Who was to blame for Cold War? (Inc the Berlin Blockade)

Question 1

Which of the USA and USSR was communist?

Answer 1

USSR (please say you got that one right)

Question 2

Give four features of Soviet communism.

Answer 2

State control of the economy, one party state, lack of free speech, equality

Question 3

Give four features of capitalism

Answer 3

Individual ownership of businesses and land, ability to make profit, free speech, democratic elections.

Question 4

Why did the end of the war make a deterioration in East-West relations more likely?

Answer 4

Because there was no longer a common enemy.

Question 5

When was Yalta, and who were the Big Three?

Answer 5

Feb 1945; Roosevelt (FDR), Churchill, Stalin

Question 6

When was Potsdam and what had finished by then?

Answer 6

July 1945; the war in Europe

Question 7

Who were the Big Three at Potsdam?

Answer 7

Churchill (replaced by Attlee), Truman, Stalin

Question 8

What were the main issues to be addressed at Yalta and Potsdam?

Answer 8

1. What to do with a defeated Germany and its leaders.
2. What to do with countries formerly occupied by Germany, many of which were in eastern Europe.
3. To decide the future of Poland.
4. How war with Japan could be ended as soon as possible.
5. To discuss how a lasting peace was to be maintained.

Question 9

What was agreed at the Yalta conference about what to do with a defeated Germany?

Answer 9

1. Split Germany and Berlin into four zones.
2. War criminals were to be hunted down and punished.
3. Germany had surrender unconditionally and pay reparations.

Question 10

What cracks in the alliance appeared at Potsdam?

Answer 10

1. No agreement was reached over the future government of Poland.
2. There was disagreement over Germany. Stalin wanted Germany crippled to prevent future threat.
3. The USSR wished to intervene in the war against Japan but this was refused by Truman.

Question 11

What development encouraged Truman to take a harder line with Stalin than had FDR?

Answer 11

The atomic bomb.

Question 12

Who coined the phrase the “iron curtain”, when, and what did it mean?

Answer 12

Churchill;1946; described the division between eastern and western Europe along ideological lines.

Question 13

Which communist country lay outside the Iron Curtain?

Answer 13

Yugoslavia.

Question 14

Who fell out of a window?

Answer 14

Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk.

Question 15

What techniques did the USSR use to establish control over Eastern Europe?

Answer 15

The presence of the Red Army; control of police, armed forces and civil service; abolition of opposition; rigged elections.

Question 16

What was the name given to the type of rule the USSR set up in Eastern European countries?

Answer 16

People’s democracies.

Question 17

What phrase means an area over which you have control, but is not part of your country or empire?

Answer 17

Sphere of influence

Question 18

Name five countries that were with the Soviet sphere of influence.

Answer 18

Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany. (Yugoslavia was communist too but a little more independent.)

Question 19

What and when was the Truman doctrine?

Answer 19

1947. A plan to send money, equipment and advice to any country which was, in the American view, threatened by a Communist take-over.

Question 20

Who wrote a Long Telegram and what, broadly, did it say?

Answer 20

George Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow. It said that the Soviet empire was determined to expand and must be stopped.

Question 21

What and when was the Marshall Plan?

Answer 21

1947. US Secretary of State George Marshall announced that the US would provide money, machinery, food and technology to help rebuild Europe.

Question 22

If the US had the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, what did the USSR have?

Answer 22

Cominform and Comecon.

Question 23

What was Cominform?

Answer 23

The Communist Information Bureau. Set up in 1947 to co-ordinate and control communist parties throughout Europe.

Question 24

Which country was thrown out of Cominform when its leader refused to obey Stalin? (And who was the leader?)

Answer 24

Yugoslavia; Tito.

Question 25

What was Comecon?

Answer 25

The Council for Mutual Assistance, 1949. Offered financial support to Eastern Europe but effectively controlled their economies and forced them to produce certain goods.

Question 26

What name is given to the US approach towards Communism after WW2, and what does it mean?

Answer 26

Containment. It means that the US would not try to drive communism out of the countries in which it had already taken hold, but would try to stop it spreading any further (i.e. “contain” it).

Question 27

The Western zones of Berlin could be likened to…

Answer 27

…a capitalist island in a sea of communism.

Question 28

What was Bizonia?

Answer 28

A merger of the US and British zones of Germany in 1947.

Question 29

Why did Stalin decide to cut off West Berlin in the Berlin Blockade?

Answer 29

West Germany and West Berlin were starting to recover as a result of their new currency and Marshall Aid. In the East there was poverty and hunger which was making communism look bad.

Question 30

When did the Berlin Airlift start and end?

Answer 30

June 1948 - May 1949.

Question 31

Approximately how frequent were US flights into Berlin during the blockade?

Answer 31

Three per minute. The airlift involved nearly 300,000 flights in total.

Question 32

Define the term ‘satellite state’.

Answer 32

State which is controlled by a larger state e.g. Eastern European states controlled by the USSR after WWII.

Question 33

Define the term ‘Communist bloc’.

Answer 33

Eastern European states controlled by Communist governments from end of WWII to 1989.

Question 34

What were three key consequences of the Berlin Blockade?

Answer 34

1. Very soon after, the western allies formally joined their zones into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany).
   Stalin responded by turning the Soviet zone into the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or DDR; East Germany.
2. In April 1949 NATO was formed, followed by the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
3. The arms race began in earnest.

Question 35

What does NATO stand for and what is it?

Answer 35

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Countries in NATO (broadly, the USA and western Europe) agreed to come to each other’s aid if any of them were attacked.

Question 36

What was the east European version of NATO?

Answer 36

The Warsaw Pact.

Question 37

How did the USA and USSR view NATO?

Answer 37

The USA saw it as a defensive alliance against the Soviets, in line with containment. The USSR saw it as an aggressive move designed to secure and promote capitalism.