01:360:401 Lecture 30: Chapter 30
21 May 2018
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Chapter 30: Cold War Conflicts and
Social Transformations, 1945-1985
1. The Division of Europe
1. The Origins of the Cold War
1. The Soviet Union and the United States began to quarrel as soon
as the threat of Germany disappeared and hostility between the
Eastern and Western superpowers was a logical outgrowth of
military developments, wartime agreements, and long-standing
differences
2. The Americans and British had made military victory their highest
priority and avoided discussion of Stalin’s war aims and shape of
the eventual peace settlement
1. The United States and Britain did not try to take advantage of
the Soviet Union’s position in 1942, because they feared that
bargaining would encourage Stalin to consider making
separate peace with Hitler (focused on unconditional
surrender)
2. The conference that Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill held in
the Iranian capital of Teheran in November 1943 proved of
crucial importance in determining events; the Big Three had
reaffirmed determination to crush Germany and searched for
military strategy
3. Churchill fearing military dangers of a direct attack, argued
that American and British forces should follow up their Italian
campaign with an indirect attack on Germany through the
Balkans but Roosevelt agreed with Stalin that an American-
British frontal assault through France would be better
(Roosevelt decides to appease Stalin)
4. This meant that the Soviet and the American-British armies
would come together in defeated Germany along a north-
south line and that only Soviet troops would liberate eastern
Europe (basic shape of postwar Europe was emerging
already)
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3. When the Big Three met again in February 1945 at Yalta on the
Black Sea in southern Russia, the Red Army had occupied
Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, part of Yugoslavia, and
much of Czechoslovakia while the American-British forces had yet
to cross the Rhine into Germany; on the other hand, United States
was far from defeating Japan
1. After Yalta Germany was to be divided into zones of
occupation and pay big reparations to Soviet Union and at
American insistence, Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan
2. Eastern European governments were to be freely elected but
pro-Russian
3. The Yalta compromise over eastern Europe broke down
almost immediately and before the Yalta Conference, Bulgaria
and Poland were controlled by communists
4. Elsewhere, pro-Soviet coalition governments of several
parties were formed, but the key ministerial posts were
reserved for Moscow-trained communists
4.
5. At the postwar Potsdam Conference of July 1945, the differences
over eastern Europe finally appeared; Roosevelt had died and
been succeeded by the more determined President Truman, who
demanded free elections throughout eastern Europe; but Stalin
refused point-blank
6. The key to the much-debated origins of the cold war was this
conflict between countries
1. American ideals, after uniting against Hitler, and American
politics, influenced by millions of votes from eastern Europe,
demanded free elections in the East
2. Stalin wanted absolute military security from Germany &
potential Eastern allies
3. Stalin believed that only communists states could be truly
dependable allies and realized elections would result in
independent governments on his western border
2. West Versus East
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1. The American response to Stalin’s conception of security was the
get tough
1. In May 1945, Truman cut off all aid to the U.S.S.R. and in
October he declared that the United States would not
recognize any government established by force
2. In March 1946, former British prime minister Churchill
ominously informed an American audience that an iron
curtain had fallen across the continent
2. Emotional, moralistic denunciations of Stalin and communist
Russia emerged as part of American political life yet the United
States also responded to the popular desire to bring the boys
home and demobilized its troops with great speed
3. Stalin’s agents reheated the ideological struggle against capitalist
imperialism
4. The large, well-organized Communist parties of France and Italy
started to uncover American plots to take over Europe and
challenged own governments
1. The Soviet Union put pressure on Iran, Turkey, and Greece,
while civil war raged in China; by 1947, Stalin appeared to be
exporting communism by subversion
2. The United States responded to this challenge with the
Truman Doctrine, which was aimed at containing
communism to areas already occupied by the Red Army; to
begin, Truman asked Congress for military aid to Greece and
Turkey, countries that Britain could not protect
3. In June, Secretary of State George Marshall offered Europe
economic aidthe Marshall Planto help much of Europe
rebuild from the war to protect themselves from the U.S.S.R.
5. Stalin refused Marshall Plan assistance for all of eastern Europe
and purged the last remaining noncommunist elements from the
coalition governments of eastern Europe
1. The seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in February of 1948
was antidemocratic and it greatly strengthened Western fears
of limitless communist expansion
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