Cold War

1
Cold War

• Postwar Treaties and Negotiations

2
The Yalta Conference

• Feb 4-11 1945
• High point wartime cooperation
• Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin France occupy
  Germany
• Soviets demanded heavy reparations
• US and Britain wanted economic recovery
• Result Germany pay reparations, amount later

3
Agreements

• All leaders agreed Poland to take territory from
  Germany
• Roosevelt and Churchill agreed support
  Soviet-supported provisional Polish govt.
• Declaration of Liberated Europe pledged to help
  liberated nations solve problems by democratic
  means
• Extended wartime alliance through creation of
  United Nations Organisation

4
Interpretations

• Later criticised for ceding Eastern Europe to
  Soviet control
• However, reflected balance of power
• Soviets controlled most of Eastern Europe,
  eastern third of Germany
• Western forces still recovering from December
  1944 counterattack of Hitlers forces
• Diane Shaver Clemens - the spirit of Yalta
  atmosphere of conciliation and cooperation
• Based on mutual need West depended on the Red
  Army, Soviet Union needed economic and military
  aid from the US

5
The Potsdam Conference

• July 1945
• Postwar rivalry replacing wartime cooperation
• 3 allies reached agreement on dividing Germany
• German boundaries forfeited conquests, lost
  territory to Poland and SU
• Three leaders Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee,
  Stalin decided main source reparations for each
  power would be own occupation zone

6
Changes in attitude

• Lost main incentive cooperation and compromise
• US leaders drawing on lessons of 1930s
• Desire create international economic environment
  open to US trade and investment
• US should maintain monopoly of atomic weapons
• designed not only to protect physical security
  of the US and its allies, but to preserve a
  broadly defined American way of life by
  constructing an international order that would be
  open to and compatible with US interested and
  ideals.
• David S Painter, The Cold War An International
  History, p.14
• Roosevelt died April 1945, Truman successor

7
Soviet perceptions

• Political vacuum seemed to offer ideal
  environment for Soviet ideology to extend power
  and influence
• Despite opened archives still limited material on
  Soviet motives
• Soviet security objectives at end of WWII
  included
• creating strong safeguards against future German
  aggression
• secure borders, buffer zone in Eastern Europe
• reconstructing SU war-damaged base
• maintenance strong military (development atomic
  weapons)
• Sought cooperation with US to achieve these goals
  only nation which could provide economic
  assistance desired
• SUs main objective ran against Western ideals

8
Soviet gains

• Inability gain harsh reparations from Germany or
  US aid
• Severe programme within Soviet sphere
• By end of war SU has reabsorbed Estonia, Latvia,
  Lithuania, and annexed small portions of
  Czechoslovakia, Romania and Germany
• Installed subservient regimes in Poland, Romania,
  Bulgaria, and their occupation zone in Germany
• Local communist parties gained positions
  influence in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia
  and Albania

9
Kennans Long Telegram

• Response to urgent request by US State Department
  for clarification Soviet conduct
• Famous for both length and content recommended
  policy of containment dominated US thinking
  throughout much of the Cold War period
• At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world
  affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian
  sense of insecurity.
• It was no coincidence that Marxism, which had
  smoldered ineffectively for half a century in
  Western Europe, caught hold and blazed for first
  time in Russia. Only in this land which had never
  known a friendly neighbor or indeed any tolerant
  equilibrium of separate powers, either internal
  or international, could a doctrine thrive which
  viewed economic conflicts of society as insoluble
  by peaceful means.

10
The Long Telegram

• In this dogma Marxism-Leninism, with its basic
  altruism of purpose, they found justification for
  their instinctive fear of outside world, for the
  dictatorship without which they did not know how
  to rule In the name of Marxism they sacrificed
  every single ethical value in their methods and
  tactics. Today they cannot dispense with it. It
  is fig leaf of their moral and intellectual
  respectability.
• Soviet leaders are driven by? necessities of
  their own past and present position to put
  forward which apparent omission outside world
  as evil, hostile and menacing This thesis
  provides justification for that increase of
  military and police power of Russian state, for
  that isolation of Russian population from outside
  world, and for that fluid and constant pressure
  to extend limits of Russian police power which
  are together the natural and instinctive urges of
  Russian rulers. Basically this is only the steady
  advance of uneasy Russian nationalism, a
  centuries old movement in which conceptions of
  offense and defense are inextricably confused.
  But in new guise of international Marxism, with
  its honeyed promises to a desperate and war torn
  outside world, it is more dangerous and insidious
  than ever before.

11
Finally

• Soviet power is impervious to logic of
  reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of
  force.

12
Truman Doctrine

• March 1947
• Called for global containment of communism
• Gained political support
• Reinforced shift to more activist foreign policy
• National Security Act 1947
• est. the National Security Council to advise the
  president on foreign affairs and defence policy
• created the Central Intelligence Agency to gather
  and analyse foreign intelligence and conduct
  covert operations
• created Department of Defence to coordinate the
  activities of the branches of the US armed forces

13
Truman Doctrine

• Provided a framework
• Definition focused on communisms denial of
  political and civil rights rather than limits on
  economic freedom
• Became guiding principle of US foreign policy and
  significant force in US domestic politics
• As well as calling for global containment of
  communism, Truman requested military and economic
  aid for Greece and Turkey
• helped with resistance to communist parties
  within those countries (and maintained access to
  Middle Eastern oil and gave US bases from which
  to launch aerial assaults on the SU)

14
Marshall Plan

• Economic distress support for communist parties
• Secretary of State, George C. Marshall called for
  a European recovery programme, June 1947
• Aim provide billions of dollars in economic
  assistance
• Paid for vital imports, allowing countries to
  obtain raw materials, fuel, foodstuffs needed for
  construction
• Political as well as economic
• Aid directed towards centrist govts., focused on
  reconstruction and expanding exports
• US supported European-wide planning strategies
• E.g. the European Payments Union, the Economic
  Cooperations Administration, the Organisation of
  European Economic Cooperation
• US made Germany eligible for Marshall Plan aid,
  led to uniting three Western occupation zones and
  moving them towards self-governance

15
Marshall Plan and division

• Solidified division in Europe
• Despite control in Eastern Europe SU had followed
  cautious policy
• allowed relatively free elections in Hungary and
  Czechsolvakia in 1945, discouraged communist
  parties from taking revolutionary action in
  France, Italy, Greece and Spain
• US offer to include Eastern Europe in Marshall
  Plan
• SU prohibited Eastern European countries from
  participating in Marshall Plan created the
  Cominform

16
North Atlantic Treaty

• Remove Western European anxieties over the
  revival of Germany power and danger of
  pre-emptive moves by SU
• US and Britain 10 other nations forged the
  North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949 (created by
  Lester B. Pearson!)
• US, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark,
  Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg,
  France, Great Britain
• February 1952 Turkey and Greece joined
• Military alliance
• www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collection
  s/nato/large/index.php

17
North Atlantic Treaty

• "The Parties agree that an armed attack against
  one or more of them in Europe or North America
  shall be considered an attack against them all
  and consequently they agree that, if such an
  armed attack occurs, each of them...will assist
  the Party or Parties so attacked by taking...such
  action as it deems necessary, including the use
  of armed force, to restore and maintain the
  security of the North Atlantic area."
• Article 5

18
North Atlantic Treaty

• "In this pact we hope to create a shield against
  aggression and the fear of aggression--a bulwark
  which will permit us to get on with the real
  business of government and society, the business
  of achieving a fuller and happier life for all
  our citizens.
• Truman 1949

19
Cominform

• New organisation Communist Information Bureau
  (Cominform), September 1947
• Newspaper For Lasting Peace, for People's
  Democracy!
• Unity Eastern bloc under Soviet control
• Member parties
• Bulgarian Communist Party
• Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
• French Communist Party
• Hungarian Workers Party
• Communist Party of Italy
• Polish United Workers Party
• Romanian Workers Party
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Communist Party of Yugoslavia (expelled June 1948)

20
Molotov Plan and COMECON

• Trade agreements in Eastern Europe
• Equivalent of Marshall Plan, created 1947
• 1949 replaced by COMECON Council for Mutual
  Economic Assistance
• Maintains Soviet sphere influence
• Compared to the European Economic Community
• Military extension of COMECON was the Warsaw Pact

21
The Warsaw Pact

• Equivalent of NATO
• Also known as
• Warsaw Treaty Organisation
• Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual
  Assistance
• Created 1955
• Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
  Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union
• This related to US economic strength and
  technology, but also to developments in Germany