Unit 5: World War II and the Origins of the Cold War

Truman Doctrine (1947)

Harry Truman’s view that went on to define future U.S. foreign policy

• the U.S. should contain communism and help any subjugated peoples who want to be free

Marshall Plan & ERP

U.S. government’s plan to help rebuild Europe after WWII

• gave $13.2 billion to rebuild Europe and held contain communism

• money was offered to Russia and other Satellite States, but Stalin did not allow them to take it

  • Czechoslovakia went against Stalin’s wishes, leading to the Czechoslovakia Coup

Czechoslovakian Coup

COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance)

The Soviet alternative to the Marshall Plan; a coordination of the economies of the USSR and Satellite States (+ East Germany)

Allied Control Council (ACC)

Bizonia

Berlin Blockade (1948-1949)

Stalin’s complete isolation of Berlin in response to the west’s violation of Potsdam and Yakta through the creation of Trizonia

• he hoped that the U.S., France, and Britain would give in and dissolve Trizonia, but instead they created the Berlin Airlift

Berlin Airlift

A 15 month operation through which the U.S., France, and Britain, supplied Berlin with food, fuel, and other supplies after Stalin isolated the city

• Stalin eventually lifted the Berlin Blockade

Federal Republic of Germany (FRD)

U.S./Britain/France -owned, capitalist section of Germany

German Democratic Republic (GDR)

Soviet-owned, Marxist-Leninist section of Germany

Treaty of Brussels

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization; established in 1949

• a mutual self-defense pact

Atomic Parity

Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War

Orthodox view:

• The Soviet Union was entirely responsible for the Cold War; the U.S. was only reacting

Revisionist view:

• America was entirely responsible for the Cold War, because they dropped the bomb

  • The Arms Race was just an extension of Manifest Destiny

Post-Revisionist view:

• both nations were at fault