the causes of the cold war

• the US president died in 1945 he was then replaced with truman who was a strong anti-communist and as the second world war coming to the end the alliance between the USA and Russia fell apart.
• Truman then became determined to defeat communism.Truman then stated "The Russians only understand one language - how many armies have you got? I'm tired of babying the Soviets." harry truman 1945 this caused trouble but historians believed that there was other factors which may have contributed in the start of the cold war. Politics as America was  a capitalist country and Russia was a Communist country.Lifestyle America had freedom and a two-party democracy whereas Russia had a secret police and a one-party state.
  
• communism=Communism is a type of government and philosophy. Its goal is to form a society where everything is shared equally.
• capitalism=An economic system that features private ownership of the meansof production (such as factories, offices, and shipping enterprises) and in which market forces determine the way in which goods are produced and the means by which income and profit are distributed is called capitalism.

America

• richest country in the world.
• a democracy with free elections held by the elected president
• freedom of speech and belief
• capitalism-private ownership and the right to make money
• led by truman, who belived that communism was pure evil
• had the atomic bomb-but was scared of russias conventional army
• feared the spread of communism throughout the world 
• angry about the nazi soviet pact that was a major factor in starting the second world war
• wanted reconstruction to make Germany a prosperous democracy and a trading partner

• Russia
• Russia is/was the biggest country in the world
• a one-party state led by a dictator. There was elections but you could only vote for a communist party so the elections were restricted
• state control:censorship,secret police,terror and purges.
• led by stalin who believed that capitalism was awful
• had the biggest army in the world but was angry that truman hadnt wraned when he was going to drop the atomic bomb
• was angry becuase America and Britain had invaded Russia in 1918-19 to try and destroy communism
• believed that america and britain had delayed opening the secong front(attacking france) to let germany and russia destroy eachother on the eastern front
• wanted to wreck Germany, take huge reperations for the damage done during the war, and set up a buffer of frendly states around Russia to prevent another invasion in the future.

Yalta conference 

• Febuary 1945
• Germany was not yet defeated Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin managed to agree about splitting germany but there was tensions about poland.
• they decided to split Germany in to 4 zones of occupation.
• decided to allow Eastern European countries to have free elections
• Russia was invited to join the united nations and Russia promised to join the war against Japan when Germany had been defeated.

Potsdam conference

• July 1945
• Germany had been defeated, Roosevelt had just died and Churchill had lost the 1945 election so there was open disagreement
• Truman came away angry about the size of reperations and the fact that a communist government was being set up in poland 
• Truman did not tell stalin that he had the atomic bomb

• Stalin,churchill and Roosevelt
• Stalin, Truman and Attlee
• Germany to be split in to 4 zones
• Arguments about the details of the boundaries of the 4 zones 
• Germany will pay reperations
• Disagreements about the amount of reperations that Russia could take. It was agrred that Russia could take what ever they wanted from the soveit zone and 10% of the indutrial equipment but Britain and the US thought that this was too much 
• A government of "national unity" to be set up in poland comprimising both capitalists and communists
• Truman was angry becuase Stalin had arrested the non-communist leaders of poland 
• Free elections in the countrries of Eastern European. This part of the agreement was called the declaration of liberated Europe 
• America and Britain were alarmed becuase communists were coming to power in the Eastern European countries.
• Russia would help fight the war against Japan when Germany was defeated.
• Truman dropped the atmoic bomb so that Japan would surrender before Russian troops were sent to Russia. America had the bomb in July 1915 but truman did not tell stalin about it,when he found out he was furious

After loosing 21 million russians in the second world war Stalin wanted to build a buffer zone around Russia to prevent being invaded again. Stalin's plan was to take over Eastern Europe. During the war, communists from the occupied countries of Eastern Europe escaped to Moscow and set up communist governments in exile there.When the nazis were driven back by the red army it occupied large areas of Eastern Europe and chrurchill in the percentages agreeement-agreed that Eastern Europw could be a soviet "sphere of influence"

red army-soviet army created by communist government

in the countries that the red army "liberated" communist-dominated governments took power.The communists made sure that they controlled the army, set up a seret police force, and began to arrest their opponents.The non-communists were badly punished by getting beaten up, murdered,executed and terrified of power.By 1949 all the governments of Eastern Europe except Yugoslavia were all hard line starlinist reigme.

At Fulton in the USA in 1946 churchill declared a boundary to come down in Europe and for the soviet power to be stopped.

Stalin described Churchills speech as "a declaration of war"

Stalin set up a comiterm whuch was an alliance of communist countries desinged to make sure that they obeyed the soviet rule.

1945-1948

• Albania 1945 the communists immediately took power
• Bulgaria 1945 in the 1945 elections a communist lead coalition was elected but the communists executed the non-communists
• East Germany 1945 was the soviet zone of Germany.In 1949 they set up a communist controlled state called the German democratic republic
• Romania1947In the 1945 elections, a Communist-led coalition was elected to power. The Communists gradually took over and in 1947 they abolished the monarchy.
• Poland1947Stalin had promised to set up a joint Communist/non-Communist government at Yalta, but then he invited 16 non-Communist leaders to Moscow and arrested them. Thousands of non-Communists were arrested, and the Communists won the 1947 election.
• Hungary1947The non-communists won the 1945 elections with Zoltan Tildy as president. However, the Communists' leader, Rakosi, took control of the secret police (the AVO), and executed and arrested his opponents. Tildy was forced to resign and Cardinal Mindzenty, head of the Catholic Church, was imprisoned. By 1948, Rakosi had complete control of Hungary.

By 1947 Greece was one of the few countries in Eastern Europe that hadn't turned communist and the communist rebels were prevented of taking over by the British army.

America was becoming alarmed by the amount of power that the soviets had, so therefore when the British told Truman they could no longer afford to keep their soldiers in Greece Truman took action.In March 1947 he told the American congress that it was America's responsibility to keep communism under control.This was then known as the Truman Doctrine.  It was often said that Truman advocated containment(stopping the soviet from getting any more powerful) but Truman did not use these words and many Americans spoke of "rolling back" communism.

In june 1947, general geroge marshall made a trip to europe to see what it needed after ww2. He came away thinking that Europe was so poor that it was going to turn communist. Marshall and Truman asked the Congress for $17 billion to help fund the European recovery programme(the marshall plan)to get the economy of Europe going again. At first the congress hesitated but then agreed in march 1948 when czechoslovakia turned communist.

stalin forbade the comiform countries to apply for the marshall plan. 

Soviet Historians blammed 

• The united states 

The Traditionalists blammed

• blammed the soviet union for trying to "impose its ideology on the rest of the world 

The Revisionists

• 1959, Williams was the first to suggest that America was to blame 
• the revisionist said that America was engaged in a war to keep countries open to capitalism and American trade
• other revisionist said that Tuman not telling Stalin about the atomic bomb was the start of the cold war.

The post revisionists

• Gladdis published this idea in 1972,that nor America and Russia were to blame for the cold war as the cold war was the result of misunderstandings on both sides and the failure to appreciate each others fears

After the collapse of communism

• Historians that have studied the soviets secret files suggest that the soviets genuinely didn't want conflict which conveys that the cold war was more Americas fault.
• Modern historians the cold war was no ones fauly but it was the clash between communism and capitalism.