“UNITED: The United Nations Fight for Freedom” (USA, 1943): FDR hoped to continue the wartime alliance with the USSR in the postwar world
Jan 04, 2016
“UNITED: The United
Nations Fight for Freedom” (USA,
1943):FDR hoped to continue the
wartime alliance with the USSR in
the postwar world
The U.S. Government encouraged
favorable press coverage of
Stalin
W. Averell Harriman(1891-1986):
1913: graduates from Yale, founds major Wall Street bank;1940-42: FDR’s special envoy to
Churchill and Stalin;1943-46: Ambassador
to USSR;later Secretary of Commerce and
Governor of New York
George F. Kennan(1904-2005)
1925: Graduates from Princeton, joins Foreign
Service;1933-38: Posted to
Moscow;1944-46: Returns to
Moscow (sends “Long Telegram,” February
1946); 1947-49: Director of
Policy Planning at U.S. State Department;
1951-52: Ambassador to the
USSR
THE DISPUTE OVER POSTWAR POLAND
January 21, 1944: Ambassador Harriman warns the State Department from Moscow that the London Polish government in exile has no future unless it accepts the Curzon Line, purges its most reactionary members, and adds at least one minister acceptable to Stalin.February 6, 1944: Churchill appeals to the London Poles to accept the Curzon Line, but they refuse.March 4, 1944: Harriman approaches Stalin to convey concern about civil war in postwar Poland. Stalin replies that the Soviet people could never accept the return to power of reactionary Polish landlords and militarists. June 1944: The Soviets announce the formation of a “Polish National Council” in Lublin.
The Polish Home Army launched a bold uprising against the Germans in
Warsaw on August 1, 1944,as the Red Army
approached. But the Soviet advance then halted, and
the Germans leveled Warsaw in October 1944.
The Soviet conquest of
western Poland in January 1945, on the eve of the
Yalta Conference.
Stalin now insisted that the “Lublin Poles” had far more
popular support than the
“London Poles.”
The Big Three at Yalta, February 1945:Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, & Joseph
Stalin
Did FDR understand that he had in effect sacrificed Poland?
The Occupation Zones Agreed Upon at Yalta:
The Oder-Neisse Line
marked the new Polish-German
border
U.S. and Soviet troops link up on the ruins of a bridge over the Elbe River at Torgau, April 25,
1945
The UNITED NATIONS was founded in San Francisco in June 1945,
when delegates from 50 nations approved its charter
At Potsdam in July 1945, Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, and Stalin agree on the Four D’s:
Denazification, Democratization, Demilitarization, Decartellization
Truman MAY not have understood the implicit bargain at Yalta (see Gaddis, 21-24)
THE DETONATION OF THE ATOMIC BOMBOVER HIROSHIMA ON AUGUST 6, 1945:
About 70,000 died that day, and 70,000 more within 6 months
“No Nonsense!”(USSR, 1948):The Soviets
detonated their first A-bomb on August 29, 1949.Gaddis concludes
on p. 27 that statesmen in Moscow and
Washington were caught in a
“security dilemma.”
Border revisions and streams of refugees in 1945
Communist strongholds in Greece, 1946/47
Marhsal Josip Broz Tito (1892-
1980),the Communist
leader of Yugoslavia who broke openly with Stalin in
1948.He was the real
patron of the Greek
Communists…
Harry S. Truman announces the “Truman Doctrine”
to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947
Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposes the
European Recovery Program at Harvard in June 1947
(below) and then finalizes the plan for its implementation
with Ernest Bevin and Robert Schuman in Paris in October
1948
Stalin prohibited any East European participation
The Marshall Plan as the wind in Europe’s
sails(Federal Republic of
Germany, 1950).By 1952 the USA had contributed
$11 billionto revive the
economy of Western Europe, the most
successful economic aid program in history
Klement Gottwald led the Czech Communists to a plurality in 1946 with 38% of the popular vote and
then became premier of a Popular Front government. Jan Masaryk and all other non-
Communist ministers were replaced with Communists in February 1948.
Soon thereafter Masaryk was found dead beneath the window of his Prague apartment
THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR WAS DECIDED IN 1948
The currency reform in “Bizonia,”
21 June 1948:Every West German citizen received 40 new Deutschmarks.
Stalin responded with a blockade of
West Berlin.
The Berlin Airlift, October 1948:Grateful West Berliners greet an American transport plane
Dean Acheson signs the NATO
treaty in Washington on April 4, 1949, as Harry Truman
and British Foreign
Secretary Ernest Bevin look on
In 1949 Konrad
Adenaueremerged as the elected leader of the pro-Western Federal Republic
of Germany
And Walter Ulbricht founded the pro-SovietGerman Democratic Republic
The “Iron Curtain” dividing Europe, 1949 to 1989
All debate in Washington about
Soviet intentions ended when North Korea
invaded South Korea in June 1950. But Dean Acheson had declared
publicly in January 1950 that the U.S.
“defensive perimeter” did NOT include South Korea (see Gaddis, pp.
41-3).
When U.S. troops reached the Yalu River in October 1950, 300,000 Communist Chinese troops intervened
U.S. troops retreating in 1951. The USA lost 36,515 men killed in what was technically a “UN police action.”
General Douglas MacArthur was dismissed by Trumanin 1951 after publicly advocating the use of nuclear weapons.
Sixteen of these B-29s were shot down by “North Korean” fighter
planes that were actually Soviet.
Time Magazine devoted itself to raising awareness of Soviet expansionism, for example with these maps published on March 10, 1952
EVIDENCE OF STALIN’S PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION?
1. The Greek Civil War of 1946/47 (actually fomented by Tito).
2. Chinese Civil War, 1947/48: The sudden victory of the Communists over the Nationalists leads to conspiracy theories in Washington (but Stalin did not want this).
3. Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, February 1948 (triggered by Stalin’s opposition to the ERP).
4. June 1948: Soviet Blockade of Berlin, which leads to the Berlin Airlift (undoubtedly Stalin’s decision).
5. North Korea invades South Korea, June 1950 (encouraged by Stalin).
Regarding the question of responsibility, contrast Gaddis, p. 27, with pp. 29-30.
KENNAN’S RIFT WITH THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION
Kennan quarreled sharply in 1949/50 with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his State Department colleague Paul Nitze, who defined the Soviet threat primarily in military terms.
The Truman administration increased defense spending from 5% to 14.2% of GDP from 1950 to 1953 and pushed for the rearmament of West Germany.
In 1996 Kennan told CNN, "My thoughts about containment were of course distorted by the people who understood it and pursued it exclusively as a military concept; and I think that that, as much as any other cause, led to 40 years of the unnecessary, fearfully expensive, and disoriented process of the Cold War."
REVIVING DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE AFTER 1945
1944: Foundation of the French Fourth Republic
1946: Italians vote to abolish the monarchy (54%)
1949: Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany
1952: Creation of a “Common Market” for coal, iron, and steel (the ECSC).
1955: West Germany enters NATO
1957: Creation of the European Economic Community
The initial successes were achieved by “Christian Democratic” parties of the center-right, whose policies were endorsed by moderate socialists by the 1960s.
Charles de Gaulle sings the
“Marseillaise” in liberated France, 1 October 1944.He resigned as
President in 1946 when all major
parties rejected his ideas for the constitution.
INITIAL POSTWAR ELECTION RESULTS
COUNTRY Com. Soc. Lib.Chr.-Dem.
Other
France 1945
27% 24% 6% 25% 18%
Italy 1945
19% 20% 6% 35% 20%
West Germany
, 19496% 29% 12% 31% 22%
In 1948, after resigning as President, Charles de Gaulle founded a secularist, nationalist party for moderate conservatives that drew support away from the French Christian Democrats.
The Founding Fathers of Christian Democracy, the EU, & NATO were Catholics who came from
borderlands:
Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954): Italian P.M., 1945-53, born in Austria
Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967):
FRG chancellor, 1949-1962 (Cologne)
Robert Schuman (1886-1963):
French P.M., 1948, foreign minister, 1948-53 (Alsace)
The program of Christian Democracy was based on the encyclical by Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (“On Reconstruction of the Social Order”), 1931
1. Anti-communism and anti-socialism, because all have the right to own property.
2. All human beings have the right to life, freedom, and the means to acquire property.
3. “Solidarity” – All Christians should support the formation of trade unions & farmers’ cooperatives and whatever government action is necessary to alleviate poverty.
4. “Subsidiarity” – Social problems should be solved by the smallest social unit possible. Only if the family cannot solve them should they be solved by local government, and only if local government fails should they be solved by state or national governments.
The Schuman Plan for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), published in May 1950,
was devised by JEAN MONNET (1888-1979)
1919-23: Deputy Secretary
General of the League of Nations;
1924-39: Liquor exporter,
international financier;
1940-45: Trusted advisor of
Churchill, de Gaulle, & FDR;
first president of the ECSC, 1952-
55
Representatives of Belgium,
Luxemburg, Italy, France, West
Germany, and the Netherlands sign the ECSC Treaty
on April 18, 1951
Monnet presided over the ECSC High Authority
here in Luxemburg
In May 1952 the Six signed a treaty to create a “European Defense Community”
The first proposals to rearm West Germany were also published in 1950 and provoked fierce debate:
“WARNING! THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE FORCE WILL REVIVE THE WEHRMACHT” (French Communist
poster)
BUT THE CDU WON THE ELECTIONS OF 1953 & 1957
“German Unity. Therefore SPD”
“All paths of Marxism lead to Moscow! Therefore CDU”
In 1955 West Germany
created a new army and joined
NATO:“NATO: His
Comrades, our Allies”
(FRG, 1956)
Adenauer and Italy’s prime minister, Antonio Segni, sign the Treaty of Rome on March 24, 1957:
The Six abolished all tariff barriers in the European Economic Community (EEC)
THE SIX:Italy, France,
West Germany, Luxemburg,
Belgium, and the Netherlands.The United
Kingdom and Scandinavia were
not interested, and Spain and
Greece were not welcome.
AVERAGE ANNUAL GROWTH OF GDP
COUNTRY 1870-1913
1913-1950
1950-1960
1960-1970
1979-1985
France 1.6% 0.7% 4.6% 5.8% 1.3%
Germany 2.9% 1.2% 7.8%* 4.8%* 1.6%*
U.K. 2.2% 1.7% 2.7% 2.8% 1.2%
Italy 1.4% 1.3% 5.8% 5.7%
USA 4.3% 2.9% 3.2% 4.3% 2.2%
Sweden 2.4% 2.0% 4.4% 4.5%
* Refers solely to West Germany.
SPENDING ON SOCIAL WELFARE AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP (including old-age pensions, jobless benefits, public health services, and assistance to the needy)
1950 1960 1970
France 10.9% 12.7% 15.8%
West Germany
14.1% 14.9% 17.2%
Italy 7.9% 12.0% 16.8%
United Kingdom
8.9% 10.3% 12.9%
USA 4.0% 6.2% 7.5%
Japan 3.2% 4.7% 6.5%