c hapter twenty-seven the cold war world: global politics, economic recovery, and cultural change

CHAPTERTwenty-seven

The Cold War World: Global Politics, Economic

Recovery, and Cultural Change

Introduction

• Wasteland• Europe as land of wreckage and confusion• Refugees returned home• Housing now scarce, food in short supply

Introduction

• Trauma• The brutality of war• Civil war• Liberation and betrayal

Introduction

• Recovery• Government authority• Functioning bureaucracies• Legitimate legal systems• Memories

Introduction

• The emergence of the superpowers and the cold war

• Collapse of the European empires

The Cold War and a Divided Continent

• The Iron Curtain• Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945)

Conferences• Soviets argued they had a legitimate claim to

eastern Europe


• The Soviets and Eastern Europe• The “people’s republics”

• Sympathetic to Moscow• One party took hold of key positions of power

• Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech (Fulton, Missouri, 1946)

• Communist governments in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia (1948)

• Soviet purges in the parties and administrations of satellite governments

• Began in the Balkans• Extended through Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and

Poland


• The Soviets and Eastern Europe• Greece

• Local communist-led resistance• British and United States determined to keep

Greece in their sphere of influence• Greece as touchstone for escalating American

fear of communist expansion


• The Soviets and Eastern Europe• The two Germanys

• Four occupied zones became two hostile states• Berlin divided as well• Three Western allies created a single government for their

territories in 1948• Soviets retaliated with the Berlin blockade (June 1948–

May 1949)• Cut all roads, trains, and river access from the western zone

to West Berlin

• The Berlin airlift• The Federal Republic (West Germany)• The German Democratic Republic (East Germany)


• The Marshall Plan• U.S. response to Soviet expansion was massive

economic and military aid• The Truman Doctrine (1947)

• Military assistance to anticommunists in Greece• Tied the contest for political power to economics

• The Marshall Plan (1948)• $13 billion of aid for industrial development over four years• Encouraged states to diagnose their own problems and

develop solutions• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, April

1949)• United States, Canada, and representatives from Western

European states• Greece, Turkey, and West Germany added later• Armed attack against one is an armed attack against all


• Two worlds and the race for the bomb• Soviet response

• Warsaw Pact (1955)• Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland,

Romania, East Germany


• Two worlds and the race for the bomb• The nuclear arms race

• Soviets tested an atom bomb in 1949• Soviets and United States both had the hydrogen bomb in

1953• One thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima

explosion

• The “nuclearization of warfare”• Polarized the cold war• Forced other countries to join United States or Soviets• Generated fears that local conflicts might trigger a general

war

• The bomb as symbol of an age• Science, technology, and progress• The threat of mass destruction


• Two worlds and the race for the bomb• Was the cold war inevitable?

• Stalin’s ambitions fueled the cold war• United States feared Soviet expansion• Domestic intensification of the cold war

• Anxiety• Air raid drills, spy trials, the menacing “other”


• Khrushchev and the thaw• Death of Stalin (March 1953)• Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) came to

power in 1956• Agreed to summit with Britain, France, and the

United States


• Khrushchev and the thaw• The secret speech (1956)

• Denounced Stalinist excesses• The thaw (1956–1958)

• Camps released thousands of prisoners• The rehabilitation of relatives of those executed or

imprisoned under Stalin

• Cultural expression freed up• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)• The Gulag Archipelago (Paris, 1973)• Arrest and exile


• Repression in Eastern Europe• Poland

• Demands for more independence to manage their own economy (1956)

• Government responded with military repression and promises of liberalization

• Poland’s loyalty to the Warsaw Pact


• Repression in Eastern Europe• Hungary

• Imre Nagy—nationalist and communist• Attempted to leave Warsaw Pact• Soviet troops entered Budapest on November 4,

1956

• East Germany• East Germans continued to flee (2.7 million

between 1949 and 1961)• Khrushchev demanded a permanent division of

Germany with a free city of Berlin• The Berlin Wall (1961)

Economic Renaissance

• The economic “miracle”• War provided technologies with practical

and immediate applications• Improved communications• Manufacture of synthetic materials,

aluminum, and alloy steels• Advances in techniques of prefabrication• High consumer demand and high levels of

employment


• The role of government• The necessity of planning• “Mixed economies” provided public and private

ownership• West Germany experienced unprecedented

economic growth• Production increased sixfold (1948–1964)• Unemployment reached 0.4 percent (1965)

• Britain• The economy remained sluggish• Obsolete factories and methods• Unwillingness to adopt new techniques


• European economic integration• European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC, 1951)• European Economic Community (EEC or Common

Market)• France, West Germany, Italy, Britain, Holland, and

Luxembourg• Abolition of trade barriers• Committed to common external tariffs• The free movement of labor• A unified wage structure and social security systems• The “Eurocrats”• EEC became the world’s largest importer (1963)

• Total production 70 percent higher than it had been in 1950


• European economic integration• Bretton Woods (July 1944)

• Aimed to coordinate movements of the global economy

• Created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank

• All currencies pegged to the dollar


• Economic development in the East• National income rose and output increased• Poland and Hungary strengthened their

economic connections with the West• COMECON compelled other members to

trade with the Soviet Union


• The welfare state• “Welfare state” coined by Clement Atlee

(British Labour Party)• Britain

• Free medical health care through the National Health Service

• Assistance to families• Guaranteed secondary education

• Welfare relief as entitlement and not poor relief


• European politics• Pragmatism• Konrad Adenauer

• West German chancellor (1949–1963)• Despised German militarism• Remained apprehensive about German parliamentary

government• General Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth French

Republic• Retired from politics in 1946• Returned to office after Algerian war (1958)• Insisted on a new constitution• Strengthened executive branch of government• France withdrew from NATO in 1966• Cultivated better relations with Soviet Union• Modern military establishment, with atomic weapons

Revolution, Anticolonialism, and the Cold War

• The Third World


• The Chinese Revolution (1949)• Civil war since 1926• Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975)—nationalist• Mao Zedong (1893–1976)—communist• Nationalists and communists defeated

Japan• Mao refused to surrender northern provinces

• U.S. intervention• The Revolution was the act of a nation of

peasants


• The Chinese Revolution (1949)• Mao adapted Marxism to Chinese

conditions• The “loss of China” provoked fear in the

West• United States considered China and the

Soviet Union to be a “communist bloc”


• The Korean War• A cold war hot spot• Korea under Japanese control during World

War II• Post-1945—Soviets controlled north (Kim

Jong II) and United States controlled south (Syngman Rhee)

• North Korean troops attacked across the border (June 1950)


• The Korean War• United States brought invasion to the

attention of the UN Security Council• UN permitted an American-led “police action”• General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)

• Former military governor of occupied Japan• Led amphibious assault behind North Korean lines• Wanted to press assault into China• Relieved of duty by Truman

• Chinese troops supported North Koreans


• The Korean War• Stalemate• The end of the Korean conflict (June 1953)• Korea remained divided


• Decolonization• The decline of older empires• Nationalist movements and independence


• The British Empire unravels• India

• Post-1945—waves of Indian protest for Britain to quit India• Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)

• Pioneered anticolonial ideas and tactics

• Advocated swaraj (self-rule), nonviolence, and civil disobedience

• Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)• Led the proindependence Congress Party

• Ethnic and religious conflict• The Muslim League

• British India partitioned into India (majority Hindu) and Pakistan (majority Muslim)

• Brutal religious and ethnic warfare


• The British Empire unravels• Palestine

• Balfour Declaration (1917)• Promised a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine for

European Zionists

• Rising conflict between Jewish settlers and Arabs (1930s)

• British limited further immigration (1939)• A three-way war

• Palestinian Arabs—fighting for land and independence• Jewish settlers determined to defy British rule• British administrators with divided sympathies


• The British Empire unravels• Palestine

• United Nations partitioned territory into two states

• Israel declared independence in May 1948• Palestinian Arabs clustered in refugee camps

• Gaza strip• West bank of the Jordan River


• The British Empire unravels• Africa

• Several west African colonies moved toward independence

• Britain left constitutions and a legal system but no economic support

• More African colonies gained independence• Could not redress losses from colonialism

• Britain tolerated apartheid in South Africa• Banned political protest


• The British Empire unravels• Crisis in Suez and the end of an era

• Britain found the cost of maintaining naval and air bases too high

• Nationalists forced British to withdraw troops from Egypt within three years (1951)

• King Farouk (1921–1965) deposed by nationalist officers and a republic is proclaimed (1952)



• Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970)• Became Egyptian president• Nationalization of the Suez Canal Company• Financing the Aswan Dam• Pan-Arabism• Willing to take aid and support from the Soviets



• Israel, France, and Britain found pan-Arabism threatening

• Egypt attacked by Israel, France, and Britain (1956)

• United States inflicted financial penalties on Britain and France, forced to withdraw


• French decolonization• The French experience

• Decolonization was bloodier, more difficult, and more damaging to French prestige


• French decolonization• The first Vietnam War, 1946–1954

• The French in Indochina—one of France’s last imperial acquisitions

• Nationalist and communist independence movements

• Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969)• Hoped for independence at Versailles (1919)• Marxist peasants organized around social, agrarian,

and national issues

• Allies supported communist independence movement


• French decolonization• The first Vietnam War, 1946–1954

• Vietnamese guerrilla war against the French• French pressed on for total victory• French established a base at Dien Bien Phu (fell

in May 1954)• French began peace talks at Geneva• The Geneva Accords

• Vietnam divided into two states• North Vietnam—taken over by Ho Chi Minh’s party• South Vietnam—taken over by pro-Western politicians• A virtual guarantee that war would continue


• French decolonization• Algeria

• Since the 1830s, a settler state of three social groups

• One million Europeans (farmers, vintners, working class, small merchants)

• Muslim Berbers (formal and informal privileges)• Muslim Arabs (largest and most deprived sector)

• Post-1945—Algerian nationalists called on the Allies to recognize their independence

• France granted limited enfranchisement• Settlers and Berber Muslims• Arabs



• Arab activists form the National Liberation Front (FLN) in the mid-1950s

• Civil war on three fronts• Guerrilla war between regular French army and FLN• FLN terrorism in Algerian cities• Systematic torture by French security forces

• De Gaulle declared that Algeria would always be French



• Algeria declared its independence by referendum in 1962

• The war divided French society• The identity of France

Postwar Culture and Thought

• The black presence• Présence Africaine (published at Paris,

1947)• Aimé Césaire (b. 1913) and Léopold Senghor

(1906–2001)• Both men were the exponents of Négritude

(black consciousness)• Powerful indictments of colonialism


• The black presence• Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)

• Withdrawing into black culture was not an answer to racism

• A theory of radical social change

• Pointed to the ironies of Europe’s “civilizing mission”

• The reevaluation of blackness


• Existentialism• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Albert

Camus (1913–1960)• Individuality, commitment, and choice

• “Existence precedes essence”• Meaning in life is not given, it is created• “Individuals are condemned to be free”

• Camus—The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), and The Fall (1956)


• Existentialism• Existentialism and race

• Race derived meaning from lived experience

• Simon de Beauvoir (1908–1986)• The Second Sex (1949)• “One is not born a woman, one becomes one”• Asked why women dream the dreams of men?


• Memory and amnesia: The aftermath of war• The Frankfurt school

• Theodore Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973)

• Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947)• Indictment of the “culture industry” for depoliticizing

the masses


• Memory and amnesia: The aftermath of war• Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

• Nazism and Stalinism should be understood as a form of totalitarianism

• The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)• Totalitarianism worked by mobilizing mass support• Used terror to crush resistance• The atomization of the public• Made collective resistance impossible

Conclusion

• Fidel Castro

• The Bay of Pigs (1961)

• The Cuban missile crisis (1962)• Dr. Strangelove (1964)

• Eisenhower and the military-industrial complex

This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint for Chapter 27.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/wciv_16e/brief

c hapter twenty-seven the cold war world: global politics, economic recovery, and cultural change

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