Download The Origin of the Cold War

The World Post WWII
The Origin of the Cold War
Meeting of the Big Three
• During WWII the Big
Three (Churchill, FDR,
and Stalin) worked
together to defeat
Hitler
• They met at the Yalta
Conference in order to
decide what to do with
Europe after the war.
The Yalta Conference
• Roosevelt and Churchill
feared the Soviets would
dominate Eastern Europe
and Communism would
spread through the world.
• The United Nations was a
new international
organization designed to
help nations settle disputes
and prevent future wars.
Churchill Speaks
• In a speech, Winston
Churchill said that an
“Iron Curtain” had
descended on Europe,
meaning that the
Soviets had cut off
Eastern Europe from
the West. He also
warned that the Soviets
would look to expand
beyond Eastern Europe.
Communism Spreads
• A civil war raged in
Greece, where Communist
rebels supplied by the
Soviet Union tried to
overthrow the Greek king.
Meanwhile, the Soviet
Union attempted to
pressure the nation of
Turkey into giving them
naval bases on the
Mediterranean Sea.
Containment?
• Americans believed that Churchill's
prediction was coming true. The
United States turned to George
Kennan's idea of containment to
attempt to keep the Communist in the
Soviet Union. President Truman
pledged to support any free people
that fought against Communism in the
Truman Doctrine.
• Starting in 1948, the United States also
began to give money to other nations
in order to gain allies in Europe under
the Marshall Plan.
A World Divided
• Europe was now divided with Communism in the East
and Democracy in the West. This was even true in
Berlin, where the Soviets created a blockade around
West Berlin cutting off supplies. President Truman
organized a massive airlift to deliver supplies to West
Berlin.
A Nation Divided
• Germany and Berlin were
divided into two different
governments. The Federal
Republic of Germany or West
Germany and the German
Democratic Republic or East
Germany.
• Both sides seemed to be at a
standstill, they were locked in
a “cold war”, a war were
both sides do not actually
want to fight. Each side
began to build its military
force.
Time To Pick Sides…
• The United States and its allies
formed the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization or NATO to
defend against possible Soviet
attacks in Western Europe.
• In response to NATO, the
Soviet Union created an
alliance of Communist
governments in Eastern
Europe, known as the Warsaw
Pact.
Outside of Europe
• Elsewhere, there were
several movements by
nations to gain
independence. The
Philippines gained its
independence in 1946.
Asian countries such as
India, Pakistan, and
Burma gained their
independence from
Great Britain.
In the Middle East
• In the Middle East, Jews and Arabs claimed the region of
Palestine because they each considered it to be holy in
their religions. The United Nations divided Palestine into
two nations in 1947 and gave each nation its
independence.
• The Jewish people now had their own state called Israel
Communism In China
• Communism moved into China in 1949 when Mao Zedong
defeated armies led by Chaing Kai-shek, the head of the Chinese
government.
Symbols