Aspects of International Relations, 1919-2005
Section C: A New World? 1948-2005
The ‘We can crack it!’ guide to the essentials
The questions on the exam paper
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It COULD be the compulsory source 2-part question
It COULD be one of the optional 3-part questions: describe – explain – evaluate
The Cold War in a nutshell
Good news! You don’t need to explain how the Cold War happened or what happened in it.
You just need to know a bit about it in general so you can understand…
How secure was the USSR’s control over eastern Europe, 1948-9?
So, the basics...
The Cold War 1948-1989 was a time of tension and rivalry between two superpowers (USA
and USSR). They competed over everything. These cartoons try to put across the general
idea…
They competed over space, nuclear weapons, Olympic sport, technology….
EVERYTHING!
Key terms
USSR / Soviet Union
USA
Cold War
superpower
capitalist
communist
democracy
dictatorship
buffer zone
Iron Curtain
Berlin Wall
NATO
Warsaw Pact
Comecon
Cominform
Definition
Existed from 1917 until 1991. A communist state which was one of
the superpower rivals in the Cold War. Russia was the biggest part of
it. Its capital was Moscow.
The other Cold War superpower
The state of tension and rivalry that existed between the USSR and
the USA between 1948-1989. They never directly went to war with
each other, but they got close at times. One superpower was always
looking for ways to make things difficult for the other superpower.
A country which is very big and powerful. It usually has other
countries as allies who follow it / depend on it. In the Cold War there
were two superpowers.
The economic system in the USA and western Europe. Businesses
can be privately owned and are free to make profit.
The economic system in the USSR, and eastern Europe until 1989.
The government owned business and industry and all profits were
meant to be shared for the good of everyone.
The political system in the USA and western Europe. Elections are
held regularly and citizens have a free vote to choose the
government. The media is free to criticise the government.
The political system in the USSR, and eastern Europe until 1989. If
there were elections there was no choice but to elect the same
communist government. The media was not allowed to criticise the
government
The name given to eastern Europe between 1945-1989. After WW2
the USSR was frightened of further invasions and decided to make
sure that it could control the governments of the countries of eastern
Europe. This meant there was a ‘buffer’ of friendly countries
between the USSR and western Europe
The name given to the border between east and west Europe
between 1948 and 1989. It was heavily defended and you could be
shot for crossing it without permission
The Wall that divided the city of Berlin between 1961 and 1989.
Berlin and the Wall became the symbols of the Cold War division of
Europe.
The military alliance led by the USA and hostile to the Warsaw Pact
The military alliance led by the USSR and hostile to NATO
A trading council to make eastern European countries trade with
each other and the USSR rather than the West. The USSR did well
out of it e.g. coal at one tenth of the market price
Set up in 1947 it made sure that the communist governments of
Eastern Europe knew what the USSR wanted them to do
Europe 1948-1989
Key point: in 1945 many people in eastern Europe did think that communism might bring
them security and freedom from poverty. They did not expect their freedom of speech to
end and travel to be forbidden. They did not expect the factories in their country to be used
to produce goods for the Soviet Union rather than for them. They did not expect their wages
to be lower than in the west of Europe. Yet this had happened by 1955. Shortages became
part of life and protesting was not allowed.
Eastern European governments between 1948-1989 are often called ‘puppet
governments…
The USSR was
like the puppet
master
The eastern
European
governments were
like the puppets
Relevant Soviet leaders
To 1953
1955-1964
1964-1982
(1982-1985
1985-1991
Stalin
Khrushchev (it took 2 years for him to emerge as leader after Stalin’s death)
Brezhnev
Two old leaders called Andropov and Chernenko)
Gorbachev
Other leaders
Can you remember who each one was and what they did?
Alexander Dubček
Erno Gerö
Erich Honecker
General Jaruzelski
Helmut Kohl
Mátyás Rákosi
Lech Walesa
Dwight Eisenhower
Wladyslaw Gomulka
Vaclav Havel
John F Kennedy
Imre Nagy
Ronald Reagan
Eastern Europe 1945-48 key points
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In 1945 eastern Europe was in chaos as WW2 ended
It was occupied by the Soviet Red Army
Stalin was keen to establish a buffer zone
Soviet troops were stationed in East European countries to restore law and order
Stalin helped communist leaders take power in Eastern European countries
They had to be communist leaders he approved of
These countries followed the ideas of the USSR to rebuild their shattered economies
– communism
Comecon made sure these countries traded with the USSR
The Red Army was used in these countries if anyone protested
Khrushchev – a new hope?
Revision tip!
Think up a phrase to sum up Khrushchev
that helps you to remember about him
Example: ‘Seemed nice on the phone but
kept the buffer zone!’
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Stalin has been a hard and cruel ruler
Khrushchev came to power and talked of living in peace with other countries
He planned to reduce spending on weapons
He attended a summit meeting with the USA, France and Britain in 1955
He closed Cominform
He released political prisoners
He removed the Red Army from Austria
HE EVEN MADE A SECRET SPEECH TO THE SOVIET COMMUNIST PARTY SAYING
STALIN HAD BEEN A WICKED MAN AND CRUEL TO THE PEOPLE!
Would he let eastern European countries have more control over their own futures?
BUT, Khrushchev was a Soviet leader and he believed the buffer zone was
crucial to the Soviet Union’s security. He even set up the Warsaw Pact in
1955. It included all the countries in eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia) and
was a military alliance to rival NATO.
Poland 1956
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The first test of how far Khrushchev would let a country in eastern Europe change
Summer 1956 Polish demonstrators attacked Polish police because the price of food
was rising. The army killed some demonstrators, but the Polish government seemed
to be losing control
Khrushchev moved Soviet troops up to the Polish border
By October a new moderate communist Polish leader called Gomulka took power
and things calmed down. He had not supported Stalin
Khrushchev accepted Gomulka’s appointment and withdrew the Red Army from the
border
The Roman Catholic church was also allowed more freedom
The Hungarian Revolt of 1956
Why did Hungarians revolt in 1956?
 Hungary was led by a Stalin-style communist
leader called Rákosi – he was hated
 People resented not being able to speak
freely and feared the secret police
 They hated 1000s of Soviet troops and officials being based in Hungary
 In June 1956 a group within the Hungarian communist party appointed a man called
Gerö. Moscow would not help Rákosi
 But the Hungarian people hated Gerö too
 23 October 1956 there was a huge student demonstration and Stalin’s statue in
Budapest was torn down
 The USSR allowed the Hungarian communist Imre Nagy to take power
 Soviet troops began to withdraw from Hungary
 Hungarians kept demonstrating and Hungarian troops supported the rebels
 Nagy planned free elections, impartial courts, privately owned farms and he wanted
all Soviet troops out of the country
 He also wanted Hungary to leave the Warsaw Pact
 He hoped the new US President, Eisenhower, would support Hungary’s plans
How did the Soviets respond?
 At first Khrushchev seemed to accept the changes
 However, he could not accept Hungary’s leaving the Warsaw Pact
 In November 1956 1000s of Soviet troops with tanks were sent back into Hungary
and there was two weeks of fighting
 There were probably about 3000 Hungarians and 7-8000 Soviets killed. About
200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria
 Imre Nagy was imprisoned and executed
 The Western Powers protested, but did not send help, they were focusing upon the
Suez Crisis in the Middle East
 All resistance was crushed, although some reforms were granted
 Hungary stayed in the Warsaw Pact
Historians disagree!
 Does the speed at which the Red Army crushed the revolt show how powerful the
USSR was in Hungary?
 Or doe the severity of the way the Red Army dealt with Hungary show how weak
their control of Hungary was unless they used force?
Revision tip!
Why not turn this story into a cartoon strip with
simple pictures and words?
Revision tip!
The Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, 1968
Why not write a neumonic to remember
the key events. The start of each sentence
should be a letter which when read
downwards makes a word. You can then
remember the word – and the events.
Why did revolt happen in Czechoslovakia in 1968?
NB: this is a generation later than the revolt in Hungary
 Czechoslovaks hated Soviet control
 In the middle of the 1960s the economy began to get worse
 The Czechoslovak communist party replace the old Stalinist leader with Alexander
Dubček
 He proposed ‘communism with a human face’: more freedom of speech and less
censorship
 He was a committed communist and reassured the Soviet leader Brezhnev that her
wanted to stay in the Warsaw Pact
 Opposition groups used the new freedoms to criticise the government – the ‘Prague
Spring’
 There was talk in Czechoslovakia of allowing more political parties of exist freely
How did the Soviets respond?
 Brezhnev was suspicious
 Czechoslovakia was important to them and they were worried these ideas could
spread to other eastern European countries (so were some of the leaders of these
countries!)
 The USSR tried to tell Dubček to slow down.
 Then USSR, Polish and East German troops did training exercises near the border
 Dubček agreed not to have other political parties and tension seemed to ease
 Then without warning the Soviets and other eastern European countries attacked on
20 August 1968
 There was little resistance, but a lack of cooperation
 Dubček was removed from power
 There was despair and reformist communism was silenced across eastern Europe
The small girl is
Czechoslovakia. The man at
the front is Brezhnev leading
other European leaders.
What is the key message of
this political cartoon?
The Brezhnev Doctrine
After 1968 it became clear that the Soviet Union required two key things of the countries of
Eastern Europe:
 That they should have a one-party system
 That they should remain in the Warsaw Pact
This became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
The Berlin Wall
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Berlin was divided between the USSR, France, Britain and the USA in 1945
East Berlin was the capital of East Germany and West Berlin was an ‘island of
capitalism’ in the East which had to be accessed by road or rail or air from the West
Until 1961 people could walk from the East into the West via Berlin
Many citizens of East Germany were doing this each year and it was very
embarrassing for the East German government. How could they say their country
was better than West Germany when so many of their people kept leaving?
It was the young and the most skilled people who were leaving
Why did people want to leave?
 People in the West had more freedom
 Living standards in the East were falling
 In 1956 the Hungarian Uprising had dashed hopes of reformed communism
 West Berlin was deliberately made to look like a paradise on earth of choice and
modern things
The East German government was embarrassed and wanted to control its people. The USSR
wanted the West out of Berlin and Khrushchev thought he could bully the new President of
the USA – John F Kennedy.
The result = 2 AM Sunday 13 August 1961 East German soldiers put up a barbed wire fence
between East and West Berlin. It was soon replaced by a Wall and all free movement
between the two sides was stopped.
Revision tip!
The result of the Berlin Wall going up
Why not daw a Wall and write your revision notes
over the Wall you’ve drawn?
For Berliners this was a tragedy which divided the city and ruined lives.
The first few months were very tense. Diplomats from the West kept exercising their rights
to travel into East Berlin to see how the USSR would react. On 27 October 1961 the Soviets
rolled tanks towards Checkpoint Charlie (the open crossing point). The US rolled up tanks
too and there was a tense stand-off for 18 hours until the tanks rolled back.
Actually the Wall reduced the tension in Berlin. East Germany was stabilised and Kennedy
said ‘It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war’
So, the Wall stayed and became the SYMBOL of the divided Europe of the Cold War period.
The East German government called it a protective wall. The West German government
called it a prison wall.
Superpower relations 1970-85
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The first half is known as ‘the period of détente’. The USA and Soviets reduced
weapons and talked
From 1979 things got worse again. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and got closer
to USA’s oil supplies in the Middle East. The USA began building more and newer
nuclear weapons again
How can you tell this is an
American cartoon?
Solidarity in Poland
Revision tip!
Why not summarise all the points onto pieces of paper and get out
the blu-tak? Stick them to a wall. One day stick them on in
chronological order, another day by the themes of government
actions and solidarity’s actions etc.
What happened first?
 Protests in Poland happened often but about wages and food rather than politics
 In the first half of the 1970s Polish industry did well. In the second half the economy
hit crisis
 In July 1980 the government increased the price of meat and in August 1980 workers
at the Gdansk shipyard (a very important part of the Polish economy) put 21 demans
to the government
 These included: free trade unions and the right to strike. They started their own free
trade union called Solidarity
 At the end of August the government agreed to all 21 demands
 By October 7 million Poles were members nd January over 9 million – 1/3 of all
Polish workers
Why did the government agree to Solidarity’s demands?
 The government needed shipbuilders to keep working to help the economy
 At first people were members of Solidarity AND the communist party of Poland
 The leader, Lech Walesa, was very careful about what he asked for
 Solidarity was hugely popular
 Solidarity had the support of the Catholic Church
 The government was ‘playing for time’ – hoping Solidarity would fall apart as it was
so big
 Solidarity had support in the West
Why did the Polish government clamp down on Solidarity in December 1981?
 The army took over the government in February 1981
 Solidarity announced they were campaigning for people in all the East of Europe
 Negotiations between Walesa and Jaruzelski broke down in December 1981
 The Soviet army trained its soldiers at the border
So, Jaruzelski introduced military law in Poland, arrested the solidarity leaders including
Walesa.
By 1981 it was clear that the Polish government was only in power because it could use
force against its opponents. The government continued to repress the solidarity
movement, beating up priests (even thought the Pope was Polish), hounding people from
jobs…
Then in 1985 a new Soviet leader came to power…
Revision tip!
Mikhail Gorbachev
Why not talk notes onto a voice recorder and play them back?
He believed as:
 A realist – the USSR economy was very weak and had to be reformed and stop
spending so much money on weapons
 An idealist – communism should make life better for people
 An optimist – a reformed communist system would give people pride and belief in
their country
He encouraged:
GLASNOST – openness and debate about the future
PERSTROIKA – restructuring of the economy to make it work
He told Eastern European leaders to reform or he would not send Soviet troops to protect
them. Most of them ignored him.
He held talks about reducing weapons with the USA and weapons were reduced.
How did this affect Eastern Europe?
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People in Eastern Europe began to hope for reform and demand that their
governments’ make changes the same as Gorbachev was making in the USSR
In 1988 and 1989 Gorbachev made it clear to Eastern European leaders that they
could not rely on the Red Army to support them against their people
1989 was a HUGE year in European history…
Revision tip!
Why not get a blank map of Europe and write the events over the right country?
May – Hungary started to take down its border fence with Austria
June – free elections in Poland. Lech Walesa elected – not a communist
Sept – 1000s of East Germans on holiday in Hungary and Czechoslovakia fled to the West
Oct – Huge demonstrations in East Germany and the government did order troops to shoot
Oct – Gorbachev again made it clear the Red Army would not be sent in
Nov – The Berlin Wall was opened
Nov – Czechoslovakia became free after huge demonstrations
Dec – Romania’s bloody revolution ended in the death of its dictator
Dec – Bulgaria and Hungary also became free
March 1990 – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania left the USSR
Reunification of Germany
The West German leader, Helmut Kohl proposed a reunited Germany and most Germans
wanted it. Gorbachev was less keen, but after hard negotiations he agreed and Germany
was reunited on 3 October 1990.
The Soviet Union fell apart in 1990-1991
An attempt to overthrow Gorbachev failed as demonstrators opposed it. On the 25
December 1991 the end of the Soviet Union was announced by Gorbachev.
Gorbachev was a failure
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His reforms failed to save the USSR and reform communism
Gorbachev was a success
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He won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Cold War
He allowed Eastern European countries to be free
These are the essentials! Good luck! Have confidence!