17:Across the Blocs- Ideology, Culture and the Cold War

Question 1

What was the Cold War?

Answer 1

-A state of hostility between countries
characterized by political and/or economic
antagonism, propaganda, subversion, proxy wars,vand other measures short of open, direct warfare between the major protagonists
-The relationship between the two superpowers, USA and the Soviet Union after 1945

Question 2

When was the Cold War?

Answer 2

most historians date it to the start of the Cold War to the break down of the Grand Alliance after WW2
-ideological clash combined with the geopolitical outcomes of WW2

Question 3

3 types of debate about the origins of the Cold War

Answer 3

The Orthodox interpretation
The Revisionist interpretation
Post-revisionism

Question 4

The Orthodox interpretation about the origins of the Cold War

Answer 4

-Cold War as American response to Soviet threat

Question 5

The Revisionist interpretation about the origins of the Cold War

Answer 5

-Cold War as the
result of an American imperial project

Question 6

Post-revisionism interpretation about the origins of the Cold War

Answer 6

-a more complex and varied school characterised by arguments that the Cold War was not the responsibility of one side or the other so much as a conflict founded on perceptions of political, strategic and ideological antagonism

Question 7

Influence of George Kennan on the Cold War

Answer 7

• he was the Key influence on Truman’s approach to countering the perceived Soviet threat
  -his “Long Telegram” (feb 1946) argued that historic Russian imperialism had combined
  with Marxist ideology and committed the USSR to conflict with the US and Western way of life

Question 8

Purpose/aim behind the Marshall Plan

Answer 8

• to revive European economies to prevent the growth of communism and to restructure those economic within a US-led post war capitalist system
  -the US commitment to this was launched in June 1947 by Secretary of State George Marshall

Question 9

what was the Marshall Plan?

Answer 9

-The European Recovery Programme that funnelled $17 billion to Western Europe between 1947-1950
- it incentivized European economic
cooperation – foundations of European integration

Question 10

Soviets and the Marshall Plan

Answer 10

-they rejected it and kept Eastern European states from participating in it
-another step to Cold War divisions in Europe

Question 11

Allies and Pacts in the Cold War

Answer 11

NATO
SEATO
Baghdad Pact (CENTO)
The Warsaw pact

Question 12

Major proxy wars in the Cold War

Answer 12

Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, polarisation of Arab-Israeli conflict, Southern Africa and Central America in 1970s-80s

Question 13

American Arts and the Cold War

Answer 13

-US MoMA promoted abstract expressionism In the 1950s
-MoMA had strong links to US Cold War national security establishment

Question 14

Soviet Arts and the Cold War

Answer 14

-Soviet Socialist Realism: realistic in appearance but utopian in message
-the purpose was to elevate the factory or agricultural worker to heroic status as a means of glorifying the Soviet system

Question 15

The Cold War in Hollywood

Answer 15

-B-movies in which alien invasions, atomic monsters
and sinister means of mind-control served as
metaphors for the Communist threat
-McCarthyism: HUAC investigations purged real and suspected communists from Hollywood film studios
-CIA agents inside major film studios encouraged
depictions of the USA as free, equal and democratic

Question 16

The Cold War and Sports

Answer 16

-1972: US prodigy Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet
world chess champion, Boris Spassky
-1980 Winter Olympics: US ice hockey team beat the seemingly invincible Soviets
-US boycott of 1980 Moscow Olympics; Soviet bloc retaliatory boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games

Question 17

George Orwell in the Cold war

Answer 17

-his anti-stalinism led him to cooperate with a newly formed British state Cold War propaganda agency, the IRD

Question 18

the Congress for Cultural Freedom

Answer 18

-established June 1950
- a liberal organisation for western intellectuals and artists who opposed communist cultural oppression and totalitarianism

Question 19

actions of the CCF

Answer 19

-funded by the CIA
- published literary and political journals
-held conferences
-developed links with intellectuals inside the Soviet bloc

Question 20

American Propaganda in the Cold War

Answer 20

-1953: the US Information Agency was established to
oversee overt Cold War propaganda
-The CIA’s propaganda programme included covert publishing operations and radio stations
-USA made better use of non -state organizations,
private citizens, corporations and independent media

Question 21

Soviet Propaganda and the Cold War

Answer 21

Soviet propagandists had vast funds and highly
centralized control; the KGB operated numerous “front
organisations” and “agents of influence”

Question 22

What won the Cold War?

Answer 22

-victory for liberalism, authoritarian regimes were defeated from within
-popularity of western consumer products and cultural exports combined with power of western communication technologies
-acted as a force to destabilise closed, culturally conservative, communist communities