Origins of the Cold WarWhere did it all start?

Overview

•Uneasy Peace •Adjusting to a Postwar World •Confronting Communist Threat •Rebuilding European Economics

Uneasy peace

•Two Conferences ▫Yalta agreed to collaborate in shaping

post war Europe▫Potsdam Finalized their post war plans

including Germany 4 military areas and 4 districts in Berlin.

• Truman is unsure of Stalin •Stalin distrusts Truman and the new

unnamed weapon

Communist Buffer

•Stalin wants to keep a communist buffer between Germany and USSR▫Why?

Past 2 wars Germany has attacked USSR via Poland.

•Truman and others believe that the countries occupied by USSR troops need to have the ability to decided their own types of governments

Uneasy Peace… Different warsUSA USSR

• 290,000 Soldiers lost • Civilians only the ones at

Pearl Harbor • U.S. Economy booming • 320 billion dollars to

finance the war • Have a get tough

mentality towards USSR • Stop Lend-Lease policies

with USSR aft V-E day

• 20 million dead • 7 million soldiers

▫ German Labor camps • Starving citizens because

of German troops and occupation during the war

• German troops stripped the land

• Production cities leveled by Germans

Two different Ideologies USA USSR

• Democratic Government • Capitalism • Individuals & private

business play the major roles in the economy

• Property, factories and equipment are privately owned

• Communism • Collectivism

▫ Economic system people under the supervision of the state jointly own production and distribution

• Single- Party rule of politics and government control of economy

Tensions rise Truman Stalin

• Adopt the idea of containment▫ Communism could stay

where is was but it would not grow or move to any other areas of the world

• Peace couldn’t exist in a world with capitalism

• USSR and capitalism would always compete for raw materials and markets for their products

• Always cause conflict that would be settled by “armed Forces”

Fear Grows

•Soviets refuse to leave Iran ▫1942 agreement that was between USSR

and Great Britain ▫Each country would withdraw from Iran

after the war was ended (6months) • However after several discussion USSR

yield to US and leave the area

Nuclear Technologies Raises stakes

•Conflict between nations can lead to war▫A fear that many people had

•Research continued •Development continued •Soviet Eventually make their own •Would Nuclear war be the answer to the

question of what would happen next?

United Nations as a Mediator

•US tries to have the UN as the mediator ▫They want the UN to limit the development

and use of atomic energy• Truman send Bernard Baruch to discuss

with the UN Atomic Energy Commission▫Baruch Plan

US keeps arms and other nations can’t build atomic weapons,

• Soviets argue that US keeps armed forces but they can’t make any was unfair.

Communist Threat

•Iron Curtain came to symbolize the growing barrier between East and western Europe.

•Soviet union controls Poland and Eastern Europe through military control.▫Hegemony dominating influence of one

country over the others

Example of a Communist Take over •Romania

▫Soviet forced the king to appoint a procommunist government

▫Once in power communist officials used secret police to silence any opposition

▫Officials manipulated electoral process They win Communist Government take over

• Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.

Justified the take overs

•Stalin said that his country needed loyal government nearby “ to ensure its security”

•He wondered how others ( Britain and US) saw this as ‘expansionist tendencies’ ?

The Spread of Communism • Was not only for eastern Europe but both Greece

and Turkey faced communist takeovers• Greece

▫1946 Civil war when communist rebels tried to overtake

the Greek Government Yugoslavia backed the rebels Britain sent troops and $$

• Turkey ▫Pressure from the USSR because of the vital

shipping channel of Dardanelles▫1947 Britain cannot help any more

Truman Doctrine

•In response to the global on goings and the message from Britain

•President Truman creates this ▫U.S. foreign policy, establish in 1947

Providing economic and military aid to counties that were attempting to resist communism

• Congress passes this and with aid from us the Greeks and the Turks defeated the communist rebels.

Government Add-ons

•1947 Truman asks congress to reorganize the government's security agencies ▫National Security act

National Security Council Advises the president on nation security issues

and oversees the action of the CIA Central Intelligence Agency

Collects and analyzes intell gathered in party by agents operating in foreign

Rebuilding European Economics

•Enormous task •Across the continent

▫Government and economies barely functioned •War made people

▫Homeless and unemployed • Destroyed

▫Schools, hospitals, churches, factories, roads, bridges, and railroad lines

•Without these… transportation of goods and products couldn’t happen

Other Bad News•In areas hit the hardest by the war

▫Diseases began to spread Tuberculosis was the most common

Marshall Plan

•June 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall announced the plan in a speech.▫Aid in the economic recovery of Europe

after WWII by offering certain European counties substantial funds

▫Money had to be spent on goods that were made in America

▫Over 13 billion $ in aid would be spent from 1948-1952

Molotov Plan

•Soviets plan ▫Designed to aid economic recovery in

Easter Europe ▫Established new organizations

Council of Mutual Economic Assistance Two way trade agreements

Cold war has begun

•1949 wartime Alliances are gone •US and Soviet Union is a mutual

relationship of distrust and suspicion.•US and Soviet Union would never actual

go to war instead they would have a war of words using propaganda, diplomacy, economics and military aid, and espionage