Yalta and Potsdam (45')

Question 1

What were Capitalist worldviews?

Answer 1

• Individual liberty
• Equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome
• Free market economy, minimal state interference

Question 2

What were Communist worldviews, in relation to Marx, Lenin and Stalin?

Answer 2

• Karl Marx, founding father
• Believed capitalism led to the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie to ensure economic dominance and political control
• Lenin modified Marxist thinking through Leninism (authoritarian)
• Stalin modified Leninism and developed the ‘cult of personality’; became obsessed with power and influence

Question 3

What did FDR and Churchill want at the Yalta Conference? (February 1945)

Answer 3

• Collective security founded on the United Nations
• Long-term cooperation with the USSR
• Right to national self-determination, no spheres of influence
• Reconstruction and re-education of Germany democratically
• World economic reconstruction through the IMF / World Bank

Question 4

What did Stalin want at the Yalta Conference? (February 1945)

Answer 4

• USSR to be in control of its own destiny
• Cooperation with US / UK
• USSR security guaranteed through Soviet spheres of influence
• Germany to remain weak indefinitely
• Economic reconstruction of the USSR, at Germany’s expense

Question 5

What was decided at Yalta in February 1945?

Answer 5

• Germany divided into four zones, each administered by an allied power
• Berlin similarly divided
• UN formally ratified
• USSR gained land from Poland, but Poland expanded in the north and west
• Declaration on Liberated Europe (peace, aid, free and fair elections)

Question 6

What did Stalin think and want personally?

Answer 6

• 27,000,000 Soviet soldiers and civilians died due to WWII, as well as mass destruction of towns and cities, agriculture and industry
• Lasting security became a supreme objective for Stalin
• Stalin and Molotov saw the allies as fundamentally anti-USSR
• Still wanted to keep cooperation with the West
• Wanted to ensure EEU lay within a Soviet sphere of influence
• Wanted to turn Germany completely communist eventually, yet keep it economically weak until then

Question 7

What did FDR think and want personally?

Answer 7

• Wanted to keep cooperation as the basis for a lasting post-war settlement
• Roosevelt was certain he could secure a democratic (therefore non-communist) future for the EEU and believed in the UN

Question 8

What did Churchill think and want personally?

Answer 8

Convinced that it was Stalin’s intention to expand Soviet power into post-war Europe

Question 9

What was the “percentages agreement”? (October 1944)

Answer 9

• Oct 1944 “percentages agreement” between Churchill/Stalin; established the percentage of predominance Britain and the USSR would have in each Eastern Europe state (i.e. USSR had 90% of Romania, UK had 90% of Greece, Hungary was 50/50)

Question 10

What was agreed at Potsdam? (July-August 1945)

Answer 10

• Germany was to be completely disarmed and demilitarised, as well as denazification (war crimes judged, all former nazi party members removed, education purged of all nazi influences)
• Decentralisation of political system undertaken (devolution), centralised the economy and industry
• Freedom of speech / free press / religious tolerance restored
• USSR to receive reparations from own zone, and additional 25% from Western zones

Question 11

What did Truman think and want at Potsdam?

Answer 11

• Wanted a post-war world based on self-determination, an open trading system on international economic cooperation, and the creation of the IMF / World Bank, reducing the risk of another Great Depression
• Came to regard confrontation rather than cooperation as the basis for relations with Stalin; hoped atomic diplomacy world work
• Feared growth of Soviet power and the uprise of communism; became increasingly convinced the USSR was not receptive to diplomatic solutions and may need force to ensure compliance

Question 12

What did Stalin think and want at Potsdam?

Answer 12

• Convinced the US and allies were rivals for dominance in Europe
• Obsession with Soviet security and installed pro-communist regimes in liberated states
• Needed to ensure that EEU states formed the basis of the USSR’s long term security system; strength through unity and a common identity

Question 13

What did Attlee think and want at Potsdam?

Answer 13

• Confirmed to Britain that Stalin was expansionist
• Foreign policy clearly anti-communist
• Unhappy that there was no long-term solution in Germany

Question 14

What influence did Hiroshima and Nagasaki have on US/USSR relations?

Answer 14

• Increased Tensions
  Heightened Soviet suspicions and fears; perceived the bomb as a demonstration of American military power.
• Atomic Diplomacy
  The U.S. attempted to use the bomb as a diplomatic toolto assert dominance over the USSR and influence post-war negotiations, further straining relations.
• Soviet Nuclear Program Acceleration
  Prompted the Soviet Union to accelerate its own nuclear weapons program, leading to an arms race that characterized much of the Cold War.