Cold war Flashcards
What was the Tehran conference?
- November 1943
- Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt
- Organising when D-Day would be launched (May 1944)
- No formal agreement as to what will happen to Germany after the war
- It was agreed that Germany would be weak
What was the Yalta conference?
-February 1945
- Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt
- War crime trials
- Germany would be divided into 4 zones
-UN formed
- Germany would have free elections
What was the Postdam conference?
- June 1945
- Atlee, Stalin and Truman
- Berlin split int 4 zones (France, USA, England and Soviet)
- There are no free elections in East Germany
What happened in Hiroshima?
-6th August
-First atomic bomb dropped
What happened in Nagasaki?
-9th August
-Second atomic bomb
How did the atomic bomb effect the Cold war?
-The Soviet Union was intimidated by the USA’s power
-Stalin was furious with Truman who didn’t tell him about the atomic bomb
What was the iron curtain?
-Stalin wanted to be safe from an invasion. From 1945, he created a buffer zone of friendly Soviet countries in Eastern Europe.
What was the Truman doctrine?
-In March 1947, Truman gave a message that the USA will help the people of the European nations to fight against Communism.
-The United States Congress accepted Truman’s argument and granted $400 million which was used to support Turkey and Greece’s fight against Communism. Turkey and Greece successfully stopped communism.
-Truman wanted to contain communism
What was the Marshall plan?
- April 1948
- General George Marshall convinced Truman to give 12.7 billion to Europe to prevent the spread of communism
- Used to prepare the economy of West Germany
What was Trizonia?
- June 1948
- France, England and the USA combined their land in West Germany to create Trizonia
- The Deutschmark was created for West Germany
- In the same month, the Berlin blockade happened
How did Stalin feel about Trizonia?
- He was angry about the formation of Trizonia and the Deutschmark as he felt it was against the Postdam conference
What was the Berlin Airlift?
- The Berlin Airlift was President Truman’s response to the Berlin Blockade.
- Aircrafts were landing every two and a half minutes. At first 4000 tons of supplies were landing daily.
- Later on this amount was doubled to 8000 tons due to demands.
- After eleven months the blockade was lifted and the Airlift had won.
- Berlin had 36 days worth of food
What was Nato and the Warsaw pact?
- In 1949, the Western Allies set up NATO as a defensive alliance against Russia.
- In 1955, the Soviet Union set up the Warsaw pact, which was an alliance of Communist States.
When did the Soviet Union develop the Nuclear bomb?
- August 1949
- Caused great concern in USA and began the arms race
When did the USA create the Hydrogen Bomb?
- In November 1952, The USA detonated the first Hydrogen bomb
- It was 2500 times more powerful than the Atom bomb
When did the USSR create the first Hydrogen bomb?
- In August 1953, The USSR detonated their first hydrogen bomb
When was NATO formed?
- NATO was formed in April 1949 to prevent the spread of communism
When was the Warsaw pact formed?
- The Warsaw pact was formed in 1955.
What was comniform?
- September 1947
- built collective heavy industry in Eastern Europe and to create a trade network between Communist countries. It published its own newspaper to spread Communist ideals and held conferences in the Eastern Bloc.
- Response to Truman doctrine
What was comecon?
- January 1949
- Response to Marshall plan
- to administer its own Molotov Plan of financial aid to keep the Eastern Bloc countries on side.
Why did the Hungarian uprising occur?
- Krushchev installed a new leader called Imre Nagy into power in 1956
- Nagy was a liberal reformer and proposed free elections, private ownership of land and the leaving of the Warsaw pact.
How did Khrushchev react to Imre Nagys reforms?
- Khrushchev couldn’t accept a gap within his “buffer zone” and sent the red army into Hungary.
- Many thousands of Hungarians were arrested and 26,000 Hungarians were tried with additional imprisonments and executions as a result.
- Nagy was executed and replaced
What was the Geneva conference?
- Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower
- Trying to come up with a solution to the East Germany defectors
- No agreement was found
- 1959
What was the U2 crisis?
- 1st may 1960
- U2 spy plane shot down in the USSR
What happened in the Paris summit?
- 13th may 1960
- Khrushchev was angry with Eisenhower about the U2, which he had lied about, and demanded he apologise.
- No agreement was come about Berlin defectors due to the U2 plane
What was the Berlin wall?
- August 1961
- Sealed off East Germany from West Germany with a wall
- guards were told to shoot anyone who tried crossing it
- This effectively stopped Berlin defectors
How did the Cuban missile crisis start?
- Cuba became communist in 1959
- On 14 October 1962, an American spy plane flying over Cuba took pictures that showed the construction of Soviet missile launch sites.
- Another American spy plane discovered 20 Soviet ships carrying nuclear missiles in the Atlantic Ocean heading for Cuba.
How did John Kennedy respond to the Cuban missile crisis?
- He began a blockade to prevent Soviet ships from delivering the nuclear bombs to Cuba on the 22nd of october
What was the consequence of the Cuban missile crisis?
- Khrushchev removed all missiles from Cuba
- Kennedy secretly removed his missiles from Turkey 6 months later
- America could no longer invade Cuba, which they had planned on.
Why were the Czech people unhappy with the communist government?
- No freedom of speech
- Low standard of living
- Few consumer goods
What was the Prague spring?
- In January 1968, Dubchek began the Prague spring
- Censorship became more relaxed
- More power was given to the Czech regional government
- Trade with the west was increased
- Czech people had more travel freedom
What was the Soviets reaction to the Prague Spring?
- In August 1968, 500,00 Warsaw pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia. There was little the Czech people could do.
- Dubeck was replaced with Gustav Husak
Describe what happened at SALT 1?
- May 1972
- Ballistic missiles were only allowed at two sites
- The basic principles agreement laid down rules for the conduct of nuclear warfare
What was the impact of SALT 1?
- SALT 1 had a number of weaknesses. In reality, if nuclear war were to happen, the treaties wouldn’t do much.
What was the Berlin ultimatum?
- Khrushchev demanded the West recognise East Germany as a country and Berlin would be a free city with no western weapons.
What happened in Afghanistan in 1979?
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to try to prop up the communist government there, which was being attacked by Muslim Mujaheddin fighters
When did Ronald Reagan become president and what was he like?
In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the USA. As a strong anti-communist, he called the Soviet Union the “evil empire” and increased spending on arms.
In 1985, who became the Leader of the USSR?
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the USSR.
What did Mikhail Gorbachev do in Afghanistan?
- He withdrew from Afghanistan.
- The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989
How did Mikhail Gorbachev reform the Soviet Union?
He began to reform the Soviet system by allowing perestroika (competition in business) and glasnost (freedom).
When the did the Berlin wall fall?
In November 1989, the Berlin wall was torn down in a revolution
What happened in 1991?
In 1991, Gorbachev fell from power and the Soviet Union was dissolved.
What was the Helsinki Agreement?
The Helsinki Agreement recognised Soviet control over Eastern Europe, concluded a trade agreement, and Russia promised to respect human rights.
What was the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty?
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: powers with nuclear weapons agreed not to give any other countries nuclear technology.
What was the Carter doctrine?
in January 1980 the US President, Jimmy Carter, announced in his State of the Union Address that the US was extending its policy of containment to the Middle East.
How Did president Carter support the Mujaheddin fight the red army?
the CIA secretly provided the Mujahideen with weapons and funds.
What did the Strategic Defense Initiative do and why did Reagan begin it?
It was meant to bluff the Soviet Union into following them into this plan to damage their economy. Reagan started it in 1983
What was the Brezhnev doctrine?
The Brezhnev Doctrine stated that any threat to a Warsaw Pact country was a threat to European communism as a whole
