SGQ12, January 13, 2010

IBHL1 SGQ12

MWH p. 117-140

1. What were the effects of WWII?

a. evidence of enormous destruction?

About 40 million people were killed (over half being Russian), a further 21 million people had been uprooted from their homes, and large parts of Germany lay in ruins.

b. no all-inclusive peace settlement - what was there?

Italy lost her African colonies and Albania. The USSR took the eastern part of Czechoslovakia, the Petsamo district from Finaldn, and held onto Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.Romania recovered northern Transylvania, Trieste was declared a free territory protected by the United Nations, and Japan agreed to surrender all territory acquired in the previous 90 years.

c. examples social changes?

Millions of people had to move from their homes, the worst cases in areas taken from Germany by Russia and Poland, and the German-speaking areas in Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. 10 million Germans were forced to make their way to West Germany. In the USSR and Germany, extensive urban redevelopment took place to rebuild cities.

d. nuclear weapons - so what?

The first use of these weapons in Japan demonstrated how horrifying and destructive they were.

e. European domination of the world ended - why?

Germany was devastated and divided, France and Italy were on the verge of bankruptcy, and Britain, although with her colonies in tact, was also hurt economically.

f. emergence of the superpowers - who?

United States and the USSR, as they were now no longer isolated.

g. decolonization - what happened to the territories?

The territories eventually achieved full independence although not without a struggle in some cases. The leaders of many newly emerging nations met in Algiers in 1973 and made it clear that they wanted to remain neutral or non-aligned in the struggles of capitalism and communism.

h. the United Nations - so what?

The UN was a successor to the League of Nations. Its main aim was to try and maintain world peace.

2. What caused the Cold War?

a. what are the differences of principle?

The two principles were communist and liberal-democratic/capitalist. The communist system of society was based on the ideas of Karl Marx, while the capitalist system operates on the basis of private ownership of a country's wealth.

b. what were Stalin's foreign policies?

His aim was to take advantage of the military situation. He wanted to strengthen Russian influence in Europe, so he tried to occupy as much of Germany as he could and to acquire as much land as he could from countries like Finland, Poland, and Romania. The west was worried about communism spreading.

c. what were US and British policies?

President Roosevelt sent war materials to Russia under the Lend-Lease system dring the war, but Harry S. Truman (Roosevelt's successor) was more suspicious of communism and toughened his attitude toward the communists. Americans were also involved in the Vietnam War, which showed the prevalent American attitude toward communism.

3. How did the Cold War develop between 1945 and 1953?

a. what four things were agreed upon at the Yalta Conference?

i. The United Nations, a new organization, should be set up to replace the League of Nations that failed.

ii. Germany was to be divided into zones - Russian, American, and British, while Berlin would also be split into corresponding zones, with similar arrangements made for Austria.

iii. Free elections would be allowed in the states of eastern Europe.

iv. Russia would receive the whole of Sakhalin Island and some territory in Manchuria.

b. why were Germany and Poland the major concerns at the Potsdam Conference?

There was no agreement on when the four zones of Germany would be allowed to join together into one country again, and it was agreed that Germans should have to pay something toward the damage they had caused during the war. The main disagreement was over Poland and whether it not it was okay that Germany east of the Oder-Neisse Line was occupied by Russian troops and run by the pro-communist Polish government. This had not been agreed to at Yalta.

c. how was Communism established in eastern Europe?

The Russians interfered in eastern European countries and set up pro-communist governments, for example in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and Romania. Their opponents were sometimes imprisoned or murdered.

d. how did Russia exert its influence in eastern Europe?

Every state in the area had a fully communist government by the end of 1947 with the exception of Czechoslovakia. Elections were rigged, non-communist members of coalition were expelled, and all other political parties were dissolved making it easier for Russian influence to infiltrate the area.

e. what were the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan?

The Truman Doctrine made it clear that the United States was not returning to isolation as just after World War I and was committed to a policy of containing communism, not just in Europe but throughout the world including Korea and Vietnam.

The Marshall Plan offered economic and financial help wherever needed, and its aim was to promote the economic recovery of Europe, ensuring markets for American exports and to make sure that western Europe was prosperous enough that communism could not infiltrate it and gain support.

f. what was Cominform?

Communist Information Bureau - the Soviet response to the Marshall Plan. It was an organization meant to draw together the European communist parties. He wanted to tighten his grip on the satellites; communism wasn't enough, Russian style communism was what there needed to be in all communist states.

g. what happened to Czechoslovakia?

The communists took over it. There was a coalition government of communists and other left wing parties and the communists held 1/3 of the cabinet posts, and in 1948 when elections were due in May, the communists seized power in an armed coup and all non-communist ministers resigned. All the remaining candidates were communists.

h. what happened in Berlin?

Berlin blockade and airlift (June 1948-May 1949). The western zones of Germany were merged into a single economic unit, whose prosperity (thanks to the Marshall Aid) was contrasting to the poverty of the Russian zone. Stalin decided it would be safer for Russia to keep the Russian zone separate. All roads, rail, and canal links between West Berlin and West Germany were closed, and their aim was to force the west to withdraw by reducing it to starvation point. The Western powers flew supplies in.

i. what is NATO?

North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It formed in 1949 due to the Berlin blockade, which showed the West's military unreadiness and it frightened them into making definite preparations.

j. what happened to Germany?

There became West Germany, or the German Federal Republic, formed by the western powers in August of 1949. The Russians set up their zone as the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, in October of 1949.

h. what developed with nuclear weapons?

The arms race, between the USSR and the US.A hydrogen bomb was produced by the United States that would be many more times powerful than the atomic bomb.

4. To what extent was there a thaw after 1953?

a. why was there a thaw?

i. Stalin's death- It brought to the forefront new Russian leaders who wanted to improve relations with the United States, such as Malenkov, Bulganin, and Khrushchev.

ii. McCarthy was discredited. Anti-communist feelings spread by McCarthy were discredited when it was shown that McCarthy was something of a fanatic, and people saw he had gone too far when he began accusing leading generals as having communist sympathies.

b. how do we know there was a thaw?

i. The Korean War was ended upon the signing of the peace agreement at Panmunjom in July 1953

ii. The war in Indo-China ended in 1954

1. The Russians agreed to give up their military bases in Finland

2. They lifted their veto on the admission of 16 member states to the UN

3. The quarrel with Yugoslavia was healed when Khrushchev paid a visit to Tito

4. The Cominform was abandoned, suggesting more freedom for the satellite states

c. what evidence suggests only a partial thaw?

i. The Warsaw Pact was signed in 1955 between Russia and her satellite states after West Germany was admitted to NATO, and the west took this as a gesture against West Germany's membership in NATO.

ii. The Russians continued building their nuclear armaments.

iii. The situation in Berlin caused more tension

iv. Khrushchev installed Soviet missiles in Cuba

v. The Cuban Missile Crisis

5. The nuclear arms race and the Cuban missile crisis

a. how did the arms race accelerate?

The Russians produced their own atomic bomb. The Russians made a hydrogen bomb the year following the Americans did as well.

b. what happened in Cuba? how was it resolved?

Americans invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, with Cuban supporters of Batista, who was formerly in charge. The Americans lost at the Bay of Pigs and then Castro declared Cuba as a communist state.Eventually Khrushchev agreed to take the missiles out of Cuba if America promised not to invade again.

c. what happened to the arms race in the 1970s?

The Americans now had another threat - ballistic missiles which could be launched from submarines in the eastern Mediterranean. The Russians tried to catch up and they hoped they could get somewhere near the equality of the Americans. As America became involved in the Vietnam War more, they stopped making nuclear weapons and the Russians started to catch up, overtaking the US by the early 1970s.

d. how effective were anti-nuclear protests?
In Britain the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was not effective, because they wanted to have weapons in case the USSR attacked.