{"id":622,"date":"2019-04-26T16:08:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T16:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/?p=622"},"modified":"2019-04-26T16:08:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T16:08:31","slug":"rethinking-the-origins-of-the-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/2019\/04\/26\/rethinking-the-origins-of-the-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking the Origins of the Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Heather Streets-Salter at Northeastern University gave a talk titled \u201cThe Chill Before the Cold War: The Roots of Anti-Communism in the Interwar Period.\u201d As someone who is not a history buff this title was slightly confusing, however, she was nice enough to give an alternate title for those of us not as history<\/em>oriented<\/em>, \u201cThe Noulens Affair in 1931 Shanghai.\u201d This title made a little bit more sense to me. To start, Professor Streets-Salter began by explaining the affairs that went on in Shanghai in 1931 that essentially centered around two people: Ducroux and Bassa. They were arrested for assisting in the management of an unlawful society (the Malayian Communist Party). At this point in time, communism was a significant threat to already developed and developing countries around the world. When they were arrested an address book was recovered that led colonial authorities to Ducroux\u2019s contacts all over. In Shanghai, the Shanghai Municipal Police hit the jackpot- they discovered the links between Moscow and Shanghai, and Shanghai and Southeast Asia via Hong Kong. It led to 276 arrests and confiscation of significant amounts of communist literature. This was a big deal at the time and created international uproar. Many of the people arrested were using aliases and no countries knew their actual origins.<\/p>\n

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All of this is interesting in itself, but Professor Streets-Salter\u2019s argument was even more compelling. She explained that all of these events were very important pieces to the Cold War. This affair deserves more attention as the arrests and trial attracted international attention, yet very little scholarly work. People often associate the Cold War with the U.S. and The Soviet Union in 1945 however very few people understand or are even aware of the significance of these events more than a decade before. These affairs began in the 1920s and during the Interwar period the British, French, and Dutch saw the bus of communism as a danger.<\/p>\n

The commentary on the confiscated papers are a good way to understand just how much all the colonial powers- and later China- were preoccupied with the \u201ccommunist menace.\u201d Additionally, while reading the colonial (European) sources you can understand how race and gender in international communism affects the present. Regarding race, European sources only paid attention to the European men. They did not think it was remotely possible that others could actually understand the communist theory. \u00a0Additionally, these papers and comments never referred to the first names of women involved in the affair. One of the most absurd points was that colonial authorities never even questioned Tatyana (one of the main perpetrators in this affair) most likely because she was a woman.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Noulens Affair is a useful case study for exploring transnational and global connections, the ways empires and colonialism functioned, and the violent world of international communism. This affair forces people to rethink the origins of the Cold War. Regarding the presence of the past, we can see how specific gender and races are treated that honestly overlap with how they are treated today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Heather Streets-Salter at Northeastern University gave a talk titled \u201cThe Chill Before the Cold War: The Roots of Anti-Communism in the Interwar Period.\u201d As someone who is not a history buff this title was slightly confusing, however, she was nice enough to give an alternate title for those of us not as historyoriented, \u201cThe … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Rethinking the Origins of the Cold War”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[442734],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}