The initial stage of cold war and the process of designing the image of NATO in the soviet periodicals of the 1940s (a case study of the Pravda newspaper)

The History of emergence of military-political post-war associations is closely connected not only with the problems of national security of the states standing at the origins of the creation of the North Atlantic Bloc and the Warsaw Pact. Under the conditions of the processes of Cold War becoming irreversible the first place in making major foreign policy decisions is taken by ideological questions which in their turn were closely connected with the perception of these phenomena both within a given country and on the global stage. The purpose of this article is the analysis of the initial stage of the process of designing the image of NATO in the Soviet periodicals of the second half of the 1940s. The main source for the research is the Pravda newspaper, which played a special role in the public life of the country. The edition not just acted as media, it carried out the task of forming necessary, according to the main ideologists of the country, notions on various questions of domestic and foreign policy, acted as a peculiar means of public diplomacy sending signals to foreign partners and opponents. The process of designing the reader's notions was provided by the newspaper editorial office due to continuous emphasis on these or those phenomena of public life. The analysis of a foreign policy situation was carried out from the predetermined perspective by persuading the readers of the correctness of the decisions made at the state level. In the numerous publications the concept of non-resolution of the economic crisis in the capitalist countries, the growth of interimperialistic contradictions was asserted. War was represented as a tool which was surely used for an exit from the economic and political deadlock at which the western civilization would inevitably find itself. The formation of associations of certain states, especially because of military cooperation, could destroy the foreign policy concept which the Soviet Union adhered both in the pre-war and the post-war time. It was built on the principle of using contradictions for the purpose of splitting the unity of the capitalist camp. With the creation of military-political associations of the states instead of the multi-polar system there appeared a direct threat of the formation of the uniform anti-Soviet coalition. Therefore even before signing the North Atlantic Treaty in the USSR there had been developed a steadily negative attitude in relation to it. NATO was considered as the main instrument of infringement of the agreements reached between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain during World War II, as an instrument of the unleashing of a new war.

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