Crisis of Cold War

After WW2, Hungary became communist and was ruled behind the iron curtain. Rakosi became the leader and he was pro-Stalinst. His policies included state control of the economy, collective farms, one party government and no freedom of speech. This was very similar to how Stalin ruled in the 1930's.

When Khruschev came into power, he denounced Stalin in his speech. Rakosi was sacked in 1956 and was replaced by Nagy. The demand for reform grew in October 1956 and demonstrations in the capital grew daily and Hungarian workers and students began to arm themselves.

Nagy declared Hungarian neutrality and the intention of leaving the Warsaw pact in order to become a democracy. The USSR gathered lots of troops and crushed the revolt with massive force. Thousands of Hungarians were shot and imprisoned. Nagy was executed in 1958, he was replaced by Kadar. The USA didnt help in this situation because of the Truman Doctrine and to prevent World War 3.

4,000 Hungarains died

The U2 spy plane was created to take photos from a very high altitude. It had a very large range and could fly over the USSR without having to re-fuel.

Francis Gary Powers was the pilot who flew the U2 plane. His mission was to spy on the USSR missile bases as the USA feared that they were over-taking them in the arms race.

In May 1960, Eisenhower and Khruschev were due to meet in Paris to discuss nuclear weapons and arms reduction. 

Somewhere over Russia, Gary Powers was shot down, and the USA assumed that he was dead so they put a cover story up that the plane was a weather plane. However, Powers was in fact alive and was captured by the USSR, photos of the USSR's missile bases were also found. Khrushchev demanded for an apology from Eisenhower and he stormed out of the conference with no promises made about the Berlin Wall or nuclear weapons.

The Americans saw Eisenhower as a failure and voted in JFK.

The tension in the cold war increased and the Russians put Powers on trial and was released after 17 months due to a spy exchange.

West Berlin was prosperous, helped by the USA, seen by the USSR as a capitalist infection as it attracted people from the East causing a 'brain drain'. East Berlin was much less prosperous, under communist control, there was a lack of freedom, lower living standards which drove many to the West. By 1961, 3 million of the population had moved to the West.  Checkpoint Charlie was a border crossing between East and West Berlin.

In June 1961, at the Vienna Summit, Khrushchev demanded that the West give up Berlin and Kennedy refused. In August 1961, the East German government ordered barbed wire to be put up as a barrier which was soon followed by a concrete wall.  All of West Berlin was encircled apart from access points- this was againts the Four Power agreement reached in Paris in 1949. 

As a result of the wall, Berlin was divided, many families were seperated and many attempted to escape to the West- around 100 died from this. Kennedy accepted the Soviets action and refused US troops to pull down the wall as this may start a war. Kennedy looked weak but it was turned into propaganda as, if the East was so great then why was a wall needed? In 1963, Kennedy visited Berlin and delievered the 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech. Khrushchev lost support- became a hyprocrite as he was becoming just like Stalin. The Wall was teared down in 1989.

Castro came into power in Cuba in 1959 where he took over US businesses, in return the US stopped all trade going to Cuba and all imports of Cuban sugar. Cuba turned to the USSR for help and they signed a trade pack in 1960. By 1961, all diplomatic links were cut from Cuba, and Kennedy backed an invasion , planned by the CIA which used 1,400 Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. They landed in the Bay of Pigs and it was a complete fiasco and Kennedy looked like a failure. Khrushchev witnessed the Bay of Pigs and saw Kennedy as weak so flooded Cuba with Soviet arms, by 1962, Cuba had the best equipped army in Latin America. In 1962, the crisis began as the US spy plane spots missile bases in 3 Cuban areas which had the ability to wipe out most of Amercia - Cuba was only 90 miles from Americas coast. However, the USA also had missile bases in Turkey, on the USSR border. In order to stop the missiles from entering Cuba, Kennedy blockaded the ships from entering. Kennedy went public in a TV broadcast accusing the USSR of aggression and that the missiles must be removed. Khrushchev sent two letters to Kennedy, he agreed to the first which stated that they would remove the missiles if Kennedy stopped the blockade, however he ignored the second which was to remove missiles from Turkey. The missiles were removed from Cuba and missiles were seretly removed from Turkey.Tensions between the USA and the USSR still remained very high, Cuba remained communist, Kennedy's reputation was enhanced and Khruschevs reputation was diminished and was removed as leader from the USSR for humiliating the country.  After this the USA was determined to prevent any other countries from turning communist.  Benefits for the USA and Kennedy were that there wasnt a nuclear war, nuclear weapons were removed from Cuba, the test ban treaty had been signed and a special hotline had been set up between leaders. Additional benefits for Khruschev and the USSR was that Cuba was still communist.

In 1964, Brezhnez was the new leader of the USSR. Czechoslovakia had been under communist rule since 1948 and people felt as though they had lost political and economical independence. 

The Prague Springs were a set of changes issued by Dubcek, the leader of Czechoslovakia as he saw the need for a democratic reform. Some of these reforms includes better standard of living, freedom to travel abroad, uncensored newspapers, free elections, plans to increase trade with the West and a provision of basic human rights.

Brezhnez was concerned about these reforms and whether they would have a knock on effect to other countries in the Warsaw Pact, he feared the collapse of communism.  After a meeting with the Warsaw Pact he set out the Brezhnez doctrine which stated that they would intervene when countries were about to abandon communism.

On the 20th of August, 500,000 troops invaded Czechoslovakia and 73 were killed. Dubcek was replaced with Husak.