The cold war

The Yalta conferance

The yalta conferance took place in Febary 1945 before the end of the second world war. The big three met at the conferance Stalin for the USSR, Churchill for Britain and Roosevelt for USA. They agreed to...

• Germany would be temporarily divided into 4 zones of Allied occupation (GB USA USSR and France) and so would Berlin
• Nazi war criminals would be brought to trial
• USSR would gain territory (land) in Eastern Europe and would join the war against Japan once Germany was defeated
• Stalin promised that there would be free elections in the Eastern European countries and they agreed that eastern Europe could become a ‘sphere of Soviet interest’
• And a United Nations Organisation would be set up

The Potsdam Conferance

The potsdam conferance took place in July 1945 after the war had ended. In the time between the elections Roosevlet had died and Churchill had been replaed in the 1945 election. Roosevelt was replaced with Truman and Rooseelt had been replaced with Attlee. They agreed..

• The allies met again in July but Roosevelt had died and was replaced by Truman and Churchill had lost the election and was replaced by Clement Atlee
• Truman was much more suspicious of Stalin than Roosevelt had been
• Both USA and USSR were developing an atom bomb and USA tested a bomb in April and then dropped 2 atom bombs on Japan in August 1945
• Between Yalta (Feb) and Potsdam (July) Russia had occupied a lot of Eastern Europe as they pushed the Germans back, including, the Baltic States; Finland; Poland; Czechoslovakia; Hungary; Bulgaria; Romania. Stalin refused to allow free elections in these countries and claimed that they were ‘buffer zones’ to protect Russia and set up communist governments in these areas and in Poland controlled by Russia

• Potsdam ended without total agreement and Stalin went on to dominate in the east of Europe which USA and GB could not stop
• By 1946 Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania were all communist and Churchill described this as the ‘Iron Curtain’ (see map page 324)
• ‘A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended. Behind it lie all the states of central and Eastern Europe. The Communist parties have been raised to power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. This is certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build. Nor is it one which allows permanent peace.’ Churchill at Fulton USA March 1946
• In October 1947 Stalin set up the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) to coordinate all the communist parties in eastern Europe and ensure that he could control the governments in each country
• The USA and GB wanted to strengthen Germany to stop the spread west of communist countries (the Eastern Bloc)
• The Cold War had begun! Both sides denounced each other and began propaganda campaigns and began to increase their stock of weapons.

• By 1948 Greece and Czechoslovakia were the only eastern European countries not controlled by communist governments dominated by USSR
• America became worried that communism might spread to France and Italy who were still very weak after the war. They decided to take action!
• Churchill had sent British troops to Greece in 1945 to help to restore the peace and stop the Greek communists from taking over. This resulted in a civil war and British troops were withdrawn in 1947. Truman did not want this in case the communists took over.
• So America paid for some British troops to stay in Greece and keep the King in power
• This marked the beginning of what became known as ‘The Truman Doctrine’. USA sent money, equipment and advice to any country which they thought was vulnerable to a communist takeover. His aim was to stop communism spreading any further. This also became known as containment.
• Truman sent General Marshall to assess the economic state of Europe and Marshall reported that the European economy was weak. Churchill described it as ‘a rubble heap, a breeding ground of hate’
• Marshall suggested that about $17 billion was needed to rebuild the European economy and stop ‘hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos’.
• In December 1947 Truman asked Congress for money to aid Europe. Initially they refused.
• This attitude changed when communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948. Congress accepted the Marshall Plan and $17 billion was made available over the next 4 years.
• Stalin refused to have anything to do with the Marshall Plan and forbad any of the eastern bloc countries for applying for aid

• In 1948 things came close to war over Berlin!
• Germany was divided into 4 zones of occupation in 1945 as agreed at Yalta.
• Britain and America wanted to rebuild the German economy so that it could begin to support its own people. So in 1946 they and France joined their zones together into an area which became known as West Germany.
• Stalin saw this as a threat to USSR and did not want to see West Germanygrow stronger. Berlin was in the USSR zone of occupation and had transport and trade links to West Germany across the USSR zone. So in June 1948 he cut off all these links! This meant that the 2 million people in the GB/USA/French zones of Berlin were cut off from their supplies and help from the west.
• Stalin hoped that Berlin would become dependent on USSR and Truman could not allow this to happen because it would have meant that the Truman Doctrine and containment had failed.
• The only way was to break the blockade but Truman did not want to start a war.
• So in June 1948 the allies began the Berlin Airlift. Planes took off from West Germany with supplies for Berlin. Nervously people waited to see if the USSR would shoot the planes down as they flew over East Germany. They didn’t.
• For the next 10 months planes supplied West Berlin with everything and in May 1949 Stalin had little choice but to lift the blockade.
• Germany was divided into East and West Germany and Berlin into East and West Berlin. This remained until 1990

• War seemed possible in 1948 and in the middle of the crisis the western powers met together and formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in April 1949
• The aim of NATO is to work together to provide ‘collective security’