The Cold War BeginsCh.19, Section 1

Setting the Scene…• Setting the Scene• Allied Cooperation was Temporary• Stalin is hostile to capitalism and the U.S. in particular• The Soviet Union just lost 20 million citizens and had it’s

western half decimated.

1945• Stalin, Churchill, and FDR had worked well together most of the times.

• We now see that the cooperation between the Soviets and the U.S. and Great Britain was temporary.

• Soviets harbor hostility towards capitalism and the U.S. in particular.

Death of FDR

Soviet Goals• Stalin wants...

– 20 Billion in war reparations from Germany.

– a barrier to protect “Mother Russia” from Europe.

– To make sure Germany is never a threat again.

The U.S. wants…

• Freedom for the countries we just fought to liberate.

• A strong, free, and open Europe.– (democracies

are good for business!)

“Uncle Joe” vs “Give ‘em hell Harry”

• Truman was very unprepared to be President.• Truman was kept out of all foreign policy under

FDR.• Stalin was a much stronger negotiator than

Truman anticipated.• Even so….

Potsdam - 1945

Potsdam Cont…

• Stalin will allow elections in Poland (lie)

• The United Nations is created as a peacekeeping body. – The U.S. will join the

U.N., unlike the League of Nations

Soviets tighten their grip

• One by one, all countries that were liberated by the U.S.S.R. fall under Stalin’s tyranny.

• Elections in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, East Germany are rigged or stolen, and these countries become satellite states of the Soviet Union.

• “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything” - Stalin

• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”– Sir Winston Churchill

Iron Curtain

George Kennan

“The United States policy towards the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

The U.S. Containment Policy• Many argued that containment was too weak, and we should

push Stalin back into his borders.

• Keenan saw what the future held for the Soviet Union, stating that it:" bears within it the seeds of its own decay”.

Containment, Cont.

• Keenan’s argument carries the day, and containment becomes the U.S.’s official policy towards communism for the coming decades.

• This allows us to keep communism from taking over democracies.

However…

• We have no way of fighting communism in countries were it already has roots.

The Truman Doctrine

"I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”– Harry S. Truman

The Truman Doctrine

• Turkey and Greece have considerable communist influence within their countries.

• The U.S. gave over $400 million dollars in aid to make sure these countries wouldn’t become communist.