3 to 30 thousand. In 1995, the army launched larger operations against the rebels and destroyed thousands of guerrillas from the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) - a radical offshoot of the FIS. In response, the militants stepped up their terror against civilians suspected of collaborating with the military-backed government, and resorted to car bombings and massacres. Anyone who violated the strict Islamic rules risked being maimed or killed. As a result of the multi-party presidential elections in 1995, in which 75% of the voters took part (despite calls by extremists to boycott the elections under threat of death), the government remained in power. However, this did not put an end to the terror. It intensified in 1997, when hundreds of people were killed, women were raped and slaughtered in remote villages, forcing thousands of residents to leave their homes. International observers have estimated that between 1992 and 1997, 60,000 people died in Algeria as a result of terror by Islamic fundamentalists, while Algerian commentators have pointed out that this figure could be twice as high.

Collier Encyclopedia. - Open society. 2000 .

The situation changed dramatically only from the middle of the 20th century, after the Second World War and the collapse of the colonial system. These events served as an impetus that sharply intensified the entire course of social life, the political activity of the masses, cultural and other transformations. Earlier and most of all, this had an effect in the world's largest Islamic countries in terms of population - India and Indonesia. Split into two parts, India gave birth to a new purely Islamic state - Pakistan (in the early 70s, in turn, divided into Pakistan and Bangladesh), which was led by the Muslim League with its plans for moderate bourgeois transformations. The complex path of development of Pakistan and Bangladesh, full of internal contradictions and crises, eventually led to some transformations. However, their essence does not go beyond the framework of bourgeois reforms. Islam is still the banner of these countries, and the struggle of groups within Islamic movements and sects sometimes results in violent conflicts. The debate takes into account the need to update traditional spiritual values, and stakes on the revival of Islamic ethics with its cult of a religious form of morality. Islamic theologians talk a lot and willingly on the topics of freedom of thought, equality, emphasize peacefulness Islam(jihad is interpreted only as a reflection of aggression). In a word, the ideas of Islamic ethics and Islamic democracy developed by the spiritual leaders of these countries aim, on the one hand, to adapt Islam to the needs of today, with its help to give an answer to the exciting questions of our time, and on the other hand, to confirm the idea that only one Islam able to become the foundation of a new life.

In Indonesia, Islamic nationalists took over at the helm of the state immediately after the war. The new laws of the young republic sharply limited the dominance of Sharia and thus cleared the way for the modernizing theories not only of Islamic democracy, but also of Islamic socialism, more precisely, "Indonesian socialism", actively developed by the efforts of President Sukarno and his supporters. However, attempts to direct the development of the country along a socialist path while maintaining the actual dominance of the traditional eastern structure did not lead Indonesia to success. A bet on ethics in its Islamic sense, on egalitarian traditions Islam with the restriction of large private property did not justify itself. A crisis ensued, which found its expression in the activity of speaking out against the left forces of the country, led by the Communists. Now the slogan of Islamic socialism in Indonesia has actually been removed. Islam is still the country's leading spiritual force, and its leaders strive to best accommodate the norms Islam to the needs of modern development.

Since the 50s, the process of modernization Islam began to manifest itself in the most developed Arab countries - in Egypt, Syria, Iraq. In these states, and most notably in Nasser's Egypt, social transformations, combined with an active nationalist reaction to colonialism, led to dramatic and radical changes. The question arose of reforms aimed at limiting property, nationalizing large enterprises, and granting broad rights and freedoms to everyone, including women. Positions Islam, especially its conservative leaders, were weakened in these countries, but Islam continues to be the official ideology. All theories about "Islamic socialism" usually fit into the norms Islam, and in some Arab countries - even in the commandment of "pure" primordial Islam with its reactionary Sharia norms, whether it be a system of punishments or the position of a woman.

Attempts to harmonize norms Islam with radical transformations intensified even more in the 70s of the 20th century, which was facilitated by a number of important circumstances, and first of all, a sharp strengthening of the economic and political positions of some leading Islamic countries in connection with the oil problem. The transformation of these countries into an influential force in the modern world has also raised the question of islam.

Eastern European countries after the Second World War. Transformations of the people's democracy period

Participation in the Second World War brought enormous hardships and sacrifices to the peoples of Eastern Europe. This region was the main theater of military operations on the European continent. The Eastern European countries have become hostages of the policy of the great powers, turning into disenfranchised satellites of opposing blocs or objects of open aggression. Their economy was seriously undermined. The political situation was also extremely difficult. The collapse of pro-fascist authoritarian regimes, the broad participation of the population in the resistance movement created the prerequisites for profound changes in the entire state-political system. However, in reality, the politicization of the masses and their readiness for democratic transformations was superficial. The authoritarian political psychology was not only preserved, but even strengthened during the war years. The mass consciousness still had a desire to see the state as a guarantor of social stability and a force capable of solving the tasks facing society in the shortest possible time with a firm hand.

The defeat of National Socialism in the global war of social systems brought other implacable opponents face to face - communism and democracy. Supporters of these war-winning ideas gained predominance in the new political elite of the Eastern European countries, but this promised a new round of ideological confrontation in the future. The situation was also complicated by the increased influence of the national idea, the existence of nationalist-oriented trends even in the democratic and communist camps. The idea of ​​agrarianism, revived in these years, and the activities of the still influential and numerous peasant parties also received a national coloring.

Already in the last months of the war, in the overwhelming majority of Eastern European countries, the process of consolidating all the former opposition parties and movements, the formation of broad multi-party coalitions, which were called national or domestic fronts, began. As their countries were liberated, these coalitions assumed full state power. This happened at the end of 1944 in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, in 1945 - in Czechoslovakia, Poland. The only exceptions were the Baltic countries, which remained part of the USSR and underwent complete Sovietization during the war years, and Yugoslavia, where the pro-communist People's Liberation Front retained complete predominance.

The reason for such an unexpected at first glance unity of completely heterogeneous political forces was the unity of their tasks at the first stage of post-war transformations. It was quite obvious to communists and agrarians, nationalists and democrats that the most pressing problems were the formation of the foundations of a new constitutional order, the elimination of authoritarian governance structures associated with the previous regimes, and the holding of free elections. In all countries, the monarchy system was abolished (only in Romania did this happen later, after the establishment of the monopoly power of the communists). In Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, the first wave of reforms also concerned the solution of the national question, the formation of federal statehood. The primary task was the restoration of the destroyed economy, the establishment of material support for the population, and the solution of pressing social problems. The nature of the ongoing transformations made it possible to characterize the entire stage of 1945-1946. as a period of "people's democracy".

The first signs of a split in the ruling anti-fascist blocs appeared in 1946. The peasant parties, the most numerous and influential at that time, did not consider it necessary to accelerate modernization, the priority development of industry. They also opposed the expansion of state regulation of the economy. The main task of these parties, which was generally accomplished already at the first stage of the reforms, was the destruction of the latifundia and the implementation of an agrarian reform in the interests of the middle peasantry.

Democratic parties, communists and social democrats, despite political differences, were united in focusing on the “catch-up development” model, striving to ensure a breakthrough in their countries in industrial development, to approach the level of the leading countries of the world. Not having a large advantage individually, all together they made up a powerful force, pushing their opponents out of power. Changes in the upper echelons of power led to the start of large-scale reforms to nationalize large industry and the banking system, wholesale trade, and introduce state control over production and planning elements. However, if the communists considered these transformations as the first stage of socialist construction, then the democratic forces saw in them only a process of strengthening state regulation of the market economy. A new round of political struggle was inevitable, and its outcome depended not only on the alignment of internal political forces, but also on events on the world stage.

Eastern Europe and the Beginning of the Cold War.

After their liberation, the Eastern European countries found themselves at the forefront of world politics. CIIIA and their allies took the most active steps to strengthen their positions in the region. However, since the last months of the war, the decisive influence here belonged to the USSR. It was based both on the direct Soviet military presence and on the great moral authority of the USSR as a liberating power. Realizing their advantage, the Soviet leadership did not force the development of events for a long time and emphasized respect for the idea of ​​the sovereignty of the Eastern European countries. .

The situation changed radically by mid-1946. The proclamation of the "Truman Doctrine", which announced the beginning of a crusade against communism, marked the beginning of an open struggle of the superpowers for geopolitical influence anywhere in the world. The Eastern European countries felt the change in the nature of the international situation already in the summer of 1947. Official Moscow not only refused investment assistance under the American Marshall Plan, but also harshly condemned the possibility of any of the Eastern European countries participating in this project. The USSR offered generous compensation in the form of preferential supplies of raw materials and food, rapidly expanding the scale of technical and technological assistance to the countries of the region. But the main task of Soviet policy - the eradication of the very possibility of a geopolitical reorientation of Eastern Europe - could only be ensured by the monopoly power in these countries of the communist parties.

2. Formation of the socialist camp. The period of "building the foundations of socialism"

The formation of communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe followed a similar scenario. As early as the end of 1946, the formation of left-wing blocs began with the participation of communists, social democrats and their allies. These coalitions proclaimed their goal a peaceful transition to a socialist revolution and, as a rule, gained an advantage in democratic elections. In 1947, the new governments, using the already open support of the Soviet military administration and relying on the state security agencies, created under the control of the Soviet secret services on the basis of communist cadres, provoked a series of political conflicts that led to the defeat of the peasant and bourgeois-democratic parties.

Political trials took place over the leaders of the Hungarian Party of Small Farmers Z. Tildi, the Polish People's Party S. Mikolajczyk, the Bulgarian Agricultural People's Union N. Petkov, the Romanian Caranist Party A. Alexandrescu, the Slovak President Tiso and the leadership of the Slovak Democratic Party who supported him. The logical continuation of the defeat of the democratic opposition was the organizational merger of the communist and social democratic parties, followed by the discrediting and, subsequently, the destruction of the leaders of the social democracy. As a result, by 1948-1949. practically in all countries of Eastern Europe the course towards building the foundations of socialism was officially proclaimed.

The political upheaval that took place in the Eastern European countries in 1946-1948 strengthened the influence of the USSR in the region, but did not yet make it overwhelming. To support the "correct" political course of the young communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Soviet leadership took a number of vigorous measures. The first of these was the formation of a new international coordinating center of the communist movement - the successor to the Comintern. In the autumn of 1947, a meeting of delegations of the communist parties of the USSR, France, Italy, and Eastern European states took place in the Polish city of Szklarska Poreba, which decided to create a Communist Information Bureau. The Cominform became a political instrument for fixing the "correct" vision of the ways of building socialism, i.e. orientation of socialist construction according to the Soviet model. The reason for the decisive eradication of dissent in the ranks of the communist movement was the Soviet-Yugoslav conflict.

Soviet-Yugoslav conflict.

At first glance, of all Eastern European countries, Yugoslavia provided the least grounds for ideological revelations and political confrontation. Ever since the war, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia has become the most influential force in the country, and its leader Josef Broz Tito has become a true national hero. As early as January 1946, a one-party system was legally fixed in Yugoslavia, and the implementation of broad programs for the nationalization of industry and the collectivization of agriculture began. Forced industrialization, carried out according to the Soviet model, was seen as a strategic line for the development of the national economy and the social structure of society. The authority of the USSR in Yugoslavia during these years was indisputable.

The reason for the complication of Soviet-Yugoslav relations was the desire of the leadership of Yugoslavia to present their country as a "special" ally of the USSR, more significant and influential than all other members of the Soviet bloc, to consolidate the countries of the Balkan region around Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav leadership also tried to raise the question of the unacceptable behavior of some Soviet specialists who worked in the country and almost openly recruited agents for the Soviet special services. The answer was the removal from Yugoslavia of all Soviet specialists and advisers. The conflict took an open form.

On March 27, 1948, Stalin sent a personal letter to I. Tito, in which he outlined the accusations leveled against the Yugoslav side. Tito and his associates were accused of criticizing the universality of the historical experience of the USSR, the dissolution of the Communist Party in the Popular Front, the rejection of the class struggle, and the patronage of capitalist elements in the economy. In fact, these reproaches had nothing to do with the internal problems of Yugoslavia - she was targeted only because of her excessive self-will. But the leaders of other communist parties, invited to participate in the public "exposing the criminal clique of Tito", were forced to officially recognize the criminality of the very attempt to find other ways to build socialism.

The period of "building the foundations of socialism".

At the second meeting of the Cominform in June 1948, formally devoted to the Yugoslav question, the ideological and political foundations of the socialist camp were finally consolidated - the right of the USSR to interfere in the internal affairs of other socialist countries, the recognition of the universality of the Soviet model of socialism, the priority of tasks related to the aggravation of the class struggle, the strengthening of the political monopoly of the communist parties, and accelerated industrialization. From now on, the internal development of the countries of Eastern Europe took place under the strict control of the USSR. The creation in 1949 of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, which assumed the functions of coordinating the economic integration of the socialist countries, and already in 1955 of the military-political bloc of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, completed the creation of the socialist camp.

The transition of the construction of socialism in the countries of Eastern Europe under the strict control of the USSR led to a radical purge of the communist movement itself in this region. In 1949-1952. a wave of political processes and repressions swept through here, liquidating the "national" wing of the communist parties, which advocated the preservation of the state sovereignty of their countries. The political consolidation of the regimes, in turn, became the impetus for the accelerated reform of the entire socio-economic system, the accelerated completion of nationalization, accelerated industrialization with the priority of sectors for the production of means of production, the spread of complete state control over the capital market, securities and labor, the implementation of forced cooperation in agriculture.

As a result of the reforms, by the mid-1950s, Eastern Europe achieved unprecedented success in “catching up development” and made an impressive breakthrough in building up the entire economic potential and modernizing the social structure. On the scale of the entire region, the transition to an industrial-agrarian type of society was completed. However, the rapid growth of production was accompanied by an increase in sectoral disproportions. The created economic mechanism was largely artificial, not taking into account regional and national specifics. Its social efficiency was extremely low, and even the successful course of reforms did not compensate for the great social tension in society and the decline in living standards caused by the costs of accelerated modernization.

The political crisis in Eastern Europe in the mid-1950s.

Those Eastern European countries suffered the most in which, by the beginning of the reforms, the foundations of a market infrastructure already existed - Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Here, socialist construction was accompanied by a particularly painful breakdown of the social structure, the liquidation of quite numerous entrepreneurial strata, and a forced change in the priorities of social psychology. With the death of Stalin in 1953 and some weakening of Moscow's control in the ruling circles of these countries, the influence of those politicians who called for a more flexible reform strategy and increased social efficiency began to grow.

In Hungary, since 1953, the government of Imre Nagy began a series of reforms designed to slow down the pace of industrialization, overcome the extremes of forced collectivization in agriculture, and increase the economic independence of enterprises. Faced with opposition from the leadership of the ruling Hungarian Workers' Party, Nagy was removed from his post and returned to power at the end of 1956 against the backdrop of an acute social crisis that gripped Hungarian society. The decisive events began in Budapest on October 23 with spontaneous demonstrations of students protesting against the actions of the old leadership of the HTP. I. Nagy, who again headed the government, announced the continuation of reforms, the resolution of demonstrations and rallies, and freedom of speech. However, Nagy himself did not really have a clear concept of reforming the social order in Hungary, he had obvious populist inclinations and rather followed the events than controlled them. Soon the government completely lost control of what was happening.

The broad democratic movement, directed against the extremes of the Stalinist model of socialism, resulted in an open anti-communist counter-revolution. The country was on the brink of civil war. In Budapest, armed clashes between the rebels and the workers' squads and state security officers began. The Nagy government actually took the side of the opponents of the regime, declaring its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and secure the status of a neutral state for Hungary. White terror began in the capital and large cities - reprisals against communists and employees of the State Security Service. In this situation, the Soviet government decided to bring tank units into Budapest and suppress the uprising. At the same time, members of the Central Committee of the VPT, headed by Janos Kadar, who fled from the capital, formed a new government, which assumed full power by November 11. Nagy and his closest associates were executed. The party, transformed into the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, was purged. At the same time, Kadar announced his intention to eradicate all manifestations of Stalinism that caused the crisis of Hungarian society, to achieve a more balanced development of the country.

Events unfolded no less dramatically in Poland, where the spontaneous uprisings of workers in 1956 were met by the government with cruel repressions. The social explosion was prevented only thanks to the return to power of the disgraced W. Gomulka, who headed the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party in 1943-1948, but was expelled from the party for his passion for the idea of ​​"national socialism". This reshuffle in the leadership of Poland caused great concern in the USSR. However, the new Polish leaders were able to convince the representatives of Moscow of their political loyalty and that the adjustment of the reforms would not affect the foundations of the socialist system. This happened at the moment when Soviet tanks were already heading towards Warsaw.

The increase in tension in Czechoslovakia was not so great, since in the industrially developed Czech Republic there was practically no task of accelerated industrialization, and the social costs of this process in Slovakia were compensated to some extent by the federal budget.