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AS Cold War > Origins of the Cold War to 1945 > Flashcards

Origins of the Cold War to 1945 Flashcards

1
Q

What is Marxism?

A

The basis of Communism, believed that the middle class ‘bourgeoisie’ who owned industry would be overthrown by the proletariat workers in revolution, all class boundaries would disappear and it would be a perfect equal society

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2
Q

What is Capitalism?

A

Production of goods based on making a profit, and people would earn what they deserve based on hard work. It worked well with Parliamentary democracy where there was freedom of speech and civil liberties

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3
Q

When did the Bolsheviks seize power and what did they do?

A
  • Seized power in October 1917 under Lenin

- Left the war they had been fighting with Britain and the USA

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4
Q

What did Woodrow Wilson want?

A
  • Created ‘Wilson’s Fourteen Points’
  • Wanted to create a free democratic world with trade and cooperation between nations
  • Diametrically opposed to Lenin’s view of the world
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5
Q

What did the US do after the Bolsheviks seized power?

A
  • Many US officials who had been working with the Tsar were horrified at the brutal treatment of the old order and fled to Riga in Latvia
  • US policy followed the ‘Riga Axioms’ which was determined to stop the spread of Communism
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6
Q

Why was there lasting distrust of the West in Russia before the Cold War?

A

US, French and British forces fought with Tsarist ‘white’ forces in the Russian Civil War which the Communists won

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7
Q

What was Soviet foreign policy concerned with in the 1920s?

A
  • Poland defeated the Russians in a war in 1920 and extended their border into Russia - Soviet foreign policy was determined to get these lands back
  • Foreign policy became predominantly concerned with ensuring Russian security rather than spreading ‘world revolution’
  • Comintern encouraged Communist groups in other countries and supported subversive activities
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8
Q

How did relations change between the US and the USSR change after the Great Depression in 1929?

A
  • When the Great Depression hit America in the 1930s, many workers and businessmen like Henry Ford saw the great industrialization of Russia as an opportunity, and links were made
  • President Roosevelt recognized the existence of the USSR for the first time in 1933
  • Stalin accepted foreign assistance initially
  • But, when he began his ‘Purges’ of dangerous influences, many were forced to leave. Americans who had sympathized with the USSR were left horrified
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9
Q

When did Stalin realize he needed to take a more active role with the West, and what did he do?

A
  • When Hitler came to power and threatened to annihilate Communism
  • Joined the League of Nations in 1934, signed agreements with France and Czechoslovakia in 1935, and intervened to try and prevent fascism in the Spanish Civil War in 1936
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10
Q

When did Stalin sign the Nazi-Soviet pact? Why, and what did he gain from this?

A
  • August 1939
  • When Britain and France appeased Hitler’s demands for part of Czechoslovakia in the 1938 Munich Agreement, feared they were setting the Nazis up to destroy Communism, so to buy himself time to get ready to fight Hitler
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11
Q

How was the USSR brought into the Second World War?

A

The Nazi invasion of June 1941

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12
Q

What were the USSR’s aims for end of WW2?

A
  • The complete defeat of Germany
  • A ‘buffer zone’ - an area of direct Soviet control in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Soviet-occupied Germany
  • An ‘intermediate zone’ of neither Capitalist or Communist countries such as Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia
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13
Q

What the US’s aims for the end of WW2?

A
  • World free trade
  • A United Nations
  • Security in the seas against attacks like Pearl Harbour, through control of both Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
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14
Q

What were Britain’s aims for the end of WW2?

A
  • To retain its empire
  • Be on friendly terms with both the USA and USSR
  • To prevent the advance of Communism, to stop damage to its economic interests in the Suez Canal and Middle East
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15
Q

What were the consequences of Stalin signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939

A
  • Shocked the world

- Allowed Hitler to invade Poland and start WWII

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16
Q

How did Stalin expand Soviet territory at the outbreak of WW2?

A
  • When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, took the half the USSR had lost in 1920 (a secret agreement)
  • Expanded territory in 1941 by taking the Baltic states and parts of Finland
17
Q

How was the US brought into the Second World War?

A

The attack by Japan on Pearl Harbour in December 1941

18
Q

What was the Atlantic Charter?

A
  • Signed in 1941
  • Committed Britain and America to the complete defeat of Germany and the setting up of a democratic world order
  • Stalin and the USSR were not present
19
Q

What happened in the Tehran Conference?

A
  • Occurred in 1943
  • Drew up the plans that allowed the USSR to invade eastern and south eastern Europe alone and create a sphere of influence there, whereas Britain and the US would invade from the West
20
Q

What increased Stalin’s suspicions of the West towards the end of WW2?

A

Suspicious that the delay of the Normandy landings until 1944 was an attempt at weakening the Soviet Union, which had been fighting longer

21
Q

What were Allied Control Commissions? How did the West and the USSR’s use of them differ?

A
  • The occupying forces’ means of setting up order in annexed states
  • The US and British generally allowed new governments to form
  • The USSR used them to enhance Communism
22
Q

How was Europe ‘liberated’ towards the end of WW2?

A
  • The USSR allowed the Nazis to defeat the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 in order to take over the whole of Poland, which was met with disgust in the West
  • Eastern European states such as Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia became Communist very quickly under Soviet occupation
  • Stalin made sure that in Hungary and Czechoslovakia there was cooperation with democratic groups to keep the Allies onside
  • Stalin had difficulty controlling Yugoslavian leader Tito
  • Italy and France were liberated by Western powers and set up their own governments who made links with the USSR
23
Q

What happened in the Yalta Conference?

A
  • Occurred in 1945
  • Saw agreement on Polish borders, the need for reparations and democratic elections across Europe which was put into the ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’
  • But it was vague and easy for Stalin to manipulate
24
Q

How did personalities change towards the end of WW2?

A
  • President Truman replaced Roosevelt in April 1945 and was more hostile to Communism
  • Churchill was replaced by Clement Atlee in election, who did not have the same rapport with Stalin

AS Cold War (3 decks)

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