Origins of the Cold War A Chilly Power Point Presentation Brought to You by Mr. Raffel
What was the Cold War? The Cold War was the bitter state of indirect conflict that existed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for more than four decades after the end of WWII.
Why did the Cold War start? After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the U.S. refused to extend formal diplomatic relations to the new communist nation until 1933. The U.S. was alarmed when the Soviets signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939. However, they found themselves on the same side when Hitler broke the pact.
At the war s end, there were disputes about the futures of Germany and Poland. Germany was partitioned into four zones (one American, one French, one British, and one Soviet). Poland s new government would loosely be controlled by the Soviets. Plus, the Soviets were mad that the Allies did not help them when they were getting their butts kicked by the Germans back during the war. Lastly, Stalin was ticked that Truman did not tell him about the A-Bomb.
Plus, the two sides had different visions for the postwar world. The American Vision: The U.S. fought in WWII to protect its version of the American Dream. The U.S. hoped to share with the world the essential elements of a democratic life: liberty, equality, and representative government. The U.S. also sought to protect its economic interests by ensuring a worldwide market for its products (free trade).
The Soviet Vision: Remember that communism predicted that through a process of class struggle, the workers of the world would eventually triumph, creating a worker s paradise (a true Communist state) by sharing economic resources equally.. Because the Soviets had suffered such significant losses in the war (20 million), they were determined to rebuild on their own terms. Rebuilding Russia required internal security. In the past, Russia had been vulnerable to invasion and thus demanded defensible borders and neighboring regimes sympathetic to Russian aims.
After the war was over, the U.S. and the Soviet Union clashed over the issue of Poland. Truman insisted that the new Polish gov t have representatives sympathetic to Western interests. Stalin insisted that because Poland was so close to the Soviet Union, the Soviets must be allowed to have a strong influence there. In essence, Stalin wanted to protect the security of his own nation. He could do so by ensuring that Poland remain under Soviet influence.
The U.S. also began to put economic pressure on the Soviet Union. As hostilities died down at the end of WWII, Truman issued an executive order cutting off lend-lease supplies to the Allies. This meant that ships heading for allied ports had to turn back in the middle of the ocean. This policy affected the Soviet Union more than any other allied power and caused major resentment. Additionally, Truman dragged his heels on issuing a loan to the Soviets for the purpose of rebuilding, claiming to have lost the request by 1946, he indicated a willingness to consider the matter, but only if Russia pledged nondiscrimination in world commerce. Stalin rejected this offer.
Meanwhile, the American people renewed their hatred of Americans began to transfer their wartime hatred of Nazi Germany to communist Soviet Union. Truman himself declared in 1950 that there isn t any difference between totalitarian Russian government and the Hitler government. communists.
Perceived Similarities between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia Total control over communications Ability to eliminate political opposition Usage of terror to silence dissidents Stalin s labor camps in Siberia were likened to Hitler s concentration camps Big Brother = a mating of Stalin and Hitler
The Cold War was never actually However, two speeches mark the onset of the struggle: officially declared. In 1946, Stalin made a speech ( Two Worlds ) in which he declared that the Soviet system would triumph ultimately. In that same year, Winston Churchill, made his famous iron curtain speech.
Europe at the Start of the Cold War
Containment To address the concerns that the Americans had about the Soviets, they adopted a policy called containment. This policy was defined by George Kennan, a topranking diplomat stationed in Moscow, as the need for the United States to remove any opportunities for its enemy to establish communist governments in other countries.
How did the U.S. implement their policy of containment? The Truman Doctrine (1947) Pledged support of U.S. to countries that were in danger of takeover by communist countries. The Marshall Plan (1948) Called for nations of Europe (including communist countries) to draw up a program for economic recovery from the war. The U.S. would then support the plan with financial aid. (This action would both improve the European economy as well as reward the U.S. with strong trading partners.)
Truman Doctrine: The Origins The U.S.S.R. was pressuring Turkey for joint control of the Dardanelles. A civil war in Greece pitted Communist elements against the ruling English-aided right-wing monarchy. In 1947, Britain told the U.S. that they could no longer give Greece and Turkey military aid.
Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson declared that like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. He believed that only the U.S. had the power to resist.
Truman told Congress, I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures if we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation.
The Berlin Airlift The Russians were ticked off by this whole Marshall Plan situation, because they felt it was just a way for the U.S. to buy friends in Western Europe. Additionally, the division of Germany and Berlin was intended to be temporary, and at the time, there had been an agreement that the Allied powers would act together in the rebuilding process. So when the United States tried to help out West Germany by introducing a West German currency, the Soviets reacted by blockading all ground and water routes to West Berlin in June of 1948. Keep in mind that the western section of Berlin was actually located within eastern Europe.
Truman did not want to risk starting a war with the Soviet Union by forcing open the trade routes, nor did he want to give up West Berlin to the Soviets. However, the starvation of 2.5 million west Berliners was at stake. So he started what was known as the Berlin Airlift, in which he moved supplies into West Berlin by plane. This went on for over a year. By the time the Soviet blockade was ended in May 1949, the Marshall Plan had succeeded in strengthening capitalist nations in Western Europe.
Formation of NATO The tension that resulted from the Berlin airlift convinced Western powers that they needed to form a peacetime alliance against the Soviet threat. Thus, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was established. Participating nations pledged that an attack on one was an attack on all.
NATO Members
Disturbing Events 1. In 1949, a Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party resulted in a victory for the Communists under Mao Zedong. The loss of China was very disappointing, and would lead to future efforts to prevent more Asian nations from falling to communism. 2. On September 23 rd, 1949, the U.S. learned that the U.S.S.R. had developed a nuclear bomb. From then on, fear of the bomb would dictate life in America as well as diplomatic relations.
Adoption of NSC-68 In response to these events, the National Security Council spelled out American policy in a document entitled NSC-68. This document stated that the U.S. should triple to quadruple its defense budget (from $13 billion to $50 billion annually). Besides creating the military industrial complex, NSC-68 made containment the long term goal of U.S. foreign policy (until the end of the Vietnam war).
The Postwar Arms Race: August, 1946 President Truman creates the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which assumes responsibility for all U.S. nuclear weapons. August 1949: The U.S.S.R. explodes its first atomic bomb. It yields 22 kilotons of TNT--about as destructive as the weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (1kiloton=1,000 tons of TNT)
October 1949-The General Advisory Committee of the AEC recommends that the U.S. not pursue the development of the hydrogen bomb. The GAC, which is chaired by J. Robert Oppenheimer, recommends the development of more advanced fission weapons. In March 1950, Truman authorizes development of the H-Bomb.
The Postwar Arms Race: November 1952 The U.S. tests is first ever thermonuclear device. The Mike shot yielded 10 megatons of TNT, and was roughly 1000 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb (1 megaton=1 million tons of TNT). August 1953 The Soviets successfully test a hydrogen bomb. It yielded roughly 400 kilotons of TNT.
October 1961 The Soviets detonate Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device in history. It yielded 57 megatons of TNT! The amount of explosive energy released by Tsar Bomba amounted to all of the explosives used during World War II, multiplied by 10!
THE END (of the Power Point, not the Cold War!)