Topic 4: The Origins of the Cold War 1945–1960

Question 1

Yalta Conference (February 1945)

Answer 1

• divide Germany into four ‘zones’, which Britain, France, the USA and the USSR would occupy after the war.
• bring Nazi war-criminals to trial.
• set up a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity ‘pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible’.
• help the freed peoples of Europe set up democratic and self-governing countries by helping them to (a) maintain law and order; (b) carry out emergency relief measures; (c) set up governments; and (d) hold elections (this was called the ‘Declaration of Liberated Europe’).
• set up a commission to look into reparations

Question 2

Ideologies

Answer 2

• The Soviet Union was a Communist country, which was ruled by a dictator and put the needs of the state ahead of personal human rights.
• The USA was a capitalist democracy which valued freedom and feared Communism.

Question 3

Potsdam (July 1945)

Answer 3

• the Allies met after the surrender of Germany (in May 1945) to finalise the principls of the post-war peace
  -Relations between the superpowers had worsened considerably since Yalta.
  In March 1945, Stalin had invited the non-Communist Polish leaders to meet him, and arrested them.
  Things had got so bad that, in May 1945, the British Joint Planing Group had drawn up plans for ‘Operation Unthinkable’ - a ‘total war … to impose our will upon Russia’.
  -Roosevelt had died, and America had a new president, Truman, who was inclined to ‘get tough’ with the Russians.
• soon after he had arrived at the Conference, Truman learned (on 21 July) that America had tested the first atomic bomb. It gave the Americans a huge military advantage over everyone else. It also meant that Truman didn’t need Stalin’s help in Japan. Instead, Truman’s main aim at the conference was to find out from Stalin what date the Russians intended to enter the war

Question 4

Atomic Bomb

Answer 4

• 6 August 1945
  B29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima
  -everything in a two-mile radius was flattened. The mushroom cloud rose to 50,000 feet
  -The Americans estimated at 117,000 people were killed – the Japanese put the figure at a quarter of a million.

Question 5

Iron Curtain

Answer 5

• physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991
• The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas.

Question 6

Truman Doctrine (March 1947)

Answer 6

-His policy towards the Soviet Union was one of ‘containment’ – he did not try to destroy the USSR, but he wanted to stop it growing any more

Question 7

The Marshall Plan

Answer 7

• June 1947, the American general George Marshall went to Europe
• He said every country in Europe was so poor that it was in danger of turning Communist! Europe was ‘a breeding ground of hate’.
• He said that America should give $17 billion of aid to get Europe’s economy going and stop Communism.
• Marshall said that it was up to the countries of Europe to decide what they needed. In July 1947, led by Britain and France, the countries of western Europe met in Paris, and asked for substantial economic aid.

Question 8

Cominform

Answer 8

The Soviet Union hated Marshall aid

• Stalin forbade Communist countries to ask for money.
• Instead, in October 1947, he set up Cominform. Every Communist party in Europe joined. This allowed Stalin control of the Communists in Europe.
• in January 1949, Stalin created Comecon - an economic union of the Communist countries in eastern Europe. This allowed Stalin to control the Iron Curtain economies for the benefit of Russia - for instance, one of its rules was that all inventions had to be shared.

Question 9

Czechoslovakia

Answer 9

• the American Congress did not want to give the money for Marshall Aid
• But then, in February 1948, the Communists took power in Czechoslovakia, followed on 10 March by the suspicious suicide of the popular minister Jan Masaryk.
• Congress was scared, and voted for Marshall Aid on 31 March 1948.

Question 10

Aims

Answer 10

• Stalin wanted huge reparations from Germany, and a ‘buffer’ of friendly states to protect the USSR from being invaded again.
• Britain and the USA wanted to protect democracy, and help Germany to recover. They were worried that large areas of eastern Europe were falling under Soviet control.
• This meant that the ‘Big Three’ found it difficult to get agreement at the Conferences (Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam) which outlined the principles of the post-war peace.
• And it proved impossible to get agreement on the details at the Conference of Ministers - set up after the war to agree the post-war settlement - and the Conference eventually broke down altogether:

Question 11

Berlin Airlift

Answer 11

The Berlin Airlift, 1948–1949. At the end of the Second World War, U.S., British, and Soviet military forces divided and occupied Germany. Also divided into occupation zones, Berlin was located far inside Soviet-control.

Question 12

Capitalism vs Communism

Answer 12

First of all, the United States believes that a country should be run on a Capitalist system - that is, all industry, business and agriculture should be owned by private people and firms. They believe that competition between rival factories or shops or farms will cause prices to fall and make the firms more efficient. If factory A is selling cars at £500, then factory B must sell theirs at the same price, or an even lower one, if they wish to remain in business. In order to make their cars for £500, factory B may have to scrap its old-fashioned machinery and install modern, more efficient equipment.