“UNITED: The United

Nations Fight for Freedom” (USA,

1943):FDR hoped to continue the

wartime alliance with the USSR in

the postwar world

The U.S. Government encouraged

favorable press coverage of

Stalin

W. Averell Harriman(1891-1986):

1913: graduates from Yale, founds major Wall Street bank;1940-42: FDR’s special envoy to

Churchill and Stalin;1943-46: Ambassador

to USSR;later Secretary of Commerce and

Governor of New York

George F. Kennan(1904-2005)

1925: Graduates from Princeton, joins Foreign

Service;1933-38: Posted to

Moscow;1944-46: Returns to

Moscow (sends “Long Telegram,” February

1946); 1947-49: Director of

Policy Planning at U.S. State Department;

1951-52: Ambassador to the

USSR

THE DISPUTE OVER POSTWAR POLAND

January 21, 1944: Ambassador Harriman warns the State Department from Moscow that the London Polish government in exile has no future unless it accepts the Curzon Line, purges its most reactionary members, and adds at least one minister acceptable to Stalin.February 6, 1944: Churchill appeals to the London Poles to accept the Curzon Line, but they refuse.March 4, 1944: Harriman approaches Stalin to convey concern about civil war in postwar Poland. Stalin replies that the Soviet people could never accept the return to power of reactionary Polish landlords and militarists. June 1944: The Soviets announce the formation of a “Polish National Council” in Lublin.

The Polish Home Army launched a bold uprising against the Germans in

Warsaw on August 1, 1944,as the Red Army

approached. But the Soviet advance then halted, and

the Germans leveled Warsaw in October 1944.

The Soviet conquest of

western Poland in January 1945, on the eve of the

Yalta Conference.

Stalin now insisted that the “Lublin Poles” had far more

popular support than the

“London Poles.”

The Big Three at Yalta, February 1945:Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, & Joseph

Stalin

Did FDR understand that he had in effect sacrificed Poland?

The Occupation Zones Agreed Upon at Yalta:

The Oder-Neisse Line

marked the new Polish-German

border

U.S. and Soviet troops link up on the ruins of a bridge over the Elbe River at Torgau, April 25,

1945

The UNITED NATIONS was founded in San Francisco in June 1945,

when delegates from 50 nations approved its charter

At Potsdam in July 1945, Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, and Stalin agree on the Four D’s:

Denazification, Democratization, Demilitarization, Decartellization

Truman MAY not have understood the implicit bargain at Yalta (see Gaddis, 21-24)

THE DETONATION OF THE ATOMIC BOMBOVER HIROSHIMA ON AUGUST 6, 1945:

About 70,000 died that day, and 70,000 more within 6 months

“No Nonsense!”(USSR, 1948):The Soviets

detonated their first A-bomb on August 29, 1949.Gaddis concludes

on p. 27 that statesmen in Moscow and

Washington were caught in a

“security dilemma.”

Border revisions and streams of refugees in 1945

Communist strongholds in Greece, 1946/47

Marhsal Josip Broz Tito (1892-

1980),the Communist

leader of Yugoslavia who broke openly with Stalin in

1948.He was the real

patron of the Greek

Communists…

Harry S. Truman announces the “Truman Doctrine”

to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947

Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposes the

European Recovery Program at Harvard in June 1947

(below) and then finalizes the plan for its implementation

with Ernest Bevin and Robert Schuman in Paris in October

1948

Stalin prohibited any East European participation

The Marshall Plan as the wind in Europe’s

sails(Federal Republic of

Germany, 1950).By 1952 the USA had contributed

$11 billionto revive the

economy of Western Europe, the most

successful economic aid program in history

Klement Gottwald led the Czech Communists to a plurality in 1946 with 38% of the popular vote and

then became premier of a Popular Front government. Jan Masaryk and all other non-

Communist ministers were replaced with Communists in February 1948.

Soon thereafter Masaryk was found dead beneath the window of his Prague apartment

THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR WAS DECIDED IN 1948

The currency reform in “Bizonia,”

21 June 1948:Every West German citizen received 40 new Deutschmarks.

Stalin responded with a blockade of

West Berlin.

The Berlin Airlift, October 1948:Grateful West Berliners greet an American transport plane

Dean Acheson signs the NATO

treaty in Washington on April 4, 1949, as Harry Truman

and British Foreign

Secretary Ernest Bevin look on

In 1949 Konrad

Adenaueremerged as the elected leader of the pro-Western Federal Republic

of Germany

And Walter Ulbricht founded the pro-SovietGerman Democratic Republic

The “Iron Curtain” dividing Europe, 1949 to 1989

All debate in Washington about

Soviet intentions ended when North Korea

invaded South Korea in June 1950. But Dean Acheson had declared

publicly in January 1950 that the U.S.

“defensive perimeter” did NOT include South Korea (see Gaddis, pp.

41-3).

When U.S. troops reached the Yalu River in October 1950, 300,000 Communist Chinese troops intervened

U.S. troops retreating in 1951. The USA lost 36,515 men killed in what was technically a “UN police action.”

General Douglas MacArthur was dismissed by Trumanin 1951 after publicly advocating the use of nuclear weapons.

Sixteen of these B-29s were shot down by “North Korean” fighter

planes that were actually Soviet.

Time Magazine devoted itself to raising awareness of Soviet expansionism, for example with these maps published on March 10, 1952

EVIDENCE OF STALIN’S PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION?

1. The Greek Civil War of 1946/47 (actually fomented by Tito).

2. Chinese Civil War, 1947/48: The sudden victory of the Communists over the Nationalists leads to conspiracy theories in Washington (but Stalin did not want this).

3. Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, February 1948 (triggered by Stalin’s opposition to the ERP).

4. June 1948: Soviet Blockade of Berlin, which leads to the Berlin Airlift (undoubtedly Stalin’s decision).

5. North Korea invades South Korea, June 1950 (encouraged by Stalin).

Regarding the question of responsibility, contrast Gaddis, p. 27, with pp. 29-30.

KENNAN’S RIFT WITH THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION

Kennan quarreled sharply in 1949/50 with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his State Department colleague Paul Nitze, who defined the Soviet threat primarily in military terms.

The Truman administration increased defense spending from 5% to 14.2% of GDP from 1950 to 1953 and pushed for the rearmament of West Germany.

In 1996 Kennan told CNN, "My thoughts about containment were of course distorted by the people who understood it and pursued it exclusively as a military concept; and I think that that, as much as any other cause, led to 40 years of the unnecessary, fearfully expensive, and disoriented process of the Cold War."

REVIVING DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE AFTER 1945

1944: Foundation of the French Fourth Republic

1946: Italians vote to abolish the monarchy (54%)

1949: Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany

1952: Creation of a “Common Market” for coal, iron, and steel (the ECSC).

1955: West Germany enters NATO

1957: Creation of the European Economic Community

The initial successes were achieved by “Christian Democratic” parties of the center-right, whose policies were endorsed by moderate socialists by the 1960s.

Charles de Gaulle sings the

“Marseillaise” in liberated France, 1 October 1944.He resigned as

President in 1946 when all major

parties rejected his ideas for the constitution.

INITIAL POSTWAR ELECTION RESULTS

COUNTRY Com. Soc. Lib.Chr.-Dem.

Other

France 1945

27% 24% 6% 25% 18%

Italy 1945

19% 20% 6% 35% 20%

West Germany

, 19496% 29% 12% 31% 22%

In 1948, after resigning as President, Charles de Gaulle founded a secularist, nationalist party for moderate conservatives that drew support away from the French Christian Democrats.

The Founding Fathers of Christian Democracy, the EU, & NATO were Catholics who came from

borderlands:

Alcide de Gasperi (1881-1954): Italian P.M., 1945-53, born in Austria

Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967):

FRG chancellor, 1949-1962 (Cologne)

Robert Schuman (1886-1963):

French P.M., 1948, foreign minister, 1948-53 (Alsace)

The program of Christian Democracy was based on the encyclical by Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (“On Reconstruction of the Social Order”), 1931

1. Anti-communism and anti-socialism, because all have the right to own property.

2. All human beings have the right to life, freedom, and the means to acquire property.

3. “Solidarity” – All Christians should support the formation of trade unions & farmers’ cooperatives and whatever government action is necessary to alleviate poverty.

4. “Subsidiarity” – Social problems should be solved by the smallest social unit possible. Only if the family cannot solve them should they be solved by local government, and only if local government fails should they be solved by state or national governments.

The Schuman Plan for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), published in May 1950,

was devised by JEAN MONNET (1888-1979)

1919-23: Deputy Secretary

General of the League of Nations;

1924-39: Liquor exporter,

international financier;

1940-45: Trusted advisor of

Churchill, de Gaulle, & FDR;

first president of the ECSC, 1952-

55

Representatives of Belgium,

Luxemburg, Italy, France, West

Germany, and the Netherlands sign the ECSC Treaty

on April 18, 1951

Monnet presided over the ECSC High Authority

here in Luxemburg

In May 1952 the Six signed a treaty to create a “European Defense Community”

The first proposals to rearm West Germany were also published in 1950 and provoked fierce debate:

“WARNING! THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE FORCE WILL REVIVE THE WEHRMACHT” (French Communist

poster)

BUT THE CDU WON THE ELECTIONS OF 1953 & 1957

“German Unity. Therefore SPD”

“All paths of Marxism lead to Moscow! Therefore CDU”

In 1955 West Germany

created a new army and joined

NATO:“NATO: His

Comrades, our Allies”

(FRG, 1956)

Adenauer and Italy’s prime minister, Antonio Segni, sign the Treaty of Rome on March 24, 1957:

The Six abolished all tariff barriers in the European Economic Community (EEC)

THE SIX:Italy, France,

West Germany, Luxemburg,

Belgium, and the Netherlands.The United

Kingdom and Scandinavia were

not interested, and Spain and

Greece were not welcome.

AVERAGE ANNUAL GROWTH OF GDP

COUNTRY 1870-1913

1913-1950

1950-1960

1960-1970

1979-1985

France 1.6% 0.7% 4.6% 5.8% 1.3%

Germany 2.9% 1.2% 7.8%* 4.8%* 1.6%*

U.K. 2.2% 1.7% 2.7% 2.8% 1.2%

Italy 1.4% 1.3% 5.8% 5.7%

USA 4.3% 2.9% 3.2% 4.3% 2.2%

Sweden 2.4% 2.0% 4.4% 4.5%

* Refers solely to West Germany.

SPENDING ON SOCIAL WELFARE AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP (including old-age pensions, jobless benefits, public health services, and assistance to the needy)

1950 1960 1970

France 10.9% 12.7% 15.8%

West Germany

14.1% 14.9% 17.2%

Italy 7.9% 12.0% 16.8%

United Kingdom

8.9% 10.3% 12.9%

USA 4.0% 6.2% 7.5%

Japan 3.2% 4.7% 6.5%