pre cold war tensions

Big three formed the…

Grand alliance:
- roosevelt

- churchill

- stalin

was formed in 1941 after germany invaded soviet union despite a non agression pact

roosevelt and churchill were capitalist, and they lowkey judged stalin for being communist but he was against germany so they worked with him to touch hitler

even though they made this alliance, they still were wary of eachother

To win the war, the grand alliance met in three conferences…

Tehran 1941, Yalta and Potsdam 1945

Tehran 1941; second…

• us and britain would open a second front, taking away pressure on the soviets

• they decided germany should remain weak after the war

pleased stalin because the second front would help the soviet soldiers; he thought they were deliberately delaying this

Yalta 1945; zones 20 free UN

• after war, germany would be split into 4 zones controlled by britain france usa sovietunion (stalin didnt like that hed been assigned the poorest sector)

• germany to pay $20 billion in reperations

• stalin agreed future eastern european govts would be decided in free elections

• United nations to be set up

tldr; germany into 4 zones ——— $20 billion reparations —— free elections —— united nations

Potsdam 1945

roosevelt packed off humbly - replaced by truman

churchill lost election - replaced by clement attlee

these two newbies were new to diplomatic discussions and found it harder to get their way with stalin giving stalin agency

• germany split into 4 but, berlin also split into 4

• economy to be run as a whole

Soviet attitudes; ………/….. telegram

Kennan’s long telegram:
reported that stalin wanted to see the destruction of capitalism

led to US idea of containment

also reported that soviet union was not suicidal; would back down under heavy resistance

US attitudes: ………….. telegram

Novikov telegram:

detailed that USA wanted to dominate the world with military power

novikov believed the US no longer wanted to cooperate with soviet union

and that US citizens would support a war between them

led to soviets wanting to develop protection

british attitudes: churchill …….

iron curtain speech

made it clear that soviet union was a threat to world peace

1945 america packed off japan

dropped 2 nuclear bombs on japan

countries felt safer under US arms

rather than intimidating stalin, it motivated him to make nuclear bombs faster

……… zone

Buffer zone:

stalin used eastern european countries he freed from the nazis as a buffer zone between soviet union and germany, they had communist governments

evidence for truman that soviet union wanted to spread communism

truman doctrine marshal aid 1947

to give out marshall aid $13billion by 1952 to help war torn countries

this was to counter the them looking towards communism to help them

seen by stalin as dollar imperialism

comecon and cominform 1947 and 1949

created as an alternative to marshal aid for eastern bloc countries

cominform: let stalin direct the satellite states i.e he commanded them to trade with eachother and no one else

comecon: organised industrial planning and a five year plan for industry

berlin crisis

france usa and britain joined together in germany and berlin forming trizonia

created a direct split between east and west germany

berlin blockade 1948

1948, stalin blocked off land routes to berlin.

he aimed to oppose trizonia, hoping they might give up control of berlin

operation vittles;

berlin airlift flew food coal etc

lasted a year until the soviets gave in in 1949

made trizonia look peaceful to the now agressive stalin

Nato 1949

western countries joined together. they agreed to assist eachother if one was attacked

built on to the truman doctrine as now a formal military alliance was made

warsaw pact 1955

west germany was allowed to join Nato

this scared stalin

warsaw pact formed of eastern block countries

arms race

usa and soviet union went back and forth advancing nuclear weapons

i.e usa develped icbm and months later russia also made them

both sides understood the consequences of war so their arms acted as a deterrence

hungarian uprising

stalin died and khrushchev took his place; he criticised stalin making some countries think he’d take a softer approach.

people in hungary began protesting, khrushchev put nagy in power to stop the protests,

when nagy announced that hungary would leave the warsaw pact, khrushchev saw this as too great a threat (he didnt want other countries to follow suit) so he invaded with 1000 tanks.

result of hungarian uprising

khrushchev was more respected in the warsaw pact and countries were less likely to disobey him

the west seemed weaker; they encouraged communist countries to stand up to the soviet union but did not provide military support