The Cold War begins 1945 -1948

Terms and Concepts to Know

• Cold War

• Domino Effect

• Containment

• Truman Doctrine

• Marshall Plan

What is the Cold War?

• The tension and rivalry between the USA and the USSR was described as the Cold War (1945-1990).

• There was never a real war between the two sides between 1945 and 1990, but they were often very close to war (Hotspots). Both sides got involved in other conflicts in the world to either stop the spread of communism (USA) or help the spread (USSR).

Background

• Major point: The USSR lost around 20 million people in WW2

• Stalin was determined to make the USSR secure in the future and establish Communism in other countries.

• By contrast GB lost around 370,000 and the USA lost 297,000 people.

• KEEP THIS IN MIND

The rise of the superpowers• Before WW2 there were a number of countries

which could have claimed to be superpowers – USA, USSR,GB, France, Japan, Germany.

• The damage caused by the war to these countries left only two countries with the military strength and resources to be called superpowers….USA and USSR.

What they believed• USA was capitalist and USSR was communist• They were complete opposites• Capitalism- an economic system in which private

individuals rather than the government control the factors of production.

• Communism- an economic and political system in which the government owns almost all of the means of production.

• During WWII they had allied against Fascism ….. Now the common enemy had been defeated the reason for co-operation was gone

The Ideological StruggleThe Ideological StruggleSoviet &

Eastern Bloc Nations[“Iron

Curtain”]

US & the Western

Democracies

GOAL “Containment” of Communism & the eventual collapse of the Communist world.[George Kennan]

GOAL spread world-wide Communism

METHODOLOGIES:

Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]

Arms Race [nuclear escalation]

Ideological Competition for the minds and hearts of Third World peoples [Communist govt. & command economy vs. democratic govt. & capitalist economy] “proxy wars”

After WWII

The Task Ahead • Two conferences were held in 1945 at Yalta and

Potsdam to discuss what to do after the war• The aim was to discuss the future especially

– What to do with Germany’s leaders after the war– What would happen to the occupied countries after

liberation, especially those of Eastern Europe– How to build a lasting peace.

YALTA (in the USSR)YALTA (in the USSR)Date: Feb 1945Date: Feb 1945

Present: Churchill, Present: Churchill, Roosevelt and StalinRoosevelt and Stalin

POTSDAM (Germany)POTSDAM (Germany)Date: July 1945Date: July 1945

Present: Churchill, Present: Churchill, Truman and StalinTruman and Stalin

• At the Yalta Conference it was decided that Germany and Austria would be divided into four zones controlled by the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.

• At the Potsdam Conference all of the powers agreed decisions should be made among a council and should be unanimous.

Problems? • After the war who would lead the countries and

form new governments. (Remember Hitler has invaded several countries)

• The USSR favoured the communist groups, the USA favoured the non-communists in the governing of these countries

• This was one cause of tension between the superpowers

STALIN INSTALLS PUPPET GOVERNMENTS

• Stalin installed “satellite” communist governments in the Eastern European countries of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and East Germany

• This after promising “free elections” for Eastern Europe at the Yalta Conference

In a 1946 speech, Stalin said communism and capitalism were incompatible – and another war

was inevitable

• In 1946, reparation agreements broke down between the Soviet and Western zones. Response of the West was to merge French, British, and American zones in 1947.

• The West wanted to revive the German economy and combine the three western zones into one area. Soviet Union feared this union because it gave the one combined zone more power than its zone.

• On June 23, 1948, the western powers introduced a new form of currency into the western zones, which caused the Soviet Union to impose the Berlin Blockade one day later.

• In 1946, Winston Churchill correctly warned that the Soviets were creating an “iron curtain” in Eastern Europe.

Winston Churchill giving the “Iron Curtain” address at Westminster College on March 5, 1946

Winston Churchill - “The Sinews of Peace”March 5, 1946 - Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow….Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts - and facts they are - this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace….

East GermanyWest

Germany

• After Germany was divided into two parts, East Germany built the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the west. The wall physically divided the country into eastern communism and western democracy. Many East Germans tried to escape to the west because it was economically prosperous and granted its citizens more freedoms. The Berlin Wall is the climax to the separation of Berlin. It was built on the night of August 12 with barbed wire entanglements that stretched along the thirty mile line that divided Berlin.

After World War 2, the world changed!

• Many countries became communist after World War 2 including:

- Czechoslovakia (1948)- Poland (1947)- Hungary (1947)- China (1949)- Cuba (1959)- North Korea (1945)

U.S. ESTABLISHES A POLICY OF CONTAINMENT

• Faced with the Soviet threat, Truman decided it was time to “stop babying the Soviets”

• In February 1946, George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, proposed a policy of containment

• Containment meant the U.S. would prevent any further extension of communist rule

The Domino Effect• The USSR had a lot of influence over many of the

new communist countries (especially those in Europe).

• The USA was very worried that the USSR’s influence over these countries was making the USSR and communism more powerful.

• The USA did not want communism to spread any further – they were worried about the domino effect (one country becomes communist, then another, then another etc)

Domino Theory

Communism spreads like a disease

Truman Doctrine

• March 12, 1947• Greece and Turkey in danger of falling to

communist insurgents• Truman requested $400 million from Congress in

aid to both countries.• The U. S. should support free peoples throughout The U. S. should support free peoples throughout

the world who were resisting takeovers by armed the world who were resisting takeovers by armed minorities or outside pressures…We must assist minorities or outside pressures…We must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own waytheir own way

• Successful effort

Marshall Plan• On June 5, U.S.

Secretary of State George Marshall – proposes a massive aid

program to rebuild Europe from the ravages of World War II.

• Nearly $13 billion in U.S. aid was sent to Europe from 1948 to 1952. – The Soviet Union and

communist Eastern Europe decline U.S. aid, citing "dollar enslavement."

Marshall Plan aid sent to European

countries

Marshall Aid

cartoon, 1947

Key Players in the Cold War: Leaders of Russia

•

Joseph Stalin

Nikita Kruchev

Mikhail Gorbachev

Leonid Brezhnev

Harry Truman was elected as the 33rd

president of the United States. Truman had a very strong belief in containing Communism. The theory of Containment was the hallmark of the Truman administration. Illustrated by the U.S. involvement in the Berlin Airlift, becoming a member of NATO, enacted the Marshall Plan, and the establishment of the Truman Doctrine.

U.S. Presidentfrom 1945-1952

Joseph Stalin was leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 until 1953.

A ruthless dictator, he was the first Cold War Soviet Premier. Stalin played a key role in the beginning of the Cold War by

his actions at the Yalta Conference. He promoted a

sense of distrust and competition between East and West. His aggressive attempts to spread

the Soviet Empire elevated tensions between East and West

escalating the Cold War.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and while trying to ease the tensions of the Cold War.

• "America is today the strongest, most influential, and most productive nation in the world."                                                        

U.S. President from1952 -1960

Nikita Khrushchev elevated Cold War tensions by ordering the building of the Berlin Wall as well as providing funds and materials to communist North Vietnam during the war. He

presided over the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was Kennedy’s main

adversary throughout his presidency.

leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 till 1964

John F. Kennedy played a key role in the Cold War. He started aggressive American involvement in Vietnam, as well as being involved with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and President during the creation of the Berlin Wall. U.S. President from

1960-1963

Lyndon B. Johnson became President hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. During his campaign for re-election, Johnson promised to withdraw troops from Vietnam. However, Johnson violated his campaign promises and steadily increased U.S. involvement in Vietnam, for fear he would be the first President to lose a war. His popularity plummeted and he did not run for re-election.

President from 1963 - 1968

Richard Nixon carried out Vietnamization ending the war and removed American troops from Vietnam. Nixon also negotiated and signed the SALT treaty.

President from 1968 - 1974

Under Brezhnev, The Soviet decision in 1968 to invade Czechoslovakia was an early indicator of Brezhnev's world view. In a speech justifying the move, he spelled out what came to be called the "Brezhnev Doctrine," asserting Moscow's right to intervene in the affairs of other socialist states. He supported U.S. antagonists throughout the world; Vietnam, the Middle East and the Third World. A new era of peace was heralded in 1972, when Brezhnev and President Nixon signed the SALT treaty, but the new era was short-lived. By 1979, it was only a memory, as Brezhnev and his comrades approved the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Years of heavy spending on the defense and aerospace industries, at the expense of agriculture and other sectors of the economy, had taken a toll, and economic productivity and the Soviet standard of living fell into a slow but steady decline under Brezhnev.

                                         

 

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