the cold war - daniel bonevac · 2019. 11. 8. · the roots of the cold war • teheran conference,...

The Cold War

The 1950s

Friday, November 8, 19

The Roots of the Cold War

• Teheran Conference, 1943: “Stalin has got the President in his pocket.” (Sir Alan Brooke)

• Yalta Conference, 1945: “I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.” (FDR)


Yalta

• Roosevelt refused to coordinate with Churchill


Yalta


• He did not back Churchill’s demand for international supervision of Polish elections


Yalta



• He announced that all US forces would be out of Europe in two years


Yalta



• He announced that all US forces would be out of Europe in two years

• Molotov announced that Polish elections would be held “Soviet-style”


Yalta

• Why did Roosevelt sell out Eastern Europe?

• Theories:

• He was ill (he died barely two months later)

• He was too trusting

• His top aide, Harry Hopkins, was a Soviet agent


The Iron Curtain

• Churchill: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Beyond that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe… what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high in and many cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”


Harry S. Truman


Harry S. Truman

• Truman purged pro-Soviet officials from his administration

• Henry Wallace leaked a memo arguing for unilateral disarmament, increased trade with Russia

• Truman fired him


Un-American Activities Committee


UnAmerican Activities Committee

• Concerned about Communist subversion

• Hollywood Blacklist

• Alger Hiss case: accused of spying by Whittaker Chambers; eventually convicted of perjury


Senator Joseph McCarthy


The McCarthy Era

• In 1950, McCarthy made headlines (2 weeks after Hiss verdict) with claims that he had a list of members of the Communist party working in the State Department

• There had been many with Communist sympathies in the Roosevelt administration

• But Truman had already largely gotten rid of them


Significance

• Few people were punished, and those relatively lightly

• McCarthy censured, HUAC became unpopular

• Inadequacy of libel laws

• Institutional cowardice

• Anti-anti-Communism

• Blow to moral confidence


Cultural Marxism

• Why hadn’t the revolution occurred?

• Antonio Gramsci’s (1891-1937) answer: cultural hegemony (domination)

• Values of bourgeoisie --> common sense of the proletariat


Gramsci’s Solution

• Keep Marx’s historicism, but deny materialism, economic determinism

• The key to revolution lies in combining social forces to form a “historic block”

• You do that by infiltrating and then dominating means of cultural transmission


“Long March through the Institutions”

• Which social institutions transmit culture?

• Education

• Arts (including film)

• Media

• Non-profit institutions

• Goal should be to infiltrate and subvert them


“Long March”

• By the 1950s, many American writers, filmmakers, leaders of nonprofits, and government workers were Marxists

• In the 1960s and 1970s, schools and universities became strongly Marxist

• Chambers was senior editor of Time; by 1970s, many journalists were Marxists


The Truman Doctrine

• “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure… we must assist free people to work out their own destinies in their own way.”

• Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe


The Berlin Airlift (1948-49)


Consequences

• Establishment of West Germany

• Establishment of NATO

• US commitment to preserve free institutions and maintain a military to do so

• Policy of containment


Containment


Containment

• George Kennan (“X”), “The Sources of Soviet Power,” Foreign Affairs (July 1947):

• “a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”

• “the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points”


Korean War


Korean War

• June 25, 1950: North Korea invaded South Korea

• Stalin encouraged the war to drive China into alliance with Russia rather than the US

• It worked, postponing the USSR/China split for a decade


Korean War

• But, directly, it accomplished nothing: the boundary after the war was the same as that before the war

• There was no justification, no popular support in North Korea

• Deaths: 36,000 Americans; 1 million Koreans (215,000 North Korean troops, 58,000 South Korean troops); 100,000-400,000 Chinese


Consequences

• UN became a propaganda tool

• President became a war-making executive, not needing Congressional approval

• Turned China into a first-rate military power

• Acceleration in rearmament

• Polarization: Free world vs. communist world


Stalin’s Last Years

• In the early 1950s Stalin conducted a purge: 500,000 killed

• Increasing paranoia

• Many intellectuals jailed or murdered

• Stalin died in March, 1953, under mysterious circumstances


Dwight D. Eisenhower


Eisenhower

• “Eisenhower was the most successful of America’s twentieth-century Presidents, and the decade when he ruled (1953-1961) the most prosperous in American, and indeed world, history.”

• Nixon described him as “complex and devious”


Eisenhower’s Principles

• Eisenhower believed in exercising power by stealth

• Principles:

• Avoid war

• Constitutional control over military action

• Security of freedom rests on American economic health—so, restrict federal spending and commitments


European Recovery

• Dramatic economic and political recovery in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain


US Economy


US Economy

• Rise of middle class

• Growth in prosperity, consumer culture

• From a low baseline

• Slow productivity growth


Television


Top TV Shows, 1955• The $64,000 Question

• I Love Lucy

• The Ed Sullivan Show

• Disneyland

• The Jack Benny Program

• December Bride

• You Bet Your LifeFriday, November 8, 19

Rock ‘n’ Roll


Civil Rights Movement

• Many crucial steps taken during the 1950s under Eisenhower

•Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) declared segregation unconstitutional

• Eisenhower enforced it aggressively, sending federal troops to integrate schools in Little Rock in 1957


Brown v. Board of Education

• Plessy v. Ferguson: “separate but equal”

• Brown: “Separate is inherently unequal.”


Rosa Parks

• December 1, 1955, Montgomery: Rosa Parks refuses to give her seat on the bus to a white passenger

• Montgomery bus boycott, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Little Rock, 1957


Civil Rights Act of 1957

• Created the Civil Rights Commission to defend African-American voting rights


• Civil Rights Act of 1960 expanded the authority of federal judges to protect voting rights

Civil Rights Act of 1960


the cold war - daniel bonevac · 2019. 11. 8. · the roots of the cold war • teheran conference,...

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