CW develops

• The Warsaw Pact was established to counter the military threat from NATO.
• In response to the spread of Soviet control in Eastern Europe, the USA stepped up its involvement in Europe, and the Soviet Union was determined to defend itself against any threats from the West.
• The USA was determined to stop the spread of communism, and the Soviet Union was determined to defend itself against Western attack.
• Europe was the centre of this ideological ‘battleground’.
• The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan thus increased tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
• Truman’s concerns included that Europe was devastated after the war, with many people having no money, no jobs and feeling hopeless.
• Many in Eastern Europe had been liberated from Nazi rule by the Soviets.
• Some governments, such as Greece and Turkey, were too poor to combat communist revolutions in their own countries.
• Countries like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria had already had communist governments forced on them and Truman feared this could happen in other countries too.
• If Greece and Turkey became communist, then other countries across Europe and the Middle East would follow, known as the Domino Theory.
• In a speech in 1947, US President Truman set out why the USA should get involved, stating that countries faced a choice between either capitalism or communism, and that communism was bad because it meant people could not be free.
• The USA must try to contain the spread of communism.
• The Marshall Plan, about $13 billion from the USA, was set up to help rebuild Europe.
• Communism appealed most to people with nothing to lose, so the Marshall Plan hoped to stop communism by giving people a stake in the capitalist system.
• Sixteen Western European countries, including Britain, France and West Germany, took the money from the Marshall Plan.
• The Truman Doctrine was all about stopping the spread of communism.
• The establishment of NATO in Western Europe matched the setting up of Cominform and Comecon in Eastern Europe.
• Cominform stood for the Communist Information Bureau, organising all the communist parties in Europe and arranging their leadership so they would do what Moscow told them to.
• It encouraged communist parties in Western countries to block Marshall Plan assistance.
• Comecon stood for the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, an alternative to the Marshall Plan, building up trade links between Comecon countries and preventing Comecon countries signing up to the Marshall Plan.
• Europe was now divided into two spheres of influence: Western Europe (capitalist and pro-American) and Eastern Europe (communist and pro-Soviet).
• The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan increased tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
• The Warsaw Pact was established to counter the military strength of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
• Europe was the centre of the ideological battleground between the USA and the Soviet Union.
• The Truman Doctrine stated that countries faced a choice between capitalism or communism, and that communism was bad because it meant people could not be free.
• The USA must try to contain the spread of communism.
• The USA should provide money and troops to help free governments to combat communist takeovers.
• The Marshall Plan provided about $13 billion from the USA to help rebuild Europe.
• Communism appealed most to people with nothing to lose, so the Marshall Plan hoped to stop communism by giving people a stake in the capitalist system.
• Countries must trade with the USA to get the money from the Marshall Plan.
• The Soviet Union criticised the Marshall Plan as an attack on them because it threatened communist control in Eastern Europe.
• The Truman Doctrine was all about stopping the spread of communism.
• The USA was prepared to use both military and economic methods to prevent the spread of communism.
• The United States, Britain and France were given Western Germany and West Berlin.
• There were now two military alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, facing each other across the Iron Curtain.
• The Allies were unable to agree about Germany’s future after World War II, leading to a short-term solution, agreed at Potsdam in July 1945, to divide the country and its capital, Berlin, into zones of military occupation.
• The significance of NATO showed that, after the Berlin Blockade and the Soviet Union’s own development of the atomic bomb, neither the United States nor Western European governments were prepared to accept future Soviet aggression.
• West Berlin couldn’t last for many days without supplies, and it looked like the Western powers would have to pull out of Berlin, which would undermine the USA’s image.
• NATO was directed against a possible military attack from the Soviet Union on Western Europe.
• The Berlin Airlift made the USA appear peaceful and generous.