Summary and Recap of knowledge on the Cold War. GCSE Edexcel History
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Course
History
Institution
GCSE
In depth Summary aiming to recap and deepen your knowledge of the events and timeline of the Superpower Relations and the Cold War course in GCSE Edexcel History.
GCSE EDEXCEL HISTORY (9-1)
Course Outline
Superpower Relations: The Cold War
Summary and recap of knowledge
Y10/Y11
The Cold War refers to a period between 1945 and 1991 when communist and
capitalist countries were enemies. The main countries involved were the USA
(Capitalist) and the USSR, also known as Russia or the Soviet Union
(Communist).
The USSR was a communist country, and it was run as a dictatorship which
meant that people could not vote for new leaders when they wanted them.
The government controlled every part of people’s lives and controlled all the
money in the country.
The USA believed that everyone should be free, and everyone should have the
right to get rich so communist and capitalist countries were very different. The
government in the USA felt threatened by communism and worried that it
would spread to and influence other countries.
The Cold War was made more severe since both oppositions possessed
immensely powerful weapons called nuclear bombs. These catastrophic
weapons could decimate hundreds of thousands of people with one single
bomb yet both sides strongly desired to create bigger and more formidable
bombs to protect themselves. Soldiers from USA and USSR never actually
fought each other but they got very close to fighting.
Knowledge Check…
What were the two main countries involved in the Cold War?
What is it like to live in a communist country?
Why didn’t the USA like communist countries?
Did the USA and USSR actually fight each other?
Why was the Cold War such a dangerous war?
, Leaders at the start…
At the start of the war, the two leaders were Stalin (USSR) and Roosevelt
(USA), but he was quickly replaced by Truman. The Cold War began at the end
of WW2 and the USA, and the USSR had been allies in the war against Hitler.
They were in an alliance with the USSR called the Grand Alliance. (An alliance
means a union or association formed for mutual benefit, especially between
countries or organizations.) They soon started having disagreements about
what the world should be like now that the war had ended. They immediately
became very suspicious of each other, and the alliance started to break.
The three meetings
When they were fighting the war against Hitler, the leaders of the countries in
the Grand Alliance had three important meetings to discuss the war they were
fighting but mainly about what they wanted to happen after the war.
The first meeting was in Tehran in 1943. They agreed two things at this
meeting:
1) USA and Britain would invade France by May 1944
2) The USSR would join the USA and Britain in the war against Japan, once
Nazi Germany was defeated.
The second meeting was in Yalta in February 1945.
The alliances decided that Germany would be split up into four parts, but they
kept disputing about who would oversee Berlin (which was the most
important city in Germany). They also said they would set up the United
Nations, an organisation for keeping peace around the world.
The third meeting was in Potsdam in 1945.
The war was nearly over at this point and President Roosevelt had died,
America now had a new President, and his name was Truman. At this
conference, the leaders of the countries started to have disagreements. Stalin
(leader of USSR) wouldn’t allow countries in Eastern Europe to have elections
and Truman (leader of USA) was worried since a communist government was
being established in Poland. They did agree again that Germany should be split
into four parts, and they agreed that Berlin would be split into four parts as
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