Origins of the Cold War

By tjiah16

  • Yalta Conference

    Agreements:
    - Inclusion of London Poles inside Lublin Committee, free Polish elections to be held
    - Stalin signed the Declaration of Liberated Europe which pledged free elections and democratic institutions However
    - Free elections were not conducted in Poland
    - Only 2 London Poles added into Lublin Committee (tokenism on Stalin's part) It led to Roosevelt doubting for the first time in April 1945 the possibility of post-war cooperation with the Soviets.

  • Potsdam Conference

    The US practiced atomic diplomacy, where Truman offered Stalin information about the bomb in return for the reorganisation of Soviet-controlled governments in Bulgaria and Romania. The Soviets were not intimidated, but sped up their own atomic programme (completed in 1949) This accelerated the start of a nuclear arms race that would characterise the Cold War. It also helped to further deepen the cracks in the Grand Alliance

  • Long Telegramme

    It had an impact on the US policy makers. It was the decisive factor in the Truman administration's change of course to a policy of firmness towards the USSR.

  • Truman Doctrine

    There was no immediate response from or any changes in American relations with the USSR. It was accompanied by an increase in US military preparedness in the form of the National Security Act as a precautionary measure. However, it elicited no response from Stalin. It also laid the foundation for the formulation of the Marshall Plan in June 1947.

  • Marshall Plan

    It cemented the economic schism in Europe. The Soviets ensured that the eastern European countries did not participate in it and instead produced their own version of the Marshall Plan - the Molotov Plan. This effectively divided Europe into two economic blocs.

  • Berlin blockade began

    It came close to the first armed clash between the two sides and represented a point where the Cold War might have turn hot. It also increased the feeling of military insecurity in northern, western and southern Europe. There was pressure for a common military force to defend the region, and can be argued to have contributed to the formation of NATO in 1949. Germany was split into the two states of East and West; its partition was a microcosm of the division in Europe.

  • NATO

    NATO began the military split while the formation of the Warsaw Pact in response to the West German entry into NATO in 1955 formalised this schism. However, the Warsaw Pact was not an immediate response to NATO. Hence, the latter did not indicate a turning point in US-Soviet relations. NATO remained nothing more than a political association until the Korean War of 1950 when an integrated military structure was set up.