Lesson: DBQ Final Exam Prep: Cold War Europe and Korea

Update Thur. night:

In Class: Download this document. Hand-write your answers to questions after the Europe and Korea sections. You will be allowed to use your hand-written notes on the final exam.

Consolidation in class of Europe and Korea sections; short intro to Cuba.


HW: Watch Cuba video below + read Cold War textbook packet pp. 11-24 (skim Arms Race, slow down for Cuba), collect evidence for which side was more blameworthy for the crisis from both film and DBQ). Bring Korea notes/timeline from last class as well.








See below the fold ("Read more...") for optional background on start of Cold War in Europe after WW II. Most of that info is in the doc linked above, so again, the stuff below is optional.

 

Key concepts: 
Communism
Capitalism
Two Definitions of Democracy:

• Electoral Democracy (Capitalist model)
• Peoples' Democracy (Communist model) 

Containment
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
COMINFORM
COMECON

Key Events: 

Effects of WW II:

• Russian deaths: 27 million. 
• UK and US deaths: 2/3 million 
• Soviets lost 40 times more lives than US and UK combined. 
• Hitler's invasion of the USSR destroyed the accomplishments of the '30s Five-Year Plans. The Soviet economy was in ruins.
• Stalin's counter-attack pushed Hitler back to Berlin--USSR liberated Eastern Europe from Nazis, now occupies it as an accomplished fact. 

Soviet Sphere of Influence agreed to at Yalta Conference

Post-War Agreements:
1. Yalta Conference, Feb. 1945:

• When Hitler's defeat was obvious, Stalin, Churchill, and FDR met in Tehran to arrange post-war Europe. Agreements: 
• Post-War Eastern Europe USSR Sphere of Influence: Balkans and Poland, Czech, Hungary in USSR hands.
• Agrees to coalition govt in Poland, democracy and free elections, etc.
• German joint allied governance (Soviets, Brits, French, Americans will rule together.)

• April 1945: USSR takes Berlin. Hitler is defeated. World War II in Europe is over. (Japan still fights in Asia.)
• US advances from Atlantic Coast, occupies Western Europe. They meet in central Europe. This is the seed of the Cold War.

The "Iron Curtain": Communist E. Europe after WW II

2.  Potsdam Conference: July 1945

• FDR has died. Truman is US President. Meets Stalin.
• Truman and Stalin can't agree on how to treat Germany after the war.
• Churchill defeated in British elections by a Leftist Labour Party candidate.
• US has secretly exploded its first A-bomb. Stalin knows this from spies. Truman hints he has a trump card.

August 1945: US drops A-bomb on Japan. WW II ends.

Which countries were most devastated by World War II?

Post-War America:
Americans come home: 300k died.
US no longer depression economy: war munitions pumped economy.
Full employment.
Auto industry surges.
US capitalism strong.

Post-War Russia:
Russians come home.
27 million died.
Russia in ruins.
Homelessness.
70k villages destroyed by Nazis, cities in rubble.
5-year Plans reversed.
Mass suffering.
  
Division of Germany.
USSR demanded and took reparations--seized German industrial plants, kidnapped German engineers and scientists.
Germany divided into four zones: American, British, French, and Russian. Berlin, the German capital, is in the Russian zone, but is open to all Allied forces.

 

Immediate Issues:

A. Greek Civil War: Communism Rising

• UK intervenes.
• Fears security of Suez Canal oil route.
• Stalin told Churchill he had no interest in Communist Greece; he stays out of conflict.
• UK supports pro-capitalist government.

B. Germany: Communism Rising 

• Berlin communists careful.
• Cooperate in the beginning, and gradually build up militancy and influence, then take over.
• Build up police.
• "It must look democratic, but we must have everything in our hands."
• "Brown was becoming Red overnight." (In other words, Communists seemed to follow Hitler's "Brownshirts" method of preparing to seize power.) 

C. Stalin Fears Encirclement 

• UK intervenes in Communist rebellion in Turkey, on USSR's border.
• Geopolitically vital to USSR: its Black Sea ports can be choked off from the Mediterranean at the Turkish Straights (the Dardanelles)
• 1946 elections: Stalin gives a speech warning that future wars are inevitable b/w capitalism and communism. 
• Interpreted by US as a prediction of WW 3.
• Russians meant Imperialism and Capitalism make war inevitable. (If you think about 19th Century Imperialism and the two World Wars of nationalism and imperial competition and conquest, that's not a crazy statement for Stalin to make. He's just saying Western capitalism will continue to do in the future what it's done since roughly 1800.)
• Stalin tightens dictatorship.

D. US and Britain React to Stalin's Speech: 

• Believe Stalin has plans for world conquest.
• Churchill visits Truman days later.
• Shows Truman "Iron Curtain" speech.
• Truman unsure US will approve of attacking WW2 ally.
• Churchill gives speech. Key quote:

"The Communist Party constitutes a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization…."

•  Stalin's response compares Churchill to Hitler.

 E. Iran Controversy

• USSR and UK jointly occupied Iran during the war.
• After the war, the British install Shah Reza Pahlavi as monarch.
• Britain and USSR were supposed to withdraw at the end of the war. 
• Now USSR didn't want to.
• USSR tries to force UN to approve its right to stay.
• Security Council stands its ground, denies Stalin's demand.
• Stalin walks out of U.N. in anger.
• Truman interprets it as Soviet expansionist ambitions.
• Orders list of Stalin's broken agreements.
• Truman State Department in-depth study reports:

"The USSR is a real menace to freedom in US and Europe, so we must prepare."

F. Atomic Escalation

• US tests two A-bombs in Bikini atoll. Arms race is on.

G. German Reparations Controversy

• Famine in USSR
• Famine in Germany
• Capitalist powers fear poverty will drive Germans to Communism.

"There's no choice between being a Communist on 1500 calories a day, and being a capitalist on 1000."

• Paris Foreign Minister Conference: 
• US proposes no more reparations payments for Germany.
• USSR demands Germany continue paying reparations.
• US, France, and UK agree to develop West Germany--the capitalist-controlled sections of Germany--regardless of Stalin's objections.

H. Collapse of British Economy: Withdrawal from Greece and Turkey Civil Wars

• UK economy weak. 
• Bread rationing "because we were pouring wheat into Germany to prevent mass starvation there."
• British have to pull military aid from Communist civil wars in Greece and Turkey.

I. Truman Announces the Truman Doctrine: The Cold War Escalates

• Truman speaks to US Congress : America must fill the vacuum left by exhausted Britain, fight to contain Communism to its current borders, and intervene in any countries where Communism has a chance to expand.
• This Containment policy is called the Truman Doctrine. It ends American isolationism permanently.
• Many see this as the moment that WORLD EMPIRE PASSED FROM ENGLAND TO THE UNITED STATES.