the Cold War

yalta

• this started at the end of the second world war when the eastern and western forces made an alliance for the first time in history. in-order to defeat Germany and Japan.

• once Germany had been defeated Britain France Russia and the USA met at Yalta to discuss what the next step was.

• they decided that Germany had to unconditionally surrender,. there was also no separate peace allowed at all, they had to pay $20 billion dollars of reparation s in kind to the winning allies.

• then Germany would be divided into 4 occupation zones including its capital Berlin.

• germanys western boarder would also have to move west ward

• then they decided what would happen to Poland. it would have a provisional gov which had both the londn poles and the lublin poles and then elections would be held as soon as posssible.

• the meeting at Yalta was also called because Stalin was concerned about Russias security. Churchill didn’t want to keep the peace with Stalin as he didn't trust Stalin at all and that the alliance was temporary. however Roosevelt wanted to keep the peace between the east and the west as he believed that they could potentially co-exist.

• Russia also had to help out in defeating Japan and in turn Russia would receive back land lost in the Russo-japaniese war and Mongolia would then also be rued under the soviet sphere of influence

• and the establishment of the un and the first meet would be in san Fransisco in 1945

potsdam

• tensions were already rising due to the fact that the allies couldn’t agree over the amount of reparations that Germany was to receive. as well as having disagreements about how much germanys boarder should be moved west wards

• the provisional government in Poland had not held elections at all and the London poles were in prisoned as soon as they arrived in Poland. so now Poland had become a communist country.

• then the meeting at Potsdam was held shortly after Roosevelt had died in June 1945 and was replaced by harry Truman. at the conference they discussed further details of what would happen to Germany.

• they decided on the finalities of the occupation zones between Germany. they also agreed that Germany would supply industrial equipment to each of the zones however because Russias zone was mainly agricultural so Russia would receive a bit more than the other zones

• then Truman called attention to the fact that Russia had not abided by the Yalta agreements and had even lifted a finger to assist in defeating Japan and still expected to get Mongolia and lost territory. but he had also not held the elections in Poland as per the agreement and now Polands government was now mainly there Lublin poles and the London poles had been in prisoned.

• also Churchill had been replaced by some dude named clement atlee after the liberals won the general elections

the countries that the ussr had taken over

• Poland , Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia , Bulgaria and Yugoslavia

• many of which were taken over in the period of 1944-1948

• all of them had to go through rigged elections after a communist dominated was implemented.

• in Romania , Hungary and Czechoslovakia the monarchy was abolished inorder to fit the communist image.

• and even though Hungary did have a coalition government win the most seats eventually the communists took control.

the Truman doctrine

• this was introduced when Britain announced that they couldn’t support the Grecian government in the civil war against the communist Yugoslavians. and obviously the USA didn’t want Greece and turkey to become communist. so in an effort Truman had come up with the containment doctrine

• it basically has 2 main elements 1. would be any efforts to assist a country if is being objected too totalism aggression from a neighbour ( truman doctrine)

• and also a European recovery programme (Marshal aid)

• this was also to help stop the spread of communism

Marshall aid

• this is basically a self help programme that draws the line between the oppressed and the free as any country is allowed to receive Marshall aid

• this could have helped out so many soviet countries if Stalin didn’t refuse it

• then Stalin had set up a trading bloc against Germany called COMECON but it had very little success

the Berlin blockade

• It was in June 1948 when the western powers had created a currency that could be used in all 4 zones of Germany. but Stalin refused to use it to be introduced into his zones.

• Stalin responded to this by blockading all of the rail and roads going east-west making Berlin only accessible by air

• Stalin then started to put pressure on the city by cutting off gas and electricity supplies in hopes of driving out the western people

• the western allies didn’t back down and consulted the people about how they had an idea to air vac supplies to them during this time. and the German people were all on board with the idea

• and so this whole blockade lasted for 11 months. and over 300,000 flights were maid at the 3 air fields in Germany. at one point the vacs were arriving in every 2 minutes

• they transported coal, petrol, food etc. to the people although is wasn’t very much they still managed to go through the whole 11 months of hell that Stalin imposed apron them

• and eventually Stalin lifted the blockade in failure of trying to drive out the west

the soviet reaction to the containment

• 1948-1949 the Berlin blockade

• 1949 COMECON= in January the soviet tried to answer to the marshal aid plan by setting up a trading bolc of communist countries called COMECON

• the soviet atom bomb this was developed in response to the use developing the atom bomb so the soviets tried to keep up by trying to produce their own and succeeded in 1949

• 1955 the Warsaw Pact= in NATO was expanding to include west Germany. the ussr created a military alliance of communist countries known as the Warsaw Pact