GFPA2043_13

Notes for the Slides – GFPA2043-Week 13_The Cold War (1945-1990)

Slide Notes
01
02 Illustration: “Leaped into Freedom,” a photograph by West German photographer, Peter Leibing, of an
East German border guard Hans Konrad Schumann jumping over concertina wire, escaping into West
Berlin during the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
03 1. As the war slowly receded into the past, the reality of conflicting ideologies had reappeared. End of
2nd world war saw, emergence of US and Russia as world powers.
2. Differences in political system, economy and national interest caused strained relationship - Cold War
3. Term ‘Cold War’ used by American reporters in 1948 to describe the strained relationship between
US and Russia
4. Although there was no direct military clash, the period was marked by military coalitions, arms race,
deployment of troops, espionage, proxy wars, propaganda and technological competition. eg. Space-
race.
5. Many in the West interpreted Soviet policy as part of a worldwide Communist conspiracy.
6. The Soviets viewed Western, especially American, policy as nothing less than global capitalist
expansionism or, in Leninist terms, economic imperialism. Vyacheslav Molotov the Russian foreign
minister, referred to the Americans as “insatiable imperialists” and “war-mongering groups of
adventurers.”
7. In March 1946, in a speech to an American audience, the former British prime minister Winston
Churchill declared that “an iron curtain” had “descended across the continent,” dividing Europe into
two hostile camps.
8. Stalin branded Churchill’s speech a “call to war with the Soviet Union.” Only months after the world’s
most devastating conflict had ended, the world seemed once again to be bitterly divided.
9. Europe was divided into the Eastern (communist) and Western (democratic) Bloc.
04 Political and socio-economic differences
• US
• democracy & human rights
• capitalist economy, free from state intervention

• USSR
• socialist govt based on communist ideology
• nationalization of economy
05 1. By the time of the conference at Yalta in southern Russia in February 1945, the defeat of Germany
was a foregone conclusion. The Western powers, which had earlier believed that the Soviets were in
a weak position, now faced the reality of 11 million Red Army soldiers taking possession of eastern
and central Europe.
2. Like Churchill, Stalin was still operating under the notion of spheres of influence. He was deeply
suspicious of the Western powers and desired a buffer to protect the Soviet Union from possible
future Western aggression. This was because Stalin wanted to introduce communism in these
countries to ensure security of Russia.
3. At the same time, however, Stalin was eager to obtain economically important resources and
strategic military positions.
4. Roosevelt by this time was moving away from the notion of spheres of influence toward the more
Wilsonian ideal of self-determination. He called for “the end of the system of unilateral action,
exclusive alliances, and spheres of influence.”
5. The Grand Alliance approved a declaration on liberated Europe. This was a pledge to assist
Europeans in the creation of “democratic institutions of their own choice.”
6. Liberated countries were to hold free elections to determine their political systems.

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7. At Yalta, Roosevelt sought Soviet military help against Japan.

8. The atomic bomb was not yet assured, and American military planners feared the possibility of heavy
losses in amphibious assaults on the Japanese home islands.
9. Roosevelt therefore agreed to Stalin’s price for military assistance against Japan: possession of
Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, as well as two warm-water ports and railroad rights in Manchuria.
10. The creation of the United Nations was a major American concern at Yalta.
11. Roosevelt hoped to ensure the participation of the Big Three powers in a postwar international
organization before difficult issues divided them into hostile camps.
12. After a number of compromises, both Churchill and Stalin accepted Roosevelt’s plans for a United
Nations organization and set the first meeting for San Francisco in April 1945.
13. The issues of Germany and eastern Europe were treated less decisively.
14. The Big Three reaffirmed that Germany must surrender unconditionally and created four occupation
zones. German reparations were set at $20 billion.
15. A compromise was also worked out in regard to Poland.
16. Stalin agreed to free elections in the future to determine a new government.
17. But the issue of free elections in eastern Europe caused a serious rift between the Soviets and the
Americans.
18. The principle was that eastern European governments would be freely elected, but they were also
supposed to be pro-Soviet.
19. As Churchill expressed it, “The Poles will have their future in their own hands, with the single
limitation that they must honestly follow in harmony with their allies, a policy friendly to Russia.”
20. This attempt to reconcile two irreconcilable goals was doomed to failure, as soon became evident at
the next conference of the Big Three powers.
21. Even before the conference at Potsdam took place in July 1945, Western relations with the Soviets
were deteriorating rapidly.
22. The Grand Alliance had been a collaboration of necessity in which ideological incompatibility had
been subordinated to the pragmatic concerns of the war.
23. The Allies’ only common aim was the defeat of Nazism. Once this aim had been accomplished, the
many differences that antagonized East-West relations came to the surface.
24. The Potsdam conference of July 1945 consequently began under a cloud of mistrust.
25. Roosevelt had died on April 12 and had been succeeded as president by Harry Truman.
26. During the conference, Truman received word that the atomic bomb had been successfully tested.
27. Some historians have argued that this knowledge resulted in Truman’s stiffened resolve against the
Soviets. Whatever the reasons, there was a new coolness in the relations between the Soviets and
Americans.
28. At Potsdam, Truman demanded free elections throughout eastern Europe.
29. Stalin refused on grounds these countries would form anti-Russian governments responding, “A freely
elected government in any of these east European countries would be anti-Soviet, and that we cannot
allow.”
30. After a bitterly fought and devastating war, Stalin sought absolute military security. To him, it could be
gained only by the presence of communist states in eastern Europe. Free elections might result in
governments hostile to the Soviets.
31. No agreement was reached. This caused strained relationship.
32. By the middle of 1945, only an invasion by Western forces could undo developments in eastern
Europe, and after the world’s most destructive conflict had ended, few people favored such a policy.
06 1. May 1945 President Truman ended aid to Russia, US refused to recognize govts formed by force
against people’s will
2. March 1946 Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech
3. March 1947 - Truman Doctrine US gave financial & military aid to Greece and Turkey to combat
communism fearing Soviet penetration in the eastern Mediterranean. Truman Doctrine: “It must be
the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by

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armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Becomes the centerpiece of the containment policy of
holding Soviet power/influence in their current borders
4. June 1947 – US Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced an impressive program of
technical and economic aid, formally called the European Recovery Program but widely known as the
Marshall Plan introduced to western European countries.
5. By 1948 Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary & Czechoslovakia had communist governments.
6. 1949 Germany divided into East & West
7. In April 1949, US and eleven western European countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO).
8. These were Britain, France, Canada, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Italy,
Luxembourg and Iceland.
9. NATO was formed to help one another in the event of a war against Russia.
10. In reaction, communist countries in Europe under Russia formed the Warsaw Pact in May 1955.
11. These include USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and
Romania.
07 1. 1949 China joined the Communist Bloc after the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai Shek was
overthrown by Mao Tze Tung.
2. 1950 Korean War broke out with China and USSR supporting North Korea and US supporting South
Korea.
3. Truman immediately ordered U.S. naval and air forces to support South Korea, and the United
Nations Security Council (with the Soviet delegate absent to protest the refusal of the UN to assign
China’s seat to the new government in Beijing) passed a resolution calling on member nations to
jointly resist the invasion, in line with the security provisions in the United Nations Charter.
4. By September, UN ground forces under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur marched
northward across the 38th parallel with the aim of unifying Korea under a single, non-communist
government.
5. President Truman worried that by approaching the Chinese border at the Yalu River, the UN troops—
the majority of whom were from the United States—could trigger Chinese intervention, but MacArthur
assured him that China would not respond. In November, however, Chinese “volunteer” forces
intervened in large numbers on the side of North Korea and drove the UN troops southward in
disarray.
6. The Korean War ended in 1953 with a status quo at 38th parallel.
7. 08/09/1954 South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed to check the spread of
communism.
8. In summer 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem started the “Denounce the Communist” Campaign, reviving the
north-south tension, and political instability.
9. In 1964, the Vietnam War began with Soviet Union and China supporting N. Vietnam and the US
supporting S. Vietnam. Ended in 1975.
08
09 1. In 1957, Fidel Castro (b. 1926) launched an insurgency in Cuba, which toppled the dictatorship of
Flugencio Batista (1901–1973) on New Year’s Day of 1959. Thereafter Castro established a
communist government, and Cuba became an ally of the Soviet Union. These events caused
enormous concern within the United States.
2. Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, an attempt to overthrow Castro’s government, the Cuban
government seeks greater cooperation & protection with the Soviet government.
3. In 1962, the Soviet Union secretly began to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.
4. In response, the American government, under President Kennedy, blockaded Cuba, halted the
shipment of new missiles, and demanded the removal of existing installations.
5. After a tense week, during which nuclear war seemed a real possibility, the Soviets backed down, on
condition US does not attack Cuba and the crisis ended.

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6. In exchange and in private, the United States Agree to remove the Jupiter missiles from Italy and
Turkey, which was placed a year earlier in 1961.

Illustration: Among the photograph shown by the American representative to the UN during the Cuban
missile crisis of 1962.
10 1. During Cold War US and Russia avoided open confrontation but maintain rivalry through arms race,
space race and proxy wars.
2. Both powers however continued their national interest through other means-subversion, spying,
propaganda etc
3. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev (b.1931-d2022) was elected secretary of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. During Brezhnev’s last years and the brief tenures of his two successors, the Soviet
Union had entered an era of serious economic decline, and the dynamic new party chief was well
aware that drastic changes would be needed to rekindle the dreams that had inspired the Bolshevik
Revolution.
4. During the next few years, he launched a reform, a program of restructuring, (perestroika), to
revitalize the Soviet system as well as advocating for openness (glasnost). As part of that program,
he set out to improve relations with the United States and the rest ofthe capitalist world. When he met
with President Reagan in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, the two leaders agreed to set aside their
ideological differences and seek to cooperate in several areas.
5. Gorbachev’s desperate effort to rescue the Soviet Union and its empire of satellites from collapse was
too little and too late.
6. In 1989, popular demonstrations against communist rule broke out across Eastern Europe.
7. In the late 1970s, an independent labor union called Solidarity was created under the leadership of
Lech Walesa (b. 1943). Sensing a threat to its monopoly of power, for years the regime in Warsaw
sought to suppress it, but as the movement continued to muster popular support, communist leaders
eventually—and with great reluctance—permitted free national elections to take place, resulting in the
election of Walesa as president of Poland in December 1990. Moscow took no action to reverse the
verdict.
8. Similar trends were at work in neighboring Czechoslovakia. After Soviet troops crushed the Prague
Spring in 1968, hard-line Communists under Gustav Husák had adopted a policy of massive
repression to maintain their power.
9. In 1977, dissident intellectuals, inspired by the signing of the Helsinki Accords, formed an
organization called Charter 77 as a vehicle for protest against violations of human rights.
10. Dissident activities continued to grow during the 1980s, and when massive demonstrations broke out
in several cities in 1989, Husák’s government collapsed. At the end of December, he was replaced by
Václav Havel (1936–2011), a playwright who had been a leading figure in Charter 77.
11. But the most dramatic events took place in East Germany, where a persistent economic slump and
the ongoing oppression by the Erich Honecker regime led to widespread protests and the flight of
refugees to neighboring countries in the summer and fall of 1989.
12. Capitulating to popular pressure, a mid-level communist official unofficially ordered the opening of the
border with West Berlin on November 9.
13. The Berlin Wall, the most tangible symbol of the Cold War, became the site of a massive celebration.
Most of it was dismantled by joyful Germans from both sides of the border.
14. In March 1990, free elections led to the formation of a non-communist government that soon began
negotiations with West Germany over a program of political and economic reunification.
15. The contagion in Prague, Warsaw, and Berlin soon spread to other countries in the region, and in
1991 the final piece toppled when the Soviet Union, for 70 years an apparently permanent fixture on
the global scene, suddenly disintegrated.
16. In its place arose fifteen new nations. The Cold War was over in 1990 with the establishment of a
more transparent communist government in Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev, succeeded by Boris
Yeltsin.

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Illustration: West Berliners in front of the Berlin Wall on 11th November 1989, watching East German
border guards demolishing a section of the barrier.

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