Shortly after the Allies defeated the Axis powers in WWII, the Allies’ wartime alliance broke down. The alliance was replaced by a struggle between Communist and non-Communist nations. This struggle, known as the Cold War, would impact American life for nearly half a century…and in many ways we’re still feeling the affects of the Cold War today.
Growing Distrust
Differences arose among the wartime Allies even before the war had ended. In the final months of the war, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had met at Yalta, a resort in the Soviet Union. There, Stalin promised to hold free elections in the parts of Eastern Europe under his control. At the time, Soviet troops were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Instead, Stalin proceeded to establish Communist governments in these nations. He realized that free elections would result in non-Communist governments. Stalin wanted to construct a ring of friendly countries to protect the western borders of the Soviet Union. After the ring had been built, Stalin hoped to make the Soviet Union the world’s dominant power.
By 1948, most of the nations of Eastern Europe had become satellite states of the Soviet Union. A satellite is a nation that is dominated politically or economically by a more powerful nation.
Churchill expressed the fears of many in the West. Speaking at a college in Fulton, Missouri, he warned of the Soviet threat, stating that: “An iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe…all these famous cities and populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.” The term “iron curtain” is a way of referring to a barrier to understanding and information. Churchill’s use of the term became a popular way of describing the conflict between the democratic nations of the West and the Soviet Union and the Communist-controlled nations of Eastern Europe. In addition, hostile Communist threats loomed in Southern and Western Europe. The wartime alliance among the Allied powers was no more.
Containing the Communist Threat
The Cold War began at a time when many Americans worried about the nation’s leadership. Harry S. Truman had become President after the sudden death of FDR in April 1945. Truman wasn’t well-known; as Vice President, his leadership hadn’t been tested. However, President Truman wasted little time in showing his leadership qualities, as the first Cold War challenges he had faced were in Greece, Iran, and Turkey. After WWII, a Communist-led revolt broke out in Greece. Greek Communists threatened to take over the government. At the same time, the Soviet government began to threaten two nation on its southern border, Turkey and Iran.
In March 1947, President Truman made an urgent request to Congress to aid Greece and Turkey. He declared that the US would oppose the spread of communism. In a statement he made to Congress on March 12, 1947, he stated a principle that became known as the Truman Doctrine: “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.” The Truman Doctrine led to the policy of containment, which had the goal of containing, or limiting, Soviet expansion.
Military aid alone couldn’t contain communism. After WWII, much of Europe lay in ruins. Communists said the capitalist system was powerless to repair the damaged economies, and many desperate Europeans believed them. Communist parties gained strength in both Italy and France in the postwar era. To meet this crisis, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a plan in June 1947 that called for the US to provide economic assistance to European nations. Between 1948 and 1951, the US loaned 16 Western European countries more than $12 billion in aid. The Marshall Plan was a huge success. It helped countries such as France, West Germany, and Italy recover from the war. American dollars built new factories, schools, hospitals, railroads, and bridges.
The focus of Cold War hostility now shifted to Germany. At the Yalta Conference, the Allies had agreed to divide Germany into four zones; American, British, French, and Soviet troops would each control one of the zones. Germany’s capital city, Berlin, which lay inside Soviet-controlled territory, was also divided into four zones.
By 1948, the Western powers believed that it was time to reunite Germany. Stalin was bitterly opposed to this move. In June 1948, the Soviets set up a blockade around Berlin. They prevented delivery of food supplies to West Berlin’s two million residents. Stalin gambled that the Western Allies would accept the Communist takeover of West Berlin. However, the Allies responded with a massive airlift–sending cargo planes to deliver tons of supplies to the people. For almost a year, Western planes delivered supplies to West Berlin. The Soviets finally called off the blockage in May 1949. In October, France, Britain, and the US combined their zones into one country, called the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany. The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
A divided Germany and Berlin remained a focus of Cold War tensions. Between 1949 and 1961, thousands of East Germans fled to West Berlin. From there, they went to West Germany. Suddenly, in August 1961, the East German government began building a wall between East and West Germany. For 28 years, the wall stood as a symbol of a divided Germany and a divided Europe.
International Organizations
After WWII, the US played a leading role in creating the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This move signaled a turn away from traditional American isolationism.
The main goals of the UN were to maintain peace and settle international disputes. Under the UN Charter, member nations agreed to bring disputes to the UN. At the core of the UN are the General Assembly and the Security Council. Every nation, large or small, has a single vote in the General Assembly; however, the General Assembly doesn’t have a way to enforce its decisions. The Security Council has far greater power, as its decisions are supposed to be followed by all of the UN nations.
The Security Council has 15 members; five of which are permanent members–the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France. Each permanent member has the power to veto, or reject, any proposal before the Security Council. Even if only one permanent member votes no, the Security Council can’t act. The UN’s greatest successes have been in fighting hunger and disease as well as in improving educational opportunities. Through relief programs, the UN has provided tons of goods, clothing, and medicine to victims of natural disaster and war.
In April 1949, as Cold War tensions rose, the US and other Western nations established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, which is a formal military alliance to guard against a Soviet attack. Members of NATO agreed than an attack on one member would be considered an attack against the entire group. In response, the Soviet Union and the satellite nations of Eastern Europe formed their own alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.
The Shocks of 1949
Until 1949, most Americans were confident that the US was safe because it alone knew how to build the atomic bomb. However, in September 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its own atomic bomb. Now, the Cold War seemed much more deadly. Each nation had, within its reach, the power to destroy one another.
Shortly after, Americans received a second shock. Since the 1930s, China had been a battleground between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists. In the final months of 1949, the Nationalist government collapsed. China fell under the control of the Communists. Under their leader, Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communists established the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Nationalists fled to the island of Taiwan. The US insisted that the Taiwanese government was the legal government of China. It refused to recognize the People’s Republic and kept the UN from admitting Communist China to China’s seat on the Security Council.
I think this is a good place to stop for now. Next time here on the blog, we're going to talk about the prosperity of the post-WWII era. Not everything during the era of the Cold War was scary, after all!
No comments:
Post a Comment