history - origins of the Cold War

• what is a democracy

  governing by will of people. several political parties representing different sectors of society, governments chosen by democratic elections
• what is a dictatorship

  one person/party holds absolute power. one party state, no democratic elections and no opportunity to change the government by election
• what is capitalism

  based on private ownership.

  factories and land are privately owned and operated to make profit for an owner.

  people are free to set up private businesses and make money for themselves, individual rights and freedoms are important
• what is communism

  way of creating and sharing wealth. all businesses and factories are owned by the state, individual rights and freedoms are less important than obedience to the state. no private businesses/land. wealth is shared amongst the community
• who was the grand alliance, december 1941

  ussr, usa, britain
• who was in the alliance against the grand alliance. dec 1941

  japan, germany
• when was the yalta conference


  feb 1945
• who was at the yalta conference

  the big three- churchill, roosevelt, stalin
• what was the main objective at yalta?

  decide what to do with germany once it was defeated
• what did churchill want at yalta?

  maintain britain's global empire and prestige.

  withstand pressure form USA and USSR to end britain's empire
• what did roosevelt want, yalta

  ensure world peace after war finished, global free trade. ensure great depression did not happen again. wanted a united nations organisation for peacekeeping
• what did stalin want, yalta?

  guarantee soviet security against west. wanted sphere of influence (buffer zone) of communist countries in eastern europe for security
• when was the potsdam conference?

  july 1945
• who was at the potsdam conference?


  the NEW big three: clement attlee (replaced churchill), truman (replaced roosevelt) and stalin
• main objective, potsdam


  put into action the post war agreements at Yalta
• what does the PEER acronym stand for (main points of the 2 conferences)

  P: people. E: elections, E: europe, R:reparations
• what is the 'people' in peer


  the people that attended the meeting. (leaders of britain and america changed. big three relationship/dynamic changed)
• what is 'europe' in peer

  the plans for post war europe in particular germany. Y- germany to be divided into 4 zones for each country. berlin also divided. P- arguments over where the boundaries of zones would be drawn
• what is 'elections' in peer

  Y- stalin wanted a sphere of influence but would allow countries to have free elections to choose their own gov. P- stalin did not allow free elections and wanted communist countries as his sphere of influence
• what is 'reparations' in peer?

  Y- ussr allowed to take reparations from germany. P- arguments about how much they should be allowed to take. they could take what they wanted from soviet controlled zone and 10% from western zones.
• when was the atomic bombing of japan

  6 aug 1945
• what city was the atomic bomb dropped on (1st bomb dropped on japan)


  hiroshima
• how much land did the bomb destroy

  5 square miles. destroyed more than 60% of city's buildings
• how many people were killed by the hiroshima bombing?(around)

  140,000
• where and when was the 2nd bomb dropped on japan?

  Nagasaki, 3 days later (august 1945)
• how many people were killed by the nagasaki bombing? (around)

  74,000
• why did stalin want to expand a sphere of influence into Europe?

  he feared that eastern europe could be the doorway for an attack on the ussr by the west
• when was the long telegram?

  1946
• what was the long telegram about?

  a summary of what the soviets were up to and their intentions in eastern europe
• why was it called the long telegram?

  it was 8,000 words
• what did the long telegram say about the USSR?

  said the ussr was heavily armed and feared the world/invasion. determined to spread communism therefore there could be no peaceful co existence between the USSR and the USA. however the USA was stronger than the USSR so communism could be contained.
• what was the Novikov telegram?

  the soviet response to the long telegram
• what did the novikov telegram say?

  that the usa had emerged from world war two economically strong and bent on world domination. as a result the ussr needed to secure its buffer zone in eastern europe.
• what policy did the usa commit to at the time of the telegrams?

  containment. stopping spread of communism into western europe. they rejected rollback policy at this time (wouldve been more aggressive, confrontational)
• what did ussr commit to at time of telegrams?

  wanted to dominate eastern europe and spread communism where possible
• when was the iron curtain speech?


  5 march 1946
• who did the iron curtain speech?

  winston churchill
• what did churchill say in the iron curtain speech?

  condemned soviet expansion

  summary: churchill said that the allies had spent six years fighting for the freedom from fascism in Europe but now half the continent was under Soviet control
• when was the truman doctrine?


  march 1947
• whowas the truman doctrine spoken to?

  american congress (by truman)