The Cold War: Overview Flashcards
1
Q
What was Deutscher’s Great Contest?
A
- After 1917, USA and USSR were operating different economic and social structures.
- This would lead to hostile relations.
- Foreign policy is an extension of Domestic policy.
- USSR = weak economy after WWI. They were not a threat until 1928.
2
Q
Who was to blame for the beginning of the Cold War?
A
- Orthodox (Until 1960s): Soviet expansionism
- Revisionist (60s and 70s): US Imperialism
3
Q
Yalta Conference
A
- February 1945
- Democratic processes in Europe
- Promoting Economic recovery
- Pursuing anti-Nazi policies
- Helping liberated countries establish provisional governments.
- Germany into 4
- Reparations
- Trials of War Crimes
- Poland
4
Q
The Potsdam Agreement
A
(The five ‘Ds’)
- Denazification
- Democratisation
- Demilitarisation
- Decentralisation
- Decartelisation (Free Market Economy) - Reparations set at $20b
5
Q
The Breakdown of the Alliance
A
- Death of FDR (April 1945) and Churchill not re-elected
- Only US President Stalin trusted - America dropping Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
6
Q
What were the origins of the Korean War?
A
- Divided Korea along the 38th parallel
- North: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
- Backed by the USSR and China - South: Republic of Korea (ROK)
- Backed by the USA - GOAL: Destruction of the other
- North invades South (25 June 1950)
- USSR believed USA would not react - Acheson’s ‘Defensive Perimeter’ Speech.
7
Q
Why was the USSR assumption that the USA wouldn’t react a wrong one?
A
- It goes against the American policy of Containment
- Berlin Blockade and subsequent airlift - USA not giving into communist aggression.
- UN mission (led by USA) to support South Korea
- Not giving communists leeway
- Containment
8
Q
Where the UN right to go to war in Korea?
A
YES: - Defending of South Korea - Democracy NO: - Internal conflict - US manipulation of UN.
9
Q
End of the Korean War
A
- 1951: becomes clear that neither side will win, peace talks begin.
- War doesn’t actually end until 1953.
- Countries were weary of war
10
Q
What were the implications of the Korean War?
A
- Containment had been succesful - forces of communism were contained.
- USA foreign policy became less Euro-centric after Korean War.
- Didn’t put an end to communism in the north or the region (Vietnam)
- Strenghtened US commitment to the region.
- 1954: South-East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) formed to stop communist gains.
- Brough USSR and PRC closer together.
- Exasperated tensions between USA and USSR
11
Q
What was the Geneva conference?
A
- July 1955
- First meeting between USA and USSR leaders since Potsdam.
- Soviets proposed and USA accepted.
- Discussed issues such as Germany and Nuclear Weapons
- No agreement but friendly atmosphere
- Realisation of those present that none wanted war.
- MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) - Geneva Accords
12
Q
What was agreed in the Geneva Accords
A
- A “provisional military demarcation line” running approximately along the 17th Parallel.
- A 3 miles (4.8 km) wide demilitarized zone on each side of the demarcation line
- French Union forces to regroup to the south of the line and Viet Minh to the north
- Free movement of the population between the zone for three hundred days
- Neither zone to join any military alliance or seek military reinforcement.
13
Q
What was Khrushchev’s Secret Speech
A
- A speech that criticised the reign of Joseph Stalin.
- Especially the purges that were used by Stalin
- An attempt to draw the Soviet Communist Party closer to Leninism.
- Served as an ulterior motive to K who used it as a means to consolidate power within the communist party.
14
Q
Result of the ‘Secret Speech’
A
- Poland:
- Riots by factory workers in Poznan (1956)
- Also due to increased production quotas
- Polish engaged in reform and liberalisation
- Gomulka - Communist who favoured reform
- Inspired Hungary - Hungary:
- October 1956: 50,000 students demonstrate against Communist rule outside Polish embassy in Budapest
- Nagy’s Government was accepted
- Dulles congratulated the Hungarians for challenging the Red Army and the US promised financial aid.
15
Q
Causes of the Sino-Soviet Split.
A
- Soviet aid was a loan not a gift, and the USSR charged interest.
- China took out high interest loans to pay for Soviet advisors.
- Stalin disagreed with Mao that a Proletarian revolution could be peasant-based.
- USSR was critical of the Great Leap Forward and later the cultural revolution.
- China accussed the USSR under Khrushchev of perverting Socialism.
- USSR accussed Mao of perverting distorting Marxism to fit with China’s peasant society.
- Mao felt Stalin disrepsected him and the Chinese guests during his stay in 1950.
- When Krushchev visited Mao, they were put in a hotel with no air conditioning.
- Mao was referred to as an ‘Asian Hitler’ and a ‘living corpse’ while Khrushchev was called a ‘redundant old boot’.
- Mao blamed de-Stalinization for unrest in Eastern Europe.
