The Beginnings of the Cold War

From the Great Alliance to a Bi-Polar Europe, 1945-1965

Legacy of the Second World War

• Fractures in the Great alliance• Geopolitical Realities: who liberated whom?• Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945)• Post war fear of communism• Balance Sheet of WWII—at least 50 million

dead, trillions of $ in property damage—moonscapes in Warsaw, Dresden, and Berlin.

Beginnings of CW in Europe

• Churchill’s speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri.

• Bi-Polar model• The West lumped eastern Europe into the Soviet bloc and

then forgot about eastern Europe—Milan Kundera (1929-)• Stalin needed Eastern and Central Europe as buffer from

Capitalist West• Soviets via “trimming” set up People’s Republics in Poland,

Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia , Albania, and Bulgaria.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

W. L. S. C. at Westminster College, March 5, 1946

Cold War Europe

Berlin Crisis• Post-War Division of Germany and Berlin• Failure of De-Nazification (Nuremburg Trials)• Walter Ulbricht (1893-1973)—hard-line communism in Eastern

Germany.• Fusion of West Berlin• Common Currency and “unification” debate• West Berlin Cut off 1948• Berlin Airlift• Permanency of Division (1949-1989)• Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), of CDU party, is chancellor of Bundes

Republik Deutschland (49-63).• Wilhelm Pieck (1876-1960) was president of the Deutsche

Demokratische Republik.

Das GegenteilDeutschland

Life in Eastern Euroep• Stalinist “method”• Political Control through purging dissent and

presence of soviet advisers.• Centralization• Democratic Constitutions in word but not in deed• Heavy Industry• Socialist Realism in the Arts• Comecon (1949)—Soviet answer to Marshall Plan;

countries specialize in economic production. • Warsaw Pact (1955)

“Roses for Stalin,” Boris Eremeevich Vladimirski (1878-1950)

Warsaw Pact vs.NATO

The Thaw• Death of Stalin (1953)• Emergence of Khrushchev (1955-64)• “separate paths to socialism”• “Crimes of the Stalinist Era” (1956)• Just how much thaw?• Hungarian Revolution (1956)

Hungarian Revolution--1956• Hungary’s desire for a national communism.• Imre Nagy, Hungary’s leader, pulls Hungary out of Warsaw Pact.• Intellectuals and Students take over streets.• Nagy opens borders and 150,000 flee.• Warsaw Pact invaded Budapest, November 4, 1956.• At least 25,000 killed• U. S. stood by—legitimization of Soviet Sphere and Suez Crisis

considered more important. Truman Doctrine exposed as another impotent U. S. lie.

• Limited Reform possible, but other reforms would be crushed.• French, Italian, and Romanian Communists denounce Warsaw

Pact invasion.

Stalin’s Statute Toppled in Budapest

Remains of Stalin’s Statue

Berlin Wall, 1961• Ulbricht’s desire, with Soviet support, to stop

exodus from East Berlin to West Berlin.• “Berlin Crisis”—JFK calls himself a “Jelly

Doughnut”—Ich bin ein Berliner!• West Berlin become militantly anti-

communist.

Fall of Khrushchev• Loss of face in Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962• Failed Agriculture Reforms –1964 USSR

imported grain.• Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) is new Soviet

Leader.

Life in Western Europe

• Supra-National Institutions Appear• Impact of Marshall Plan• NATO (1949)• European Coal and Steel Community, 1952• European Economic Community (1957)

Wirtshaftswunder/Miracolo Economico

• 1948 currency reform in BRD• Ludwig Erhard (1897-1977) lifted price

controls in BRB in 1948.• 5% growth in GNP 1950-1970• Social Welfare State• From the Beetle to the Mercedes Sedan• FIAT transformed Turin (Giovanni Agenelli)• Les Trente Glorieuses in France (1945-1975)

Postwar Culture• Americanization of Europe—Hollywood influence.• Love of newness and modernity• Automobiles• Smoking• Travel• Dampening of regional differences• Promotion of “American Way of Life.”• Clint Eastwood’s “Spaghetti Westerns”• Music—Rock n Roll and Blues

Postwar Culture

• Economic Forms—freed trade and consumer production.• Language—English is new “lingua franca”—except, mon

dieu, in France.• Mentality— “Vuoi fare American” “Do you want to be an

American?” newness, speed, and change.• American culture grafted onto older mores: “mayonnaise

on Frites.”• Notion of being European rather than a discrete nationality

—nationalism leads to wars.• Economic predominance rather than military

predominance.