Aim: How did the U.S.
try to contain the
Communist threat
during the Cold War?
Aftermath of World War II
• Formation of the United Nations
• UN approves Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (1948)
• State of Israel established
• Colonies gain independence
Stalin
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Totalitarian Dictator
Command Economy
Great Purges (1930s)
Gulags (prison camps, people usually died within
2 weeks of being there)
Five Year Plans (focused on heavy industry)
Collectivization
Millions starved to death
Persecution of religious beliefs/people
Women gained rights; had to work
Totalitarianism
The Gulag
• http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/sta
lin/living.php
A Soviet Textbook Justifies
Stalin’s Purges (ca. 1936)
•
“These gentry were guided in their evaluation of the achievements of the
workers and collective farmers not by the interests of the people, who
applauded every such achievement, but by the interests of their own
wretched and putrid faction, which had lost all contact with the realities of
life. Since the achievements of Socialism in our country meant the victory of
the policy of the Party and the utter bankruptcy of their own policy, these
gentry, instead of admitting the obvious facts and joining the common
cause, began to revenge themselves on the Party and the people for their
own failure, for their own bankruptcy; they began to resort to foul play and
sabotage against the cause of the workers and collective farmers, to blow
up pits, set fire to factories, and commit acts of wrecking in collective and
state farms, with the object of undoing the achievements of the workers and
collective farmers and evoking popular discontent against the Soviet
Government. And in order, while doing so, to shield their puny group from
exposure and destruction, they simulated loyalty to the Party, fawned upon
it, eulogized it, cringed before it more and more, while in reality continuing
their underhanded subversive activities against the workers and peasants.”
Fordham.edu
Life Under Stalin (readings,
pictures, and graphs)
• http://mrtrainor.sharepoint.com/Documents
/W5G30BAD%20Rise%20of%20Stalin%2
0and%20his%20policies.pdf
Hymn to Stalin
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/stalinworship.asp
Q: What can we learn from this hymn about
life in the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin?
A Comparison of the Cold War
Rivals
Soviet Union
• Authoritarian
government
• Communist economic
system (“command
economy”)
• Limits on civil liberties
• Cycles of repression
and freedom in social
and cultural life
•
•
•
•
United States
Democratic
government
Capitalist economic
system
Guarantees of civil
liberties
Freedom in social and
cultural life
The Rivalry Begins
• The atomic bombing of
Hiroshima on August 6th made
the disparity between the
Soviet and American programs
plain. A British journalist in
Moscow wrote: "the news [of
Hiroshima] had an acutely
depressing effect on
everybody. It was clearly
realized that this was a New
Fact in the world's power
politics, that the bomb
constituted a threat to Russia."
Within weeks, Stalin issued a
decree that made the
development of the atomic
bomb a top priority.
Joseph Stalin
Pbs.org
The Soviet quest for the Atom
Bomb
• Stalin had told a British journalist that
"Atomic bombs are meant to frighten those
with weak nerves." He went on to concede
that the bomb did, of course, create a
threat, but he warned, "monopoly
ownership of the atomic bomb cannot last
for long." And he was right, it didn't. On
August 29, 1949, at least a year before the
American scientists expected, the Soviet
Union tested its first atomic bomb.
Pbs.org
Winston Churchill
“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
some cases increasing measure
of control from Moscow. “
Winston S. Churchill:
"Iron Curtain Speech", March 5, 1946
The Iron Curtain 1946
Truman Doctrine (1947)
“The seeds of totalitarian regimes
are nurtured by misery and want.
They spread and grow in the evil
soil of poverty and strife. They
reach their full growth when the
hope of a people for a better life
has died. We must keep that hope
alive.”
“The free peoples of the world
look to us for support in
maintaining their freedoms.”
“If we falter in our leadership, we
may endanger the peace of the
world -- and we shall surely
endanger the welfare of our own
nation.”
The Marshall Plan
• Billions of dollars in aid offered to Europe
to help countries rebuild after World War II
• Truman offered aid to the U.S.S.R and its
satellites
• Stalin viewed the offer as a trick to weaken
Soviet influence in Eastern Europe
• Stalin forbade satellites to accept aid and
promised them that they would get
financial help from the Soviet Union
"It's the same thing without mechanical problems"
A Divided Germany
• Soviets dismantled factories and other
resources in its occupation zone, using
them for Russia instead
• Allies united their occupation zones and
sought to rebuild German industries
• East Germany controlled by the Soviet
Union (communist)
• West Germany wrote a constitution and
regained self-government
Berlin Airlift
• Although it was in the
Soviet zone, the Allies
still occupied Berlin, the
former German capital
• In 1948 Stalin tried to
force them out of Berlin
by sealing off all railroads
and highways that led to
West Berlin
• For nearly a year the
western powers airlifted
food and fuel to West
Berlin
• The Soviets were forced
to end the blockade
http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2012/07/sunderland-andberlin-blockade.html
Military Alliances
• In 1949, the U.S., Canada, and 9 Western
European countries formed a military
alliance called NATO (North Atlantic
Treaty Organization). Its members
pledged to help one another if any one of
them was attacked.
• Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) was formed by
the U.S.S.R. and its satellite nations
NONALIGNMENT
• Not all nations wanted to get involved in
the rivalry between the superpowers
during the Cold War
• India was a leader in the nonaligned
movement
• Indonesia hosted the Bandung
Conference in 1955 for nonaligned nations
War in Korea
and its aftermath
• At the end of World War II both the U.S. and U.S.S. R.
had withdrawn troops from Korea
• Soviets supplied North Korea with money and
ammunition in an attempt to take over the peninsula
• At the Security Council’s meeting the Soviets were
absent
• UN troops sent an international force to Korea (1950)
• 1953 the Korean War ended resulting in the continued
division at the 38 parallel (38 degrees north latitude)
• North Korea remained communist
• South Korea finally became a democracy in 1987
Soviet Leadership in the Last
Half of the 20th Century
•
•
•
•
Nikita Khrushchev (1956-1964)
Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)
Mikhail Gorbachev (1986-1991)
Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999)
Nikita Khrushchev (r.1956-1964)
• Suppressed
Hungarian
Revolution; built the
Berlin Wall; Cuban
Missile Crisis,
denounced Stalin’s
crimes; tried to
increase production of
consumer goods and
agriculture
Global History and Geography Star Review
Xtimeline.com
Political Unrest in Eastern
Europe
• Three years after Stalin’s death, Nikita
Khrushchev spoke out against Stalin’s crimes
• Caused a series of revolts in the Eastern
European satellite nations, where leaders
demanded more freedom from the U.S.S.R
• Hungary (1956)
• Czechoslovakia (1968) four months of brief
freedom (“Prague Spring”) until the Soviet
invasion
• U.S.S.R. harshly put down the revolts with tanks
and troops
The Space Race of the 1960s
USA
• 1961 First American
in space (Alan
Shepard)
• 1962 First American
orbits the earth (John
Glenn, Jr.)
• 1969 First manned
lunar landing (Neil
Armstrong, Buzz
Aldrin)
USSR
• 1959 Luna 2 probe
reaches the moon
• 1961 First human
orbits the earth (Yuri
Gagarin)
• 1963 First woman in
space (Valentina
Tereshkova)
The World Held its Breath…
John F. Kennedy
Nikita Krushchev
Cuban Missile Crisis
• 1962 Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev
began building 42 missile sites in Cuba
• After this was discovered by U.S. spy
planes, John F. Kennedy demanded the
removal of the missiles
• U.S. troops moved in place to attack Cuba
but the removal of the missiles averted a
potential World War III
Leonid Brezhnev (r. 1964-1982)
• SALT-Brezhnev and
Gerald Ford (Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks);
signed Helsinki Accords,
invaded Czechoslovakia;
Brezhnev Doctrine
(Warsaw Pact forces
would intervene if Soviet
domination was
compromised); increased
quality of consumer
goods but quantity
remained insufficient;
harsh policy against
dissidents
Global History and Geography Star Review
Xtimeline.com
The Vietnam War
• After World War II France was not willing
to give up its colony, Vietnam
• Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist who was a
communist
• The Vietnamese nationalists and
communists joined to fight the French
• The United States supported the French
but the French lost to Ho in 1954 at Dien
Bien Phu
A Divided Nation
• The U.S. saw communism as a rising threat in
Asia (Domino Theory)
• After France’s defeat, an international
conference divided Vietnam at 17 north latitude
• North Vietnam was governed by Ho’s communist
forces
• South Vietnam was controlled by Ngo Dinh Diem
under the leadership of the U.S. and France
Rising tensions
• Opposition to Ngo Dinh Diem’s corrupt
dictatorship
• North Vietnamese trained guerillas (Vietcong)
• South Vietnamese generals planned a coup with
the help of the U.S. Diem was assassinated
• Future leaders were just as bad
• The U.S. continued to supply South Vietnam
militarily
American Troops Move In…then
out!
• 1964- Gulf of Tonkin incident
• Lyndon Johnson told Congress that North
Vietnamese attacked two American
destroyers
• U.S. troops were authorized to go to
Vietnam
• As the War grew more unpopular Nixon
began to remove troops from 1969-1973
• North Vietnam overran South Vietnam
Vietnam’s Post-War Progress
• Vietnam had to recover from the war with
little foreign aid
• 5 Year Plans and command economy did
not help the economy
• 1988- Vietnam adopted some market
system economic reforms (but it is still
communist)
• Vietnamese economy is strong today,
poverty rate has fallen, GDP has more
than doubled between 2006 and 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/daniel-d-veniez/vietnam-economicgrowth_b_2867804.html
Global History and Geography
Star Review
Mikhail Gorbachev (r. 19861991)
•
Repealed Brezhnev
Doctrine; withdrew Soviet
troops from Afghanistan;
increased power of
republics within U.S.S.R;
Warsaw Pact ended;
Glasnost (increased
political freedoms);
Perestroika (moved
toward a free market
system); allowed
development of prodemocracy
Global History and Geography Star Review
Xtimeline.com
Boris Yeltsin (r. 1991-1999)
• Moved closer to western
powers with agreements
with EU and NATO;
bloody rebellion in
Chechnya province
(declared independence
in 1993); rampant crime
and corruption;
government revenue
declined
Global History and Geography Star Review
Xtimeline.com
Timeline of the Fall of the Soviet
Union
http://www.paulrittman.com/USSRTimeline.
pdf
Attempts to Control the Nuclear
Threat (U.S.-U.S.S.R)
• 1963- Limited Nuclear Test Ban TreatyProhibited testing in the atmosphere, later space
and underground tests forbidden
• 1968- Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty- nations
willing to forego nuclear weapons promised aid
in case of attack and help in development of
peaceful uses of atomic energy
• 1972, 1979 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks)- decreased some missiles and warheads
• 1991, 1993- START (Strategic Arms Reduction
Talks)- continued process of limiting nuclear
weapons and missile delivery systems
Cold War in Latin America
• 1959 Dictator Fidel
Castro seizes power
• Castro proved to be a
harsh dictator
• Nationalized the Cuban
economy- including U.S.
owned industries
• 1961U.S. backed Bay of
Pigs invasion by antiCastro exiles living in
Florida, results in failure
Civil War in Nicaragua
• The United States had supported the Nicaraguan
dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza since 1933
• 1979 Communist rebels, (Sandanistas) led by Daniel
Ortega, toppled the dictatorship
• The Sandanistas had aided socialists in nearby El
Salvador
• To help the El Salvadoran government, the U.S.
supported Nicaraguan anti-communist rebel forces
(Contras)
• Civil War lasted for ten years in Nicaragua. In 1990
Ortega agreed to have free elections (he was defeated
by Violeta Chamorro)
Cambodia (Southeast Asia)
• 1975 Communist
rebels known as
Khmer Rouge set up
a brutal regime under
Pol Pot
• Collective farms,
forced labor projects
• Approximately two
million Cambodians
were killed under Pol
Pot’s leadership (25%
of the population)
Skulls of Khmer Rouge Victims
Time Magazine Photo Essay of
the Cambodian Genocide
• http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,293
07,1948150_2013753,00.html
Comparing Colonial Legacies
and Patterns of Economic
Development in Africa
and Latin America
AP ALERT!!
Making an Annotated Timeline
Directions: Using the timeline that you will
be given, use the information in Appendix
II to make annotations on the timeline
below that explain the significance of
these events for the effects of the Cold
War in Latin America and Africa.
Comparing Different Points of View
• Read Kennedy’s and Khrushchev
statements from Appendix III and IV
and compare:
What is each man’s perspective on the role of Latin America (especially
Cuba) and Africa in the Cold War contest between the United States
and the Communist Bloc?
Khrushchev
• Latin America
Kennedy
•Latin America
• Africa
•Africa
• Analyze the excerpt from Lumumba’s
letter to his wife and determine his point of
view on how the Cold War is affecting his
country, Congo.
• The letter was written to his wife, Pauline,
before his assassination.
Analyze the excerpt from Allende’s last
speech and determine how the Cold War
affects his country, Chile.
Q: What is the Soviet
point of view on the
arrest of Lumumba?
The Comparative Essay
•
Compare the impact of the Cold War in
Latin America and in Sub-Saharan Africa