Questions
• Why did the United States and Soviet
Union become enemies after WWII?
• How did the rivalry between the two
nations affect Europe and Asia?
• Why did Communism collapse in the
Soviet Union?
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has
descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the
ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague,
Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities
and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere,
and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but
to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from
Moscow.
Winston Churchill- March 5, 1946 in Speech in Missouri
The Cold War
After the Second World War
• Yalta, Feb. 1945
Arrangements made for
occupied territories,
including holding of
elections
– Soviet army ensured
communist governments
took power in E. Europe
• Germany divided into 4
zones; Soviets controlled
east.
• United Nations established
• Soviet Union obtained Abomb by 1949,
U.S./European Security
threatened
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta
A Bi-polar World
• ‘Iron Curtain’
– USSR imposed communist
govt’s. on E Europe
• Truman Doctrine: U.S. would
try to ‘contain’ communism
– Support for govt. in Greece
• 1948 Berlin Airlift
• 1949 North Atlantic Treaty
Organization created to stop
Spread of Communism in
Europe (NATO)
• 1955 E. European nations
and USSR sign Warsaw
Pact
The Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift is considered the first victory
for the west in the Cold War.
“IRON CURTAIN”
Following WWII,
E. Germany, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Romania, and Bulgaria
signed the Warsaw Pact with
Russia. This created what
was called the Eastern Block
of the USSR. These countries
were considered independent
satellite states, although in
reality they were under the
control of the USSR.
Cold War Europe
After WWII the United States sought to relieve some of the
suffering in Europe through economic aid called the Marshall
Plan. This aid package included the rebuilding of Germany,
which Stalin saw as a threat.
MARSHALL PLAN
NATO & Warsaw Pact
Rising Tension
The Berlin Wall
• 1953 Stalin died
– Nikita Khrushchev (18941971) eventually was
named as his successor
• 1956- Uprising in Hungary
crushed by Soviet Tanks
• 1957 Sputnik
• 1961 The Berlin Wall was
built
• 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1964 Khrushchev removed
from power
• 1968 Prague Spring- Czech
reforms to gov., Soviets
stomped it out with military.
1961 Berlin Wall Erected
USSR built the Berlin Wall, 1960’s
Stated purpose was to keep capitalists out, was really to keep people
from leaving communist controlled area.
Berlin Wall was centerpiece of Cold War and idea of Iron Curtain.
E
A
S
T
W
E
S
T
“EAST
LOOKING
WEST”
“SOME
MADE IT.”
45000
40000
35000
30000
25000
US
USSR
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
Total number of nuclear weapons, 1945-1990
Source: Norris and Arkin, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 50 (1994), 58-9
The Cold War in Asia
• 1949 Chinese Communists
defeat Nationalists
– Oct. 1, 1949 People’s Republic of
China founded
– Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
• 1950-1953 Korean War
North (Comm) v. South (Dem)
China
U.S.
• Vietnam Conflict
Mao Announces creation of the PRC
– 1954 Dien Bien Phu
– 1968 Tet Offensive
– 1975 Communists unite Vietnam
Domino Theory
“THE COLD WAR TURNS HOT”
THE KOREAN WAR MEMORIAL
THE KOREAN WAR PARK
The Collapse of Soviet
Communism
• Ronald Reagan and the end of
Détente (Back to Brinksmanship)
• 1980 Solidarity founded in Poland
– Lech Walesa
• 1981 Martial Law in Poland
• 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-)
became Premier
– Glasnost ‘openness’
– Perestroika ‘restructuring’
• By Late 1980s Soviet Economy in
state of near collapse
Mikhail Gorbachev
Why did the Soviet Union
Fall so Quickly?
Command Economy Fails
Military Commitments
Satellite Countries Want Out
The government determines production
and where the nation’s resources are
going to go:
Results in surpluses and shortages
No motivation to work hard because
everyone gets paid the same.
“They pretend to pay us and we pretend
to work.”
The Soviet Union had to defend the all of
its satellite communist countries.
50% of the country’s resources are
going to the military, this destroys the
economy.
The End of the Cold War
• Without strong hand in U.S.S.R.,
Eastern European governments
collapse
• 1989 Year of Change
– Poland legalized Solidarity
– Berlin Wall fell
• 1990 Germany reunified
• 1991 Hard-line coup against
Gorbachev failed
– Boris Yeltsin, President of the
Russian Federation gains power,
Soviet Union disintegrates
The Fall of the Berlin Wall