Cold war in the 40's

Soviet Expansionism:

• Stalin wanted to spread communism through the world - Governments were taken over by communists trained by Moscow and countries took their orders from the Soviet Union

• ‘The Long telegram’ - sent by George Kennan warning that Stalin was determined to expand soviet power

• Stalin’s reasons for expanding Soviet control were mostly for for defending the USSR from any attacks from the west - Soviet ‘sphere of influence’

The Truman Doctrine:

• US and western allies were concerned that Soviet control would expand greater than Europe - post-war communism was an attractive ideology

• A civil war between Greece and monarchists and communists led to President Truman announcing that the US would help Greece stay free of communism

• They did not send military troops but gave 400 million dollars direct to the government

• Truman then pledged that the USA would help any country where freedom was under threat from ‘armed minorities or outside pressures’. They would send money, equipment and advisors to stop the spread of communism. It wanted to stop the spread of communism any further, not roll it back - ‘containment’.

• This led to the formation of NATO

The Marshall Plan:

• The Marshall plan provided economic assistance to back up the Truman Doctrine

• In 1948, Truman gave 13 billion dollars to European countries affected by WW2 to help countries recover and make communism less attractive.

• This made the buffer zone not spread into Marshall countries and they did very well economically. The West did not go communist (particularly Italy and France) and they were saved by being taken over by the buffer zone

• However, another effect was an economic split - either West (capitalist) or East (communist)

Berlin Crisis/Blockade:

• Berlin is split into 4 zones - decided in the Potsdam conference

• American and British zones are put together to form Bizonia then the French join to form Trizonia and they introduce a new currency to set up capitalism.

• Stalin does not like this as you are not meant to do this so he sets up the Berlin Blockade

• One effect of this was the formation of NATO - they want to protect themselves from Stalin if they attack him again so they formed NATO

• Another effect was the formation of East and West Germany - 2 separate countries as they split into capitalist and communist

• This greatly increased tensions between USSR and USA and Truman saw it as a great success in which the West stood together to stop the Soviet Unions threats.

• Stalin offered to drop the blockade if the west stopped the Deutschmark being used in Berlin. Instead, the USA and its allies organised the Berlin Airlift (resources flown into Berlin because other ways of getting in were not possible

NATO:

• NATO is a defensive military alliance that was formed directly because of the Truman Doctrine

• It did not aim to start an attack itself but if there was any armed attack on one of the members of NATO it was considered an attack on them all. They would all come to the aid of the attacked country.

• NATO meant the USA was now committed to defending western Europe from Soviet expansionism; any soviet move to take control of a NATO country would mean war with the USA.

• The Soviet response to NATO was the set up of the Warsaw pact

East and West Germany:

• Two weeks after the end of the Berlin crisis, West Germany was created out of the occupied zones of the western Allies

• Soon after, the Soviets responded by overseeing the creation of the state of East Germany out of their occupation of the zone