Chapter 38 Origins of the Cold War

1 The United States and Soviet Union had different views after World War II of what Europe should look like. Security concerns dictated the Soviet view, Stalin wanted a buffer zone of friendly communist states to protect his country, so he made Eastern Europe a Soviet sphere of influence. The United States wanted the Eastern European nations to determine their own forms of government. Truman believed that given free choice, these countries would pick Democracy. The Yalta Conference Was the conference in 1945 between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt in which they agreed to collaborate in reforming Europe after the war. Potsdam Conference was where Truman, Stalin and Atlee finalized the plan for the division of Berlin into four zones. It was at this conference where Truman hinted at the U. S possession of an Atomic Bomb. This meant that a postwar Europe would be a political battleground.

2 In early 1946 Stalin gave a speech declaring that peace was impossible as long as capitalism existed. In response, American diplomat George Keenan encouraged the U. S. State Department to pursue a policy to Contain Soviet expansion of Communism. Stalin’s refusal to allow free elections in Eastern Europe and to withdraw troops from Northern Iran in March 1946 increased U. S. concerns. The Truman Doctrine declared that the policy of the United States should be to support free peoples who are resisting conquest by armed minorities or outside pressures. Truman was hoping to stop the spread of Communism by sending aid and military equipment to countries fighting off Communism. In an effort to contain the Soviet Union the UN Atomic Energy Commission was created as a part of the United Nations. It was established in hopes of regulating and controlling the development of Nuclear weapons throughout the world.

3 It was important for the United States to help rebuild Europe after World War II and the competing plans were the Marshal Plan and Molotov Plan. The Marshall Plan was the United States Plan for European recovery which offered aid for countries to rebuild their economies all the while buying American goods. In 1948, Congress approved 17 billion in Marshall Plan aid for Europe, to be spent between 1948 and 1952, giving an enormous boost to economic growth and prosperity. Is Eastern Europe, no nation took part in the Marshall Plan. Suspicious of U. S. motives, the soviets created the Molotov Plan for Eastern Europe The Soviet Molotov Plan was an answer the Marshall Plan and it was set up to rebuild eastern Europe.

4 The political geography of Europe change after World War II. Winston Churchill warned that the Soviet Union was cutting Eastern Europe off from the rest of Europe. The term Iron Curtain came to symbolize the political barrier between Eastern and Western Europe. Stalin was setting up Soviet-controlled communist governments in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

5 The Cold War a new kind of War because it was a conflict between two super powers competing over different visions for the world. It never led to armed conflict directly between super powers. It was a war of words that used propaganda, diplomacy, economic and military aid and espionage as weapons.