Key Events Flashcards
Yalta, 1945
UN Formally Ratified, Declaration on Liberated Europe Created, Germany and Berlin to be divided into 4 zones, USSR to receive land from Poland.
Potsdam, 1945
Germany to be disarmed, decentralisation of the political system and free press and speech restored, USSR to receive reparations from its own zones and 25% from the Western zones.
Iron Curtain, 1946
Churchill stated that an iron curtain had separated the capitalist West from the communist East. The USSR want an infinite expansion of their power. Stalin replied saying that EE was only there for security needs, presented Soviet Union as helpless. Demonstrated the rift between the allies.
Kennan’s Long Telegram, 1946
Called for the removal of isolationism and the need to act. Soviet Union are “highly sensitive to the logic of force”.
Kennan saw Roosevelt’s policy of cooperation between the allies as sure to fail and communism as a huge threat to US interests. Put pressure on Truman.
Baruch Plan, 1947
Baruch proposed that neither the USA nor the USSR use nuclear weapons, although by this time only the USA had any. USSR didn’t develop atomic weaponry until 1949. USSR declined.
Truman Doctrine, 1947
- Aid offered to anti-communist countries resisting communism as a form of containment. $350 million given to Greece, to help with the Civil War that Britain could no longer afford and $50 million given to Turkey.
Marshall Aid, 1947
William Clayton returned from a fact finding tour of Europe, with the conclusion that a failure to revive the European economies would lead to destruction within the USA and would lead the countries to communism so aid was provided to any country that wished it. Stalin prevented EE countries from accepting it and walked out of Paris conference. Yugoslavia was kicked out of Cominform and only survived due to this aid.
Cominform, 1947
Stalin’s response to Marshall Aid and the Truman Doctrine. Alliance of EE countries, coordinated their economies in line with that of the USSR’s. Turning them into Satellite States. Confirming their role as measures of USSR’s security.
Bizonia, 1947
Britain and America merged their zones.
Berlin Blockade, 1948
After the introduction of the Deutsch Mark in the Western Zones, the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin. Stopped all supplies from going into Berlin resulting in the Western allies airlifting supplies in. USSR was unable to shoot the planes down for fear of the atomic bomb. Failure for Soviet Union.
NATO, 1949
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Western version of Cominform. Designed to reassure countries in the wake of Soviet communist threat.
Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1950
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NSC-68, 1950
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Korean War, 1950
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San Fransisco Peace Treaty, 1951
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