Origins of the Cold War

Question 1

Describe the ideological basis of Communism

Answer 1

• Lenin and Bolsheviks inspired by Karl Marx, believed that more advanced industrial countries bound to experience revolution
• Would be a revolution of the proletariat and working class dictatorship, then state would wither away and create a classless society

Question 2

How did the Communists see Capitalism, and how did the West see it?

Answer 2

• Communists saw capitalism as a system of exploitation as bosses and investors needed profits that could only be made by exploiting workers, creating social and political inequality
• But defenders of capitalism (Wilson’s 14 points) pointed out invested money created jobs, social and economic opportunities, prosperity and healthy competition which helped consumers
• Also gave economic and political freedom

Question 3

Describe the long-term ideological conflict between Communism and Capitalism

Answer 3

• Bolshevik Revolution October 1917
• Led to a civil war between ‘reds’ and the ‘whites’, backed by West in 1918 which enraged the Communists
• US pursued policy of ‘Riga Axioms’ to prevent Communist spread (ex-US diplomats stayed in Latvia and wrote back about Soviets with a negative viewpoint, refused to see as a true government)
• West continued to see Communist Russia as an enemy, shocked by murder of the Tsar and his family and Bolshevik hopes of world revolution promoted by Comintern, an international organisation of promote Communism
• In WW2, West and Britain pledged support for democracy in Atlantic Charter signed in 1941

Question 4

What could suggest that ideological differences did not cause as much tension as has been suggested?

Answer 4

• USSR recognised after Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ in 1933
• In 1930s during Great Depression a number of Americans including Henry Ford went out or supported Soviet industrialisation
• Able to collaborate within the Grand Alliance and win WW2

Question 5

How did the West’s fear of Communism grow during the interwar years?

Answer 5

• Rise of fascism in Germany and Italy led to a big political divide
• USSR remained isolated, Stalin pursued dramatic industrialisation accompanied by severe repression and purges of the Communist Party (1934) - seemed dangerous to many in West
• Stalin attempted to unite all left-wing groups against Nazism by creating a Popular Front, worried conservatives
  Supported Communists during a Civil War in Spain (1936-9) also led to fears
• To protect USSR, signed Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939 with Hitler, seemed to demonstrate communism had more in common with fascism than democracy

Question 6

How did the West and USSR view each other by 1941?

Answer 6

• Deep ideological differences
• West feared Russian influence
• USSR resented its exclusion from diplomacy of the 1930s
• West despised the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Russian expansion in Eastern Europe

Question 7

How did disagreements over the Second Front cause tension within the Grand Alliance?

Answer 7

• German invasion of USSR in 1941, USSR suffered millions of casualties
• 1942 faced even greater threat as Germans attacked Stalingrad
• Stalin looked to British and US invasion of northern France for relief as would threaten Hitler with a war on two fronts, relieving pressure on USSR
• But no second front created until June 1944 despite Russian pleas as British leaders convinced would be too risky
• British and US efforts concentrated on North Africa, then invasion of Sicily and Italy in 1943
• Suspicion in the USSR that the capitalist West wanted to prolong Nazi invasion in order to weaken them, and wanted the dictatorships to fight themselves into a standstill

Question 8

How did the Russian advance from 1943 to 1945 cause tension within the Grand Alliance?

Answer 8

• Russians able to go on the offensive after German failure at Stalingrad in 1943
• Stalin did not support a Polish uprising in Warsaw in 1944, allowing Germans to destroy resistance before taking the city - alarmed the West, demonstrated Russian expansion
• Followed revelations of a Soviet massacre of influential Polish officers and leaders in Katyn Forest in 1940

Question 9

How was the Grand Alliance created?

Answer 9

• After German forces invaded USSR in 1941, Churchill offered support
• Alliance joined by US after Japan launched an attack of US naval base at Pearl Harbour in December 1941

Question 10

How did the Grand Alliance cooperate militarily?

Answer 10

• Britain and US collaborated closely with high point being D-Day, the joint invasion of France in June 1944
• No similar joint military operations with USSR, though did give supplies and aid
• Britain and US did not share the development of atomic weapons, and the USSR did not until the end of the war join in the struggle against Japan

Question 11

Why were the relations within the Grand Alliance strained during WW2?

Answer 11

• US disliked the idea of a war strengthening the British Empire, which it distrusted and thought was imperialist
• Churchill feared Russian expansion and thought US not taking threat seriously
• Stalin thought West did not understand sheer scale of Russian losses, or that it was Russian forced that had borne the brunt of the war effort

Question 12

What were Stalin’s aims during the wartime negotiations?

Answer 12

• Spread communism
• Economic repair
• Become stronger - no repeat of previous attacks
• Expand territory

Question 13

What were Roosevelt’s aims during the wartime negotiations?

Answer 13

• European peace
• An economically successful Europe to trade with
• Prevent spread of imperialism/communism

Question 14

What were Churchill’s aims during the wartime negotiations?

Answer 14

• Economic recovery
• Prevent spread of Communism
• Increase British prestige

Question 15

What were the agreements of the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference?

Answer 15

• Stalin and Roosevelt discussed how the new UN would work, with Britain, the USA, the USSR and China as the ‘four policeman’ - gave USSR the importance it had never had in the League of Nations
• Post-war Poland would be redrawn so that the boundary would be the Oder-Neisse Rivers, giving Russia the territories in eastern Poland it has occupied in 1939-40
• Russia would keep the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia who had been made independent after WW1
• Stalin to declare war on Japan at a later date in return for territories - South Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands and access to Port Arthur
• Britain and USA to invade northern France in May 1944, with Stalin agreeing to mount a major attack at the same time to distract German forces
• Allies would persuade Turkey to enter the war in return for support (did not happen until 1945)
• Future partition of Germany

Question 16

What were the difficulties and limitations of the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference?

Answer 16

• Britain had gone to war in 1939 in defence of Poland but now was accepting a major change in its boundaries
• Churchill would have preferred an invasion of the Balkans rather than northern France - caused some tension as Americans didn’t want to lose men due to interests on the European continent
• Western powers had little option but to recognise USSR claims to eastern Poland and Baltic states

Question 17

How was Roosevelt successful in the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference?

Answer 17

• Gained Russian support against Japan
• Taken Britain away from a Balkan invasion to invasion of northern France, a policy favoured by the US
• Established good personal relations with Stalin

Question 18

How was Stalin successful in the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference?

Answer 18

• Military victories of 1943 had given him prestige, other world leaders had travelled a long way to meet him as in Soviet embassy
• Gained Allies’ acceptance of expansion into Eastern Europe and agreement for a second front
• Set to play a much greater part in international affairs in the future UN
• Had divided Churchill and Roosevelt, whose personal relations were much less close than they had been

Question 19

How was Churchill unsuccessful in the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference?

Answer 19

• Felt slighted by private meetings between Roosevelt and Stalin and Roosevelt’s coldness towards him
• Committed to a second front despite Churchill’s grave misgivings
• Large areas of Poland to be given to Russia, which was a blow to Britain’s prestige as it had gone to war in 1939 to specifically defend Polish independence against Germany

Question 20

Briefly describe the background to the Nov-Dec 1943 Tehran Conference

Answer 20

• Attended by the ‘Big Three’ - Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt
• Clear were going to win the war, so had to consider key elements of the post-war world
• Major turning point in the re-emergence of Russia as a major world power
• Consolidated Meeting of Foreign Ministers in October 1943

Question 21

Briefly describe the background to the Feb 1945 Yalta Conference

Answer 21

• By this time, more tensions between the East and the West
• Churchill concerned about the growing power of the USSR, and Stalin wanted West to accept that Russia needed a broad zone for Eastern Europe for future security against invasion

Question 22

What were the agreements of the Feb 1945 Yalta Conference?

Answer 22

• Poland - enlarge the pro-Soviet Lublin government and hold free elections
• Poland’s eastern border would run along the Curzon Line and Poland would receive a substantial increase in territory from Germany
• Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation, and France would have a zone as well as the ‘Big Three’
• Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan but demanded more than at Tehran, agreed he would have railway rights in Chinese Manchuria and access to the Chinese port of Darien
• Agreed to ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’ which committed the three governments to carry out emergency measures and assist liberated states to encourage democratic governments

Question 23

What were the difficulties and limitations of the Feb 1945 Yalta Conference?

Answer 23

• Poland - Churchill feared the Lublin government would exclude the democratic Polish representatives in London, and little to guarantee that Stalin would actually allow free elections
• Stalin wanted to take German machinery, food and goods but Churchill and US disagreed as did not want to have millions of poor and starving people in the heart of Europe
• UN - Stalin wanted greater representation by the individual republics of the USSR as fearful the UN would become anti-Soviet and anti-communist
• Japan - Roosevelt ultimately forced to agree to Stalin’s requests in order for him to declare war on Japan
• Stalin and Churchill had to be persuaded by Roosevelt to agree to the ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’ - ambiguous, different perceptions of strong and democratic governments
• Question of Germany still ambiguous and crucial questions put off to a later date - how long would four-power control last? How would they control - together or separately?

Question 24

Briefly describe the background to the July-August 1945 Potsdam Conference

Answer 24

• 10 million Soviet troops deployed in Europe, little to be done if Stalin imposed his will in Eastern Europe
• Yalta had shown weaknesses on the part of Britain and the US in meeting Russian demands
• USSR had 20 million war dead and did not want to be weak
• No common enemy

Question 25

What were the agreements of the July-August 1945 Potsdam Conference?

Answer 25

Germany:

• There would be an Allied Control Commission made up of the military commanders of the four zones of occupation
• The Soviets insisted on complete control of their zone
• Little overall government
• Reparations agreed - 15% reparations from West would go to Russian zone
• Germany would be ‘de-Nazified, demilitarised, decentralised and democratised’

Question 26

What were the difficulties and limitations of the July-August 1945 Potsdam Conference?

Answer 26

Change of leaders:

• New President Truman more suspicious of Stalin and the USSR’s ambitions, threatened Stalin with a ‘new weapon’, the atomic bomb, but the Russians were already aware of this development
• New Prime Minister Attlee lacked Churchill’s rapport with Stalin and Bevin, the foreign secretary, hostile to Communism

Germany:

• Agreement of reparations did not work in the long-term after creation of Bizonia in 1946, created long-term tension as Soviets saw as a breach of Potsdam
• Giving full command of each zone to the ACC provided the basis for the long-term effect of the breakdown and splitting of Germany into the FRG and GDR

Eastern Europe:

• No firm agreement on the western frontier, as left for a future conference
• Western powers supported elections in Soviet-held territory in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, but no means of enforcing this

Other:

• Only produced a ‘protocol’ - not an official peace treaty, and can’t be held to
• US aid to USSR under the Lend-Lease scheme cut off on 8th May and restored until September only after Russian protests
• Clear Stalin did not intend to share power in Poland, e.g arrest of 16 non-communists who had gone back to Warsaw in hope of taking part in an election campaign particularly worrying

Question 27

Describe the Western liberation of Italy following WW2

Answer 27

• Removal of Mussolini in 1943 helped Allies see Italy as ally rather than enemy
• Italian opponents of fascism assisted advance
• USSR not included in ACC so gave precedent for West to not be included in Eastern ACCs or liberation

Question 28

Describe the Western liberation of France, the Low Countries, and Denmark following WW2

Answer 28

• Allied forces seen as liberators
• Brought much-needed supplies to areas short of food
• No thought of annexing territory or imposing an ideology

Question 29

Describe the Western liberation of Greece following WW2

Answer 29

• Britain supported royalists in a civil war from 1944 to prevent a Communist state
• Later taken up by US and a main factor in causing the Marshall Plan

Question 30

Describe the Western liberation of Germany following WW2

Answer 30

• A hard-fought conflict
• Not a war of revenge
• Once fighting stopped, aid given to German civilians

Question 31

Describe the background to the Eastern liberation of Europe following WW2

Answer 31

• Suffering of USSR considerably greater than US and Britain
• Red Army moved into Eastern Europe to impose Russian domination and take revenge
• A result of the brutalisation brought by the regime
• Wanted to restore traditional Russian spheres of influence
• To ensure future Russian security
• Difference in ideologies made it seem to West that the expansion motivated by a desire to export Marxist-Leninism

Question 32

How was revenge taken during the Eastern liberation of Europe following WW2?

Answer 32

• Terrible reprisals against civilians
• Soviet army guilty of indiscriminate sexual assault
• Plunder and removal of goods and machinery
• Deportation of prisoners for work in the USSR
• Forced removal of ethnic Germans from annexed territories

Question 33

Describe the USSR’s annexation of territories during the Eastern liberation of Europe following WW2

Answer 33

• Pre-1918 Russian territories restored to Russian control
• Opposition suppressed
• Baltic States and eastern Poland returned to Russian control
• Presence of Red Army in Eastern Europe led to direct annexation of territory in Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania
• Russia regained an area of 470,000 sq km and 24 million people

Question 34

Describe generally the USSR’s use of political influence to spread its domination during the Eastern liberation of Europe following WW2

Answer 34

• Spread of Russian political domination in nations nominally independent but in practice dominated by USSR
• Over 1 million sq km and 90 million people
• Russian forces deeply involved
• Widespread political repression and control, e.g 47,000 anti-communist Poles arrested 1944-5
• Much less direct aid given to the people of Eastern Europe than in the West