Roots+to+the+Cold+War+caroline.norgreen+04.23.11

Made Awesomeness:

This graph clearly shows how all the main countries involved in the Cold War were involved in different events that lead up to it. It helps one get a clear understanding of how much countries affected the Cold War, and as one can see, the main contributors were the US and USSR.

Found Awesomeness:

This image shows how the Russia acted during the start of the Cold War and how they were intense on getting control of a large portion of Europe. It also shows how the US and British are going almost something so stop him. These two pictures show the conflict between Russians and the Americans/Rest of the Europeans. It shows how both have bombs to drop and other military weapons to kill each other. Both sides live in fear of each other.


 * The Roots of the Cold War**

**Bolsheviks**


 * 1917 – two Russian revolutions took place
 * March – overthrowing Nicholas 2nd’s regime by Kerensky
 * November – Kerensky’s gov. was overthrown by the soviets (worker’s council)
 * Bolsheviks – Lenin’s followers
 * US didn’t care much for the Bolsheviks – first when it became totalitarian
 * First became clear after Lenin’s death (1924)
 * When Stalin took control (1928)
 * US – Russian relationship started off poorly (1918)
 * When US first joined the war, Russia signed treaty of Bresk-Litovsk, pulling out of the war – upset the US
 * US = capitalism; Russia = communism, already arose suspicion/distrust
 * Bolsheviks wanted to replace capitalism with an international communist state. (Communism International – 1919)
 * Communism International – started civil war against Bolsheviks (Reds)
 * US sent troops to support anti-Bolshevik Whites
 * War against Reds failed – troops withdrawn in 1920
 * Reds wiped out the remaining Whites in 1921
 * Established the USSR in the late 1922
 * US’s relationship with Russia
 * US helped with famine relief in early 1920’s
 * Commercial relations created because of Lenin’s New Economic Policy (21-29)
 * US first officially recognized the USSR in 1933

**The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact**


 * New Economic Policy (NEP)
 * State controlled everything that had to do with economy
 * Business 20- people were allowed to run privately
 * Stalin’s 5-year plan (1929-33)
 * State had even more control
 * Stalin thought Soviet Union was 50-100 years behind advanced countries
 * US – 1933
 * Franklin Roosevelt realize nonrecognition:
 * Did not restrain USSR Communism
 * Did not help work together against rise of militarism
 * FDR invited USSR foreign minister establish diplomatic relations
 * WW2 coming up Stalin considered his options:
 * Join Germany – he hated them
 * Join France/Britain – distrusted them more
 * Thought they would watch USSR get slaughtered by Germany
 * 1939 – hinted at reconsidering agreement with Germany
 * Wanted neutrality in the war
 * Negotiated Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
 * 9 days later Germany invaded Poland
 * Nazi-Soviet Pact
 * Delaying tactics for both sides
 * Stalin was making head way on 5-year plan and was not ready to fight till 1942
 * Hitler didn’t want to fight with the east until conquering the west
 * Wanted to wait for the fall of Britain, but anticipated a fast win and British held out for longer, invaded USSR in 1941.

**A Marriage of Convenience**


 * 1941 – Roosevelt pressures congress to accept Lend-Lease Act
 * Aids countries fighting Germany and Japan
 * Purpose was to keep Britain and China afloat
 * When USSR joined Allies, US aided them too
 * After Pearl Harbor – efforts were made to improve the US-USSR relations
 * Propaganda was put up to show USSR as hard working – Stalin = Uncle
 * Even so, relationship remained marriage of convenience
 * US helped USSR by urging a 2nd front in Europe to ease pressure on Soviets
 * Promised it would open before the end of 1942
 * British prime minister Winston Churchill disagreed
 * Thought the would lose war if they invaded France prematurely
 * Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to attack North Africa instead
 * Upset Stalin greatly – Red Army had the worst of the fighting
 * Prime minister travels to Moscow – tries to reassure Stalin
 * Stalin just wants them to bomb Germany
 * But both know that it won’t ease the tension on the eastern front

**The Big Three at Tehran**


 * 1943 – Stalin had to accept a disappointing year
 * FDR & Churchill postponed the attack on France
 * Attacks on North Africa were successful
 * Stalin became more suspicious of Churchill’s motive – saw British personal gain while he was losing countless Russians
 * 1943 – Big Three meet in Tehran
 * FDR eagerly awaited meeting Stalin who was knows as a “gruff person”
 * Important matters were discussed:
 * Status of defeated Germany
 * Postwar boarders of Poland
 * Most of all – new cross-Channel invasion plan (code-name: Overload)
 * They decided upon a date which Britain/US would invade France
 * Churchill forced to agree
 * FDR left meeting frustrated – couldn’t connect with Stalin
 * Stalin left happily – Poland was discussed with FDR

**Yalta**


 * 1945 – Big three met again (2nd and final time) in Yalta, discussed
 * Creation of a new League of Nations
 * Future of East Europe (Poland mainly)
 * Status of Germany
 * Soviets in Pacific war
 * Yalta – Stalin knew his strengths; Roosevelt was dying (hard to ignore Stalin’s demands)
 * The United Nations
 * Stalin disagreed with the power of permanent members in Security Council
 * Separated General Assembly seats for Belorussia and Ukraine
 * Poland – wanted recognition to set up a new gov. in Poland from Communist gov.
 * Exiled gov had been operating in London since 1939
 * Germany – wanted $10 million of industrial equipment – war reparation
 * Japan – planned to invade 2-3 months after German surrender
 * Also to take back land lost from Russo-Japanese War 1904-5
 * Roosevelt & Churchill accepted almost all of these demands
 * Stalin held the best cards – and he knew/took advantage of it
 * Soviets – fought for 4 years – placed them in commanding military position
 * Stalin wanted to take advantage of it – long-term political gain
 * Occupied Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and were close to Berlin
 * Declaration on Liberated Europe – very stretchable declaration
 * Extremely useful for USSR because of the limited rules
 * Roosevelt agreed to it because he couldn’t do more for Poland at the time

**The Division of Germany**


 * March 1945 – American & British Forces cross the Rhine
 * Lead by Eisenhower; his goals were to:
 * Capture Ruhr Valley
 * Capture the Germany industry
 * Prevent Nazi’s from withdrawing (Barvarian Alps)
 * Eisenhower notified Stalin on the plans
 * Left Stalin with Berlin
 * Shorty after – Russia invades Berlin
 * Hitler murders himself
 * German successor offered war with the western Allies
 * Hoped non-communism would help him
 * Could continue to fight with Anglo-American support
 * Truman turned him down – insisted German surrender
 * Germany surrendered, 1945 – divided among Allies
 * Meeting in Tehran had first discussed 3 zones
 * Meeting at Yalta – soviets agreed to French zone too
 * Must be carved from British & American zones
 * Boundaries –
 * Before the end of the war Americans pushed couple hundred miles too much
 * US pulled back right when Soviets allowed Allies into Berlin (Soviet zone)
 * It was important to relationship between allies

**The Manhattan Project**


 * April 12, 1945 – FDR dies and Truman first learns of Manhattan Project then
 * Truman was considered too low-level
 * Code name for the US efforts to create an atomic bomb
 * Stimson – Secretary of War, believed civilization would be at mercy of the bombs
 * 1939 – Manhattan Project created
 * Szilard persuaded Einstein to tell FDR about developments in nuclear physics
 * Germany were also highly interested it getting deadly bombs
 * US atomic bomb project was made up of physicist Oppenheimer (and crew)
 * 1942 – Enrico Fermi created the from controlled nuclear reaction – Chicago
 * Other scientists focused on refining uranium and plutonium into nuclear fuels
 * Manhattan Project – Los Alamos, New Mexico
 * Design and testing of bombs took place at a boys private school

**Knowledge of the Bomb**


 * Manhattan Project – Britain knew about it, Soviets hadn’t yet been informed
 * FDR had, for a while, kept Stalin in the dark about the project
 * 1945 – Interim Committee established to advice president on the atomic policy
 * Truman adopted FDR’s policy but questioned keeping soviets in the dark
 * Interim Committee – made up of scientists and government officials
 * Japanese cities were targeted for atomic attack
 * Soviet audience almost just as important and the Japanese
 * Because of a change in the surrender terms Japan felt a need to continue fighting
 * Had more plans that just getting Japan to surrender
 * Needed to make sure there were no warnings of war again
 * Suggested that they should share info with Russia first
 * Dismissed because lots wanted to demonstrate strength and ensure post war cooperation

**Potsdam**


 * 1945 – Truman travelled to Potsdam, Berlin to meet with Churchill and Stalin
 * Discussed German occupation
 * Invasion of Japan needed to be discussed
 * Manhattan Project needed to be discussed
 * Stalin reaffirmed his promise to enter the war (august 15th)
 * Also told of peace offerings make from Japan (America had decoded message and already knew)
 * During this time Truman was informed the first atomic tests were successful
 * First mentioned Project to Stalin a week later – informally (Stalin already knew of Project – Soviet spies)
 * Soviets already started a secret atomic program
 * This meeting confirmed Stalin’s greatest fear – bomb meant for Moscow after

**Containment**


 * August 1945 – After bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Soviet-American cooperation broke down
 * Soviets annexed Baltic Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia
 * Also took many satellites – iron curtain across Eastern Europe
 * US embassy in Moscow sent a cable back to US about this same topic (2 weeks earlier)
 * Kennan had been placed as Russian expert in ‘listening posts’ early in his career
 * When the US and USSR did not have formal relations
 * Kennan’s, now famous, Long Telegram, contained the basis of the post war US foreign policy
 * Returning back Kennan whore an article of the Foreign Affairs
 * Kennan thought the postwar USSR had two goals
 * Establish great security around Russia’s boarders
 * Spread Communism to its neighbors
 * Kennan also thought US had four regions that they should be greatly interested in
 * Western Europe
 * Western Hemisphere
 * Japan
 * Middle East
 * USSR would not be likely to invade these areas
 * Kennan also knew that US should keep applying enough counter pressure on USSR there would be no need for combat war in the Cold War

**The Truman Doctrine**


 * Believing Kennan – he knew he couldn’t do anything about nations under Soviet rule
 * USSR was now the dominating military power in Europe
 * Nonaligned counties felt pressure to bow down under the Russian rule
 * 1947 – British informed US they could no longer aid Greece or Turkey
 * In a meeting with Acheson (Undersecretary of State) – Acheson told Truman about the domino theory
 * Said that if Greece and Turkey fell, all other nations would follow them
 * Congress agreed to aid G/T 4 million dollars of economic and military aid
 * Only condition was the Truman had to explain the crisis in a national broadcast speech – Truman agreed

**Disarray in Postwar Europe**


 * 1947 – (2 months before the speech) foreign ministers of US, Britain, France and USSR met in Moscow
 * Again discussed Germany – talked of reuniting it – worried France
 * Soviets were super quarrelsome during this meeting
 * Arguments arose about war reparations and German economy
 * Only a certain level of industry should be allowed – no agreement made
 * During this time the economy of West Europe was getting horrible
 * Low employment rates, food shortages – millions were near starvations
 * Economic turmoil was having a great effect on politics as well
 * Communism stating gaining political power
 * Kennan was set to investigate the economy of Europe to determine what assistance the US could bring

**The Marshall Plan**


 * Marshall proposed that he wanted European nations to come up with a joint recovery plan
 * Were to use principals of self-help, resource sharing and German reintegration
 * British and French quickly issued joint communiqué, inviting 22 nations
 * 16 took part and so did German representatives
 * Stalin apposes the plan because he was afraid
 * Free marketing meant free people movement among other reasons
 * Other nations say his an another effort to block postwar stabilization
 * Added international tension
 * European plan became basis of the European Recovery Program (ERP)
 * The plan was passed in congress
 * Over four years US spent $13.3 billion; 5-10% of its annual income
 * Marshall Plan became the most expensive foreign policy in US history

**The Berlin Airlift**


 * March 1948 – Britain and the US wanted to unify German again creating Bizonia
 * France joined their sector too, creating Trizonia
 * This became known as West Germany
 * June 1948 – authorities created the currency: Deutsche mark
 * Crucial economic recovery – Naze Reichsmark was worthless
 * Before then everything had taken place in black markets – barter system
 * New sound currency shops began accepting cash
 * Merchandise that had been sold illegally returned to stores
 * June 23, 1948 – currency appears in West Berlin
 * June 24, 1948 – Soviets cut off all roads, rail, and water access to the city + halting ships of food fuel, and other needs to keep Berlin alive
 * Allies protest their occupation include to rights of access – Soviets disagree
 * America and Britain was only left with one option (apart from attacking)
 * Massive airlift began on June 26
 * French joined when an airfield had been constructed in their sector
 * Berlin needed 4500 tons for 2.5 million people
 * May 1949 Soviets lifted blockade
 * International symbol of US resolve to counter Soviet aggression
 * They did not resort to direct conflict

**Nato and the Warsaw Pact**


 * Kennan’s theory of containment – Truman and Marshall had both agreed
 * Militarization of the Cold War was unwise and unnecessary
 * European allies understood reasoning but were nervous
 * Only country that didn’t demobilize after WW2 was the Soviet Union
 * Retained a massing army & extensive military infrastructure
 * March 1948 – European nations started seeking safety in numbers – but they would stand no chance without the US
 * Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg signed the treaty - North Atlantic Treaty
 * Blockade of Berlin clearly showed US was needed – needed military alliance with it
 * April 1949 – North Atlantic Treaty – United States and European allies
 * NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) – US and five Treaty of Brussels states
 * Founding member also included Canada, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Portugal
 * 1952 – Turkey and Greece was also invited to join NATO
 * May 1955 – West Germany was added to NATO
 * Soviets responded by a rival military alliance – Warsaw Treaty Organization
 * Also known as Warsaw Pact
 * Made up of USSR, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.

**The Hiss Case**


 * August 1948 – a month into the Berlin Airlift
 * Whittaker Chambers was called to testify before the House Un-American Committee (HUAC)
 * Chambers told congressmen he had been part of a secret Communist cell
 * Chambers said another member had been Alger Hiss, a former State Department official – accompanied FDR to Yatla
 * Hiss appeared before the committee
 * He denied everything – until a second hearing he began to unravel parts of his story
 * He tried to save face by suing Chambers for slander
 * Chambers produced State Department documents from 1937-8 written in Hiss’s hand
 * Proved Hiss had committed espionage
 * Hiss’s first trail ended and resulted in 5 years of sentence (he served 44 months)
 * Because the an important man like Hiss was a spy people became anxious – did not know who to trust

**McCarthyism**


 * 1950 – Nixon became so famous from the Hiss case
 * He secured a Senate nomination after only 3 years in the House
 * Nixon’s opponent he named the Pink Lady to draw attention on her ‘softness’ on Communism
 * Nixon believed this was the reason the Truman administration suffered
 * He distributed “pink sheets” comparing Douglas’s liberal voting to the platform of the American Communist party
 * Nixon believed that this was the reason the Truman administration suffered
 * Once he was Senate – joined the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee
 * McCarthy was chair – also an aggressive anticommunist
 * McCarthy was to deliver a Lincoln Day to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling
 * Said there were members of the Communist party working the State Departments
 * Overnight a wave of anticommunist hysteria that dominated politics
 * Period was named for McCarthy because of the misrepresentation – he kept changing accusations
 * Fear of Communism, the Hiss Call, the Soviet atomic bomb, victory of Mao’s Communism ensured McCarthy a huge audience.

**NSC – 68**


 * 1947 – congress passed National Security Act
 * Passed because lessons were learned during WW2
 * Created CIA and NSC (National Security Council)
 * NSC-68 was a 20-year plan about how the US should operate
 * Concluded building up a massive military
 * Only way to deal with the Soviet threat
 * Lead to tension resulting in the Cold War
 * Build up a military
 * Some thought it would lead to an arms race
 * This was agreed with
 * South Korea (backed by US) was invaded
 * Were blamed for being soft on communism
 * Started the build up – tension between USSR and US was heightened

Summary:

There were loads of events that lead to a Cold War between the USSR & the US. Most of them caused huge tension between the countries and made them upset/angry with each other.The tension build up was basically the Cold War, both sides did not like or trust each other and were also afraid of each other.

Question:

Why did the Russians hate when new currency showed up in Berlin? (Berlin Airlift) Why was Churchill so against creating a second front? What is it about Communism the US disliked so much? Why did no one question McCarthy - why was he so trusted and high ranking? Churchill hated Russians extremely out from his actions, why? Russia seemed to hate the US extremely though, why did they not hate Britain more? How did British feel about Communism, were they just as afraid of the Russians, as the Americans were?

Resources:


 * // The Beginning of the Cold War //. Digital image. // International Baccalaureate History Topics //. 9 Nov. 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2011. .
 * // Cold War //. Digital image. // CSLNewsCartoons //. Web. 22 Apr. 2011. .