Alva Review-Courier -

The Cold War was one of the most significant events in world history during the last half of the 20th century.

It was basically a war of words between the United States and our primary enemy during the post-World War II era, the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union was a collection of 15 eastern European republics; Russia created it by forcing the other 14 countries to belong.

Moreover, at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union took effective control of several other eastern European countries, making those nations also part of the Soviet Union’s “sphere of influence.”

The Soviet Union and the United States had opposite views on government and economics. We stood for everything they didn’t – and vice versa.

We believed in democracy and capitalism; the Soviet Union believed in neither. As the Soviets tried to gain influence over other countries, they sought to convince people that their system of government was better than ours.

The Soviet Union had several dictators during the time it existed. During the first two decades after World War II, however, its two most powerful and long-serving leaders were Joseph Stalin (who died in 1953) and Nikita Khrushchev (who was overthrown by the Soviets in 1964).

The United States and the Soviet Union had many crises and confrontations during the era when Stalin and Khrushchev were in power.

Scholars and others have written numerous books about the Cold War. Consequently, my goal with this article is not to rehash that event; rather, I merely want to focus some attention on it by looking at the lives of two children (one each) of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev.

If the Soviet Union’s system was so much better than ours (as both of those dictators would have had the world believe) one might think that the children of the Soviet leaders would likewise be enthusiastic defenders of the Soviet system.

In at least two instances, that was not the case – as we will see in part 2 of this article next week.