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Summary of the Cold War involving Germany and Cuba.
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The Cold WarThe period of tension between the two superpowers, the United States of America (USA) and
the Soviet Union (USSR).
It lasted from 1945 to 1989, when Eastern European communist regimes fell.
The Soviet Union finally collapsed at the end of 1991.
The conflict grew initially from ideological differences (Soviet Union - communist) at odds
with capitalist democratic America.
The Cold War spread to every region in the world. The USSR and the USA competed with each
other over the support of countries all over the world.
The Cold War was a battle of ideology, propaganda, and territory.
The Cold War Origins
During WW2, the United States and the Soviet Union fought against a common enemy
(as allies against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, Japan).
The USA believed in capitalism, democracy, and individual rights and freedoms.
The Soviet Union believed in communism and its spread, and in the right for the state to rule
over its people, who should have few individual rights and freedoms.
Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader
Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-thirsty rule of his own country.
The Soviets resented America’s decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of
the international community as well as their delayed entry into World War II, which
resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians.
After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual
distrust and enmity.
Post-war Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fuelled many Americans’ fears of a
Russian plan to control the world.
Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as American officials’
interventionist approach to international relations.
, Wartime Conferences
The USA, UK and USSR set up the Grand Alliance against Nazi Germany.
The Tehran Conference
In November 1943, Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met
at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran in Iran.
The USA and Britain would accept Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
The main outcome of the conference was the western Allies' commitment to open a second
front against Nazi Germany.
The Yalta Conference
In February 1945, ‘the Big Three’ – Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and
Joseph Stalin met at Yalta in the Crimea region of the USSR.
Objectives:
Agree on a post-war settlement and decide what to do with Germany once it had been
defeated.
Outcome:
- Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation with the USSR, Britain, France
and the USA each controlling a zone.
- The German capital, Berlin, was deep inside the Soviet zone and it too was to be divided into
four zones, each controlled by one of the Allied powers.
- All countries freed from Nazi occupation were guaranteed the right to hold free elections and
choose their own governments.
- Stalin was to have a ‘sphere of influence’ over Eastern Europe.
- USSR would be allowed to take reparations from defeated Germany.
- Stalin once again promised to join the war against Japan, once Germany was defeated.
- All the leaders made a commitment to hunt down Nazi war criminals.
- The Allies agreed to the setting up of the United Nations, which ensured international
cooperation and preventing future wars.
The Potsdam Conference
From July - August 1945, Stalin, Truman, Churchill in the Soviet occupation zone of
Germany.
It called for a complete disarmament and demilitarisation of Germany.
, Objectives:
Finalise a post-war settlement and put into action all the things agreed at Yalta.
There were arguments over where the boundaries between the zones would be drawn.
Although the Yalta conference had been reasonably friendly, the Potsdam Conference was
fraught with disagreements, which were the result of some significant changes that had
taken place since the Yalta Conference:
1. A new US President:
Franklin D Roosevelt, had died and been replaced by his Vice-President, Harry S Truman.
While Roosevelt had been willing to work with Stalin, largely because he needed the USSR to
join the war against Japan, Truman made little secret of his dislike for communism and for
Stalin personally.
2. Nuclear threat:
Just before the Conference began, on 16 July 1945, the USA had successfully exploded an
atomic bomb at their test site in the New Mexico desert. At Potsdam, Truman chose to
vaguely inform Stalin that the US possessed a new weapon of unusual destructive force.
3. Expansion of communism:
Despite agreeing at Yalta that free elections would be held in Eastern Europe after the defeat of
Nazi Germany, there was little evidence at Potsdam that Stalin intended to allow them. In
fact the Red Army was in control of Poland and the USSR was in the process of setting up a
communist government.
Outcome:
Little real progress was made at Potsdam beyond an agreement to put into action the
commitments made at Yalta.
The Western countries negotiated for the use of three air corridors that allowed them to fly
aeroplanes from the west of Germany over the main Russian zone to Berlin.
Despite the division into ones, Germany was still to be treated as an economic unit, with the
idea that it would eventually be politically reunited into one state.
The USSR proceeded to turn its zone into a separate unit with its own communist-style
politics and economy.
The USSR was afraid of the revival of Germany as a powerful aggressive state in central
Europe, close to its borders.
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