The USSR and The Cold War
- Created by: Tirijones
- Created on: 06-04-18 12:30
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- The USSR and The Cold War
- Underlying problems
- Ideology: Capitalism vs. Communism- Communism set up to be the antithesis and natural enemy of Capitalism
- Western intervention during the Civil War
- Negative cohesion during WW2- worry after the war Britain and USA would team up with Germany against the Soviet Union
- Stalin setting up 'People's Democracies' in Eastern Europe- Communist governments
- USSR expelled 5 million Germans from the area east of Oder-Neisse-claimed it was not part of Poland
- Both the USSR's and Western Europe's economy was failing after WW2- USA seemed to be the only state that could help
- Breakdown of relations
- Development of the nuclear bomb- USA in 1945 and USSR in 1949
- USA, Britain and Germany meet in Switzerland to discuss surrender of German troops in Italy- possibility they would team up against the USSR
- Potsdam Conference July 1945- Stalin would make no concessions- Joint US + USSR control over production of nuclear weapons, withdrawal of all foreign troops in Germany
- Poland Conference 1947 - USSR set up Cominform (set up Communist governments with centrally controlled and planned economies)
- Yalta Conference Feb. 1945- set up of the United Nations Organisation, division of Austria and Germany into 3 zones (Br., US + USSR), free democratic elections in Eastern Europe + USSR would invade Japan
- Poland Conference 1947 - USSR set up Cominform (set up Communist governments with centrally controlled and planned economies)
- Kennan's Long Telegram 1946- outlined that the Soviet Union had expansionist tendencies and would never ally with the USA
- March 1946 Churchill called for an American-British Alliance to prevent further Soviet expansion
- Truman Doctrine 1947- Truman and America sends funds to Greece and Turkey to help resist Soviet expansion
- USSR refused the US's Marshall Plan and instead created their own trade agreements with the Eastern European states
- March 1948 Western powers announced their plans to create a separate state of west Germany
- Stalin created a blockade between western zones of Germany and west Berlin
- Truman saw this as a move to possibly invade the rest of Germany- sent a fleet of American B-29 bombers and airlifted supplies so West Berlin would not starve
- Stalin backed off as he had not intention of war
- Truman saw this as a move to possibly invade the rest of Germany- sent a fleet of American B-29 bombers and airlifted supplies so West Berlin would not starve
- Stalin created a blockade between western zones of Germany and west Berlin
- NATO formed in 1949- any attack on one was an attack on all- placed defence forces under a joint NATO command which would co-ordinate defence from the West
- Stalin responded by forming the Council for Mutual Assistance Comecon)- co-ordinate the economic policies of the Eastern Bloc states
- Later after Stalin's death the USSR and satellite states would sign the Warsaw Pact (1955)- Soviet equivalent of NATO
- Korean War
- Soviet Union backed the North Korean People's Army to march on the Western influenced South Korea June 1950
- Openly challenged the 38th parallel and looked like the USSR wanted to take over the world
- Became a war of ideologies: Capitalism vs. Communism
- Stalemate and peace treaty signed July 1953 that drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel + gave South Korea and extra 1,500 square miles and 2 mile de-militarised zone
- Huge casualties: nearly 5 million died, more than half of these were civilians
- First military action of the Cold War
- Soviet Union backed the North Korean People's Army to march on the Western influenced South Korea June 1950
- Underlying problems
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