HIST Origins stopped at berlin blockade and development of the Cold war in europe.

SBQ on this topic, stopped berlin blockage tb pg 62. chapter ends at 67. HELP so hangryy

Give three examples of damage wrought on europe from WW2.

36 million europeans dead.

Infrastructure such as roads, railways, bridges and canals had been destroyed by fighting or by bombing.

No gas, electrcity, water or medicine in areas.

Describe the decline of the western powers?

Britain: had no resources or industries, and was virtually bankrupt

france: has been occupied by germany and had declined due to it’s occupation.

Germany: had been defeated and was in ruins

Describe the emergence of the super powers.

However, the USSR and USA emerged in due to geographical size and due to military strngth and economic output they possessed after the war.

Describe the key ideological differences between the US and the USSR.

US — democracy, in which individuals have the right to vote for their own leaders in free elections, and which valued individual freedom

USSR — Communism, where all people are equal and property is shared among all. A one party dictatoryship in which protecting the interests of society was seen as being more important than indivudual liberty

Distinguish between the creation of wealth in capitalist and communist societies.

Capitalist — wealth was created through free market, privately owned businesses meant people could buy and sell goods, resultign in great inequality in the poor and rich.

Communist — Wealth would be shared through state control, in which the government would allocate wealth to people based on their needs in a command economy (governement would control all the resources needed for industries.)

List some examples of the history of mistrust between the US and the USSR.

1919, 1920, 1930 and 1939

1919 — PPC, the decision to keep germany whole in the hope that it could serve as a beuffer against communism.

1920s: Red scare in the US, where russian immigrants had been imprisoned on fears of them being communist agents

1930 — The policy of appeasement against hitler was due to the fact that British hoped that Germany would oppose the spread of comm

1939 — The USSR and Germany non-aggression pact shocked the US.

Describe the relationships between the big three (b,g,ussr)

The big three alliance — strategic wartime-only alliance. Stalin was concerned that the allies did not open the second front in france to minimise thier losses, deepening his mistrust on the allies.

exact month and year of the malta conference?

february 1945:

How did the aims of the us and the ussr differ at the yalta conference? long ans strap in

THE US — believed in a peaceful post war world, desired the recovery of western europe for US trade proosperity

THE USSR — wanted to establish buffer states in EE to prevent invasion (as it has been invaded twice through poland), also wanted war reparations from germany to recover it’s economy.

List a few key areas of agreeement at the yalta conference?

• USSR was to enter the war against germany after Japan surrendered

• Countries liberated from german occupation could hold free elections

• Eastern europe was to remain under soviet sphere of independence

important: Berlin was to be divided into 4 quarters: US, french, british and ussr (foreshadowing to the berlin blockade!)

What were some disagrements at the Yalta conference?

USSR wanted soviet borders to move toward poland (both US and britain disagreed)

Eventually, churchill peruaded roosevelt to accept it as long as the USSR did not inter

What did the “big three” relationship look like after the yalta conference?

While the leaders posed for publicity photographs, there were still unresolved tension (sig: Churchill wrote to roosevelt expressing conerns that USSR might jeopardise the free world, and ordered his commanders to plan for war against USSR)

Exact Month and year of the potsdam conference?

july to aug

What were key LEADERSHIP developments that had occured between february and july 1945 (ie between the two conferences?)

1. Truman (new prez!) was more concerned about the threat posed by USSR, lacking the good relations that roosevelt had with stalin

2. Churchill had been replaced by clement atlee

How did the soviet control of the eastern european states and the manhatten project change the environment at the Potsdam conference?

1. Soviet troops controlled omst of eastern europe (including baltic states, poland, hungary, bulgaria and romania)

2. When stalin set up a communist governement in Poland, the allies saw it as disregarding the “free elections” agreement of the yalta conference

3. The USA had developed the atomic bomb and truman only revealed it to stalin at the potsdam conference. However, stalin had been onformed by spies prior and truman’s decision to keep the info deepened his mistrust.

What were some of the disagreements at the potsdam conference? (3 bbg)

1. Stalin wanted to completely cripple germany while truman was wary about repeating mistakes from the ToV

2. When Truman di not agree with Stalin that Germany should pay reparations, Stalin thought that Truman was trying to protect germany.

3. When Stalin began to set up communist Govs, truman began to become suspicious that Stalin wanted communist control over all of europe.

What were the significant developments of nuclear weapons in the superpowers?

After stalin had been informed by spies that the USA had an atomic bomb, he ordered soviet scientists to create an atomic bomb b4 potsdam conference (both superpowers had bombs by 1949)

Explain the salami tactic carried out by stalin.

He controlled the govs of east european nations one by one to ensure communist governmtns loyal to him were in power accross eastern europe.

The communist parties would ban opposition parties one by one to “slice” the opposition bit by bit (hence acheiving control over EE)

How was the soviet takeover of EE seen by britain and the USA?

While stalin saw the control of EE as a creation of buffer states to protect USSR, Truman saw it as building an empire.

Explain the significance of the iron certain speech. (reactions?)

Churchill (ex PM) had the speech in fulton missouri warning of dangers of USSR using the term iron certain to refer to the takeover of Eastern Europe.

*note: the speech was approved by Truman in advance through telegrams.

The result alarmed many americans and gave the truman the support he needed, but it also angered the USSR and stalin

Explain the contents and the significance of Kennan’s long telegram.

It stated the diplomat’s view that USSR was intent on spreading communism and achieving world domination, and advised truman to be vigilant and persue containment. sent in feb 1946

What is the meaninf of bi-polarity in the context of the cold war?

It describes the division of europe and the world into two opposing blocs/spheres of influence.

What was the novikov telegram? remember spelling!

In this telegram sent by soviet ambassador to the US, september 1946

concerns were expressed that the US was using it’s wealth to gain gloval influence, with the expansion of US military bases showing that the US was planning world domination.

What were the developments in Turkey and greece?

The civil war in greece between the greek communist party and the greek royalist party concerned truman as yet another nation was falling to communism ( the british had withdrawn as it had insufficient sources. )

Stalin wanted access to the turkish traits so soviet ships could sail from the black sea to the mediterranean sea. Truman was concerned since stalin could use turkey to exert communist influence to the middle east.

What did truman do to get US support in Greek and Turkey matters (hint: media)

He exagerated the USSR threat in the media so papers would support his foreign policy. US congress also passed the Greece and Turkey Bill securing Turkey as an ally and supporting the monarcist government in greece. However, it soured US relationships with USSR.

Explain the truman doctrine please and thank you.

On 12 march 1947, truman appeals to US congress to approve aid to non communist nations, emphasising the need to financially support greece and turkey.

Significance: US would be actively involved in world affairs and actively resist the spread of communism.

What was the purpose of the marshall plan?

The marshall plan was the provided immense fiancial support to Western. europe to prevent economic collapse and show democracy and capitalism as an attractive option in comparison to communism

What did the marshall plan entail?

suggested by US sec of state george marshal, US spent 13 billion into recovering europe’s post war economies, shipping food, machines to democratic european nations.

The US believed that a politically stable Europe would reduce the increasing appeal of communism.

Why was the marshal plan in the us’ interests? what did it stand to gain?

• us needed european markets to recover so US industries had markets to export their goods to

• large amounts of financial aid went to close allies britain and france

• only democratic capitalist nations received aid (making it seem like a more attractive option than the economically weak soviet states)

Significance: it helped bind US and allies against communism.

What did the policy of containment entail?

consisting of the truman doctrine and the marshall plan, it was the policy of halting the soviet advance into western europe.

How did stalin feel after the marshall plan?

State 2 actions stalin took take in reponse to the Marshall plan.

Stalinwas angered by marshall plan and us attempts to bind Western europe to itself with not security reasons to do so, convinced that it was an attempt at advancing into soviet controlled EE

established cominform and comecon to promote economic co-operation across eastern bloc and enhance political control

Signifiance: this was called the stalinisation of EE

What was cominform?

Communist information bureau (set up in 1947)

the leaders of the communist parties in EE, and stalin instructed them to reject marshall plan and cut off trade with non cominform countries.

Cominform also published propoganda to unite communist nations.

What was comecon?

council of mutual economic assistance. Comecon nations were supposed to trade exclusively within the organisation, promising similar econ benefits as marshall plan.

However, it benefited USSR as Poland had to sell coal is

What was dollar imperialism? (hint: US econ) alternatively:

US use of massive economy to extend global influence and and create “empire”

How was US economic interest the reason for the outbreak of the cold war

Historians believe that Marshall plan was a form of dollar imperialism since econ aid was dependent on political dominance.

Traman’s desire to promote trade with western europe and Japan was an attempt to It is believed that Truman encouraged superpower tensions to justify military spending to stimulate the economy.

Explain the pre-context of the Berlin blockade conflict.

Truman began to see Germany as a possible ally against USSR, while britain and france were also enthusiastic for germany to recontrol berlin as maintaining was draining financially

Britain, US and france created trizone by combining their land.

What was the berlin blockade, really?

The USSR cut water and power supplies and rail and road links from allies zones to west berlin. The logic was if the allies stayed, the people would suffe. To counter this, Truman ordered the berlin airlift — coal food and medicine was flown in.

In May 1949, stalin gave it and lifted the blockade.

How were bizonia and trizonia created?

When the soviet representative declined the US proposal for urgent monetary reform for germany, since they felt that the proposal was a way for US to gain influence.