1. 1945-1953

2.  After WW2, Europe was unofficially split into two spheres of influence, an American one and a Soviet one  The Americans and Soviets still got along after the war  They worked together to divide Germany  They worked together to prosecute German war criminals during the Nuremburg Trials  They worked together to create the United Nations (UN).  The USA, UK, France, USSR and China all got permanent seats on the security council  US President Harry Truman would not appease Stalin’s plans, which led to tension

3. “I am not a member of the KKK”

4.  Igor Guouzenko, a Russian decoder at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa is called back to the USSR in September 1945  He does not want to return and runs away with Soviet documents  He asks for help from the RCMP, the Secretary of Justice and the Prime Minister’s office, but is ignored  Soviet KGB agents try to kill him  The Foreign ministry and RCMP decide to give him protection  Canada finds out there is a Soviet spy ring in their country, this shocks the public

5.  Soviet-American relations continued to deteriorate between 1945-1948  In 1948, the Soviets tried to cut off American access to their zone in west Berlin  The Americans airlifted supplies to their section and the Soviets gave up  In 1961, the Soviets built a wall to stop East Germans from travelling to West Germany

6.  The Cold War is the name for the rivalry between the USA and USSR between 1948-1991  They never fought each other directly, but rather by proxy war  It was an ideological war between capitalism and communism  NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a military alliance, formed in 1949 between Canada, USA and western European countries such as the UK, France, West Germany, and Italy  The USSR turned the states of Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Albania and Bulgaria into satellites  They formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955

7.  Korea, a former Japanese colony, was split in two following WW2  A communist northern half and a capitalist southern half  In 1950, North Korea decided to reunify Korea  South Korea was saved by the “UN” aka USA  The USA pushed North Korea to the Chinese border, this made newly communist China feel threatened so they joined the war in support of South Korea  The Chinese nearly defeated the “UN” but fighting stalemated at the original border at the 38 th parallel  Canada sent 26,000 troops to Korea  Stalin dies 1953

8.  In 1949, the Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong defeated the Chaing Kai-shek’s Nationalists  They declared the People’s Republic of China

9.  In 1959, Mao launched the “Great Leap Forward”  Ironically, this turned out to be the biggest de-industrialization since the fall of the Roman Empire in 473  The Great Leap caused what is thought to be the biggest famines in human history  This was caused by collectivization and the creation of “back yard” industry  Used Lamarckian biology  Between 20-43 million died

10.  By 1966, Mao had a firmly established cult of personality. He was seen as a god  Mao calls on the brainwashed youth of China to form “Red Guards” and attack anything “old”  An attempt to establish a communist utopia  He creates different factions of youth, who fight each other, creating a sort of civil war  The youth go out of control, Mao has to get the army to disband the Red Guards  16 million Chinese youths are sent to the countryside for “reeducation”  Mao died in 1976, ending the Cultural Revolution