Topic 1: 1941-1958 origins of the cold war

• The grand alliance contained the USSR, the USA and Britain
• ideology refers to beliefs about how a country should be run
• capitalism and communism are two opposing ideologies
• USA and Western capitalist democracy:

  How to rule: people vote for who they want as leader, more than one party exists and leader can be voted out of power

  Human rights: free speech, right to protest, no government with interference with newspapers, people are only jailed after a fair trial

  Culture: artists are free to create whatever - even if critical

  Economy: rich individuals owned industries, people worked for personal profit
• Russia's communist dictatorship


  How to rule: rich must be removed from power and people must rule themselves, only one party (communist), leader of the party (general secretary) = extremely powerful

  Human rights: no free speech, no right to protest, newspapers controlled by the party, secret police spy on the public

  Culture: communist party decided all entertainment that was allowed (books and tv etc)

  Economy: communist party owned every industry on behalf of the people, people worked together for equal wages no personal profit
• the grand alliance was an unlikely alliance due to the oppsing views and ideologies on how they believed a country should be run
• Britain and USA were suspicious of Stalin (USSR), due to his previous alliance with Hitler
• the grand alliance was strong after the tehran conference because they had now disagreements over decisions
• after the yalta conference the grand alliance was fractured because the had a few minor disagreements
• after the Potsdam conference, the grand alliance was fractured because there will still minor disagreements and all on edge due to increasing tensions