hello and welcome to a summary on the Cold War my name is Barbara and I'll be explaining key historical facts you need to be aware of when it comes to cold me so let's begin with the origins of the Cold War in 1941 to 1958 firstly there were three big alliances from world war ii britain the USA and the USSR and they were also known as the grand alliance their aim was to defeat Nazi Germany however as the war ended tensions arose so looking at how the big three discussed Europe's future at Tehran and the alte in 1943 the grand alliance focused on plans to defeat the Nazis the three superpowers Britain and the USA were politically different from the USSR however there were still tensions between the three although these tensions were put aside as they fought Nazi Germany the grand alliance made decisions about the future of Europe and these included free elections and the United Nations would replace the failed League of Nations however Potsdam revealed the first cracks in the grand alliance so in May 1945 after Germany surrendered the Allied leaders met again at Potsdam over July and August they wanted to work on the finer details of their plan for Germany in Europe these are some of the important agreements which were made at Potsdam firstly new boundaries of Poland were agreed secondly the big three plus France would divide Germany and Berlin between them and thirdly Nazi leaders would be tried for your crimes at Nuremberg Germany would be divided into four zones one for Britain another for France another for USA and the final one for USSR however the Allies didn't decide if or when their zones could rejoin and form a country again Roosevelt had died and Harry Truman succeeded him as US president and Truman was more suspicious of the USSR and less willing to compromise Britain and the US were also alarmed by Stalin's actions in Poland indeed he had installed a government consisting of only pro-communist members in Britain and the u.s. felt that this went against the Yalta agreement the USA and the USSR had very different ideologies the tension between the USA and the USSR was partly caused by the very different beliefs indeed the USSR was communist while the USA was capitalist both countries also feared the other's intentions so firstly communism really meant state control of industry in agriculture and this contrasted with the ideology of the USA which valued private enterprise the American Dream that anyone could work their way to the top which is really at the heart of the capitalist system also the USSR only allowed one political party which is a communist party whilst the u.s. a valued friend political freedom communism aimed at world revolution and so it was seen by Americans as a danger to their democracy however the Communists also fed worldwide American influence so thus there emerged two superpowers the USA and the USSR emerge from the Second World War as the two biggest powers in the world but there were very suspicious of one another and began to interpret the other's actions as threats another important thing is that the USA kept the atom bomb a secret so firstly you need to be aware that Japan during the Second World War was on Germany side in the war and Japan continued to fight after Germany had surrendered in May 1945 in August 1945 the USA dropped two atom bombs on Japan destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the atom bombs meant that military help from the USSR wasn't needed to defeat Japan President Truman also refused to allow the USSR to take part in the u.s. occupation of Japan the USA had kept the exact nature of the atom bomb a secret from the USSR at Potsdam in July 1945 although of course Stalin spies have passed on many details these nuclear weapons boosted the status of the USA and for four years it was the world's only nuclear power stalin saw the development of the atom bomb as an attempt to intimidate the USSR and was angry that the USA had managed to surpass soviet technology the atom bombs increased the rivalries between the USA and the USSR and so the USSR sped the development of its own atomic bomb starting an arms race between the two countries also the USSR became influential in Eastern Europe so firstly at the end of the Second World War the Red Army which was the USSR's army occupied Eastern Europe these countries would pass into the USSR's sphere flemm influence after the war and between 1945 and 1948 stalin installed a pro Soviet puppet government in Poland Hungary Romania Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia for a while it seemed that Czechoslovakia might remain democratic but when the communist party seemed likely to lose ground in their election it seized power in February 1948 the exception to Soviet domination was Yugoslavia which had freed himself from the Germans without the Red Army Yugoslavia was communist but much more open to the west and its leader tito argued with stalin over political interference stalin cut off aid but it didn't invade and Iron Curtain was then formed between East and West increase in tensions between the USA and the u.s. aw became known as a cold year there was no direct fighting both sides were afraid of another war especially after 1945 and the USSR then developed its own nuclear weapons after 1949 countries in Western Europe tended to support the USA most countries in Eastern Europe our vocal dominated by the USSR in a famous speech in 1956 Winston Churchill warned that there was an Iron Curtain dividing Europe there's also mutual suspicion the Cold War was really a period that developed because of international tension with each side suspicious of the other each side of course being the USA and the USSR another thing to be aware of is the long and the nicob telegrams both of which were detailed reports so in 1946 tensions between the superpowers were extremely high each country thus issued secret telegrams about the other the 1946 telegrams for detailed reports describing the motivations and intentions of the other country neither country seemed to know for certain what the other was thinking the reports panicked both the Russian and American governments and of course this accelerated the Cold War now firstly looking at the long term Midland it was issued to President Truman about the USSR it has said that Stalin had given a speech in favour of the destruction of capitalism and that warned of the USSR trying to weaken and divide Western powers while building the strength of its own military looking at the nickel telegram it was issued about Stalin and it was issued to start and in fact about the USA the report claimed that the USA was pursuing world supremacy and it warned that the USA was trying to limit the influence of the USSR in Europe President Truman who has mentioned earlier acted to contain the communist threat he was extremely worried about the spread of communism to Western Europe many countries were undergoing economic hardship which he thought might make communism look more appealing so the USA decided to intervene in Europe through using martial aids and this was their hope to try and contain the spread of communism this fell under the Truman Doctrine which was announced in March 1947 and the USA essentially pledged to support any nation threatened by a communist to take over this support could be diplomatic military or financial for example the USA gave four hundred million dollars of aid to Turkey and Greece to stop communism spreading in both countries the Marshall Plan was announced in June 1947 and this promised seventeen billion dollars of aid to European countries to help rebuild the economies the areas of Germany under Western occupation benefited massively Stalin however ordered all of the satellite states to reject the plan he believed that the USA was using economic incentives to lure Eastern European states away from the USSR the USSR reacted by creating the common form thus Stalin had of course felt really threatened by the Truman Doctrine and he reacted by strengthening and uniting its allies in the East the common form which stands for communist information bureau was thus set up in 1947 and the organization brought together all European communist parties and place them under the control of the USSR the comic-con which means the council for the mutual economic assistance was established in 1949 and it counted the Marshall Plan by nationalizing industries collectivizing agriculture and offering economic aid Stalin hoped this would encourage economic development in Eastern Europe and discourage trade with the West it also appeased the countries that had been ordered to refuse Marshall aid now moving on to the Berlin crisis tension over the division of Germany had been building since the Potsdam Conference and it finally spilled over in the Berlin crisis of 1948 this result in even a larger rift between the two great powers in 1948 the USSR and the West clashed over Berlin indeed immediately after the war if you can recall from earlier in the video there were four zones of occupied Germany and four zones also within Berlin in 1947 the USA in Britain agreed to combine the third zones to form a zone eeeh and the next year France agreed to add their zone tubas onea the new western zone had a single government and in June 1948 it introduced a new currency to help economic recovery this alarmed the USSR Stalin did not want a unified Western Zone on his doorstep West Berlin's strong capitalist economy embarrassed the USSR and made communism look weak and as a result Stalin decided to blockade Berlin in June 1948 he ordered that all road rail and canal links between West Berlin and the outside world should be cut off now looking at the arms race in the Cold War the USA and the USSR tried to gain an advantage by forming military alliances and developing ever more powerful weapons the aim was to look strong and deterred the other from attacking the USA and the USSR began an arms race so firstly during the Cold War the USA and the USSR which developed the most powerful weapons they could which obviously resulted in arms race secondly neither side however wanted to use these weapons but both felt that the other couldn't be allowed to gain an advantage their fare was that if either gained a significant military advantage that country might be tempted to trigger a war and take advantage of it thirdly instead and as a result a standoff developed where both countries didn't dare act against each other but also didn't dare get left behind the other fourthly this competition sometimes spilled over into other areas for example when the USSR launched the first satellite into space the USA quickly developed one of its own this space race led to the USSR spending the first man into space in 1961 and to the USA sending astronauts to the moon in 1969 both countries developed new nuclear stockpiles so the arms race is also filled by the fear and suspicion created by other events the formation of NATO in 1949 made the USSR fill militarily vulnerable and in February 1950 Communist China and the USSR signed a treaty of alliance which strengthened Western fears that the USSR was planning a communist domination that being said Nikita Khrushchev raised hopes of a peaceful coexistence so in 1953 something important happened Stalin died another member of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev took power Khrushchev said he wanted peaceful coexistence with the West his words brought hope that there would be a thaw in the Cold War however Khrushchev remained very competitive with the USA indeed he wanted communism to spread but he thought that the best way to achieve this was to clearly demonstrate its superiority and not by defeating the West in a war though also divisions in Eastern Europe not all of the USSR satellite states had willingly accepted communism and the USSR soon faced unrest now remember that when Khrushchev came to power he made a speech criticizing Stalin's policy and he brought in measures to D Stalin eyes the USSR these included the abolition of the death penalty and the freeing of political prisoners who were jailed under Stalin's regime this caused some satellite states in Eastern Europe to hope that their countries would become deaf Stalin eyes Khrushchev also abolished the common form meaning that states in Eastern Europe would have more political and economic freedom from the USSR these moves allowed tensions and the stet satellite states to rise the surface not all states had chosen communism and they saw the changes as a chance to loosen ties with the USSR in 1956 there was an uprising in Poland the USSR wanted to intervene but eventually that allowed the new government to follow and this led them to follow what was seen as their own version of communism this however encouraged other states to consider revolt the USSR however used the Hungarian Uprising to send a message so of course if you recall with Hungary the USSR had helped put Matias Rakosi who was a brutal Stalinist in charge of Hungary straight after the end of the Second World War his authoritarian regime became increasingly unpopular in October 1956 the people of Budapest protested against his government and Khrushchev allowed the liberal Emery nagi to take over from her post as Hungarian Prime Minster naggy hoped that Hungary can be a neutral State now in November 1956 Maggi amounts that Hungary would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and hold free elections ending communism there however if Hungary was allowed to turn away from communism Khrushchev feared that other satellite states might do the same the USSR felt that it had to respond with force and make an example of Maggie khrushchev hood only held power for just two years wanted to use this crisis to assert his authority as a result Soviet tanks invaded Hungary in November 1956 and thousands of Hungarians were killed or wounded Nagi was arrested and hanged and jános kádár became prime minister and ensured loyalty to the USSR thus the crisis strengthened the USSR and discredited the West so Khrushchev's brutal response to Hungary demonstrated to satellite states in Eastern Europe that disloyalty would not be tolerated it also showed the Western power that the USSR was still in control and it was a turning point for Khrushchev as his actions reasserted his authority over the satellite states and destroyed any illusions in the West that his leadership signified a thaw in the Cold War there was a lack of intervention from Western countries although they condemned the ussr's actions they did not want to intervene in order to not risk a nuclear war the United Nations asked the USSR to withdraw from Hungary but Kedar refused to take part in discussions and hence the situation remained unresolved so thank you so much for listening do come back for a second and third video will we look at other aspects of the Cold War as it drew on