cold war political division of europe. 1945 “what is europe now? a rubble heap, a charnel house, a...
TRANSCRIPT
Cold War
Political Division of Europe
1945
“What is Europe now? A rubble heap, a charnel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate.”
-- Winston Churchill
Western Perspective• US demands free elections in Europe (to
no effect)• Truman doctrine – US will support “free
people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure”
• US offers military aid to Turkey and Greece
• US establishes the Marshall Plan -- $13 BILLION in aid to Europe
• Western sectors of Germany unified in 1949
US Philosophy of Containment
• “Like apples in a barrel infected by disease, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all the east. . . likewise Africa. . . Italy. . . France. . . .Not since Rome and Carthage had there been such a polarization of power on this earth”
-- U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson
1947
Soviet Perspective• Stalin resumes antagonism to the West
and dictatorial rule– “The war on fascism ends, the war on
capitalism begins.” – War is inevitable as long as capitalism exists”– Purges and forced labor camps reinstated
• USSR had been invaded by Germany twice in the 20th century, Stalin felt he deserved “friendly” neighbors (so the USSR set up Communist parties to dominate eastern European countries)
Soviet Perspective• USSR devastated by WW II, needed to
improve its industrial capacity (so it took 380 factories out of the Soviet zone in Berlin)
• USSR refused Marshall Plan money (sees the Marshall Plan as a way to make European countries beholden to the US)
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
1949
Warsaw Pact (Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance – COMECON) 1955
US increasingly concerned about the spread of Communism
• 1948 Berlin blockade
• 1949 – Communists win the civil war in China
• 1949 – USSR explodes its first atomic bomb
• 1950 – Communist North Korea attacks South Korea, US leads a UN force to save South Korea, North Korea is assisted by the Chinese (country divided in half in 1953 – still a militarized border)
• 1961 – Berlin Wall
