Transcript Origins of the cold war - byj

ORIGINS OF THE COLD
WAR
Creating a New Order
How did we go from this?
American and Soviet
Troops meeting and
shaking hands after
taking Germany.
NB. This photo was
not candid but
actually staged
To this…
Cold War Propaganda Poster – 1950s
Map of Europe – WW2
Map of WW2 – changes of the country borders during WW2
http://www.worldology.com/Europe/world_war_2_imap.htm
Berlin is invaded, Hitler commits suicide.
The Allies have won the war.
On May 7th 1945: Germany officially
surrenders. This results in Victory in
Europe.
Churchill sits at the entrance to Hitler’s
bunker
World War Two Conferences
Towards the end of World War Two there were
several conferences held between ‘The Big Three’.
‘The Big Three’ were:
 President
Franklin Roosevelt, USA
 Joseph Stalin, USSR
 Prime Minister Winston Churchill, UK
These conferences were discussing the following issues:
 The
State of the War
 The Status of Germany, Poland, Eastern Europe and
Japan
 The United Nations
The Big Three: Joseph Stalin
Timeline
1879: Born in Georgia, son of a cobbler
1899: Expelled from priests’ training college for revolutionary views
1902-17: Joined the Bolsheviks, and was imprisoned and exiled several
times for revolutionary activities
1917: Took part in the Bolshevik Revolution and became Commissar of Nationalities
1922: Became General Secretary of the Communist Party
1924-29: After Lenin’s death, began to take over the leadership defeating Trotsky and his
supporters, who opposed Stalin’s policy of ‘Socialism in one Country’
1928-37: Collectivised Russia’s agriculture causing famine and great suffering without making
farming efficient
1932: Suicide of his wife Nadya
1934-39: Removes rivals and those suspected of disloyalty in the great purge
1941-45: Became Prime Minister and led the Russian forces to victory against Germany
1945-48: Established the Communist satellite states of Eastern Europe
1945-53: Organised post-war reconstruction. Continued his strict rule of the Russian people
behind the Iron Curtain
The Big Three – Franklin Roosevelt
Timeline
1882: Born in New York State, into a wealthy
family
Attended Harvard University
1905: Married but had several affairs throughout his life
1908: Became a lawyer
1911: Became a Democrat state politician
1913: Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy
1928: Became Governor of New York
1933-45: President of the United States
1930s: Created ‘New Deal’ to provide welfare relief for
unemployed and to recover the economy
1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbour but Roosevelt decides to
prioritise defeating Nazis
March 1945: Dies of a brain haemorrage
The Big Three – Winston Churchill
Timeline
1874: Born at Blenheim Palace, the son of a Conservative politican
Attends Harrow, a very famous private school, then joins the military as an officer
1900: Elected as a Conservative politician
1906: Moves to the Liberal party
1915: Initiates Gallipoli campaign, and resigns
afterwards
1917: Becomes Minister of Munitions
1921: Becomes Minister of Colonies
1924: Becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer
1940: Becomes British Prime Minister
1945: July – resigns as PM
1951: Becomes British PM again
1955: Resigns as PM again, remains a politician
1964: Resigns from politics
1965: Dies from a stroke
Bretton Woods Conference, 1944
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The conference took place in July 1944, but did not
become operative until 1959, when all the European
currencies became convertible.
Purpose
Established the IMF and IBRD
“The nations should consult and agree on international
monetary changes which affect each other. They should
outlaw practices which are agreed to be harmful to
world prosperity, and they should assist each other to
overcome short-term exchange difficulties.”
The IBRD was created to speed up post-war
reconstruction, to aid political stability, and to foster
peace.
Bretton Woods Conference, 1944
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Main terms of the agreement:
 Formation
of the IMF and IRBD (presently part of the
World Bank)
 Adjustably pegged Foreign exchange market rate
system: The exchange rates were fixed.
 Currencies were required to be convertible for trade
related and other current account transactions.
 All member countries were required to subscribe to the
IMF’s capital.
The Yalta Conference, 1945
February 1945
The ‘Big Three’ agreed on:
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Russia would help fight Japan
once Germany had surrendered
Germany divided into four
zones: American, French, British
and Soviet
Hunt down and punish war
criminals responsible for
genocide
Liberated countries could choose
their ideology
All would join the United Nations
Organisation to be established
after the war
Eastern Europe would be seen
as a ‘soviet sphere of influence’
Churchill
Stalin
Roosevelt
World War Two Conferences
Crucial Developments between Yalta and Potsdam
Conferences:
President Roosevelt died in April 1945 and was replaced by
Truman, who was to adopt a more hardline, or ‘get tough’, policy
towards the Soviets.
 Germany finally surrendered unconditionally on 7 May 1945.
 Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party lost the 1945 UK general
election and Churchill was succeeded as Prime Minister by the
Labour Party leader, Clement Atlee.
 As the war in Europe ended, the Soviet Red Army occupied
territory as far west as deep inside Germany
 On the very day after the Potsdam Conference began, 17 July
1945, the United States successfully tested its first atomic bomb.
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The Potsdam Conference, 1945
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Held in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam.
The following issues emerged:
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Disagreement over what to do with
Germany. Stalin wanted to cripple it.
America wanted to inject funds into the
economy so as not repeat problems of
the Versailles Peace Treaty
Stalin wanted compensation for
damage to Russia. Truman disagreed.
Truman disagreed with Yalta plan
allow Russia to have influence of
Eastern Europe
The Potsdam Conference ended
without agreement on these issues.
Clement
Atlee
Harry
Truman
The Division of Germany
The Potsdam Conference in 1945 divided Germany
into four zones, each to be governed by one of the
victorious powers; USSR, USA, France and Britain.
The intention behind this was to prohibit Germany
from once again rising as a military threat in Central
Europe.
How was Germany Divided
British
Occupation
Zone
Berlin
Soviet Occupation
Zone
French
Occupation
Zone
American
Occupation Zone
What about Berlin?
French Zone
Soviet Zone
British Zone
American Zone
Although Berlin was in
the Soviet Zone it was
also divided into four
regions. One for each of
the victors of World War
2. In order to access these
zones the allied powers
needed the acquiescence
of the Soviets. Specific
roads and railway lines
were given to the Western
Powers to allow passage
through Soviet-controlled
Germany to supply their
sectors in Berlin
The Long Telegram
In February 1946, a key U.S.
diplomat in Moscow, George F.
Kennan, sent a telegram to the
U.S. State Department on the
nature of Soviet conduct and
foreign policy.
It detailed the nature of the
Soviet Union in a post-WW2
world and how the US may go
about relating to them.
George F. Kennan
The Long Telegram
“…At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional
and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity
of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in
neighbourhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia
came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more
competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area.
But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian
rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that
their rule was relatively archaic in form fragile and artificial in its
psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with
political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always
feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world
and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about
world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they
have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total
destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it…”
The Long Telegram
The key points of Kennan’s telegram were:
 The
USSR’s view of the world was a traditional one of
insecurity
 The Soviets wanted to advance Muscovite Stalinist
ideology (not simply ‘Marxism’).
 The Soviet regime was cruel and repressive and
justified this by perceiving nothing but evil in the outside
world. That view of a hostile outside environment would
sustain the internal Stalinist system.
 The USSR was fanatically hostile to the West – but they
were not ‘suicidal’.
Your Task – You take (non-nuclear)
action
Acting as either:
OR
President Harry Truman
Premier Joseph Stalin
Write a response to the long telegram
Russia’s Liberations of Eastern Europe
After countries were
liberated from Nazis,
instead of withdrawing
their troops, Russia left
them their. By July 1945,
Stalin’s troops controlled
the Baltic states, Finland,
Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Bulgaria and
Romania.
Refugees were fleeing in
fear of Communist
takeover.
“This war is not as in the past: whoever
occupies a territory also imposes on it his own
social system. Everyone imposes his own
system as far as his army has power to do so.
It cannot be otherwise.”
Stalin
Russia’s Liberation of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe: Behind the Iron Curtain
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Becomes a Communist ‘satellite’ zone, a buffer
between Russia and the West.
Also known as the Communist Bloc
The name ‘Iron Curtain’ came from a speech by
Winston Churchill
The Iron Curtain Speech
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By 1946, Soviet-dominated Communist governments were set up
in:
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Poland
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
This was in spite of the hopes expressed at Yalta that there
would be free and democratic elections in Eastern Europe after
the war.
Communist regimes not directly linked to Moscow had been
established in Albania and Yugoslavia as well.
His speech was also prompted by the presence of the Red Army
in those countries ‘liberated’ from Germany by the Russians –
and by the cloak of secrecy which descended over Eastern
Europe within a few months of the end of the war.
Soviet Response – Joseph Stalin
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The response from the Soviet leadership was quick and
one of outrage.
Within a week Stalin had compared Churchill to Hitler.
Stalin saw the speech as both ‘racist’ and as ‘a call to
war with the Soviet Union’
Within three weeks the Soviets had taken several steps:
 Withdrew
money from the International Monetary Fund
(IMF)
 They stepped up the tone and intensity of anti-Western
propaganda
 The initiated a new five-year plan of self-strengthening
Mr X Article
In July 1947 a mysterious article appeared in the
journal Foreign Affairs, attributed only to ‘Mr X’. It
soon became public knowledge that the author was
George Kennan. Given his new role as Head of the
State Department’s new Policy Planning Staff, it gave
the article the aura of official administration policy
toward the Soviet Union.
Mr X Article
From Kennan’s ‘Mr X’ article, ‘The Sources of Soviet
Conduct’ in Foreign Affairs, July 1947:
“The main element of any United States policy toward
the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient
but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive
tendencies…it will clearly be seen that the Soviet
pressure against the free institutions of the western
world is something that can be contained by the adroit
and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of
constantly shifting geographical and political points,
corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet
policy”