Soviet Invasion Research Articles

Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968–71 by Parker David (review)

SEER, 98, 2, APRIL 2020 388 technocratic future — the ‘combat readiness’ of East European states in case of Western attack was open to doubt. And military defence of frontline borders with NATO had, after all, been the very purpose behind the Warsaw Pact, from 1955 onwards. Department of Humanities Matthew Stibbe Sheffield Hallam University Parker, David (ed.). Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968– 71. Bacquier Books, Holmfirth, 2017. 436 pp. Illustrations. Timeline. Notes. Index of letters. £14.99 (paperback). David Parker, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leeds, presents us with a collection of correspondence between his late father, Leslie Parker, and a doctor in Czechoslovakia, Paul Žalud, who spent the Second World War in the United Kingdom but subsequently returned to Communist Czechoslovakia out of a sense of duty. Although the two never met one another, they developed an intimate correspondence lasting from 1968 until 1971, the year that Leslie Parker passed away. The letters exchanged between the men represent a valuable contribution to our understanding of life in Communist Czechoslovakia during the first years of Soviet occupation and the onset of so-called ‘normalization’. In addition, Parker’s criticisms of capitalist society and injustices are insightful. Parker was a veteran member and functionary of the British Communist Party, whereas Žalud was a disillusioned Czechoslovak ex-Communist doctor (he left the Party in 1941) struggling to salvage his career and provide for his family in the provincial city of Ústí nad Labem. Their letters are reprinted here largely in their original format, and organized chronologically. There is a short introduction at the beginning and some reflections by the editor at the end of the volume. The exchange of letters was initiated by Parker after Žalud published a letter in The Times dated 14 July 1968 (published 19 July 1968) in reaction to their coverage of the pre-occupation Prague Spring. Žalud disagreed with The Times on why hard-line Communists in the Soviet Union persisted in their belief that the liberalization measures adopted by Czechoslovak party leader, Alexander Dubček, during the first half of 1968 were part of an imperialist Western conspiracy to undermine the Soviet bloc. Žalud referred to Karl Popper’s ‘conspiracy theory of society’ in order to explain Soviet thinking in his attempt to correct the impression made by The Times that the Soviet leaders felt the way they did because they were ‘prisoners of Marxist doctrine’. The point made by Žalud was that Soviet thinking had nothing in common with true Marxist REVIEWS 389 doctrine. The editor refers to some unpreserved initial correspondence initiated by Parker criticizing Žalud’s stance. When Žalud responded in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion, which occurred in August, Parker apologized and the friendly correspondence began. The first letter in the volume was sent from Žalud to Parker on 28 October 1968. Žalud mentioned that thirty thousand Czechoslovaks had already left for the West and that the Czechoslovak Communist Party was still struggling to preserve the sovereignty of the occupied country, but that the Soviets were interfering wherever possible. In his reply, Parker wrote of the social ills facing Britain and other Western countries. He also mentioned that Communists in Britain and other Western countries were torn by the question of whether antiimperialism meant always agreeing with Soviet foreign policy. Finally, Parker stated that the existence of the Communist countries in Europe was a good thing because ‘if they were to go, the salvation of humanity would be put back possiblycenturies’.Žalud’sreply(thefinalletterof1968inthevolume)tookissue with Parker’s notion that the success of the socialist revolution was sufficient to end ‘man’s exploitation by man’ by stating: ‘The expropriation of the means of production and the verbal declaration that the proletariat has been raised to the position of the ruling class is by no means a fool-proof device to do away with exploitation.’ The letters exchanged in 1968 demonstrate the differences in perception between Parker, an individual with Communist beliefs in a free country, and Žalud, who lived in Communist Czechoslovakia and experienced first-hand difference between Communist theory and practice. Over the course of 1969, twenty letters were exchanged. Parker initially wrote with the...

The drugs crisis and AIDS in 1980s Edinburgh

Some 4667 km separate the capitals of Scotland and Iran. To reach Kabul, you have to go a further 1126 km. But events in faraway places can have unexpected consequences. In the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, cheap heroin flooded into Europe. In the mid-1970s, there were fewer than 100 injecting drug users in Edinburgh; by the early 1980s, there were more than 5000.

Perspectives on The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War

Perspectives on <i>The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War</i>

Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy. by Alessandro Brogi, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. 533 pp. $55.00.

<i>Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy</i>. by Alessandro Brogi, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. 533 pp. $55.00.

Sharaf Rashidov and the international dimensions of Soviet Uzbekistan

ABSTRACT During the Cold War, Sharaf Rashidov became a representative of the Soviet anti-imperialist agenda, a key interlocutor with Third World leaders and a promoter of Uzbekistan as a modern and emancipated model of political, economic, social and cultural development for newly independent countries emerging from decolonization. Tashkent hosted important meetings among Soviet and Asian leaders, along with international festivals of cinema and literature, which attracted hundreds of Asian, African and Latin American intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, trade unionists and athletes. Moreover, Uzbekistan came to symbolize the self-proclaimed compatibility between communism and Islam, offering a façade of religious freedom, tolerance and tradition combined with Bolshevik progress. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan discredited this narrative – and Uzbekistan and (posthumously) Rashidov were humiliated in the Cotton Affair – pointing to the impact as well as the limits of Uzbek internationalism.

“With the Utmost Practical Speed”: Eisenhower, Hungarian Parolees, and the “Hidden Hand” Behind US Immigration and Refugee Policy, 1956–1957

Abstract From December 1956 to May 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made unprecedented use of the parole statute of the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act in order to rapidly admit 38,000 Hungarian refugees to the United States. Characterizing this decision as a reactive effort to repair strained relationships with Western European allies following the Soviet invasion of Budapest, previous scholarship has correctly recognized that Eisenhower’s actions “stretched American immigration law beyond belief”; at the same time, by assuming that sympathetic American legislators were eager to work with the president to find ways around legal obstacles to the admission of anti- Communist Hungarians, scholars to date have sidestepped the question of exactly how he managed to bypass congressional authority without provoking a constitutional crisis. Drawing upon sources including the president’s personal papers, NSC memoranda, and State Department memos in order to more fully excavate the fraught process by which the president compelled Congress to cede control of immigration and refugee policy to the executive, this article argues that Eisenhower saw his use of the parole statute not only in reactive geo- political terms, but also as a proactive means of creating momentum for the reform of the nation’s restrictive immigration policies. Asserting that the president sought deliberately to bypass legislators whose public expressions of sympathy obscured their lack of an affirmative commitment to the admission of Hungarian “freedom fighters,” it further demonstrates that Eisenhower preemptively deployed a high- powered team of public relations professionals as part of a media-driven “end run” around restrictionist legislators whom he expected to oppose his use of the parole statute. Finally, highlighting the centrality of representations of Hungarian whiteness and Christianity to the executive- driven PR campaign that accompanied Eisenhower’s refugee resettlement program, the article concludes that mid- century American notions of race and religion played a crucial role in generating public sympathy for displaced Hungarians and, by extension, in ensuring congressional acquiescence to Eisenhower’s bold interventions into the jealously guarded sphere of refugee policy-making.

«Афганське питання» на шостій надзвичайній спеціальній сесії Генеральної асамблеї ООН (10–14 січня 1980 р.)

Abstract. Introduction . Soviet invasion to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in December 1979 and continued participation of the USSR in the Afghan crisis became the most high-profile event of international life of 1970 – 80-th. The world community perceived Soviet intervention as a significant threat to international peace and security. The Sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly was held to consider the situation in Afghanistan. Th e purpose of the article is to investigate the discussion of the «Afghan issue» at the Sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly 10 – 14 january 1980 and to analyze the impact of the «Afghan issue» on the system of international relations during the Cold War. Results. The Security Council met from 5 to 9 January 1980 to consider the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. A draft resolution calling for the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of the foreign troops was vetoed by the Soviets on 7 January. Two days later the Security Council adopted Resolution 462 acknowledging the lack of unanimity of its permanent members was preventing them from fulfilling their primary duty of maintaining peace and security, invoking the General Assembly’s «Uniting for Peace» resolution calling for an emergency special session. This was adopted with 12 supports, 2 opposes (USSR and German Democratic Republic), with 1 abstention (Zambia). At the Sixth emergency special session was dominated by questions of its legitimacy. Afghanistan and the Soviet Union denounced the meeting as interfering with domestic affairs of a Member State and that they were exercising their Treaty of Friendship and their right to collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Most of the delegations rejected the arguments of the Soviet and Afghan sides. 108 countries condemned the Soviet aggression on January, 14 (18 countries abstained, the same number supported the USSR). Conclusion. The General Assembly adopted Resolution ES-6/2 strongly deploring the recent armed intervention in Afghanistan and calls for the immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of the foreign troops from Afghanistan. However, the decisions of the General Assembly were recommendatory. In addition, the consideration of the «Afghan issue » at the United Nations has shown the lack of a mechanism for influencing an aggressor country that has a veto power in the UN Security Council. These events also marked the transition to a new phase of the Cold War in international relations.

Висвітлення воєнних дій СРСР у Демократичній Республіці Афганістан у радянській науковій, науково-популярній літературі та публіцистиці

Introduction . Soviet aggression in Afghanistan is covered in more than a thousand articles, monographs, essays. Most researchers ignore popular science and non-fiction works. However, they formed the idea of Afghan war in the mass consciousness and reflected the official Soviet policy towards it. The aim of the article is to investigate the evolution of coverage of the Soviet Union’s involvement in the Afghan crisis, to find out the role of censorship and propaganda in this. At the core of the research methodology is the method of a content analysis of historical sources, problem-chronological, typological, comparative methods. Main results and conclusions . From December 1979 to mid-1985, the decisive factor was the complete silence of the participation of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in the war in Afghanistan. From the mid-1985 to the late 1980s, there was a partial relaxation of censorship restrictions, which made it possible to get into publications half-truth. It was only in the last years of the Soviet Union that there was a qualitative transition to a scientific and impartial study of the USSR’s participation in Afghan events, initiated by the works of D. Gay and V. Snigeryov, as well as O. Lyakhovskyi and V. Zabrodin. The predominance of publications and studies of the official version of events led, on the one hand, to the formation of a distorted view of war in Afghanistan by Soviet society, and, on the other, contributed to the decline of confidence in power and ultimately accelerated the collapse of the communist regime in the USSR. Originality . More than a hundred scientific, popular science and non-fiction works published in the USSR in 1980-1991 that deal with Soviet aggression in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan have been investigated in the article. The content of the regulatory framework which determined the contents and nature of the information has been analyzed that could be published on the pages of Soviet editions. On this basis, the evolution of the official version of the Soviet Union’s involvement in the Afghan crisis has been traced and reflected in scientific literature and journalism. The role of censorship and the propaganda orientation of most publications have been established, which makes it possible to define them as part of the internal policy of the Soviet leadership to propagate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The stages during which the nature of Afghan-related publications was altered have been highlighted.

The Creation of NATO and the Western Alliance

Stalin's actions in eastern Europe evoked fear and uncertainty in the West. The Red Army's fear of a Soviet invasion of the free part of the continent continued to be a major nightmare for post-war Europe. The coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia had the same effect as Stalin's military intervention in Poland. Stalin had ordered to intervene against a country that had great international sympathy for resistance to Hitler in the late 1930s. Whatever Stalin's goal was, he was completely unjustified. The Western Europeans were very afraid. If the Communists did not find it difficult to organize a coup in Prague, what would stop them from doing so in Rome or Paris? And if they tried to do something like that, who would stop them?

Georgien zwischen Eigenstaatlichkeit und russischer Okkupation: Die Wurzeln des Konflikts vom 18. Jh. bis 1924 by Philipp Ammon

Reviewed by: Georgien zwischen Eigenstaatlichkeit und russischer Okkupation: Die Wurzeln des Konflikts vom 18. Jh. bis 1924 by Philipp Ammon Jonas Löffler (bio) Philipp Ammon, Georgien zwischen Eigenstaatlichkeit und russischer Okkupation: Die Wurzeln des Konflikts vom 18. Jh. bis 1924 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2020). 238 pp., ill. Bibliography. ISBN: 978-3-465-04407-9. This is a reprint of the book originally published in 2015, now supplemented with a brief afterword by the German Caucasus expert Uwe Halbach. The author, historian and literary scholar Philipp Ammon, wants to "uncover the roots of the Russian-Georgian conflict" (P. 9) by exploring different historical layers of imperial politics and the changing geopolitical interests in the South Caucasus. Ammon's endeavor seems timely and interesting for historians and social scientists occupied with the Southern Caucasian region, especially given that the year 2019 saw another rise in tensions between the two countries. After a Russian deputy sat in the chair of the Georgian parliament's president in June, the ensuing protests led to Russia's halt of air traffic between the two countries and an official warning for Russian citizens traveling to Georgia. The ambitious historical time frame of Ammon's study spans from the first (indirect) contacts between the Georgian kingdoms and the Kievan Rus' in the ninth century to the Soviet invasion of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1921. Ammon's emphasis, however, lies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – largely the time period during which Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. For the most part, Ammon does not make use of primary sources, relying instead on the well-known studies by W. E. D. Allen, David Marshall Lang, Ronald Grigor Suny, and Oliver Reisner along with Alexander Mikaberidze's Historical Dictionary of Georgia.1 Historians familiar with Georgia and the South Caucasus will therefore not find many new aspects of Georgia-Russia relations in Ammon's book. The book is still worth consideration given the relative dearth of German-language textbooks dealing with Caucasian history. This probably explains the attention it has received since it [End Page 267] was first published in 2015, including a number of German-language reviews in academic journals and newspapers.2 These generally positive reviews have overlooked some questionable aspects of Ammon's book brought up toward the end of this review. In the introduction to his book, Ammon underlines its relevance by referring to recent events such as the five-day Russo-Georgian War in August 2008 and the question of Georgia's NATO integration, by problematizing the persisting veneration of Stalin in Georgia and the deep mutual literary entanglements between Georgia and Russia. In the section "Methodological Considerations," Ammon fundamentally criticizes constructivist theories of the nation, arguing that such theories, having become "a 'normative' tendency within contemporary historiography," negate "the concept of the nation as a historical subject claiming political legitimacy" (P. 17). With regard to Georgia, he claims that Benedict Anderson's concept of the "imagined community" is not applicable to "the old European and Asian historical landscapes" (P. 18), including the Caucasus. According to Ammon, it was the Georgian Orthodox liturgy that functioned throughout history and different political entities as a tie between the Georgian people. It is precisely this emphasis on the centrality of Georgian Orthodox faith that informs Ammon's historical narrative, particularly when it comes to historical turning points. Chapter 1 presents a "prehistory" of Georgia-Russia relations, speculating on the origins of the Georgian people and reproducing the thoroughly discredited theory of a relationship between the Georgian and Basque people. It discusses the Christianization of Georgia and possible early cultural transfers from Georgian Orthodoxy to the nascent Christianity of the Kievan Rus'. Chapter 2 covers the establishment of political relations between the Georgian kingdoms and the Russian Empire that eventually led to the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk and the annexation of Georgia in 1801. Once again, Ammon accentuates the role of the Georgians' Orthodox faith in their rapprochement with their northern neighbor. He argues, for example, that the Kakhetian king while being "surrounded by Muslim powers had turned a blind eye to the secularization of the Rus'" (P. 48), a fact...

Impact of Afghan Conflicts as Reflected in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini and one of the literary works that presents the social life of Afghan people in each political era of Afghanistan. The aim of this paper is to discuss the impact of the Afghan conflict since the end of 1970’s until the 2000’s, the author describes the impact of the conflict of Afghanistan since the time of Daoud Khan’s coup, the Soviet Invasion, the Civil War Afghanistan, and the Taliban regime. This study used a mimetic approach that compares the actual occurrence with what is found in the novel. In analyzing this novel, the author uses sociological theory of literature by Alan Swingewood, first perspective regard literature as historical documentation and the time of the literary works made. Then the author uses qualitative methods, where the research described in a descriptive form of words or experts from novel and other sources related to the Afghan conflict. This paper focuses on the condition of Afghan society’s life during the Afghan conflicts and the impact of Afghan conflicts as reflected in the novel, The Kite Runner.&#x0D;

WESTERN PERCEPTION OF YUGOSLAVIA DURING 1980

In the late 1970s and early 1980s a new significant wave of cooling in the relations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact dominated various aspects of world politics. In this situation, Yugoslavia was at the centre of an intricate system of relations between the two blocs, especially with projections regarding the future of the country immediately before and after the death of Josip Broz Tito, who as a person then literally symbolized Yugoslavia on the world political scene. With the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the perception of a potential crisis in Yugoslavia absolutely dominated the world media during the first half of 1980. In the months before Tito’s death and during the first year after his funeral, the Western media were very active in trying to predict the fate of the Yugoslav federation and some of the predictions were very pessimistic, especially in the context of expectations of a potential Soviet invasion targeted towards Yugoslavia. In general, the character of Western media analysis of Yugoslav reality underwent a significant evolution in the short term and the viewpoint on the Yugoslav state changed quite rapidly, primarily in the negative context. In this regard, the examples of American, British and West German analytical approaches were particularly illustrative. As it is precisely within these three perceptions that change has been the greatest and most illustrative, it is the intention of this paper to concentrate only on aspects of those three perspectives.

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Reasons, Objectives and Ramifications

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Reasons, Objectives and Ramifications

Powojenne paniki wojenne: Polska 1945–1980

The author defines “war panic” and analyzes specific manifestations of the phenomenon: the war panics that Poland experienced repeatedly after the Second World War. The author demonstrates that for Polish society the Second World War was the most traumatic event of the twentieth century, and that it left behind not only the human losses and a sea of ruins, but enormous deposits of fear. These ap- peared above all in flight behavior, the hoarding of shop goods, and the withdrawal of money from banks in order, for instance, to buy jewelry – every time the pattern was the same. The first war panic occurred already in 1945. Until the end of the 1960s, Poles were convinced that a third world war was just around the corner. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan also induced a panic. Poles were afraid of war, but war was also used to threaten them. During the Stalinist period, the threat was of American imperialism, and in the 1970s, of German “militarists” and “revanchists.” The Second World War did not entirely end in 1945. The author claims that we can speak of its long-term, post-war continuation.

Reflexe srpnových událostí roku 1968 v tisku

The article deals with how the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 and the following events have been reflected in the news. The authors analyse texts from selected important Czechoslovakian, Soviet and also later Czech and Russian newspapers in 1968 and also after each ten year anniversary of the Soviet invasion. The authors point out the changes in both characterization and evaluation of the events of August 1968 throughout the decades. The article emphasises the changes that have occurred in Russian press from the 1990s to the current era.

Games Of The XXII Olympiad As An Instrument Of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy

The 1980 Olympiad in Moscow (the first Olympiad in Eastern Europe and the socialist state) is viewed through the prism of the successes and failures of the cultural and sports diplomacy of the Soviet state. Olympics-80 as a kind of mega-project developed socialism promoted (albeit temporarily) not only to strengthening the position of the Soviet Union in the international arena (especially in the background of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), but also unity of Soviet citizens in the face of Western threat. The situation was somewhat more complicated with attempts to use the Olympic project to strengthen the socialist camp. The source base of the research was the materials of the State archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian state archive of socio-political history and the Central archive of Moscow, as well as the published documents of the Russian state archive of modern history. It is shown that, despite the boycott of the Olympics, its consequences did not have a particularly strong impact on the development of sports ties and international tourism in the USSR. For example, in 1980, at the suggestion of the delegation of the USSR, the participants of the world conference on tourism, when adopting the Manila Declaration on world tourism, included in the Declaration all the initiatives of the Soviet delegation. And since 1982, the process of restoring international sports contacts began.

The development of Finnish anti-tank weapons, 1918-1939

This article deals with the Finnish army's failure to acquire anti-tank weapons in the interwar period. Even though Finland was an early adopter of armor, anti-tank weapons became neglected when a clique of German-trained officers took control of the Finnish army in 1924. Disregarding practical evidence, they believed that Finnish terrain was impassable to armor, and therefore anti-tank defenses were unnecessary. Their beliefs were rooted in a nationalist conception of Finnist terrain as totally different from Central Europe, and were only challenged in the 1930's when formally trained officers started rising through the ranks. Once they questioned the prevailing orthodoxy and practical experiments were performed, it became clear that Finnish terrain was not so unique after all.&#x0D; Even after the need for anti-tank weapons was understood, the chaotic state of the Finnish armed forces delayed procurement. There was no formal procurement process, and weapon system evaluations were carried out by small, over-worked committees. When the decision was made to procure 37mm anti-tank guns from Bofors, national industrial policy intervened, and instead of buying guns from Sweden, complex schemes to create joint Finnish-Swedish armament production were developed. When these came to naught, it was decided to create a state-owned munitions plant, effectively from scratch. After a 1935 decision to procure the guns, the first pieces were delivered in October 1939; barely over a month before the Soviet invasion.

The Position of NATO and Great Britain on the Crisis in Soviet-Romanian Relations During the Autumn 1968 As Reflected in British Documents

Abstract During September-November 1968 there was a crisis situation in the Romanian-Soviet relations, generated by the criticism that the Romanian government formulated for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 23, 1968. This crisis came to the attention of decision-makers in the United Kingdom and Allied bodies within NATO. Both the British Cabinet and the representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance member countries held several meetings in which the issue of Romania and Yugoslavia was discussed in the context of Soviet threats. The Secretary of State of the Foreign Office visited Romania and discussed with Nicolae Ceauşescu, Ion Gheorghe Maurer and Corneliu Mănescu. This article aims to present debates within the NATO and the UK bodies on the political crisis in the Romanian-Soviet relations from the autumn of 1968 and the position adopted by them against a possible Soviet invasion in Romania and Yugoslavia.

Karpiowie z Rekijowa na Żmudzi w XX wieku. Przyczynek do dziejów ziemiaństwa polskiego na Litwie.

The article concerns the fate of Felicjan Karp’s family, one of the richest landowners of Samogitia (Lithuania) in the first two decades of the 20th century. After his father, he inherited approximately 40,163 hectares. The history of this family perfectly illustrates the changes that this social class has undergone in the past century. The end of their existence was the end of the landowner’s existence. The twilight of the Samogitian Karps took place quite quickly, for only a quarter of a century from July 28, 1914, the date of the outbreak of World War I to the Soviet invasion of the Republic of Lithuania on June 15, 1940. Over the course of these years - on a large scale two-fold - military operations, changes in the political and economic system, including agricultural reform initiated in the reborn Lithuanian state in 1922 and deportations to Siberia in 1940 brutally closed the last stable chapter in the life of Rekijów’s owners, definitively exterminating them after more than 348 years from the land of their ancestors. Relations between the Karp family and the Rekijów estate should be dated at least from September 21, 1592. In addition to the description of the family, it is also necessary to emphasize their significant economic and political importance in the inhabited region. These last two aspects gained momentum especially from the first years of the 19th century and were reflected until 1922. At that time, representatives of the Karp family jointly owned approximately 70,050 ha and provided the country with two provincial marshals (Vilnius, Kaunas) and two county marshals (Upita, Ponevezys). The author also presents their fate during World War II in the Siberian Gulag, during the amnesty under the Sikorski–Majski Agreement of July 30, 1941, joining the formed Polish Army in the USSR (August 14, 1941), the soldier’s journey through Kermine in Uzbekistan, Krasnovodsk, Caspian Sea, Khanaqin in Iraq, Palestine to the military camp near Tel-Aviv and then Egypt and the entire Italian campaign, that is the battles of Monte Cassino, Loreto and Ancona. After the war, leaving Italy to England (1946), followed by a short stay in Argentina and finally settling in Perth, Australia.

US - Pakistani Relations 1979-1989

Since its independence , after the partition of India , on 14 August 1947 , Pakistan has enjoyed a privileged status in the foreign policy of the USA due to its geostrategic importance in Southern Asia . It is bordered by China , Afghanistan , India , Iran and Oman which is separated from it by the Arabian sea . On the other hand , Pakistan is considered as the apex of Arabian Gulf which represents one of the vital and essential pillars in the American policy . There have been a number of factors that affect the American – Pakistani relations both negatively and positively such as the Indian – Pakistani conflict , the Indian – Chinese conflict , the Iranian Revolution in 1979 which overthrew the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who was deemed America's officer in the Arabian Gulf and the protector and defender of the American Interests there . Then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to draw a new shape of the relation between USA and Pakistan and that shape continued till the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 .