COLD WAR

• Grand Alliance


  Uneasy agreement between polar opposites only united in the goal of removing the Nazis
• Conferences to decide how the alliance would work together and what would happen after the war

  1. Tehran conference in 1943

  2. Yalta conference in 1945

  3. Potsdam conference in 1945
• Goals of the three nations at the conferences

  • USA wanted Stalin's support to defeat Japan
  • USSR wanted a second front in Western Europe
  • Britain wanted support in defeating Nazism and defending its empire
• USA and Britain agreed to invade Western Europe in 1944


  This would ease pressure on the USSR who were being invaded by the Nazis
• USSR agreed to support the USA in defeating the Japanese


  After the Nazis were defeated
• Germany to be split into four zones

  With the USSR, USA, Britain and France each having control of a zone
• Decisions made at the conferences

  1. Nazis to be prosecuted

  2. United Nations to be set up

  3. Free elections in the USSR

  4. Poland to act as a buffer zone for the USSR
• Roosevelt died and was replaced by Truman


  Truman disliked and distrusted Stalin
• USA dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan


  This shocked Stalin
• Decisions made at the Potsdam conference

  1. United Nations established with 5 permanent members and veto power

  2. Denazification of Germany

  3. Germany split into 4 zones

  4. Germany to pay reparations
• Stalin wanted to share occupation of Japan


  Truman refused
• The fragile alliance based only on defeating the Nazis fell apart as soon as the Nazis had fallen
• Cold War


  Period of tension between the USA and the USSR who became known as the superpowers
• Russian Revolution (1917)


  • Russian workers overthrew the tsar and set up a communist government
  • Aimed to create an equal classless society
  • All property taken by the state
  • No private companies or private land
  • Profits of all businesses for the good of all
  • Government controlled prices of goods
  • Prioritized needs of society over needs of individual
• Communism was based on the work of Karl Marx
• Communism under Stalin


  • Paranoia and arresting anyone who disagreed
  • Murdering up to 1.2 million people to purge opponents
  • Lack of political and press freedom
  • Only communist party allowed to stand for election
• Democratic capitalism


  • Private ownership and competition creates best prices and wages
  • Inequality of opportunity and education as wealth buys better schooling
  • Prioritizes rights of individual constrained by needs of society
• In practice in America only one of two parties were ever likely to be elected
• World War II alliance

  • USA, Britain and USSR (the Grand Alliance) united in opposition to Nazis
  • Relationship between Churchill and Stalin was abrasive
  • West feared communism spreading and Stalin's atrocities
  • Dispute over Poland's borders
• The USA and Britain felt threatened by communist governments and rich industrialists feared communism spreading to the working classes
• Superpower relations and the Cold War 1941 to 1991

  The relationship between the USA and USSR during this period
• Potsdam Conference


  1945
• On the second day of the Potsdam Conference, the USA dropped the first atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan
• Three days later, the USA dropped a second atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan
• The atomic bomb had the power of 12,000 tons of TNT and killed over 120,000 Japanese civilians
• The use of the atomic bomb

  Changed everything for the USA and the USSR
• Truman felt more confident in the Potsdam negotiations

  Hoped it would intimidate Stalin and ensure Stalin's cooperation with the USA
• Stalin's response to the atomic bomb

  He was afraid the USA would use the bomb to control communism, and was even more determined to create a buffer zone to protect the USSR
• Stalin had already ordered scientists in the USSR to begin developing their own atomic bomb
• The USSR tested their first successful atomic bomb on 29th August 1949
• The atomic bombs


  Escalated the mistrust and tensions between the USA and USSR
• The atomic bombs made both sides reluctant to enter into a hot war, and instead they entered into an arms race
• Britain was economically bankrupt from the war and the empire was collapsing, so they needed to focus on internal problems and did not want to get drawn into the tensions between the USA and USSR
• The bomb meant that Britain and other European nations felt more confident in placing themselves under the protection of the USA
• The Long Telegram


  Sent by George Kennan from the US embassy in Moscow in February 1946, giving his view of the Soviet Union and the relationship between the USA and USSR
• Kennan's view in the Long Telegram

  • He did not believe peace between the two nations was possible, saw the Soviet Union as aggressive and suspicious, and informed that the Soviet Union was building up their military
  • He thought the Soviet Union would back down if faced with strong opposition
• The content of the Long Telegram greatly influenced Truman's policies towards the Soviet Union
• The Novikov Telegram


  Sent by Nikolai Novikov, the Soviet ambassador in Washington, in September 1946, telling Stalin that the USA wanted to use military power to dominate the world and that the American people would support the USA starting a war with the USSR
• The Novikov Telegram convinced Stalin that he was right not to trust the West
• The atomic bombs


  Sped up the USSR's atomic program, allowing them to get their first bomb to work by the end of 1949