ORIGINS OF COLD WAR

• What are the 7 aspects of the Cold War?

  1. The changing system after WW2

  2. The origins of the Cold War

  3. The intensification of the Cold War

  4. The threat of nuclear confrontation

  5. Conventional military conflicts

  6. Diplomacy and detente

  7. Crises in the communist bloc and an end to the Cold War
• Roosevelt and Churchill objectives at Yalta

  1. Collective security founded on the UN

  2. Cooperation with USSR

  3. National self-determination, no spheres of influence

  4. Germany's reconstruction

  5. IMF and World Bank
• Stalin's objectives at Yalta

  1. USSR in control of its own destiny

  2. Cooperation with US and GB

  3. Spheres of influence

  4. Weak Germany

  5. Soviet economic reconstruction at Germany's expense
• Agreements at Yalta


  1. Germany divided

  2. Berlin divided

  3. UN formally ratified

  4. Poland moved

  5. Declaration on Liberated Europe
• Who was Stalin's foreign minister, and what did he believe about the Grand alliance?

  Vyacheslav Molotov - it was fundamentally anti-USSR
• When was the percentages agreement contrived?

  October 1944
• When was the Potsdam conference?

  17th July - 1st August 1945
• What decisions were made at Potsdam?

  1. germany disarmed and demilitarised, denazification, decentralisation, freedom of speech

  2. germany to become a single economic unit

  3. USSR 25% reparations
• What was different about Truman?

  He was not so naive - he viewed confrontation as the basis for relations with Stalin
• What did Truman do the day before Postdam?

  The Trinity test
• What did Stalin consider the USA's 'hidden agenda' in his note to Molotov?


  "to direct our attention from the Far East... take the future of Europe into its own hands... devalue the treaties of alliance that the USSR has already reached"
• What did Attlee want?

  The USA to be the primary defender of Western Europe and Western zones of Germany
• What were the five reasons for collapse of the Grand Alliance?

  1. Problems over Poland

  2. No long-term plan for Germany

  3. Ideological divisions

  4. US atomic monopoly

  5. US commitment to post-war liberal democracy
• What were the two governments of Poland?

  the pro-Stalin Lublin government and the 'London Poles' in exile
• What was the unified Polish government called?

  The Provisional Government of National Unity
• What did the PGNU demonstrate (Stalin's takeover methods)

  'pluralism' - the multitude of gradual approaches to takeover
• Who was the leader of Polish Peasant Party?

  Stanislaw Mikolajczyk
• When were the PPP and Communists forcibly merged?

  January 1947
• When was deputy PM Gomulka accused of 'nationalist deviation' for his belief that Poland had fought, so deserved their own independence?


  1948
• Who replaced Gomulka


  Boleslaw Beirut
• Who was the leader of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union?

  Nikola Petkov
• How much of the popular vote did Petkov win in October 1945?

  over 20%
• What happened to Gomulka?

  he was executed on trumped-up charges, and his party was absorbed into the Bulgarian communists.
• What was different about Czechoslovakia?


  Communism was already popular with the large, unionised working class due to industrialisation
• Who was the Czech (communist) Prime Minister, what did he do wrong, and who replaced him?

  Klement Gottwald, who showed interest in Western economic aid, much of his government resigned and Benes replaced him.
• When did Benes resign leaving Czechoslovakia under pro-Moscow control?

  June 1948
• When was Tito's Yugoslavia expelled from Cominform?

  June 1948
• When was Kennan's Long Telegram?

  22nd February 1946
• What was Kennan's rank in the US embassy in Moscow?

  the 'charge d'affaires
• What were the key points of the Long Telegram?

  The USA must be prepared to threaten the use of force and ensure unity among its allies.

  Urged USA to adopt a proactive role in Europe.
• What was the 'X' article calling for?

  Systematic and focused containment of USSR expansionism (which resonated with Truman)
• When was Novikov's idea that US policy was based on dependency and economic imperialism?

  September 1946
• When was the Iron Curtain speech?

  6th March 1946
• How did Stalin respond to the Iron curtain speech?

  Called him a 'firebrand of war', and compares him to Hitler
• What was the Paris Peace conference 1946?

  Drawing up peace trieaties for Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania
• When did Britain stop funding the Greek monarchists?

  February 1947
• When was the Truman Doctrine on Containment announced?

  12th March 1947
• What did the Truman doctrine say?

  We will support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities, or outside pressure
• Possible motives for the truman doctrine?

  -blunt diplomacy to keep USSR out of Greece

  -protect democracy, no aggressive intention

  -demonise the USSR in eyes of American public

  -Provoke USSR to start a Cold War, justifying US role as 'defender of freedom'

  -develop its global economic power
• Why were there growing tensions after Potsdam?

  -Gradual Sovietisation of Eastern Europe up to 1948

  -The Truman Doctrine

  -Iron Curtain speech

  -Kennan's Long Telegram

  -USSR creation of Cominform