The Origins Of The Cold War Flashcards
What are the ideological differences between the west and the east?
The west was run in a capitalist fashion. This meant that people had free speech and could elect people into power. There is no censorship and life was generally better.
Whereas, the east was run in a communist way. There was no free speech and people couldn’t choose who is in power as there was only one leader. Nothing could be said against the government and censorship was heavily implied. The secret police was abused all factories and agriculture was run by the state. Everyone got equal pay no matter how hard they worked.
What happened at the Yalta conference (4th-11th Feb 1945)?
The three wartime leaders (Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill) met at Yalta to discuss the shape of post was Europe. It was clear that the allies would win the war so they began to draw up plans of how it should be governed. Poland was high on the agenda as it was the largest Eastern Europe country. Stalin seemed to back down and promised to hold elections in Poland to allow some of the London Poles into the Lublin Government so it would be a mixture of communist and non communist
Summary of the Potsdam Conference of July 1945
As the Yalta Agreement wasn’t working as Stalin didn’t let any London Poles into the Polish Government. The three countries had to meet however, the only original member of the big three was Stalin. Harry Truman replaced Roosevelt and Clement Atlee replaced Churchill.
What was decided:
-Reparations taken from each of the country zones of Germany
-Policy of denazification (stamping out the Nazis)
-Stalin rejected the British and American to have a greater say in post
was Eastern Europe
-Final agreements on Polish borders were made
-The USA rejected Stalin’s attempt to run the Ruhr and a greater role in the occupation of Japan
-Final boundaries for each occupational zones were set
-Friendly communist government without any London Poles in Poland
Summarise the dropping of the atomic bombs
USAs reasons:
-Get Japan to surrender
-Revenge for Pearl Harbour
-Revenge for the cruel way the Us prisoners were treated
-Superiority over the USSR in the arms race
-Alarm the USSR
-To prevent the deaths of 500,000 US lives
-$2000 million would have been wasted
Effects/consequences:
-140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the end of the year
-70,000 out of the 78,000 buildings were wiped out
-River was polluted
-80,000 died by the end of the year in Nagasaki
-Rapid tension increase between USA and USSR
-Start of the ‘Cold War’
The iron curtain and Stalins takeover of Eastern Europe 1946-48
Stalin wanted a buffer zone between west Europe and Russia to keep capitalism away and also wanted to spread communism as much as possible. He rigged elections in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia to make the countries communist. This created a border between eastern and Western Europe. The west allies took this as an aggressive move rather than one for defence however Stalin had some reasons behind it. The USSR had the most important contribution in WW2 and most of the deaths were people from the USSR. Germans attacked the USSR from Poland so tuning it communist will provide security. The other countries act as a buffer zone for protection against further attacks and capitalism. He also wanted to end the American dominance.
The overview of the Truman doctrine
Greece became involved in a civil was between capitalist and communist in 1944 and the British sent troops to fight the communists. In 1946 when the Soviet Navy made plans to set up naval bases by Turkey, USA made it clear they would resist by force any aggressive move made in this area. In March 1947 President Truman agreed to lend Greece money after they were no longer supported by the British, he was worried that Greece would fall to communism known as the ‘domino theory’. The Truman doctrine outlined the concern of the domino effect and stated that the USA would follow a ‘policy of containment’ where they would help countries stand up to communism.
