Berlin crisis/Arms race/Eastern Europe

• Berlin Blockade


  Stalin's attempt to force the West to withdraw from West Berlin, leading to the Berlin Airlift to supply the city
• The Berlin crisis led to the division of Germany into West Germany and East Germany
• Formation of NATO


  The Western military alliance in response to the Berlin crisis and the perceived threat from the USSR
• Formation of the Warsaw Pact


  The USSR's military alliance with its satellite states in Eastern Europe, to rival NATO
• The Cold War led to an arms race between the USA and USSR, as each side tried to gain a military advantage over the other
• Warsaw Pact


  Rival to NATO
• Members of the Warsaw Pact

  • All the USSR's satellite states (except Yugoslavia)
• Aims of the Warsaw Pact

  • Improve the defensive capability of Eastern Europe
  • Strengthen relations
• There were now two power blocs in Europe-NATO and the Warsaw Pact
• The Origins of the Cold War

  1941-58
• Arms Race


  The USA and the USSR tried to gain an advantage by forming military alliances and developing ever more powerful weapons
• Neither side really wanted to use these weapons, but both felt the other couldn't be allowed to gain an advantage
• A stand-off developed where both countries didn't dare act against the other but didn't dare get "left behind', either
• Nuclear Stockpiles


  The USA and the USSR developed large stockpiles of nuclear weapons
• Nuclear weapons developed


  • The USA detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945
  • The USA detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952
  • The USSR successfully tested the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) in 1957
• The arms race was also fuelled by the fear and suspicion created by other events like the formation of NATO in 1949 and the treaty of alliance between communist China and the USSR in 1950
• By this point, the USSR and the USA had the power to destroy each other multiple times over
• Khrushchev's policy of 'Peaceful Co-existence'


  Khrushchev said he wanted 'peaceful co-existence' with the West, but he remained very competitive with the USA and wanted communism to spread
• Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinisation and giving satellite states more political and economic freedom allowed tensions in the Eastern Bloc to surface
• The USSR used the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 to assert its authority over the satellite states and destroy any illusions of a 'thaw' in the Cold War
• The West's lack of intervention in Hungary discredited their reputation as defenders of democracy
• The 1950s saw more communication between the two superpowers, but underlying tensions remained