Cold War and a New Western World, 1945-1965

  • US Stock Market crashed -> Great Depression

  • 6 million Germans unemployed after WW1

  • Stalin and Lenin killed Kulaks

  • Enabling Act enabled Hitler to have POWER

  • SS - Secret Police employed by Hitler todo all his bad stuff

  • Development of the Cold War

    • Confrontation of the Superpowers: Who Started the Cold War?
      • Most recently, most historians have adopted a nuanced view of who started the Cold War, noting that both the US and the USSR took steps after WWII that were unwise.
      • Disagreements over Eastern Europe
        • The USA and Great Britain both championed self-determination and democratic freedom in Eastern Europe. Stalin feared these places would return to anti-Soviet attitudes if they had free elections, so the Red Army installed pro-Soviet regimes in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
      • The Truman Doctrine
        • It said that the US would provide financial aid to countries that claimed that they were threatened by Communist expansion.
        • Congress provided $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey.
      • The Marshall Plan
        • This included $13 billion for the economic recovery of war-torn Europe, since Communist aggression “fed off economic turmoil.”
        • This plan may have led Stalin to push for greater control of Eastern Europe to safeguard Soviet interests.
      • The American Policy of Containment
        • This policy involved the application of counter-force with regard to Soviet or communist expansion.
      • Contention Over Germany
        • US and USSR agreed to the denazification of Germany and its partition, but agreed on little else.
        • The Soviets took reparations from Germany in the form of booty.
        • Once the Western governments planned to merge their territories of Germany to create a West German government, Soviets responded with blockade of West Berlin that allowed neither trucks nor trains to enter the three western zones of Berlin. The Western Allied forces responded to this with the Berlin Air Lift, in which supplies were flown into Berlin daily.
      • New Military Alliances
        • The USSR detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, and soon security took the form of mutual deterrence, which was the belief that arsenals of nuclear weapons prevented war.
        • The search for security led to the formation of military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
    • Globalization of the Cold War
      • The Korean War
        • In August 1945, the USSR and USA agreed to divide the country into two separate zones, but two gov’t emerged—the north was Communist and the south was anti-Communist.
        • In 1950 North Korean troops invaded South Korea, at Stalin's approval. Americans sent troops to stop the invasion. But then Mao Zedong, the leader of Communist China, sent Chinese forces to stop the American troops.
        • As a result, the boundary line remained at the 38th parallel, and China remained isolated from the West.
      • The First Vietnam War
        • The Indochinese Communist Party was led by Ho Chi Minh. As the Vietminh tried to gain independence from French influence, China and the US got involved since they saw it as a Cold War struggle.
        • Vietnam was then divided into the Communist north and non-Communist south.
      • After Stalin’s death, Soviet and US relations improved slightly, but then declined rapidly after the USSR used its forces to crush Hungary's attempt to assert its independence from Soviet control.
      • Nikita Khrushchev, the new leader of the USSR, added to the American frenzy over missiles by announcing that unless the West removed its forces from West Berlin, he would give access routes to Berlin to the East Germans. He eventually backed down, though.
      • On August 13, 1961, East German workers began the construction of the Berlin Wall to cut off the flow of refugees to the west.
      • Once Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, the US attempted an overthrow of his regime. To counter this, Khrushchev stationed nuclear missiles within striking range of the US.

  • decolonization of India and Pakistan happened first

  • Land and Freedom army (Mau Mau) movement against British

  • Gaulle ended war and Algeria gained independence

  • Freedom fighters used violence because that's all they knew

  • Decolonization -> Immigration to host countries -> segregation

  • Europe and the World: Decolonization

    • After WWII, Britain no longer had the energy to maintain its vast empire, so a rush of decolonization swept the world.
    • Africa: The Struggle for Independence
      • In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta founded the Kenyan African National Union to establish self-rule for Kenya.
        • Most independence leaders were Western-educated intellectuals.
        • The Mau Mau movement used terrorism (uhuru) from the British.
      • In South Africa, whites were strengthening the laws of apartheid, which was a system of racial segregation. After the arrest of Nelson Mandela, members of the African National Congress called for armed resistance of the white govt.
    • Conflict in the Middle East
      • Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon all became independent after WWII.
      • On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was established, though this was to much controversy, as the majority of the local population were not Jewish.
      • In Egypt, Nasser seized control of the gov’t and nationalized the Suez canal. His concept of “Pan-Arabism” became conflicted when Saudi Arabia and Iraq were afraid they’d be asked to share their oil revenues.
      • The Palestine Liberation Organization believed that only the Palestinian peoples (and not Jewish immigrants from abroad) had the right to form a state in Palestine.
    • Asia: Nationalism and Communism
      • On August 15, 1947, India and Pakistan became independent, though conflict over the border between Pakistan and India led to the death of a million people.
      • Indonesia emerged as a free nation in 1949.
      • At the end of WWII, two Chinese governments existed side by side: the Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists, led by Mao Zedong, though many peasants were attracted to Communism by promises of land and joined Mao’s army. Once Mao’s army won, he established a program called “The Great Leap Forward” that involved the collectivization of agriculture.

  • Industrialization 2.0

  • welfare state -> gives families more opportunity

  • European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market) -> helped trade and commerce in Europe

  • Treaty of Rome -> Established Common Market

  • Stalin reversed Stalin's ideas

  • Recovery and Renewal in Europe

    • The Soviet Union: from Stalin to Khrushchev
    • By 1947, industrial production in the USSR had attained pre-war levels.
      • In 1946, the gov’t decreed that all literary and scientific work must conform to the political needs of the state.
      • Under the rule of Nikita Khrushchev, the system of forced-labor camps ended. He also reduced the powers of the secret police in a process known as de-Stalinization. However, his foreign policy did not win him support in the Politburo, and he was voted out of office. He was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
    • Eastern Europe: Behind the Iron Curtain
      • In Yugoslavia, Tito (Josip Broz), seemed to be a loyal Stalinist, but after the war moved toward a more independent Communist state.
      • In 1956, national Communists in Hungary sought reforms and independence. Once Hungary declared itself independent from Soviet control, Khrushchev’s army invaded the capital city of Budapest.
    • Western Europe: the Revival of Democracy and the Economy
      • In many Western European nations, the Cold War had hurt the cause of socialism. To gain more followers, many socialist parties emphasized their commitment to social justice and liberty.
      • The rise of moderate parties such as the Christian Democrats were sincerely interested in democracy and economic reform.
      • In France, the fragile stability of the Fourth Republic had been shaken by the Algerian crisis. The potential for civil war in France arose. De Gaulle revised the constitution and declared the Fifth Republic. In May 1968, a series of student protests and strikes shook the govt.
      • Under Konrad Adenauer, the economy of West Germany revived significantly; this is often referred to as the "economic miracle". This was thanks to low taxes, free markets, and US aid.
      • In Britain, a struggling post-war economy led to reforms to create a modern welfare state. This included the nationalization of:
        • Bank of England
        • the coal and steel industries
        • public transportation
        • public utilities like electricity and gas
        • It also included social security and nationalized medical care.
        • The costs of the welfare state led to Britain’s need to reduce costs elsewhere, so the dismantling of the Empire began.
      • In Italy, the monarchy was abolished and became a democratic republic. Italy also experienced an economic miracle after the war, thanks to money from the Marshall Plan.
    • Western Europe: The Move Towards Unity
      • The idea of economic unity as means to foster peace and stability arose. The European Coal and Steel Community, which consisted of France, W. Germany, and Benelux countries, was established. Its purpose was to create a common market for coal and steel products among the six nations by eliminating tariffs and other trade barriers.
      • These six nations later formed the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) to further European research on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

  • Postwar Society and Culture in the Western World

    • The Structure of European Society
      • The middle class expanded as new groups of managers and technicians joined the labor force with their specialized knowledge.
      • There was a dramatic shift of people from rural to urban areas. A rise in wages led to a consumer society. Growth in mass leisure and tourism occurred as work hours declined and vacation time rose.
    • Creation of the Welfare State
      • The ideology is to allow people to live better and more meaningful lives, and government can provide this with the welfare state.
      • Family allowances provided which were instituted to provide a minimum level of material care for children.
      • European states moved toward free or low-cost universities to expand the opportunity of higher education to all social classes.
      • The British welfare system was based on the belief that women should stay home to raise children. However, in France women were entitled to the same welfare benefits as men for working outside the home.
    • Women in the Postwar World
      • Women’s role in the workplace declined, and a “baby boom” occurred. However, the rise of birth control changed this.
      • A women’s liberation movement arose in the late 1960s, and much of it was influenced by the philosophy of Simone fe Beauvoir. She believed that although she was liberated, she faced limits that men did not. In The Second Sex she argues that women have been defined by their differences from men and thus, have received second-class status.