Contemporary history summary
Week 1
– Mid 20th century: Westerners looked proudly back at 1945:
🠚 Military victory signaled an affirmation of Western-style democracy/personal
liberty/rule of law
– Contemporary History begins in:
🠚 1945: World war 2
🠚 1968:
🠚 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall
🠚 2001: 9/11
🠚 “Contemporary history begins when the problems which are actual in the world
today first take shape.” (Barraclough, the first one to introduce the term
‘contemporary history’)
– Contemporary history is…
🠚 An elastic term
🠚 Theres not enough mental distance for it to be history to some
🠚 There’s too many sources, and a lot of inaccessible ones
– End of WW2 is also the end of the ‘old’ Europe
🠚 Decolonisation (colonial empires dismantled)
🠚 2 new powers: US and the Soviet Union
– Advance of the Red Army 1944-1945
🠚 The Red Army ‘liberated’ fiercely anti-Russian and nationalistic countries. They
did this to prevent the formation of Western-style liberal democracies.
🠚 Stalin promised Roosevelt and Churchill to allow free elections, but never did.
🠚 Why was communism so attractive after WW2?
➢ Europe’s economy collapsed after WW2: this left a lot of people homeless
and jobless. This made communism seem like an attractive ideology: in
communism you share everything, this seemed like an effective way to
rebuild their societies into powerful, egalitarian societies.
– Truman Doctrine/new containment policy (1947)
, 🠚 Economic/Military support from the US towards all democratic nations that were
under threat of the Soviety Union, or who were threatened by communist
influence.
🠚 ‘Contained’ communism (prevented the spread)
🠚 Reaction of the Soviets: SU took control in more countries, their control got more
strict
– Fundamental changes in contemporary history
🠚 Transition from European balance of power to global pattern of international
politics
🠚 Nuclear revolution, climate crisis, fear of nuclear war
🠚 Shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific
🠚 Resurgence of Asia and Africa
– Atlantic Charter (1941)
🠚 Between great Britain and the US
🠚 A statement which set out their goals for the world after WW2
– After WW2 Soviets were no longer seen as ‘free-makers’ but as occupants
🠚 Their field of influence was expanding
– McCarthyism: (late 1940s – 1950s)
🠚 Making false/unfounded accusations, especially related to communism, socialism.
Done in a public and attention grabbing manner.
🠚 The American public wa surprised by the evens in the 1940s and 50s: the Cold
War, Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the end of the Chinese Civil war, the
Berlin Blockade, and the confessions of multiple high-ranking US government
officials to spying for the Soviet Union. The American public was also afraid that
the Soviet Union would drop nuclear bombs on the US. This resulted in the Red
Scare: widespread fear of a potential rise of communism.
– Helsinki Agreements (1975)
🠚 Attempt to better the relationship between the east and the west.
🠚 Urged the signatories to respect human rights, reject and use of force, and
establish the inviolability of European frontiers.
–
, 🠚 Improved communication between east and west. Helped pave the way for
objectors in the Eastern countries (like Solidarity in Poland and Charta 77 in
Czechoslovakia)
– 1985: Gorbatsjev came to power: change of policies
🠚 Glasnost: Openness
🠚 Perestrojka: Reconstruction
– Sovietisation of central-eastern Europe
🠚 1945-1948: Transition
🠚 1948-1953: Terror
🠚 1953-1956: Destalinisation
🠚 1956-1968: revolts
🠚 1968-1989: ‘normalisation’
– Sino-Soviet split during the Cold War
🠚 Breaking of political relations between the Soviet Union and China.
🠚 Caused by doctrinal differences between their different interpretations of
Marxism-Leninism: the Soviet Union started a de-Stalinization, which Mao did
not agree with. Mao saw this as revisionism (=Revision of fundamental Marxist
ideas, that usually involve making an alliance with the bourgeois class).
🠚 The relationship between China and the USSR was problematic because:
➢ 1950 Treaty of Friendship: Treaty of alliance, collective security, aid and
cooperation. Signed by Stalin and Chiang Kai-Shek, which called upon
Mao to join the Nationalists (Mao had just started his movement, but
nobody believed in him). This treaty later got violated by the USSR
because they assisted the Chinese Communist Party instead of the
Kuomintang.
➢ The USSR supported the communists and not the nationalists during the
Chinese Civil War. They did this because they were afraid that if the
nationalists won, China would become a big competitor.
Week 2
– Decolonisation is not an event, but a process:
🠚 It’s a transfer of power and sovereignty.
