Hot wars, rumours of war and proxy wars: timeline 1945-91 -- 1. First frosts: the Bolsheviks declare war -- 2. The view from the frozen steppe: mutual loathing -- 3. Stalin's spy wars: the undercover war -- 4. Warm new friends? Hitler and Stalin -- 5.
Cool new allies? The three-sided war -- 6. Growlers: the victors fall out -- 7. The European iceberg: the Cold War begins -- 8. New bombs, new wars: the nuclear dimension -- 9. Death of the ice bear: exit Stalin -- 10. The people speak: ideology and propaganda -- 11. New leaders, new chills: Khruschchev, the peasant Czar -- 12. Northern lights: spying on the USSR -- 13. Icepack: Hungary and Suez -- 14. Moscow heat: Ike and Khruschchev -- 15. Hot point: Berlin -- 16. When icebergs collide: the Cuban missile crisis -- 17. Tropical interlude: Vietnam -- 18. The chills of autumn: problems in the USSR -- 19. Microwaving the problem? Detente -- 20. Frostbitten crusader: the Carter years -- 21. The ice man cometh: Ronald Reagan's great plan -- 22. Hunting a polar bear: the secret attack on the USSR -- 23. The icebound reformer: Mikhail Gorbachev -- 24. The melting of the pack ice: the Soviet retreat -- 25. Thaw: the Soviet Union unravels -- 26. Spring at last? The collapse of communism.
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