The Cold War 1945-1991 (an overview)

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The Cold War 1945-1991(an overview)

• 1) Beginnings of the Cold War (Europe)
• 2) The First Cold War 1948-1953
• 3) The Thaw 1953-1957
• 4) The Second Cold War 1958-1962
• 5) The Period of Détente 1963-1979
• 6) The Third Cold War the Collapse of
  Communism 1979-1991

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Library Assignment
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Traditionalist Interpretations

• Traditionalists interpret events as the US
  responding defensively to aggressive Soviet moves
• Cold War an inevitable response to Stalins
  paranoia
• Herbert Feiss (50s) R.C. Raack (95) place
  blame for the Cold War on Stalin
• Ex. Stalin ignored promises given _at_ Yalta to
  support democratically elected governments ? put
  stooges in power

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Revisionist Historians

• Revisionist someone who revises the traditional
  or orthodox interpretation of events and
  contradicts it (60s 70s)
• Argued that the US ( to a lesser extent UK)
  pursued policies that caused the Cold War
• William Appleman Williams ? claimed the US wanted
  to force the USSR to join the global economy
  open its frontiers to US imports and political
  ideas in order to undermine Stalins regime

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Historians and the Cold War

• Louis Halle likened the Cold War to placing a
  scorpion and a tarantula together in a bottle
• Called the centrist view emphasizes
  fundamental differences rather than stressing
  that the Cold War was one sides fault

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Germany, June 1945- April 1947

• Zones of occupation West Soviet agreement
  (reparations raw materials)
• Winter 1945-46 British US bring in food to
  prevent starvation USSR plunders
• Soviets insist on 10 billion in reparations
• Byrnes (US) ? reparations can only be paid by a
  German trade surplus
• Only UK accepts joining zones ? Bizonia created
  hoped that gradually the French Russian zones
  would knit into it
• Breakdown Soviets try to destroy Bizonia,
  cooperation breaks down

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Increased Tensions

• Truman grows more distrustful of Stalin when he
  refuses to allow free elections in Poland (breach
  of Yalta promise)
• Stalin wanted Eastern Europe ? buffer zone
  against any future German blitzkrieg
• Satellite states (puppet governments)

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The Red Army in Bucharest 1944
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Stalins Election Speech (Feb. 9, 1946)

• Not a true election explains the Partys
  position aims for the future
• announced that communism capitalism were
  incompatible and another war was inevitable
• USSR focuses more on producing weapons than
  consumer goods
• US Britain interpret the speech as a virtual
  declaration of war

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George Keenans Long Telegram

• Concerned about the Soviet threat ? US State
  Department asked for an analysis of Soviet policy
• February 22, 1946
• 1) Russians were determined to destroy the
  American way of life will do all they can to
  oppose the US
• 2) the USSR was the greatest threat the US had
  ever faced
• 3) The Soviets can be beaten

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George Keenans Long Telegram (contd)

• 4) The Soviets must be stopped
• 5) This can be done without going to war
• 6) The way to do it is by educating the public
  against Communism, and by making people wealthy,
  happy, and free
• a long-term, patient but firm, and vigilant
  containment of Russian expansionist tendencies
• Policy developed into a more aggressive,
  militaristic one

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George Kennan
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The Iron Curtain

• March 5, 1946 Churchill _at_ Fulton, Missouri
• Iron Curtain speech
• Warning against Soviet expansion consolidation
  of Eastern European territory
• Many felt Churchill was exaggerating the Soviet
  menace

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• A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately
  lighted by the Allied victory From Stettin in
  the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron
  curtain has descended across the continent.
  Behind that line lie all the capitals of the
  ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe All
  these famous cities and the populations around
  them lie in the Soviet sphere and al are subject
  to Soviet influence and a very high and
  increasing measure of control from Moscow. -
  Winston Churchill
• Stalin said Churchills words were a call to war

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Europe Divides into 2 Blocs (East and West) The
Iron Curtain
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March 5, 1946 Churchill _at_ Fulton, Missouri
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Events in Persia

• March 2, 1946 deadline for Anglo-Soviet
  withdrawal from Iran
• Britain begins w/drawing USSR breaks the
  agreement to withdraw wants oil concessions
• Uses Red Army to aid a rebel movement
• Gains concessions (withdraws by May 1946)
• Iran revokes concessions after Soviet republics
  were overthrown

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Truman Administration Adopts the containment
policy

• Stalins hard-line policies in Germany, Eastern
  Europe, and the Middle East a psychological Pearl
  Harbor
• Truman privately in 1946, Im tired of babying
  the Soviets.
• Adopt Kennans analysis as a policy guide
• Containment an effort to block the Soviets
  attempts to spread their influence by creating
  alliances and supporting weaker countries

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James F. Byrnes

• September 6, 1946
• Speech in Germany ? repudiates the Morgenthau
  Plan (proposal to partition de-industrialize
  post-war Germany)
• Warns the Soviets that the US intended to
  maintain a military presence in Europe
  indefinitely
• The nub of our program was to win the German
  people it was a battle between us and Russia
  over minds

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James Byrnes
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The Truman Doctrine

• 12 March 1947 Truman ? Congress Greece Turkey
  need aid
• Communist victory in the Eastern Mediterranean
  could mean Soviet domination of the Middle East
• Truman declared that the US should support free
  peoples throughout the world who were resisting
  takeovers by armed minorities or outside
  pressures ?
• The Truman Doctrine

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The Truman Doctrine (contd)

• 400 million approved
• Ended policy of post-war cutbacks
• Suggested new level of confrontation with the
  Soviets
• Truman built a national consensus that fighting
  communism was the purpose of containment

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Significance of the Truman Doctrine

• One of the declarations of Cold War
• Point at which the Truman administration
  Congress made public the decision that Communism
  was a great threat

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Postwar Europe

• Economic chaos ? high unemployment, active black
  markets, thefts
• Millions in refugee camps
• 1946-1947 winter bitterest in centuries
  below-zero temperatures record snow
• Damaged crops froze rivers which prevented water
  transport (creates fuel shortages) food
  rationing in UK

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Hamburg (post-war)
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The Marshall Plan (June 1947)

• US Secretary of State George Marshall proposed
  that the US provide aid to all European nations
  that needed it
• Move directed, not against any country or
  doctrine but against hunger, desperation, and
  chaos.
• Recipients had to remove trade barriers and
  cooperate economically with each other

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Other Goals of the Marshall Plan

• 1) It could act as a barrier to Soviet expansion
• 2) Pull Eastern Europe out of the Soviet bloc
• 3) Integrate Germany and contain it

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Marshall Plan Approved

• Many resist giving away billions of dollars
• February 25, 1948 communist coup in
  Czechoslovakia (backed by Moscow)
• Coup convinced Congress of the need strong,
  stable governments in Europe to resist communism
• 12 billion over 4 years to 16 countries

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George Marshall
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The Marshall Plan
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Marshall Plan Poster
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Significance of the Marshall Plan

• Great success economically politically
• Nutrition improved and industry grew
• 1952 Western Europe was flourishing
• The threat of communist parties taking over was
  ended
• USSR sees plan as a lure to Eastern Europe to be
  like us