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Modern America - 24 > Cold War: Facts > Flashcards

Cold War: Facts Flashcards

1
Q

ATH Info

How does David Reynolds subdivide the CW?

A

ATH Info

  • 1948-53
  • 1958-63
  • 1979-85

These periods were ‘punctured by detente’

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2
Q

ATH Info

Contrastingly, how do Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov view the Cold War?

A

ATH Info

CW lasts from 1948-1962, and the subsequent 27 years are no more than a ‘prolonged armistice’ rather than actual peace.

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3
Q

ATH Info

Why did the CW last so long, according to John Gaddis?

A

ATH Info

The nuclear dimension

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4
Q

ATH Info

What role did the church play in opposing Communism?

A

ATH Info

In Europe, Christian churches were among the leading critics and enemeis of communism. After 1945, Catholic-dominated political parties in Western Germany and Italy played a key role in opposing communism. In 1979, the election of Pope John Paul II of Poland as head of the Roman Catholic Church strengthened the political opposition of Poland to communism

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5
Q

ATH Info

When arguably could the Cold War be said to have started?

A

ATH Info

Conflict between Lenin and Wilson

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6
Q

ATH Info

What fuelled soviet suspicion of Western powers?

A

ATH Info

Intervention in the USSR during the final years of the Civil War in Russia

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7
Q

ATH Info

How was Russia geographically isolated from the Western and Central Europe?

A

ATH Info

Polish seizure of Ukrainian territory in 1920, violating the Curzon line.

“The extension of Poland so far east helped to isolate Russia geographically from Western and Central Europe. The creation of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania helped to further this, leading to the creation of a cordon sanitaire, a zone of states, to prevent the spread of communism to the rest of Europe. The recovery of these territories of the former Russian Empire became a major aim of the USSR’s foreign policy before 1939.”

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8
Q

ATH Info

What was Soviet foreign policy during the years 1922-41?

A

ATH Info

Socialism in One country - promulgated by Stalin - as it became evidential that world revolution was not possible.

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9
Q

ATH Info

What was the perception of USSR foreign policy during WWII?

A

ATH Info

“In the early 1950s, most Western observers assumed that Moscow’s main aim was to destroy the Western powers and create global communism, yet recent historical research, which the end of the Cold War has made possible, has shown that Stalin’s policy was often more flexible and less ambitious – at least in the short term – than it appeared to be at the time. By the winter of 1944–5 his immediate priorities were clear. He wanted security for the USSR and reparations from Germany and its allies. The USSR had, after all, borne the brunt of German aggression and suffered immense physical damage and heavy casualties – some 25 million people by May 1945.”

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10
Q

ACH Info

What was Stalin’s 1944 ambitions for a European Settlement?

A

ACH Info

  • Creation of an area under direct soviet control - Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Soviet-zone Germany
  • An intermediate zone - not fully communist or capitalist - Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Finland.
  • Non-communist western Europe, including Greece
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11
Q

ACH Info

What gesture did Stalin make towards the abandonment of world revolution?

A

ACH Info

The dissolution of the Comintern in 1943

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12
Q

ACH Info

What does Leffler argue about the the nature of US interest in postwar reconstruction?

A

ACH Info

Ultimately mobilised to establish bases in the Pacific and Atlantic, to secure access to Asian and European resources.

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13
Q

ACH Info

What did the US support as a result of their liberal democratic impulse?

A

ACH Info

A support for decolonisation in the European empires

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14
Q

ACH Info

What do Williams Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko see the Marshall plan as?

A

Evidence of US provocation of the USSR

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15
Q

ACH Info

What marked an end to Russian attempts to cooperate with the USA?

A

The pressure Stalin applied to Eastern European states to boycott the Paris conference (Marshall negotiations. This ended the Grand Alliance.

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16
Q

ACH Info

What was Churchill’s quote about an Iron Curtain?

A

“From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent”

This has been debunked - Swain has contested that diversity rather than uniformity painted the European situation - esp. concerning Greece and unrest in Poland and Romania

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17
Q

ACH Info

Name a traditionalist historian who pins the start of the CW on Russia

A

Herbert Feis - Stalin ignored promises given at the Yalta conference in Februrary 1945 to support democratically elected governments. Instead, he proceeded to install his own communist puppets.

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18
Q

ACH Info

What did Gaddis suggest, as a post-revisionist, about the origin of the Cold War? (His second, and final, position)

A

The Cold War was unavoidable due to Stalin’s paranoia - an extension of the way he dealt with opposition in the USSR.

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19
Q

ACH Info

What is the revisionist position on starting the CW?

A

“William Appleman Williams claimed in 1959 that the USA aimed to force the USSR to join the global economy and open its frontiers to both US imports and political ideas, which would have undermined Stalin’s government. Ten years later another historian, Gabriel Kolko, summed up US policy as aiming at restructuring the world economically so that US business could trade, operate and profit without any restrictions.”

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20
Q

ACH Info

What is the post-revisionist position on the origins of the CW?

A

“Post-revisionist historians have the advantage of being able to use Soviet archive material. Historians like John Lewis Gaddis, Vladislav Zubok, Constantine Pleshakov and Norman Naimark have shown that local Communists in the Soviet zone in eastern Germany, Bulgaria, Romania and elsewhere, had considerable influence on policies which sometimes ran counter to Stalin’s own intentions. They have also shown that Stalin’s policy in Eastern Europe was more subtle than traditionally viewed. While he was certainly determined to turn Poland, Romania and Bulgaria into satellite states, regardless of what the West might think about the violation of democracy or human rights, he also had flexible views. For two years this allowed Hungary and Czechoslovakia to retain connections to the West and for Finland to remain a neutral non-Communist Western-style democracy.”

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21
Q

What were the Benelux states?

A

Belgium (Be), the Netherlands (Ne) and Luxembourg (Lux)

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22
Q

ACH Info

What was instrumental in the realisation of two different Germany’s?

A

Currency Reform -

“ the Deutschmark, or German mark. Four days later, the Soviets responded by introducing a new currency for their Eastern German zone, the Ostmark, or East mark. With the introduction of new currencies, two separate German states began to take shape.”

The Soviets reacted to the introduction of the Deutschmark into West Berlin on 23 June 1948 by blockading West Berlin.

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23
Q

ACH Info

What impact had the Korean War upon the perception of the viability of global conflict?

A

“The Korean War changed the situation dramatically. The invasion of South Korea by Communist North Korean troops on 25 June 1950 (see page 139) appeared to many in Western Europe and the USA to be a prelude to a new global conflict in which the Soviets would finally overrun Western Europe.”

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24
Q

Following the Korean War, what changed in West Germany?

A

“In light of the Korean War and Ulbricht’s statements, West German rearmament was viewed as essential to strengthen the defences of Western Europe”

  • France had reservations
  • René Pleven proposes the Pleven Plan - the creation of a European Community of Defence (EDC) - a European army under the supranational control of a European Assembly.
  • This would control the FRG
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25
Q

ACH Info

What forced a decisively more aggressive position in the U.S.?

A

“ This strengthened the Republican Party in the US Congress, which believed that the USA should take a more aggressive stance against both the USSR and the PRC. This forced Truman, a Democrat, to make rearmament his government’s overriding priority so that the Korean War could be ended and further action as called for by Republicans would not be necessary. Truman was also under pressure from Senator Joe McCarthy, who accused several members of his administration of being Communists. Within the context of the escalating war in Korea, this led to a ‘witch hunt’ against alleged Communists in the USA.”

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26
Q

ACH Info

What year was the Cominform founded, what role did COMECON provide?

A

COMINFORM: Sept. 1947

COMECON: centralisation of agriculture, economy, five-year plans etc.

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27
Q

ACH Info

What accelerated the demise of the relationship between Tito and Stalin?

A

The prospect of the creation of a Balkan federation which would include Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. The split occurred in 1948 when Tito refused to subordinate his goreign polciy to the Soviet Union and rejected union with Bulgaria on these terms.

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28
Q

ACH Info

What motions were taken to destabilise the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe, postwar?

A
  • Military and economic assistance to Yugoslavia
  • 1949-52 - Attempts to remove Albanian leader Enver Hoxha
  • Filing complaints of human rights abuses
  • Radio Free Europe
  • Refugees offered financial support to flee USSR
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29
Q

Michael Mandelbaum, Ending the Cold War

What does Mandelbaum conclude about the nature of the end of the CW in Europe?

A

In Eastern Europe, as in the evolution of the military balance and in human rights, there is no fixed point, no line of demarcation at which the cold war can be declared definitely over.

30
Q

When did the FRG join NATO?

A

May 1955 - French fear of rearmed Germany was overcome by Adenauer’s agreement to limit the West German army to the size envisaged by the EDC treaty, and the denouncement of nuclear weaponry.

31
Q

When/ what was the Hallstein doctrine?

A

German doctrine which declared that the FRG would not recognise any state which recognised the GDR. Brought in September 1955

32
Q

Who support the case for a neutral Germany being Stalin’s primary intent?

A

Rolf Steininger & Willy Loth - Stalin’s offer of a united neutral Germany in March 1952 was genuine and should have been explored.

33
Q

Who disputes the neutral Germany argument?

A

Hans-Peter Schwarz, Gerhard Wittig

34
Q

What affected the position of earlier revisionist historians?

A

“The views of many of the early revisionist historians, such as Gabriel Kolko and William Appleman Williams, were often inspired by anti-Americanism and opposition to the Vietnam War ”

35
Q

What was Gaddis’ position on a neutral Germany?

A

Flirted with by Stalin, but rejected. Also, highly inconceivable that the West would have tolerated a neutral Germany

36
Q

What is Gerald Lundestaad’s famous contribution to the debate on Germany and America?

A

“Lundestaad took issue with Williams and Kolko, as they saw the USA as the ‘aggressor’ and therefore divider of Germany and Europe. After studying the sources in the Western European archives he argued that the Americans, far from imposing their power on Western Europe, in fact created an empire by invitation. Lundestaad argues that it was the Western Europeans, particularly the West Germans, who ‘invited’ the USA to construct what amounted to an empire in Western Europe in order to defend it against communism.”

37
Q

What contribution did the US make to the Hungarian Rising?

A

“The USA’s Radio Free Europe, a radio station sponsored by the US government to broadcast anti-Soviet and pro-US propaganda, encouraged Hungarians to revolt. They were led to believe that NATO would intervene to provide protection from the USSR, although that was in reality unlikely”

38
Q

What happened during the suez crisis?

A
  • Nasser became close to USSR - US respond by withdrawing funds for Aswan Dam in 1956
  • Nasser attempts to get funding from USSR, to nationalise Suez Canal (owned by an Anglo-French company)
  • BR+FR attempt to remove Nasser by joining Israel (enemy of Egypt)
  • US did not support BR+FR - had to stop just before seizing entire canal
39
Q

How many were fleeing East Germany?

A

In 1960, 199,000 fled and in the six months up to June 1961, a further 103,000. There was also widespread unrest in factories.

40
Q

When was the Monroe Doctrine declared to have ended?

A

1962 - with the Cuban Missile Crisis

41
Q

What did John Lewis Gaddis state about the failure of the Bay of Pigs?

A

“a monumental disaster for the United States … comparable only to the humiliation the British and French had suffered at Suez five years earlier”

42
Q

What did the permanency of the Berlin Wall contribute to the dynamic of the US/USSR?

A

Stabilised the GDR, allowed the superpowers to ‘break loose’ from their German allies and epxlore the possiblity of detente in Europe. Despite Krushchev’s contribution to brinksmanship, the conclusion of Cuba would pave the way to detente

43
Q

What were the underlying factors driving the Sino-Soviet split?

A

“The Sino-Soviet split was caused by a mixture of both domestic and international factors, as well as by the simmering resentment in China of the long history of Russian imperialism which had encroached on its northern frontiers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fundamentally, Mao perceived Khrushchev to be an appeaser of NATO and the USA and, above all, as a betrayer of the legacy of Stalin and Lenin. In return, the Soviet leadership was convinced that, under Mao, the PRC intended to displace the USSR as the leading Communist state.”

44
Q

What differences emerged from 1958 onwards regarding USSR and PRC?

A
  • USSR critiqued the ‘Great Leap Forward’ economic agenda
  • Mao rejected shared military bases
  • Krushchev refused to support nuclear efforts in China
45
Q

What was the impact of the loss of Vietnam on US foreign policy?

A

“Inevitably, the defeat in Vietnam, together with the Watergate scandal, did immense damage to US prestige and self-confidence, and made it reluctant to project its power in the years immediately after 1975. Nixon, Kissinger and, later, President Carter reduced direct the USA’s intervention in the Developing World and instead attempted to use regional powers – Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Iran and Indonesia – whose armed forces received aid and training, to contain communism in their regions. The humiliation of defeat disguised the fact that by 1979 the USA was in fact winning the Cold War. In the Middle East, Egypt ended its close links with the USSR, while the USA’s rapprochement with the PRC was a serious challenge to the USSR ”

46
Q

What controls were placed on nuclear weaponry between 1963 and 1973?

A
  • Test ban treaty, 1963 - banning atmospheric, underwater or outer-space nuclear tests
  • Non-proliferation Treaty of 1968 - not to transfer nukes to other countries or to assist in the manufacture
  • 1970s begin SALT talks - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
    • concludes that there was to be a five year freeze on missile launchers and ICBMs. Nixon accepted the right of the USSR to catch up to US MIRVs
    • Permission for only two anti-ballistic screens
    • SALT II to limit MIRVs - never ratified
47
Q

What did the French do the 1963?

A
  • Vetoed British access to the EEC - Britain = too American
  • Withdrew from NATO
  • Declared that Europe should not play to bloc mentalities
48
Q

What were the first signs of Ostpolitik?

A

“ Eastern Europe by setting up trade missions in Yugoslavia and Romania. Ostpolitik took on a more definite shape when the Social Democrat leader, Willy Brandt, became foreign minister in December 1966. The key to his policy was that German unification was a long-term goal that could only gradually be reached within the context of a European détente.”

49
Q

What did the Soviets concede in the Four Power negotiations over Berlin?

A

L Bark and D R Gress

  • Unimpeded traffic between West Berlin and the FRG
  • Recognition of West Berlin’s ties with the FRG
  • Right for West Berliners to visit East Berli
50
Q

What permitted Ostpolitik to occur?

A

The Moscow Treaty of 1970 -

“In this, the USSR and FRG declared that they had no territorial claims against any other state. The FRG recognised the ‘non-violability’ of both Poland’s western frontier and the inner German frontier. In a second part of the treaty, the FRG committed itself to negotiating treaties with Poland, the GDR and Czechoslovakia. While the FRG still did not officially recognise the GDR, it agreed to abandon the Hallstein Doctrine and accept that both Germanys would eventually become members of the United Nations (UN).”

51
Q

What were the risks involved with GDR/ FRG reconciilation?

A

“Once the Moscow Treaty and the agreement on Berlin had been signed, the way was open for direct negotiations between the GDR and FRG. For the GDR an agreement with the FRG was not without risk. If successful, it would undoubtedly secure the GDR international recognition, but at the continued risk of closer contact with the magnetic social and economic forces of the FRG.”

52
Q

What were the Helsinki Accords?

A

July 1975 - ‘centrepiece of Soviet and East European diplomacy’

“Essentially, the USSR wanted to persuade the West to recognise as permanent the territorial and political division of Europe made at Yalta, while stepping up economic, scientific and technological co-operation. It was anxious to exploit Western know-how and technology to modernise its economy”

US to gain reduction of troops in Central Europe.

High point of detente

53
Q

What were the divergent responses to the Helsinki Accords?

A

Thatcher and Reagan - the American seal of approval on the Soviet Empire of Eastern Europe’.

Alt: stress on human rights put a ‘time bomb in the heart of the soviet empire’

54
Q

Angola

what happened in Angola, mid-1970s?

A
  • USA wanted to avoid another Vietnam, but did not want to see MPLA communist victory - bankrolled opposing FNLA and UNITA forces. Congress blocked funding after covert missions failed. Victory of MPLA and Vietcong showed willingness of the developing world to lean to communism
55
Q

Ethiopia

What happened in Ethiopia?

A

Haile Selassie killed, replaced by communist aligned military junta. USSR became significant agent in African affairs - and Africans saw them as a useful counterweight to US and European influence.

Damaged SALT II

56
Q

What strengthened US influence in Latin America?

A
  • Overthrown socialist government in Chile - Pinochet welcomed by Nixon
  • In Nicaragua, Reagan funded the Contras despite Senate disapproval.
57
Q

What was the first blow to Helsinki?

A
  • Russians placing SS-20 missiles in Central Europe, 1976
  • US respond by placing Pershing and Cruise Missiles in Europe, 1983
58
Q

What instigated the new cold war?

A

“The historian S.R. Ashton has observed that ‘if a date has to be fixed for the onset of a New Cold War, it would be late 1979 when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan’.”

59
Q

What motivated Russian involvement in Afghanistan?

A

“Moscow became increasingly worried about the impact that this opposition would have on the Islamic fundamentalism in the Muslim republics of southern Russia. If successful, Moscow also feared that it would be another link in the global encirclement of the USSR at a time when China had established diplomatic relations with the USA”

60
Q

What did the US fear about USSR involvement in Afghan?

A

“The USA feared that the Soviets intended to take control of Afghanistan as a step towards further expansion towards the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, which contained much of the world’s oil supply”

61
Q

What threat did the Solidarity movement in Poland pose to Germany?

A

It made the process of Ostpolitik look like appeasement. Resultantly,

“Schmidt went out of his way to avoid criticising it. He was unwilling to sacrifice what had already been achieved by Ostpolitik, in improving relations between the two Germanys, for the sake of Poland.”

62
Q

When was SDI, what impact did it have?

A

“ an anti-ballistic missile shield composed of nuclear missiles and laser-armed satellites that would protect the USA from attack”

“t, if ever fully deployed, SDI would make obsolete the Soviet Union’s ability to threaten the USA, while, without this defence, the Soviet Union would remain vulnerable to attack by the USA.”

63
Q

What were Gorbachev’s economic goals?

A
  • Increasing investment in technology
  • Restructuring the economy so it was less centralised (perestroika)
  • Giving workers greater freedom
64
Q

How did Gorbachev attempt to win the people over?

A

Promoting glasnost - the policy of openness - reduction in censorship. Religion tolerated.

65
Q

What did the removal of Soviet interest in Afghan and Africa lead to?

A

Rejection of the Brezhnev Doctrine - actively attempted to influence Communist Eastern Europe to reform economically and liberalise.

USSR would not reinforce unupopular communist regimes

66
Q

What saved East Germany in 1983-4?

A

“ Ironically, only massive West German loans in 1983–4, which were a result of Ostpolitik, had saved it from bankruptcy.”

67
Q

What is the revisionist perspective on whether or not the cold war could have been avoided?

A

“Revisionist historians such as Daniel Yergin and Willy Loth argue that it was the USA that provoked the Cold War by refusing to recognise the Soviet sphere of interest in Eastern Europe or to make concessions over reparations in Germany. ”

“Stalin did in fact act with greater restraint in Eastern Europe than his later Cold War critics in the West gave him credit for. He stopped Tito from intervening in Greece and, until 1948, allowed semi-democratic regimes to function in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Loth argues that initially he also tried to restrain his own military government officials in the Soviet zone of Germany from applying too rigidly the Soviet Communist model. Indeed, it is arguable that, up to the summer of 1947, Stalin gave precedence to trying to maintain the wartime Grand Alliance and failed to exploit favourable opportunities for establishing Soviet influence in such areas as Greece.”

68
Q

What checks must be made against the revisionist position on avoidable cold war?

A

“The British and Americans were alarmed by Soviet requests for control of the Black Sea Straits and of the former Italian colony of Libya. Even though Stalin withdrew these, they were seen as evidence of expansionist tendencies. Similarly, the exclusion of Western influence from Poland and most of Eastern Europe seemed to be an aggressive act and fed suspicions in London and Washington of Soviet actions. There was an ambiguity about Soviet policy. Stalin’s ruthless suppression of all opposition in Poland and the shotgun marriage of the SPD and SED in the Soviet zone in Germany in 1946 alienated politicians in London and Washington even when he still hoped to work closely with them.”

69
Q

John Gaddis dinosaur quote

A

“To visualize what happened, imagine a troubled triceratops [a plant-eating dinosaur]. From the outside, as rivals contemplated its sheer size, tough skin, bristling armament and aggressive posturing, the beast looked sufficiently formidable that none dared tangle with it. Appearances deceived, though, for within, its digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems were slowly clogging up, and then shutting down. There were few external signs of this until the day the creature was found with all four feet in the air, still awesome but now bloated stiff, and quite dead. The moral of the fable is that armaments make impressive exoskeletons, but a shell alone ensures the survival of no animal and no state.”

Excerpt From: David Williamson. “Access to History: The Cold War 1941-95 Third Edition.” iBooks.

70
Q

What was a MAJOR contributing factor to the emergence of the cold war?

A

The Czech Coup, in Feb 1948 - would spur on the brussels treaty and the Marshall Plan

Modern America - 24 (8 decks)

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