The Cold War 1945-1991

When was the Cold War

• The Cold War was a time after WW2 when the USA and the Soviet Union were rivals for world influence.

• They represented 2 political ideologies – communism and capitalism

• It was also a time of Soviet takeover in E Europe

Causes of the Cold War

• At the end of WW2 (1945) the US and the USSR were close allies fighting against the Germans.

• By 1955 these two nations were complete enemies who literally held the entire world’s future in their hands.

• WHAT HAPPENED????

The end of WW2

• In 1945 there were two conferences held to figure out what to do when Germany was defeated and Europe was at peace again.

• The participating countries were: Great Britain, the USA and the USSR.

• All of them were determined that Germany would never again be allowed to be become powerful enough to go to war again

• However they did recognize the fact that they could not repeat the same mistakes as the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

• The two conferences were named after their locations YALTA in February and Potsdam in July.

– Between these two dates several important events occurred

• The death of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt and his replacement by Harry S. Truman

• The surrender of Germany in May

• Churchill lost the 1945 election and was replaced by Atlee.

Conferences: See handout for

details

• As a result of these two conferences Germany as well as the city of Berlin are divided into 4 sections controlled by

– France

– Great Britain

– USA

– USSR

Brief Description of the Cold War

– A battle of words, propaganda and

intimidation.

– U.S.S.R. and the United States

competed for dominance.

– Proxy wars in erupted in Korea and

Vietnam.

– Characterized by a nuclear arms race

and international military alliances.

Causes: See handout 1

Effects of the Cold War

– International relations for more than 40

years were dominated by the Cold War.

– The world was divided into the Capitalist

West and the Communist East.

– The US abandoned its policy of

isolationism and became actively involved

in conflicts around the world.

Propaganda

Films

Improve your knowledge

• The nuclear bomb gave America a lead which was expected to last at least 5 years. The rapid Russian development of nuclear technology, helped by the work of the “atom spies” was a shock. Significantly, Russia hurriedly declared war against Japan at the beginning of August 1945 and rushed to advance into Asia to stake out a position for the post-war settlement. This helped make both the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts more likely.

Constant

Reminders

of the Past:

WWII

The Turning Point- 1946 Speeches

• March 5 1946 Winston Churchill gives a speech in the US where he says

– “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across Europe”

– The term Iron Curtain becomes the popular term for the communist countries controlled by the USSR

• March 14th Stalin gives a speech that compared Churchill with Hitler and calls him a “firebrand of war” and accuses the US of feeling the same way.

• In April 1947 an American politician Bernard Baruch gaive a speech in which he said – “Let us not be deceived, we are today in the midst

of a cold war”

– This was the first time the term was used but it very quickly became the popular way to describe the situation.

The Elements of the Early Cold War

– The Truman Doctrine.

– Containment.

– The Marshall Plan.

Truman Doctrine

• The Truman Doctrine in March 1947 promised that the USA “would support free peoples who are resisting” communism.

Containment

• This led to containment – policy of containing/keeping communism where it is.

• Truman’s compared the spread of communism to the image of “apples in a barrel infected by

one rotten one”.

Consequences of

Containment

– By 1949, Europe was divided into two

rival camps.

– Truman ordered the development of a

hydrogen bomb.

– The US became the ‘world policeman’.

The Marshall Plan

• In June 1947, General George Marshall made a visit to Europe to see what was needed.

• He came away thinking Europe was so poor that the whole of Europe was about to turn Communist.

• Marshall and Truman asked Congress for $17 billion to fund the European Recovery Programme nicknamed the Marshall Plan - to get the economy of Europe going again.

• Congress at first hesitated, but agreed in March 1948 when Czechoslovakia turned Communist.

• The aid was given in the form of food, grants to buy equipment, improvements to transport systems, and everything "from medicine to mules".

• Most (70 per cent) of the money was used to buy commodities from US suppliers:

• Conversion Calculator = 189,310,679,611.65

Soviet Response:

COMECON

• COMECON means "Council for Mutual Economic Assistance";

• This was an economic organization from 1949 to 1991,

• See handout for list of Comecon countries

Soviet Takeover of Eastern

Europe

– By 1948 Poland, Hungary, Romania,

Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania,

Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany

were communist.

– These were buffer states to protect the

Mother Russia from the “capitalists” in the

West.

– These nations followed the Stalin model of

economic control.

Stalinism

• See video notes

The Berlin Blockade (1948) – In 1948 US, Britain and France united

their zones of occupation into one city

called West Berlin.

– ON June 24, 1948 Stalin closed all road

entrances to West Berlin for 318 days

so they only way to get supplies to

West Berlin was to fly them in.

Images of the Berlin Blockade

Berlin Blockade

• The Blockade ends in 1949 when the Soviets lift the blockade because they saw the US will not give up.

• As a result, the Federal Republic of West Germany (capitalist) and the Democratic Republic of East Germany (communist) are created.

Berlin blockade led to Berlin Airlift

Berlin Airlift

• From June 1948 to May 1949, over 275 000 Allied planes airlift 1.5 million tons of supplies to the residents of West Berlin.

• This was nicknamed “Operation Vittles”

Escalation of the Berlin Airlift

Berlin Airlift

• The airlift marked a rise in tensions between the West and the Soviets, but it also helped heal divisions left by World War II.

• Almost immediately, The United States, Great Britain, and France shifted from Germany's conquerors to its protectors.

• Allied cooperation paved way for formation of new military alliance, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO

• Soviets formed their own alliance called the Warsaw Pact in 1955

Two sides of Cold War

• NATO (1948) – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

• USA, France, Great Britain, West Germany

• CAPITALISM

• Warsaw Pact (1955) – pro Soviet countries – USSR, and all countries controlled by the USSR.

• COMMUNISM

The Teams

NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization

China becomes a Communist Nation, 1949

China becomes a Communist Nation, 1949

• Mao Zedong leads a Communist Revolution and puts his own form of Marxism/Communism on a traditional agricultural society

• As a results there were massive social reforms in China – agrarian/farm reform law, marriage reform law, thought reform and education reform

• These changes change China from a kingdom controlled by the Emperor and his advisors to a dictatorship controlled by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party.

Background to Korea

• 1910-1945 – Korea was a Japanese colony

• Soviets (against Japan) invade Korea from the North

• The USA goes to South Korea to help fight the Soviets

• As a result of the conferences (Yalta, Potsdam) Korea was divided into 2 zones of occupation after the Japanese surrender.

Korean War, 1950-1953

• On June 25, North Korean communist forces cross the 38th parallel and invade South Korea.

• On June 27, Truman orders U.S. forces to assist the South Koreans

• Communists invades from the north. China sent a million troops to help reds.

• The U.N. Security Council condemns the invasion and established a 15-nation fighting force.

• Finally a truce was signed on July 27, 1953. After a loss of 34 000 US soldiers, over 800 000 S. Koreans, 500 000 N.Koreans and nearly two million Chinese.

• The negotiators decided to return to the status quo, to uphold the division b/w N. and S. Korea along the 38th parallel.

CANADA IN KOREA

• Altogether 26,791 Canadians served in the Korean War,

– with 1,558 casualties

• with 516 Canadian deaths • http://www.vac-

acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/KoreaWar/photogallery

The Korean War 1950-53

Consequences

– China remained commercially isolated from the West and out of the United Nations for 22 years.

– China gained prestige because the US did not gain any territory in Korea.

– South Korea remained non-communist.

– Money needed for reconstruction had been diverted to war.

– US and Europe rearmed.

CANADA and the COLD WAR

• http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/cold_war/topics/274/

Phase 2: Coexistence 1955-68

– 1955: Warsaw Pact is established.

– 1955: Policy of Massive Retaliation

• This threatens full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in response to communist aggression anywhere in the world.

Phase 2: Coexistence

– 1956: Khrushchev calls for “peaceful co-

existence.”

– 1957: THE SPACE RACE begins

• Sputnik : the first man-made satellite to orbit

the Earth.

• USSR successfully tests an ICBM: Soviet

missiles could now hit anywhere on the planet.

• In 1958, the U.S. creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the space race is in full gear.

Space Race The USA and the Soviet Union raced as

the world watched to be the first to conquer space.

• 1960 Score:

• Soviets - 2

• USA – 0

• Apollo Program

– USA spent the 60s trying to catch up to the Soviets.

Armstrong lands on moon!

• APOLLO 11

• July 16-24 1969.

• The mission of Apollo 11 was from those dates and the actual moon landing and first step onto the moon took place on July 20 1969.

– 1959: Cuba becomes Communist.

– 1960: US embargo on exports to Cuba. John F. Kennedy becomes U.S. President

1959 - Castro takes power

• January 1, 1959 leftist forces under Fidel Castro overthrow Fulgencio Batista

• Castro nationalizes the sugar industry and signs trade agreements with the Soviet Union.

• The next year, Castro seizes U.S. assets on the island.

Embargoes

• Refusing to trade or aid countries in order to punish them

Cuba embargo

• Still today, the USA has an economic embargo on communist Cuba.

• Their only cars are from before the embargo!

• Should the Americans end their embargo?

1960 - The U-2 Affair

• On May 1, an American high-altitude U-2 spy plane is shot down on a mission over the Soviet Union.

• After the Soviets announce the capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the United States takes back earlier statements that the plane was on a weather research mission.

The U-2 Affair

•Suffering major embarrassment, Eisenhower was forced to admit the truth behind the mission and the U-2 program, although he refused to publicly apologize to Khrushchev.

•This refusal caused the Paris Summit to collapse when Khrushchev stormed out of negotiations.

• Powers was sentenced to ten years in prison, including seven years of hard labor, following an infamous show-trial.

• He served less than two years, however, and was released in 1962 in exchange for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

Phase 2: Coexistence

• 1961: “Bay of Pigs”. The Berlin Wall is built.

• 1963: Huge increase of American aid to

Vietnam. Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is signed.

• 1964: Brezhnev takes over power in USSR.

• China explodes its first atomic bomb.

• 1965: US marines are sent to South Vietnam

for combat.

1961 - Berlin Wall

• On August 15, communist authorities begin construction on the Berlin Wall to prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Berlin.

The Berlin Wall: Results

– Berlin was split in two.

– Tension grew as both sides started nuclear

testing.

– The West became more anti-communist.

Berlin Wall Berlin Wall

Note the

Barbed Wire

1961 - Bay of Pigs

• U.S.-organized invasion force of 1,400 Cuban exiles is defeated by Castro's government forces on Cuba's south coast at the Bay of Pigs.

• Launched from Guatemala in ships and planes provided by the United States, the invaders surrender on April 20 after three days of fighting.

• Kennedy takes full responsibility for the disaster.

Captured Cubans

Bay of Pigs

• The CIA trained and funded an invasion of communist Cuba. The invasion failed, and Castro had some powerful friends!

Soviet response.

• Don’t worry comrade Castro. We got your back!

The Cuban Missile Crisis 1961-62

– The Bay of Pigs.

– Hot-line was established.

– The first test ban treaty was signed.

– The USSR began a huge military

buildup.

Cuban Missile Crisis

– The US cut off all diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba.

– Khrushchev’s loss of prestige contributed to his fall.

– Both sides were more careful in the future.

– Cuba remained a Communist dictatorship.

1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis

• After Bay of Pigs invasion, the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

• After U-2 flights Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba on October 22 until the Soviet Union removed its missiles.

• On October 28, the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles, defusing one of the most dangerous confrontations of the Cold War.

Copyright 2007 unimaps.com, used with permission

The End of the

Cuban Missile

Crisis:

http://library.thinkq

uest.org/11046/day

s/conclusion.html

A U2 spy plane found these missile silos in Cuba, 1962.

End to a crisis! • The Soviets removed the

missiles in Cuba.

• In exchange, USA pledged to not invade Cuba again. And to remove missiles in Turkey (right).

John F. Kennedy (JFK) U.S. President – 1961-1963

• JFK

• Famous Speeches

• Ask not what your country can do for you

• Man on the Moon

• JFK was shot in Dallas

• Video of Shooting

1973 - Vietnam War agreement (Paris Accords)

• January 27, 1973, the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong sign the Paris Peace Treaty, establishing a cease-fire.

• The United States is allowed to continue providing aid to South Vietnam.

• South Vietnamese Capital Saigon falls in April 1975.

Vietnam War 1960s-1973 • Through the Kennedy

years, US troops trained S. Vietnamese troops to fight the Reds.

• After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, under LBJ, US troops started to fight more.

• From Wikipedia

• Illustrated History Online

Vietnam, 1968

Napalm! • Napalm

• Case Study of My Lai

• What we did at My Lai (Video Clip)

• Movies relating to the Vietnam War: Platoon, Hamburger Hill, We were soldiers, Casualties of War, Full Metal Jacket, The Walking Dead, A Bright Shining Lie, Missing in Action

Seeing this on TV led to a loss of support at home

Phase 2: Coexistence

– 1966: US troops in Vietnam rises to

389 000.

– 1967: International treaty banning

nuclear weapons from outer space.

China tests a hydrogen bomb.

– 1968: USSR invades

Czechoslovakia. Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty is signed.

Nuclear Missiles!

1979 - Afghanistan

• December 25, 100,000 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan as communist Babrak Karmal seized control of the government.

• U.S.-backed Muslim guerrilla fighters waged a costly war against the Soviets for nearly a decade before Soviet troops withdraw in 1988.

• Afghanistan becomes the Soviet “Vietnam”

1983 - Star Wars

• March 23, Reagan outlined his Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars," a space-based defensive shield that would use lasers and other advanced technology to destroy attacking missiles far above the Earth's surface.

• Soviets accuse the U.S of violating the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

• Soviets forced to spend heavily to match the program causing near economic collapse.

Hippies/Anti-war

• American Dissent

• Hippie

• Throughout the 60s and 70s!

• Forrest Gump (Trailer)

1985 - Gorbachev comes to power

• On March 11, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union.

• Gorbachev ushered in an era of reform. – perestroika

• Economic reform

– glasnost – means openness, allowed greater free expression and

criticism of Soviet policies

• During the 1970's and early 1980's, the Soviet economy was deteriorating under the cumulative effects of a centralized bureaucratic system, the burdens of an increasingly costly arms race, and a failed war in Afghanistan.

• A new generation of leadership came to power in 1985 in the person of Gorbachev. He was determined to end the Cold War and to bring economic and political reform to the Soviet Union. He initiated dramatic new agreements with the United States, involving unilateral concessions in the armaments race.

• He also brought an end to Soviet support of client governments in Eastern Europe and in Cuba.

• He relaxed the police state repression in the Soviet empire and took steps to introduce a democratic political process.

• These initiatives rapidly improved relations with the United States and brought an end to the Cold War.

• What Gorbachev had not anticipated, however, was that, without the domination of the police and a monopoly of power in the hands of the Communist Party, the Soviet empire would collapse into 16 different national parts. Nationalism, always a potent force in the modern world, brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1991.

How did the Cold War End?

1989 - Berlin Wall falls

• Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, which pledged to use Soviet force to protect its interests in Eastern Europe.

• On September 10, Hungary opened its border with Austria, allowing East Germans to flee to the West.

• After massive public demonstrations in East Germany and Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9.

Fall of Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall is torn down in 1989.

1990 – German unification

• At a September 12 meeting in Moscow, the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and the two Germanys agreed to end Allied occupation rights in Germany.

• On October 3, East and West Germany united as the Federal Republic of Germany.

Songs Relating to the World War

• Billy Joel “We didn’t start the fire” (You tube video) Lyrics

• Songs relating to the Cold War (online list)