The Cold War c1945-1991
1. The Origins of the Cold War, c1945-1949
US, British and USSR relations in 1945
Key Dates
January 1945 – most Eastern European states are liberated by the Soviet Union
February 1945 – the Yalta Conference takes place
April 1945 – Roosevelt dies; Hitler commits suicide
May 1945 – the war in Europe ends
July 1945 – Churchill is defeated in the General Election, successful test of the USA’s atomic weapon
July-August 1945 – the Potsdam Conference takes place
August 1945 – two atomic bombs are dropped on Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
September 1945 – Japan agrees to an unconditional surrender to American forces
Conflicting ideologies
Western capitalist democracies: the USA and Britain
Key to American capitalist thinking was a belief in the individual’s fundamental right to liberty, which should be
protected by the government but only through limited controls. Liberty to the USA meant that every citizen should
have equal opportunities but not necessarily equal social and economic status.
Liberty was also based on free market economies, enabling competition and the free exchange of goods with
minimal government intervention.
The economic emphasis was on the need for individual freedom without state control undermining the process, to
achieve economic growth and personal happiness.
Competition benefited everyone; any individual was free to join the competition if he/she wished.
Political freedom was heralded in the right of every citizen to have a choice of how the system would be led. There
were free elections.
VS The USSR and communism
Karl Marx: capitalism led to the exploitation of the proletarian majority by the ruling bourgeoisie, to strengthen their
economic dominance and political control.
Lenin established Leninism as the means by which Marxism would be transformed into a practical reality rather than
a theory. He produced the idea that there would be a dictatorship of the proletariat and eventually a socialist
society. It was authoritarian as it demanded rule by a small workers’ elite, exercised by the communist party on
behalf of the proletariat.
Stalin modified Leninism, developed the cult of personality and promoted himself as the infallible interpreter of
communist ideology. His mindset of protecting his own power and the machinery of the state shows in his foreign
policy.
Each ideology was certain that it should dominate in as many other nations as possible, each viewing the expansion
of the other as a threat.
1941 Atlantic Charter: Roosevelt and Churchill met to consider the dangers arising from Nazism, considered goals for
the post-war world.
,-->signatories would not seek territorial gain from the war
- defined the Allied goals for the post-war world
The Soviet Union and other countries fighting Nazism informally agreed but S was concerned about US ‘Open Door’
policy.
January 1942: ‘Declaration by United Nations’ – the Grand Alliance, uniting the world’s greatest capitalist,
communist and colonial powers.
Casablanca – January 1943:
- Unconditional surrender of the Axis powers desired
- Area of contention – the location of the second front – S wanted to relieve pressure on the Soviet Union as
were being targeted disproportionately by Germany
- 1944: Stalin convinced the allies were deliberately slowing to weaken the Red Army – UK and US invaded
North Africa and Italy first
Cairo – November 1943:
- Churchill and Roosevelt met with Chinese leader Jiang Jieshi to discuss war against Japan
- Identified China as one of major 4 post-war powers
- Agreed to continue war against Japan, insist on unconditional surrender, restore Japan to 1894 frontiers
before the Sino-Japanese war, agree to no allied acquisition of land on mainland Asia/in the Pacific Islands
Tehran – November-December 1943:
- Discussed next phase of the war – allies were winning
- Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan after German defeat but wanted compensation (Kurile Islands,
Sakhalin Islan, access to Dairen and Port Arthur)
- Stalin insisted the USSR be restored to 1941 borders (moving Poland’s borders W)
- Agreed to compensate Poland w Germany territory – Oder and Neisse rivers to be new Polish frontiers,
ratified at Potsdam
- Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to be part of USSR if they agreed in a referenda (Stalin wanted no
international oversight on this)
- Soviets demanded the right to keep the territory they had seized 1939-40
- Advisory commission to consider dividing Germany 0 would be divided and occupied
- Idea of a new international organisation forwarded
London Protocol – September 1944
- At the London Protocol three zones were envisaged (joined by the French in 1945).
Tensions at Yalta
The Grand Alliance between Britain, the USA and the USSR against Nazi Germany was failing.
1944: had opened a ‘second front’ by invading Nazi-occupied France
August 1944: Soviet forces moved into Poland
,Early 1945: Soviet western front stretched from the Baltic to the Carpathian Mountains
March 1945: Soviets had crossed the Oder River
Roosevelt – committed to post-war reconstruction based on unity among the victorious powers
Stalin – wanted a guarantee of security through a network of Eastern European allies
The Yalta Conference, 4-11th February 1945:
Aim: prepare for imminent end of the war
Who: Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill
Where: Crimean city of Yalta
United? Not entirely, but its outcomes appeared to suggest that its members were committed to a lasting consensus
in international relations in the post-war world.
Roosevelt and Churchill’s objectives: Stalin’s objectives:
Collective security founded on the United Nations The USSR to be in control of its own destiny
(UN)
Long-term cooperation with the USSR Cooperation with the Anglo-Americans
The right to national self-determination and no The USSR’s security guaranteed through Soviet
spheres of influence spheres of influence in Europe
Germany’s reconstruction and re-education as a Germany to remain weak for the indefinite
democratic nation future
World economic reconstruction through the creation Economic reconstruction for the USSR – mainly
of the IMF and the World Bank at Germany’s expense
What was agreed?
1. Germany would be divided into 4 zones (temporarily), ACC to govern
2. Each zone would be administered by an allied power – the USA, the USSR, the UK and France (whose zone
would come out of the British and American zones)
3. Berlin would be similarly divided
4. Non-German territories in central Europe to be restored as independent countries and hold free elections
5. The United Nations Organisation would be formally ratified
6. The USSR would gain land from Poland, and Poland would be expanded to the north and the west – E border
to be at the ‘Curzon Line’ (prior to war with Russia) to the ‘Oder-Neisse Line’
7. Poland to form a temporary coalition govt to include the London and Lublin Poles
8. A Declaration on Liberated Europe should be created
9. Stalin agreed to ‘free elections’ in E Europe
10. The USSR agreed to join the war against Japan 2-3 months after German surrender in exchange for
dominance over Mongolia, the Kurile Islands, the port of Sakhalin Island and control over Port Arthur and
the Manchurian Railway.
11. Agreed on the UN
The UN
Mandate and composition discussed at Tehran and Moscow, all agreed it should be an international peacekeeping
body, established principal bodies:
- General Assembly – issues of international important
- Security Council (UK, USSR, USA, China, France had veto power) – prevent war and limit international conflict
, - International Court of Justice – mediate disputes
- Economic and Social Council
Members states agreed to place some of their armed forces at the disposal of the SC.
Represented 80% of the world’s population.
Officially created at the Treaty of San Francisco in 1945, Charter ratified at UN opening in NY on 24 th October 1945.
The Declaration of Liberated Europe:
o Emergency relief measures for distressed peoples
o Facilitate democratic elections
o Establish conditions of internal peace
o Form interim governmental authorities representative of democratic elements in the population and
dedicated to early free elections
Also committed the Big Three to promoting economic recovery in Europe.
The Yalta Conference outcomes were optimistic, with apparent agreement. However, this was somewhat untrue as
relations were deteriorating.
Stalin:
Wanted compensation for losses, land, elimination of German dominance, security buffer.
WWII had devastated the USSR – destruction of infrastructure and an estimated 25 million Soviet dead
He and Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov saw the Grand Alliance allies as fundamentally anti-USSR
Wanted an avenue of cooperation with the West
Wanted Poland to be ‘free, independent and powerful’ because historically it had been ‘a corridor for attack
on Russia’
Wanted to ensure Eastern Europe lay within a Soviet sphere of influence
Dismemberment of Germany not in the USSR’s interests but it had to be kept economically weak until
secured as a communist state
Roosevelt:
Wanted to end authoritarian regimes and keep the UK & USSR in the war against Japan.
Post-war cooperation founded on the post-war world reflecting the American concept of democracy
Thought this democracy was in the interest of all states, and the USSR’s security could only be achieved
through what emerged at Yalta
Convinced Stalin shared the same understanding and values in configuring a post-war world
Thought international affairs could be managed through an international peacekeeping organisation
Has been criticised for being naïve and underestimating the Soviet security needs in Eastern Europe
Churchill:
Convinced it was Stalin’s intention to expand Soviet power in post-war Europe
Wanted to preserve the British Empire
April 1944: wrote to Eden that he ‘cannot feel the slightest trust or confidence in them. Force and facts are
their only realities’
Believed USSR could threaten Britain’s imperial interests – closeness with USA could counter this
