UNIT 11: THE COLD WAR 4th ESO
ISABEL GARCÍA-VELASCO teachermsisabel.com
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO STUDY IN THIS UNIT? 1. Definition of Cold War 2. The origins. 3. A world of blocks. Main conflicts. 4. Decolonisation.
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Hello! We will start the study of this unit with the end of WWII and the deďŹ nition of the term Cold War. 4
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DEFINITION OF COLD WAR.
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The alliance formed between the capitalist and the communist countries, that led to the defeat of the European fascism and the Japanese expansionism was broken at the end of the war, leading to a new period known as Cold war.
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This concept designates the rivalry that confronted the United States and the Soviet Union and its respective allies after the Second World War. The confrontation between these two blocks took place in different fronts, such as political or economical , but was very limited on the military front. It was not an open war between USA and the USSR, but between their allies. 6
2. THE ORIGINS
2.1 YALTA AND POTSDAM: The allies soon realized that there will be conflicts after war, the huge differences between communism and capitalism was a gap that they could not overcome. The allies met in Yalta (February 4th – 11th 1945), before the end of the war, remember that Germany surrendered in May. In this meeting Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin decided what would happen at the end of the war. Topics discussed included: ✗ Partitioning of Germany ✗ Fate of Poland ✗ The United Nations ✗ German reparations
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Potsdam Conference (July 17th – August 2nd 1945) The Potsdam Conference formally divided Germany and Austria into four zones. It was also agreed that the German capital, Berlin, would be divided into four zones. The Russian Polish border was determined and Korea was to be divided into Soviet and American zones.
2.2 THE UNITED NATIONS In october the UN were created to avoid future conicts, promoting cooperation and peace between the states. Representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter.
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3. A WORLD OF BLOCKS Main conflicts
3.1. IRON CURTAIN
Free election in Eastern Europe were not allowed by the USSR, it made sure that all these countries were loyal and had communist governments. Meanwhile USA supported Western Europe, giving aids to the capitalists countries to rebuild their economies with the Marshall Plan, avoiding by this way that these countries became communists. In one of the most famous speeches of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares:
“(...) an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War.
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3.2 THE BERLIN BLOCKADE After WWII, bot Germany and its capital, Berlin, were divided in parts, one controlled by the Soviet Union and the other three by France, Great Britain and The United States. The capitalists countries join forces, in 1948 introduced a new currency to help to recover the economy of the country, Stalin, who was worried about a powerful Western Germany ordered a blockade to Berlin that lasted almost one year, cutting of roads and rails. The United States and Britain supplied Berlin by air, this is called the Berlin Airlift.
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The area controlled by the capitalists received a new name, The Federal Republic of Germany or Western Germany, while Eastern Germany, controlled by the communists became the Democratic Republic of Germany. In 1949 the NATO (OTAN in Spanish) North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to protect Western Europe from an invasion from URSS. As a response the Soviet Union created a similar organization, the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
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The Warsaw Pact was formed with member states East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union.
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3.3 THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION: After World War II, Hungary was occupied by the Red Army. Hungary began the postwar period as a multiparty free democracy. In 1945 the Soviets forced the freely elected Hungarian government to yield the Interior Ministry to the Hungarian Communist Party.
On March 5, 1953, Josef Stalin died, ushering in a period of moderate liberalization during which most European communist parties developed a reform wing. On May 14, 1955, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact, binding Hungary to the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe.
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In 1955 the Austrian State Treaty established Austria as a demilitarized and neutral country, this raised Hungarian hopes of also becoming neutral. On November 1, 1956, the prime Minister, Nagy, declared Hungarian neutrality and appealed to the United Nations for support, but Western powers didn't want a global confrontation. On November 4 the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to stop the revolution, and Nagy was executed for treason in 1958.
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3.4 THE BERLIN WALL By 1961, over 2.5 million people, had abandoned East Berlin, escaping from the communist regime. To stop that exodus, The USSR, built a wall that divided East and West Berlin. The wall, that fell in november of 1991, was heavily protected and anyone who tried to cross it was shot.
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3.5 THE ARMS RACE During WWII the Manhattan project designed the first atomic bomb tested in New Mexico at a site called "Trinity". The atomic bomb had two objectives: a quick end of World War II and the control of foreign policy. In 1947 President Truman authorized U.S. aid (The Truman Doctrine) to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Turkey. The policy was expanded to justify support for any nation that the U.S. government considered to be threatened by Soviet expansionism. Containment quickly became the official U.S. policy towards the USSR. Meanwhile, the Russians obtained top-secret blueprints of the original Trinity design. On August 29th, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in Kazakhstan. This event ends American monopoly of atomic weaponry. In the 1950s, The Arms Race became the focus of the Cold War. America tested the first Hydrogen bomb in 1952, beating the Russians in the creation of the "Super Bomb". 19
3.6 THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS In 1950s, Cuba was rule by the dictator Batista, who received ďŹ nancial, military, and logistical support from the United States. In 1959, Fidel Castro, overthrew Batista and established a communist state, becoming an allied of the Soviet Union.
In 1961, the United States trained anti-communist rebels and helped them to invade Cuba at BahĂa de Cochinos. The rebels were defeated by Castro what supposed a humiliating beat for USA. After that, Cuba ask Khrushchev for aid and in 1962, the Americans discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba.
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The challenge was to orchestrate their removal without initiating a wider conict and possibly a nuclear war. Deliberations lasted for nearly a week, they came up with a variety of options, including a bombing attack on the missile sites and a full-scale invasion of Cuba. But John and Bobby Kennedy ultimately decided on a more measured approach. First, they would employ the U.S. Navy to establish a blockade of Cuba to prevent the Soviets from delivering additional missiles and military equipment. Second, USA would deliver an ultimatum that the existing missiles be removed.
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Despite the tension, Soviet and American leaders had exchanged letters and other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders, not to invade Cuba. The following day, the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey. Officially, the Kennedy administration decided to accept the terms of the ďŹ rst message and ignore the second Khrushchev letter. Privately, however, American officials also agreed to withdraw their nation’s missiles from Turkey. Robert Kennedy personally delivered the message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, and on October 28, the crisis drew to a close.
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4. DECOLONISATION
4.1 DECOLONISATION It is the process of independence of the colonies. It took place between the WWII and the 1970’s. The Allies agreed in the right of nations of self-determination. Most of the Asian colonies became independent during the 1940’s and 1950’s while the African colonies became independent during the 1960’s. Decolonisation provoked many conflicts and wars, in part because the colonial powers wanted to keep some colonies.
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Some of the countries resulted into dictatorships and in some of them the white people took control, creating apartheids and the situation of natives barely improved. Apartheid: The term comes from the Dutch, the word "heid" means "hood". It was a racist political policy demanding segregation of the nation's white and non-white populations. During South African apartheid, more than 3 million black citizens were forced to move from their homes to segregated neighborhoods. The law of apartheid came into being with the South African election in 1948. The system was ended in 1993. 27
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4.2 INDIA In 1919 the British army killed hundreds of peaceful Indian protestors, what improved the opposition to the British control of the country. Gandhi led a non-cooperation movement that refused to obey the British. In 1935 Indians controlled all the aspects of government except for the foreign policy. In 1947, India was divided in two countries, Pakistan and India.
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4.3 VIETNAM During the 19th century, France took control of French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) but during WWII it was occupied by Japan. China, the Soviet Union and the US, helped the League for the Independence or Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh to start a rebellion against the Japanese, declaring the independence of Vietnam after WWII. However, France wanted to regain control and the war lasted for many years, until the Treaty of Geneva in 1954 that divided the country in two parts along the 17th parallel: ✗ the North, a communist state, ruled by Ho Chi Minh with the support of China and the Soviet Union. ✗ the South, a pro-western state, supported by USA.
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The North tried to occupied the south with guerrillas (known as Viet Cong) and by 1963 the controlled most of the rural areas. In 1965, USA, worried about the communist contagion (Domino theory), declared war on North Vietnam. Due to incidents such as the My Lai massacre, in which the American soldiers killed 500 civilians, including children, women and old people, the war became very unpopular in USA and the american forces withdraw its soldiers. In 1975 Northern troops took the capital, Saigon and the whole country was united in 1976 as a communist state and Hanoi became its capital.
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That’s the end of this unit!
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