Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective

Introduction: The Religious Cold War

xi Introduction The Religious Cold War Andrew Preston This is a book about religion in the Cold War, a subject once confined to the periphery of the historical imagination when it was noticed at all. Thankfully , neglect no longer seems to be the problem. Historians of the Cold War, and not just historians of religion in the Cold War, are acknowledging the importance of the topic more frequently and in greater numbers. International relations theory, which also neglected religion, has recently shown signs of doing the same. Scholars of many disciplines now recognize that religion was a factor throughout the Cold War, from its origins in the division of early postwar Europe to the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union just over four decades later. Long mired in obscurity, the role of religion in the Cold War is now an important aspect of international history.1 But we would do just as well to speak not simply of “religion and the Cold War” or of “religion in the Cold War,” but of “the religious Cold War,” for matters of faith permeated the conflict, particularly certain episodes, to the extent that they often came to define the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union and between West and East. In fact, it was the very nature of the Cold War that allowed religion to play a greater role in international history than ever before. The previously unimaginable carnage and devastation of World War II, followed by the advent of nuclear weapons and the thermonuclear arms race, made the superpowers reluctant to fight each other directly. Though the Cold War was by no means a “long peace,” the specter of nuclear war meant that the great powers would not risk a direct military confrontation with each other. Each side had to demonstrate the superiority of its system—liberal capitalist democracy or xii | Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective Communist people’s democracy—and the only ways to measure such a contest were through economic progress and attracting other nations to one’s system . The Cold War, in other words, was a contest over legitimacy. This meant that progress in the Cold War was determined not by the occupation of territory or the movement of a front line, but by representative symbolic victories . One such measurement was the number of nations supporting each side, which invested countries on the periphery (such as Cuba, Chile, Ethiopia, and Angola) with an importance far beyond their normal geopolitical value. When neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could claim a clear victory in contested battlegrounds on the periphery, they fought each other indirectly. Thus, the absence of direct superpower engagement gave rise to proxy wars in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.2 But the nature of the Cold War also meant that politics and culture assumed an unusual and perhaps even unprecedented role in world politics. Economic growth, technological innovation, and the ability to attract allies were all measurements of legitimacy, and thus of success. But in a decolonizing and democratic age—after all, even North Korea and East Germany proudly called themselves democracies—legitimacy also rested on the power of ideas. It is no coincidence that the Cold War marked the apogee of nonmilitary forms of warfare, such as espionage and economic sanctions. This dynamic also created space for the diplomatic uses of propaganda, the media, and the arts, and for this reason historians have rightly branded the postwar conflict “the cultural Cold War.”3 The power of ideas, then, proved central to the Cold War rivalry—and few phenomena are as powerful a source of ideas as religion. Religion was a major component of World War II, when legitimacy, and through it propaganda and the power of ideas, was also important. But religion had never before assumed the centrality it possessed during the Cold War, when direct fighting between the main antagonists was largely absent. Indeed, the presence of nuclear weapons not only made the Cold War an indirect clash between the United States and the Soviet Union, it also raised the ultimate questions of life and death, and of the very meaning of life. Not surprisingly, existentialism and dis­ illusionment were two common responses to the nuclear revolution. Naturally, so too was religious faith.4 Partly as a result of the Cold War and partly as a result of other structural factors, religion experienced a revival throughout the postwar world (with the...