Download Collapse of the Yalta System

Chapter 27
In the Grip of the Cold War:
The Breakdown of the Yalta System
 Collapse of the Yalta System
 Soviet forces occupied all of Eastern Europe and much of
the Balkans
Between 1945 and 1947 Communist governments were
entrenched in East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania,
Poland, and Hungary
Czechoslovakia becomes Communist in 1948
Albania and Yugoslavia become independent communist
states
 Truman Doctrine, March 12, 1947
Winston Churchill, Westminister College
Civil war in Greece and Turkey
Money to countries threatened by communist expansion
 Marshall Doctrine, June 1947
$13 billion for the economic recovery of war-torn Europe
Soviet view, “capitalist imperialism”
 George F. Kennan, Foreign Affairs, July 1947
Containment of the Soviet Union
 Merging of the British, French, and American zones
Blockade of Berlin, 1948-1949
German Federal Republic created, September 1949
German Democratic Republic created, October 1949
 Military Alliances
 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), April 1949
 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), 1949
 Warsaw Pact, 1955
 Responsibility for the Cold War
Blame on Stalin – impose Soviet rule on Eastern Europe
Blame on the U.S. – policy of encircling the Soviet Union
with client states
The Korean War
 Cold War in Asia
 Chinese Civil War, 1946
Communists occupied rural area in Manchuria
Peasants attracted to the Communists by promises of
land and social Justice
 People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
President Truman gives limited military support to
Chiang Kai-shek
Beijing encircled by PLA in 1948
 Chiang and 2 million Nationalist followers flee to
Taiwan
 Korean War
U.S. and Soviet Union divide Korea at the 38th parallel.
August 1945
North Koreans invaded the south, June 25, 1950
Chinese “volunteers” intervene when UN troops
approach the Yalu River
Cease-fire, July 1953
The New European Alliance Systems in the 1950s and 1960s
1.In March 1948 Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and Britain signed the Treaty of Brussels that provided for cooperation in
economic and military matters. In April 1949 these states were joined by Italy, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Iceland in signing an agreement
with the United States and Canada forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). A few years later, West Germany, Greece, and Turkey
joined the alliance. The United States agreed both to supply equipment for European rearmament and to guarantee Western Europe against
invasion. The alliance was somewhat weakened when France, protesting the influence of the United States in Europe, withdrew in 1969. However,
France still remained an ally.
2.In 1949 the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) was formed by the Eastern European states for the purpose of integrating their
economies.
3.A workers revolt broke out in the German Democratic Republic in 1953 over the nationalization of industry. The Soviets responded with tanks.
Such a steady flight of people to West Germany followed, especially skilled workers, that East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961.
4.The Warsaw Pact was created in May 1955 as a formal military alliance. It included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Earlier in the year, Soviet occupation forces were withdrawn from Austria after it pledged to be
a neutral state.
5.In October 1956 the Polish Communist Party refused to fill the vacant office of prime minister with a Soviet selected successor. Instead, they chose
Wladyslaw Gomulka who declared Poland had a right to follow its own socialist path. Nevertheless, rather than provoke the Russians, Poland
promised to remain loyal to the Warsaw Pact. With this, the Soviets allowed Poland to pursue its own socialism.
6.Drawing energy from Poland, Hungary attempted to also take an independent road when the new head of government, Imry Nagy, declared it a
free state on November 1, 1956. Since the promise of free elections could potentially doom communist rule, Russia sent tanks into Budapest on
November 4. Soviet authority was reestablished.
7.In January 1968 Alexander Dubcek was elected first secretary of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party and soon introduced reforms which
included freedom of speech and the press. However, Dubcek went too far when he suggested neutrality and withdrawal from the Soviet bloc. In
August the Soviet army invaded and crushed the reform movement.
Questions:
1.Why would France withdraw from NATO?
2.Why did reform work in Poland but not Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
The New European Alliance Systems
in the 1950s and 1960s
 Indochina
Vietminh Front led by Ho Chi Minh seize northern and
central Vietnam
War breaks out in December 1946
Geneva Conference temporarily divided Vietnam,
1954
 Elections to be held in two years
 Laos and Cambodia declared independent
 Confrontation to Coexistence
 Ferment in Eastern Europe
Discontent in East Berlin, 1953
Dissatisfaction in Poland, 1956
 Wladyslaw Gomulka (1905-1982), “internal reform,
external loyalty”
The Global Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s
1.The fear of the United States about communist expansion was enhanced by the events in Eastern Europe, the communist victory in China in 1949,
the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, and the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Military alliances seemed to be the only way to combat the threat of
the communists. In September 1954 (after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in May) the United States formed a Southeast Asia counterpart to NATO, the
Southeast Asia Treaty organization (SEATO). The signers were the United States, France, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. The treaty declared an attack on any of the signatories was to be regarded as a threat to all. A separate
agreement included any attack upon Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam.
2.In February 1955 Turkey and Iraq agreed to a five year pact to consult on matters of defense. The agreement also provided that other nations of
the Arab League and any state concerned with the Middle East might join them. Britain, Pakistan, and Iran soon joined the other states. When Iran
withdrew in 1958 due to a revolution, the agreement was reorganization leading to the formation of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) which
included the United States. Eventually, Iraq would ally with the Soviets.
3.By the mid-1950s the United States was a party to military alliances involving forty-two states around the world.
4.The alliance between Cuba and the Soviet Union not only provided Cuba with protection but also gave the Soviets a client state it could use
militarily around the world. Thus, Cuban troops were sent to fight in the wars of Angola and Ethiopia.
5.For the United States, the Soviet's most important ally was Cuba, only ninety miles off the Florida coast. When the Soviet Union sought to place
nuclear weapons on the island in 1962, the United States protested. To stop a Soviet fleet carrying missiles destined for Cuba, President John F.
Kennedy declared a blockade in October. War was avoided when the Soviet Union agreed to turn the fleet back and Kennedy pledged not to invade
Cuba (the United States had sponsored the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961).
6.In the late 1960s the relations between the Soviet Union and China began to cool, even to the point of fighting. Taking advantage of this,
President Richard Nixon visited Beijing in 1972 and opened a new era of diplomatic relations. The Soviets, on the other hand, warmed up their
relations with Vietnam which became an ally in 1975.
Questions:
1. What was the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
2. Why was President Nixon's trip to China of diplomatic importance?
3. Why did the United States make so many alliances?
The Global Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s
Popular riots in Hungary, 1956
 Imre Nagy (1896-1958)
 Resignation from the Warsaw Pact
 Free elections
 János Kádar
 Khruschev and the Era of Peaceful Coexistence
 After the death of Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev
(1894-1971) sought “peaceful coexistence”
Confrontation over access to Berlin, November 1958
Reestablish relations with Third World nations



Cuban Missile Crisis
 Failed Bay of Pigs invasion, 1961
 Discovery by US of missile bases being built
 President John F. Kennedy orders a blockade of
Cuba
 Khruschev agrees to turn back ships carrying
missiles
in return for Kennedy’s promise
not to invade Cuba
Sino-Soviet Dispute
 Khruschev rejected Chines demands to help
regain
 Taiwan
 Cooling of relations between China and the
USSR, 1961
Reform in Czechoslovakia, 1968
 Alexander Dubcek (1921-1992), “socialism with
a human
 face”
 Reform crushed by the Warsaw Pact
 Brezhnev Doctrine, cooperation to maintain
socialism
 Second Indochina War
 Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam refuses to hold elections
 Ho Chi Minh returns to a policy of war in the south, 1959
 Diem regime overthrown with the approval of the
Kennedy administration, 1963
 President Lyndon Johnson sends larger numbers of
troops to Vietnam, 1965
 Tet offensive by the communists, 1968
 President Richard Nixon (1913-1994)vows to bring an
honorable end and begins withdrawing troops
Peace treaty signed January 1973 calls for removal of
all US troops
 Communists resume the offensive in 1975 and unified
Vietnam in 1976
 Changes during the Cold War
 China
President Nixon visits China, January 1972
China-U.S. diplomatic relations established, 1979
 U.S. renounced its mutual security treaty with
the Republic of China
 Soviet Union
Détente, reduction in tensions between U.S. and
U.S.S.R.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles with MIRVs
SALT I that limited antiballistic missile systems, 1972
Helsinki Agreement, 1975
 Acknowledged the Soviet sphere of influence in
Eastern Europe
 Recognize and protect human rights of signatories’
citizens
 End of détente
U.S. concerned about Soviet involvement in Africa
Soviet troops to Afghanistan, 1979
 Soviet fears of spread of Islamic activism to its Muslim
population in Central Asia
Carter Doctrine that the U.S. would use military power to
safeguard Western access to Middle East oil reserves
U.S. fear that the U.S.S.R. was seeking strategic nuclear
superiority
President Ronald Reagan (b. 1911) and the “Evil Empire”
Nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and Strategic Defense
Initiative
U.S. activities in Nicaragua
 Sandinistas
 Contas
 End of the Cold War
 Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931)
INF treaty, arms limitation, in 1987
Need for economic and social reforms in U.S.S.R.
Greater autonomy for Eastern European regimes
Reunification of Germany, October 3, 1990
Disintegration of the Soviet Union, 1991
 China
 Tiananmen Square, 1989
 Vietnam and Cambodia
Popular Demonstrations at Tiananmen Square,
Spring 1989