superpower relations Flashcards
When was the Tehran conference?
1943
When was the Yalta conference?
February 1945
When was the Potsdam conference?
July 1945
What was agreed in the Tehran conference?
- The USA and Britain would open a ‘second front’ by launching an attack on Germany in Western Europe. This would ease pressure on the Eastern Front, where the Soviets were suffering heavy losses.
- Stalin would declare war against Japan and supply Soviet troops to help the USA win the war against the Japanese, but only once the war in Europe was over.
What was agreed on in the Yolta conference?
- After the war, Germany would be split into four zones. They would each be controlled by a different power, the USA, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
- Germany would pay $20 billion in reperations, half of which would go to the Soviet Union.
- Stalin agreed that future governments of countries in Eastern Europe would be decided in free elections.
- Poland was a major issue. It was agreed that the borders of Poland would be returned to their position in 1921 (which would give the Soviet Union significant gains) and there would be free elections.
However, Stalin expected these elections to bring about a pro-communist government, whereas the British supported the non-communist London Poles
What was agreed on in the Potsdam conference?
- The German capital, Berlin, would also be divided into four zones, controlled by different countries, even though it was based well inside Soviet-controlled Germany.
- Agreement was not reached over the government of Eastern Europe. Truman objected to the control that the Soviet Union had over the countries it had liberated from German rule. He was beginning to think that, as Soviet forces were not actually leaving the countries they had liberated, Stalin was actually using them as an army of occupation.
However, without risking further war, there was little Truman could do. - Truman also objected to the arrangements for Poland and the borders that had been previously agreed. In addition, he wanted to see a new government, with less communist influence.
When did Russia become the Soviet Union?
The Bolsheviks won their civil war and in 1932 Russia changed its name to the Soviet Union and was run as a communist country.
As the West disapproved of communism, during the 1920s and 1930s relations were poor
How did relations between the West and the Soviet Union become worse just before the outbreak of WWII?
- In 1938, Britain, France, and Italy agreed to allow Hitler to take over parts of Czechoslovakia which contained large numbers of ethnic Germans.
The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were bitter enemies and Czechoslovakia was close to the borders of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet leader, Stalin, was not asked for his opinion. - In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. They agreed to split Poland between them, and Britain and France felt betrayed by Stalin’s actions.
Who were the big three during WWII?
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.
It was their beliefs that dominated world politics from 1941 until Roosevelt’s death in 1945.
What did Churchill and Roosevelt fear that Stalin wanted to do during the Second World War?
Churchill and Roosevelt feared that Stalin wanted to install communism in the Eastern European countries that Germany had conquered.
What did Stalin fear Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to do during the Second World War?
Stalin feared that Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to see Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union fight a long war, destroying the resources of both countries and making them weak after the war.
Stalin saw this as the reason why Britain and the USA had delayed the opening of a second front until 1944.
This was needed to take the pressure off the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. Stalin believed the delay was deliberate so that the Soviet Union would be made weaker by having to fight the Germans on its own.
What happened in Japan 1945 during WWII that made Stalin nervous?
After the defeat of Germany, the Western Allies continued to fight together against Japan. In August 1945, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
They had kept the news of these developments secret from Stalin until the very last moment.
He was worried that this was done because the Americans might be thinking of using such bombs against the Soviets in the future.
When did the USA bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Hiroshima: 6 August 1945
Nagasaki: 9 August 1945
What did the USA’s development of the atomic bomb make the countries of Western Europe feel?
More secure about placing themselves under American protection, rather than looking to reach agreement with the Soviet Union.
What did the USA’s development of the atomic bomb make Stalin feel?
Stalin felt more determined to make the Soviet Union secure.
His immediate aim was to secure a buffer zone of countries sympathetic to communism between Germany and the Soviet Union’s Western Borders.
