Cold War 1: Role of Mistrust 1 - The breakdown of the Grand Alliance and the emergence of superpower rivalry

The breakdown of the Grand Alliance

What were the blocs in the Cold War? + What countries headed them?

Capitalist Bloc was headed by the USA. Communist bloc was headed by the Soviet Union

What did Communists dislike about Capitalism?

Only people at the top making money = exploitation of working class.

Perpetuates the rule of the elites.

Imperialistic desire for power/land/resources is what drives wars.

What did Capitalists dislike about Communism?

Terror + violence is used to organize the proletariat and prevent a return of bourgeois thinking.

Lenin argued that imperialism was ‘the highest form of capitalism.’

* that it had forced the world into slavery, aided by bourgeois ideas like nationalism.
* Advocated world revolution as the only means to secure global equality, which upset non-Communist countries.

Formation of the Comintern to ferment world revolution = meddling in the affairs of other nations

Russian Revolution 1917 - context

* Treaty of Brest-Litovsk → Russia pulling out of WW1, leaving other nations to continue a fight with a stronger Germany.
* Execution of the Romanovs → cousins of the British royal family + related to pretty much all other European royalty.

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* Sign that a Communist world would be one in which the ruling classes could expect to meet a violent death → so must be resisted
* Desire to get Russia back into the war had long-term consequences

Russian Civil War 1917-1922 - context

* many different groups over a large area → eg. at one point there were 18 anti-Bolshevik governments in Russia = complex issue

2 main groups:

* the Reds = Bolsheviks
* the Whites = liberals, former tsarists, nationalists, separatists, Socialist Revolutionaries and other moderate socialists

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* Britain sent £100 million worth of supplies to the Whites.
* Churchill hated Communism. frequently used the phrase ‘strangle Bolshevism in its cradle’
* France sent troops to recover investments - had put millions of francs into Russia.
* Bolsheviks nationalised foreign-owned industries without compensation
* Japan = interested in taking land in Siberia
* USA = Sent troops to same area as the Japanese - largely to stop Japanese annexing any land

Red Scare 1917-1920

* Nationwide anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent
* News media exacerbated such fears, channeling them into anti-foreign sentiment
* labor strikes were on the rise, and the press sensationalized them as being caused by immigrants bent on bringing down the American way of life.
* The Sedition Act of 1918 targeted people who criticized the government, monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation

Atlantic Charter 1941

Involved America and Britain

* Four freedoms
* Ban aggression
* Disarm aggressor states
* Give self-determination to liberated states
* Create the UN
* Secure the freedom of the seas

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In Stalin’s eyes, this is a threat and bad = imposing their view upon the world

Grand Alliance 1942

Allies insured a joint military union between US, UK and USSR

* Formal agreement to the Atlantic Charter
* Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact

What were the aims of the 3 nations in the Grand Alliance?

Britain:

* preserving British Empire, especially in Asia
* maintain a balance of power against the USSR - controlling the spread of communism

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The USA:

* needed UK/USSR support to defeat Japan
* against a return to imperialism
* wanted a new US-led global order
* with the USA, UK, USSR and China as the ‘Four Policemen’

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The USSR:

* Ensuring a Soviet sphere of influence in Europe & Asia
* permanently destroy German power in Europe via harsh reparations
* buffer states in Eastern Europe with pro-Soviet governments

Yalta Conference 1945

Stalin signed the Declaration of a Liberated Europe

* “representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people”
* Agreed to hold democratic elections
* Probably to show its commitment to cooperate with its allies

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* By the time of the conference, Stalin was already going back on his word
* began supporting communist groups across Eastern Europe.
* Stalin though wants his sphere of influence over Eastern Europe confirmed

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* Stalin agreed that the USSR would join the UN

Truman in power

* felt that Roosevelt had been naive in his dealings with Stalin
* Sus about Stalin’s actions in Poland
* Offered to negotiate - didn’t work
* performed a nuclear test without telling Stalin to threaten him
* Stalin knew already, thanks to his spies
* Stalin grew even more paranoid because the Americans didn’t tell him about the bomb - why keep secrets from allies?

Poland - Warsaw Rising 1944: Beginning of Salami Tactics

London Poles were Strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist

* Instead of assisting the London Poles against Germany, Stalin told Red Army to stop assisting the London Poles
* The Nazis brutally put down the rebellion, killing almost 200,000 resistance fighters
* The Soviets then moved in and ‘liberated’ Warsaw and Poland, putting their own government in place – the Lublin Poles

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USSR finished setting up their government in Poland in August 1945

Orthodox historians view of how USSR could be blamed for escalation of tensions

Stalin held long-term expansionist views.

E.g. Thomas A. Bailey

Revisionist historians view of how USSR could be blamed for escalation of tensions

Soviet Union acted defensively in response to what Stalin saw as real threats from the West.

E.g. William Carr, William Appleman Williams, William LeFeber

Stalin Foreign Policy aims 1945

Trying to prevent a strong Germany by

* co-operating with the West;
* protecting USSR’s eastern borders by controlling the newly liberated states of Eastern and Central Europe

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Main Fear = A revived Germany

* claimed by historians such as Caroline Kennedy-Pipe

Bretton Woods Conference 1944

* aimed to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II
* USSR delayed their joining because the USA said that for them to join, the Soviet economy needed to be open to scrutiny

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* completely pulled out after Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech

Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech 1946

* Warned of Soviet aggression
* US policy in Washington became fixed on the idea of containment as a way to prevent this Soviet expansion.

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* Stalin compared Churchill to Hitler, seeing the speech as ‘*racist*’ and a ‘*call to war with the Soviet Union*’
* He then:
* withdrew from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
* stepped up anti-Western propaganda
* initiated a new five-year plan of self-strengthening

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* significant in hardening opinions and defining the new frontline in what was being seen as a new war

Salami Tactics

1. Temporary United Front governments setup in countries
2. Made sure that they held important positions in the police and State Security
3. Elections are held
4. opposition parties undermined via intimidation, censorship, arrest and even murder
5. Moscow loyalists would then be appointed to lead these nations

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Performed on Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania

* In Czechoslovakia 1946 – there were free and fair elections – communists won 38% of the vote
* perhaps not all USSR manipulation

Marshall Plan 1948 (drafted in 1947)

American initiative to provide aid for Western Europe

* Aim to prevent communism by solving poverty in Europe
* Effort to save Europeans from appeal of communism

Truman Doctrine 1947

* Pledges American “Support for democracies under authoritarian threats”
* helped to prevent the spread of communism into weaker European countries and therefore upheld the policy of containment.
* Only argued that two Eastern European countries, Greece and Turkey, could fall victim to subversion without support from friendly nations.

COMINFORM 1948

A centralised organisation of the international communist movement

* USSR’s response to Truman doctrine and Marshall Plan
* comprised the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania
* Enabled Stalin to control foreign communists parties and helped him to spread communism in Western Europe

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“Stalin feared that the western zone was about to be turned into a separate state that would rearm itself with the USA’s encouragement and would belong to an anti-Soviet alliance” - Robert Service

COMECON 1949

An organisation of economic cooperation among the communist states

* USSR’s response to the Truman doctrine and Marshall Plan
* supported East European nations with loans and technical assistance
* Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania