The transformation of the Soviet unions international position Flashcards
The emergence of a superpoweR
1) What did Richard Overy state?
2) Victory meant Stalin secured…
3) What was the soviet Union a founder of?
4) What defined the nature of international politics for the majority of the remainder of the century?
1) Overy ‘‘victory plunges the soviet people into a second dark age’’
2) …Stalin secured an international status that he arguably lacked before the war.
3) Soviet union was a founder member of the United Nations
4) Yalta in February 1945 and Potsdam in July and august
1) What did the soviet union do to compete with the west?
2) What was a very important success?
3) What was the Soviet’s highest priority?
4) When did the Soviet union have its first nuclear reactor?
5) When did they test their first successful atomic bomb?
1) espionage
2) gaining intelligence on the US atomic programme.
3) Progress on the Soviet atomic programme was the highest priority following the USA’s deployment of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6 and 9 August 1945.
4) 1946
5) 29 August 1949
The formation of the soviet Bloc.
how was the soviet bloc formed and when was it consolidated by?
What did many European countries see?
What did Stalin actively do?
What Eastern bloc countries were established in 1945?
What underhand methods did the Communists use?
1) Gradually formed and consolidated in 1949
2) Many European countries saw communism as a potential economic model, in some countries the communist party had popular support
3) Stalin actively trained exiles in Moscow to send the to their homeland to create sympathetic regimes- e.g Walter Ulbricht transported to Berlin
4) Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
5) Hungary-Matyas Rakosi referred to as Salami tactics- isolating and defeating political opponents one by one beginning with the centre right and moving to the moderate left.
Conflict with West:
1) What was there a general agreement on?
2) What did Stalin want v what did Churchill want?
3) Why did relations change between Yalta and Potsdam?
4) By May 1945:
1) Broadly agreed that the Soviet Union would have a sphere of influence over eastern Europe
2) Stalin wanted to implement the communist ‘Lublin Poles’ in power of Poland but Churchill wanted to implement the ‘London Poles.’ Churchill gave in.
3) The more hard-line Truman became US president and only the day before the Potsdam conference did the US successfully test the atomic bomb.
4) By mid- may 1945 the soviet union had occupied the countries of Eastern Europe- Churchill described Stalin as hiding behind an iron curtain.
Why were the US increasingly convinced that a stronger response was needed to prevent communist domination in Europe?
What was formed in response to this?
What else was formed?
The long telegram by George Kennan 1946
The Truman Doctrine 1947- committed the US to preventing the spread of communism by promising everything other than military intervention to those who resist the Soviet occupation
The European Recovery Programme/ Marshall Aid enacted 1948
What did the Soviet Union establish in 1947?
what did they use this to do?
The Communist information Bureau- most communist parties of the newly liberated and soviet occupied countries of Eastern Europe belonged.
Stalin used this to persuade the Czechoslovakian government to reject the Marshall plan
What did Stalin want to happen with Germany?
When did tensions increase
for a single, neutral, and socialist Germany that would act as part of his European buffer zone. Stalin wanted to keep Germany week while the West wanted reconstruct
Tensions increased when the Western powers excluded the Soviet union from their deliberations over the future of the Western zones
What provoked Stalin to do what?
How did the West respond?
How long did this last until Stalin lifted the blockade?
Introduction of a West German currency into Berlin provoked Stalin to introduce a blockade on the Western sectors on 24 July 1948
they flew in aid to West Berlin
lasted 11 months until Stalin lifted the blockade.
When was the Western Bloc formed?
When was Germany divided and what were the two zones called?
who didnt recognise who or their or allies?
when did ___ join ____?
what did the soviet union establish?
April 1949- Western Bloc formed with the creation of NATO- military alliance formed to react in defence of any of its members.
- Germany formally divided 1949, creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany. The Soviet occupation zone established the German Democratic Republic
- Communist regime not recognised by West Germany or its allies for years
- FDG joined NATO in 1955, while the Soviet Union established the Warsaw pact.
How did Stalin Die?
How and when did Stalin Die?
28 february- party-no signs of illness- next day suffered a stroke-minders did not enter the room until hours later found him on the floor in a pool of urine- took another 3 days to die and his funeral was held on 9 March 1953
What was Stalins domestic legacy?
- one of inhumanityy and disdain for human life.
- But he had modernised the Soviet economy and achieved a solid industrial bas it required to secure a revolutionary regime- Socialism in one country succeeded!
What was Stalin’s domestic legacy?
- to create a personal dictatorship that resulted in adulation, conspiracy, fear, and stifled initiative.
- collective leadership, while engaged in rivalry and fighting maintained control
- had a stable administrative system that was to some extent meritocratic and allowed social mobility
- through propaganda Stalin found stability in his death and joined Lenin as one of the founders of Soviet socialism.
Khrushchev and Stalin:
Khrushchev undertood destalinisation cautiously only after he stabilissed his position in 1956
Stalinism had defined communism by making the Soviet Union the socialist fatherand to which all other comminists look towards
