The Cold War - Causes

The Cold War - CausesOCR GCSE History

Differences in ideologies

The USSR (Soviet Union) The USA

The USSR was a Communist state The USA was a Capitalist state

It was a one-party dictatorship The USA was a democracy

Many people were opposed to

Capitalism

Many people were opposed to

Communism

The rights of the individuals < good of

the whole society

Being free of control by the

government > everyone being equal

It was an economic superpower but

the general standard of living was low

It was the world’s richest state

Why couldn’t the Big Three get on after

World War two?

They had lost their common enemy – Hitler

Stalin felt that he had sacrificed more than the others

The USA was afraid of the USSR’s Communist policies

The USSR had been attacked in both of the world wars and were afraid of

being attacked again

In the Russian Civil War (1920s) the USA and Britain had sent soldiers to fight

against the Communists

Policy of appeasement

1930s: Stalin thought Britain was happy to see Germany grow in power so

Hitler could attack the USSR

August 1939: Nazi Soviet Pact – Germany would not fight. The USSR and

Germany secretly agreed to attack Poland together and divide between

them

1941: Hitler broke the pact, and invaded the USSR

The Yalta conference

February 1945

Stalin, Churchill and FDR met to discuss what to do about Hitler

Met in Yalta in Ukraine

The Yalta conference: positives

They agreed that as countries were liberated from the Germans, they

would be allowed to hold free elections to choose the government they

wanted.

They all agreed to join the United Nations (UN) Organisation, which would

keep peace after the war.

They agreed to divide Germany into four zones: American, French, British,

and Soviet.

Berlin would also be divided into four zones.

Stalin was concerned about the future security of the USSR and they

agreed that eastern Europe would be seen as a Soviet Sphere of influence.

The Yalta conference: positives

Churchill persuaded FDR to accept Stalin’s plan for Poland as long as the

USSR agreed not to interfere in Greece, where Britain was attempting to

stop the Communists from taking over. Stalin accepted that.

They agreed to hunt down and punish war criminals who were responsible

for the genocide in the concentration camps in Germany.

Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany had

surrendered.

The Yalta conference: negatives

Churchill and FDR did not approve of Stalin’s plan for Poland, but they

knew they couldn’t do much about it as Stalin’s red army was in control of

Poland

They disagreed about what to do with Poland. Stalin wanted the border of

the USSR to move westwards into Poland.

Churchill was worried that FDR was too friendly with the Russians.

British army chiefs, in a top-secret memo, planned how they would impose

the will of the USA and Britain on the Russians. This was called Operation

Unthinkable and was eventually rejected by Churchill.

Stalin thought that the Polish border could be moved into German territory.

This would not make the Germans or the USA or UK happy.

The Potsdam conference

July 1945 in Potsdam in Germany

Yalta had shown how difficult it was for the Allies to reach agreement

By this point, Soviet troops had liberated the whole of Eastern Europe from

Nazi control

The USA and Britain hoped that there would be free elections to set up

democratic governments. Instead Soviet troops remained in the liberated

countries

By the time the conference got underway the Americans had successfully

tested an atomic bomb

Truman (USA president) informed Stalin and Clement Attlee (Prime Minister)

that his country now had the bomb

The Potsdam conference: positives

Germany would be divided as agreed at Yalta, and the Allies would

receive reparations

Poland’s eastern border would be moved west to the rivers Oder and

Neisse

The Nazi Party was banned and its leaders were to be tried as war criminals

Germans living in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia would be sent

back to Germany

The Potsdam conference: negatives

The Soviet Union wanted to impose severe reparations on Germany to

cripple it for years to come. Truman blocked this

The Soviet Union wanted to share in the occupation of Japan once it was

defeated. Truman refused

After the conference, Stalin ordered his scientists to work flat out to develop

a Soviet atomic bomb

Lublin and London poles

Lublin Poles: a Russian government in exile, ready to take over Poland

London Poles: a strongly anti-communist group, who were aiming to gain

part of Poland before Stalin’s Red Army took full control

By January 1945, the Lublin Poles had full control of Poland

Soviet expansion

Czechoslovakia: a left-wing coalition won elections in 1945. in 1946

Communists became the largest single party, but still in a coalition. In 1948,

when their position was threatened, they banned other parties and made

Czechoslovakia a Communist, one-party state

East Germany: the Allies had given the USSR control of the eastern sector of

Germany. It was run by the USSR effectively under Red Army control until

the creation of the German Democratic Republic in 1949

Poland: after the war the Communists joined a coalition government, then

became outright leaders in 1947 when they forced the non-Communist

leader into exile

Soviet expansion

Hungary: Communists became the largest single party in the 1947 election.

They imprisoned opposition politicians, and attacked Church leaders

Albania: Communists gained power immediately after the war. There was

little opposition

Yugoslavia: Marshall Tito had led war-time resistance to the Nazis. He was

elected President in 1945. Although Communist, he was determined to

apply Communism in his own way, not Stalin’s, and was expelled from

Cominform in 1948

The Iron Curtain

5th March 1946

Winston Churchill gave a speech in Fulton in America

He said that Eastern Europe was cut off from the free by ‘an iron curtain’

and was ‘subject to Soviet influence’

The message of the speech was so clear that Stalin claimed Churchill’s

speech was a declaration of war

Greece

In 1944, there were two rival groups in Greece, the monarchists and the

Communists, who wanted to rule the country

Churchill sent British troops to Greece in 1945, supposedly to help restore

order and supervise free elections. In fact, the British supported the

monarchists and the king was returned to power

In 1946, the USSR protested to the UN that British troops were a threat to

peace in Greece. The UN took no action and so the Communists tried to

take control of Greece by force. This triggered a civil war

The British could not afford this cost and announced they were withdrawing

their troops

Truman paid for them to stay instead

The Truman Doctrine

A speech made by Truman on 12th March 1947

It officially announced the policy of containment

The policy of containment was the plan to stop the spread of Communism

“USA is prepared to give help to any country under threat from

communism”

Marshall Aid

The Truman Doctrine in action

Congress agreed to fund this after Czechoslovakia turned Communist in

1948

1948-52: $13 billion given to 16 European states, mostly Britain and France

Also offered funds to Communist satellite states, but Stalin prevented

Marshall Aid from reaching the East

Stalin thought they were using economic imperialism to bribe other

countries to unite against the USSR

As a response, Stalin formed COMINFORM in September 1947. This

strengthened ties between Communist countries

The Communist countries in Western Europe were ordered to wreck

Marshall Aid by going on strike

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

It was formed in April 1949

This was a military alliance that promised to help if any of the members

were attacked

It consisted of the USA, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy,

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Portugal

Greece and Turkey joined in 1952

West Germany joined in 1955

The Berlin Blockade: causes

The American, British and French zones had merged to form Trizonia

They had introduced a new currency into Western Berlin and West

Germany on 23rd June

The USSR wanted to keep Germany weak but the USA and UK wanted to

rebuild the German economy

West Berlin became a show piece of capitalism and showed that Marshall

Aid worked, which was an embarrassment to Stalin

The Berlin Blockade: what happened

24th June 1948: Stalin blocked all routes in and out of Berlin – road, rail and

canal

The Allies would not give into Stalin but didn’t want to provoke a war. Their

response was to fly supplies into West Berlin

This caused the Berlin Airlift

For 11 months, food and other supplies were flown into Berlin. At its peak,

one plane landed every three minutes

May 1949 – Stalin called off the Blockade

The Berlin Blockade: results

In May 1949, Trizonia became the Federal Republic of Germany

The USSR’s zone was formed into the German Democratic Republic in

October 1949

At the height of the crisis of the Berlin Blockade, the Western powers met in

Washington and signed an agreement to work together. NATO was formed

in April 1949