Conflicts of the Cold War Era

Hey guys, in this video the brilliant team is going to be taking you through everything you need for your AQA GCSE History option on conflicts and tension between East and West. When you're watching this video you can use the checklist to tick off all of the stuff that you know and use it to identify where you've got any gaps in your knowledge. You can then use the multiple choice questions and the workbooks to go back and fill in those gaps to make sure that you know everything that you need to for your exam. 1945 marked the end of World War II. Victory in Europe was achieved by the military overthrow of Germany by the USA, the UK, France and the Soviet Union. Victory in Japan was caused by the US dropping nuclear weapons, two of them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This left two global superpowers, countries with huge economies, military might and industrial capacity. They were the USA, the United States of America and the USSR. The USSR was immediately concerned about the USA having sole possessions of nuclear weapons. In 1945, the only country which possessed the ability to use and drop these nuclear weapons of huge and massive destruction was the USA. There was also two competing ideas about how to govern countries. Capitalism, as found in the USA, and Communism, as found in the USSR. Communism and Capitalism. Capitalism was found in the USA, as well as much of Western Europe. It had a focus on... individual liberty and human rights, as well as civil and legal rights. Free markets and a limited government, the idea that the government should only involve itself in the economy in a limited capacity and generally leave markets and choice to be free to individuals. Democracy and a free vote, the idea that government should be appointed by a free vote of the people. However, this inevitably led to some inequality, especially in wages and payments. Some people would have higher earnings and a higher standard of living than others. The general theory was that higher earnings would be gained through hard work and sometimes luck. Inevitably, this ideology led to the idea of private business, not owned or involved with the state. Communism was found in the USSR and much of Eastern Europe. Latterly, it was also found in North Korea, China and Vietnam. Under a communist system, there was no private business. Everything was owned by the state, by the government and by the nation. The idea was for a cohesive state that was more important than individual rights. and individual liberties, and by sacrificing these rights and liberties, equality and an advanced living standard for all could be achieved. There was therefore, theoretically at least, an equality of earnings and wealth, with no free markets, with the Communist Party of the country as the only party of government. Immediately following the end of World War II, the USA had Harry Truman as its president. He had succeeded to the presidency following the death of Roosevelt. The USA was the largest economy, by some measure, and a major superpower. It was unchallenged industrially and in many ways unchallenged militarily. Its primary focus was to limit the spread of communism. The UK, governed initially by Churchill, who was shortly replaced by Attlee, was an empire, gradually breaking up as it lost India, another part of its empire, and seeking to establish a place in the world for itself and ideally restore its former supremacy and importance in world affairs. The USSR, run by Stalin until 1953, was massively damaged by the war. In military terms... in industrial terms, but most importantly, in terms of sheer numbers that had died. It was seeking to establish dominance over Europe, and Eastern Europe in particular, and protect itself against what it saw as an aggressive and imperialist USA. There were two important conferences in 1945, at Yalta and at Potsdam, which shaped the immediate events after the war. Yalta Conference, held in February of that year, was between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Its purpose was to shape post-war Europe. After the war, as people disagreed about how Europe should be shaped, this conference and the decisions made at it became increasingly controversial. Potsdam, held between July and August in 1945, was a conference between Stalin, Churchill and Truman, who had replaced Roosevelt as president. As we can see here, following the military defeat of Germany, the country was divided into four zones. A British zone, shown here in green, in the northwest of the country. A Soviet zone, shown here in red, in the east and northeast of the country. An American zone, shown here in orange, in the south of the country. And a smaller French zone. shown here in blue, in the southwest of the country. Berlin was also divided into four. Despite being nominally within the Soviet zone of occupation, it was instead divided between the four powers. Each zone, in most respects, acted separately, although shortly after the war the British, French and American zones would begin to quickly work together and coalesce. Eventually this would lead to two Germanies. West Germany comprising the former British, American and French zones and an East Germany comprising the Soviet zone. The United States had four main foreign policy goals. The first of these was to prevent further Soviet expansion in Europe and Asia. The US feared the expansion of communism further into Western Europe, with countries such as Italy or the Netherlands, and further into Asia, perhaps into Mongolia, China, or even Japan. In order to do this, a second US post-war foreign policy goal was to develop alliances with friendly Western European states, such as France and the United Kingdom. To make this more likely, a third foreign policy goal was to encourage Western Europe to work together. to coalesce in terms of their economy and political systems, and to work towards a military alliance. The fourth and final foreign policy goal, the superior US position, has a global policeman and a global hegemon. After World War II, the US stood alone as a major industrial power. Although the USSR could theoretically challenge it, it was so badly damaged by the war that this was, for now, not a realistic possibility. Immediately following the war, therefore, the US had a race to consolidate its superior position and mark itself out in the minds of most of the world. as the global policeman and dominant superpower. The Truman Doctrine, sometimes also called the Truman Policy, was developed by and using the wishes of President Harry Truman. The idea was to contain communism and prevent it spreading to other countries using US influence, US military might, and massive US industrial resources. There were some positives to this. It did prevent some countries, especially in Europe, heading communist, notably Italy. It did establish the US as the guardian of liberal democracy. and what the US thought was the Western way of life. Lastly, it pushed Europe into NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and economic alliances, such as the still young but burgeoning coal and steel community. There were, however, some negatives. The Truman Doctrine did not succeed in preventing communism in China. It arguably led to the Korean War, and it dramatically worsened US-Soviet relations, a time when good relations between the superpowers were key to international stability. The Marshall Plan was named after the senior US diplomat, George Marshall. The idea was to encourage the development and integration of Europe, especially Western Europe, using US financial aid. Over a period of years, this resulted in a transfer of $128 billion at 2020 currencies to Europe. Mostly, this went to France, the UK, and Italy. A great deal went to the fast-developing West Germany. Offers were made to Eastern European countries, but at the behest of Stalin and senior communist officials in Moscow, Eastern European countries were forced to reject this offer, and a pale Soviet substitute was set up instead. There were many positive and negative aspects to the Marshall Plan, and many advantages and disadvantages. Some of the positives are the following. It swiftly encouraged European development and also integration. It allowed the UK and Germany, among others, to trade with the US. It distributed currency around the world, allowing the world economy to get back to normality and back on its feet. And in political terms... it cemented the image of the US as the guardian of free capitalism and free trade in the Western world. Western European economies have been devastated by the Second World War. In distributing American aid to them, America allowed them to trade, especially with the United States buying things from US producers and farmers. So the aid did not just prop up the European economy, it also contributed to the swift post-war development of the US economy. There were, however, some negatives. The Marshall Plan was extremely expensive. It was politically unpopular in some parts of US society, especially those who sucked at undertaking an isolationist framework to withdraw from the wider world. The money of the Marshall Plan was not directed equally. Some nations, such as the UK and West Germany, benefited much more than others. The Marshall Plan also led to a USSR counter-reaction in Comic-Con. Comic-Con and Cominform were two important organisations set up by the Soviet Union. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, or Comic-Con, was set up in 1949. It was a communist, Russian-led response to the Marshall Plan, which had threatened communist solidarity and unity with the Marshall Plan's offers of aid to Eastern Europe. Comic-Con was the USSR's version of the Marshall Plan, although it had much less scope in terms of financial aid. The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties, also known as Cominform, was set up shortly after the war in 1947. It was an international alliance of communist parties throughout all of Europe. Their primary aim was to coordinate their actions and policy and try and install communists in governments in Western Europe. Many people later viewed Cominform as nothing more than the propaganda institution and the arm of the USSR in many Western states. As we have already seen, at the end of World War II, Germany was divided into four zones, each one under the control of one of the victorious Allied powers. France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. The same applied to Berlin. Berlin was also divided into four zones. However, the effect of this was to cut Berlin in half, into a communist East Berlin and a capitalist West Berlin. At first, following the end of the war, both people and goods were permitted to move freely between the two halves of Berlin. However, in 1948, currency unification happened in West Germany, where the three allied zones controlled by France, the United Kingdom and the United States began to merge, slowly but surely becoming a West German state. In reaction, the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin, preventing the movement of both goods and people into the city, especially via air corridors. Through much of 1949, however, both British and US Air Force forces dropped millions of tons of supplies into West Berlin. This kept the civilian population supplied and fed through the period. By the time Berlin reached September 1949, the Soviet Union was forced to climb down and back off from its position of blockade. It eventually allowed goods into the city. The Berlin blockade and the subsequent airlift marked both a major escalation in superpower tensions where they nearly came to physical violence, but it also marked the first major foreign policy defeat after World War II for the Soviet Union. Many people consider the Berlin blockade and the following airlift to be the first post-war flashpoint. between the two major superpowers. Before, during and even shortly after World War II, communist forces in China had been fighting the Kuomintang government of China. After World War II however, the communists led by Mao Zedong eventually prevailed and a communist government was set up in China. China therefore became the second major communist power after the USSR. It was supported by the Soviet Union politically and financially. This outbreak of communism leading to a communist state in China was a development of deep concern for the United States government. They developed the domino theory, the idea that communism would spread swiftly from one country to another in the region of Southeast Asia, from China to Vietnam, perhaps to Korea, and even perhaps to British-held India. As we have seen, Mao Zedong, pictured here, was the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. He became the de facto ruler of China from 1943 all the way through to 1976. He was a brutally conservative Marxist-Leninist communist. He had a similar brutal style of repressive rule to Stalin, and the two greatly admired each other, even though they did not always get on personally. He aimed initially to develop Chinese industry, and transform the country into a modern industrial state. China had, up until roughly 1945-50, been a primarily agricultural state. He also wished to expand Chinese communist influence, especially within Southeast Asia. Initially, Chairman Mao was supported by, and very friendly himself, towards the USSR. However, after the death of Stalin in 1953, and the takeover of the USSR by a younger, slightly more liberal generation of communists, through the Second World War, the Korean peninsula had been occupied by Japanese forces. Like Germany, following the end of World War II, Korea had been partitioned into a Soviet-controlled communist north, and an American-controlled, or at least influenced, capitalist South. Korea was therefore divided into two ideologically opposing sides along the 38th parallel. Kim Il-sung, the leader of North Korea, made the decision. This decision was made with Soviet and Chinese backing, approval, or at least tacit support. The decision was to invade the South and attempt to take over the entire country to establish a fully communist-controlled Korean peninsula. The newly formed United Nations or UN, sent troops to the country. They were able, after brutal fighting, to eventually fight the North Korean troops back to what amounted to a stalemate on the 38th parallel. Korea therefore became two states, as it remains to this day, a North Korea and a South Korea. Both states claimed and claim to be the rightful rulers of the entire Korean peninsula. North Korea quickly became a withdrawn and closed communist totalitarian state, supported by the USSR and China. South Korea became a capitalist country and usually a democracy. It was supported by the USA and Japan, and then other countries in the Western world. Prior to World War II, Vietnam had been a French colony, ruled with the French usual style of colonialism with some brutality. Following the end of the war and the withdrawal of Japanese forces, the French struggled to contain a communist uprising in the country, led by Ho Chi Minh. Like Korea, Vietnam was quickly divided into a communist USSR and China supported North, and the capitalist USA supported South Vietnam. There were repeated skirmishes between North and South Vietnam. Eventually, at the request of the South Vietnamese government, the US sent advisers and then eventually ground troops to the nation. A brutal and bloody conflict ensued between US and South Korean forces and the North Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian supported forces, which lasted until 1975. Eventually, After 1975 and the withdrawal of US troops, Vietnam would become a single, unified communist state. This was a major communist victory in the area, especially for China. Until 1953, Cuba had been a dictatorship, dominated by the interests of the military and US-organized crime, the mafia in particular. From 1953 onwards, however, a communist revolution gradually gathered pace in Cuba. This was led by Fidel Castro, pictured here. who would later become the ruler of a communist Cuba. Castro was a Cuban nationalist and a Marxist-Leninist communist. He wished to transform Cuba into a Soviet-style communist state. He became ruler of the country from 1959 through to 2011. Following the revolution, therefore, Cuba became a hostile to the US communist state. located only about 90 miles off the US Florida coast. Following the revolution in Cuba, transforming it into a communist state, both the USA and the USSR had foreign policy objectives in the country. The USA wished to destabilize and ideally overthrow the communist regime, setting up its own puppet democratic government in the area. The USSR wished just the opposite, to stabilize the regime and use it in the propaganda and cold war against the USA. In 1961, a group of Cuban émigrés tried to invade with the aim of toppling the regime, known as the Bay of Pigs incident. This failed spectacularly when the US government, fearing Soviet retaliation, withdrew their air support. This solidified communist control of the island and was a major propaganda victory for Castro and his Soviet backers. However, in 1962, as a response to the presence of US missiles in Turkey and Italy, two countries relatively close to Soviet borders, Soviet missiles were placed on Cuban soil. The US at this time under the leadership of President Kennedy, was horrified and appalled. It began plans to try and remove the missiles as soon as possible, to eliminate the threat to its own continental state. The US government quickly realised it had six possible options. Number one, do nothing. Number two, try and use diplomatic channels to resolve the crisis. Number three, a secret approach to Adacastro himself or the USSR to try and resolve the crisis and get rid of the missiles. Four, an outright invasion of Cuba. Five, an airstrike on Cuba. And six, a naval blockade of the island. The US military wished for a full invasion, or possibly even a nuclear strike. Political leaders feared that this could escalate into a full-scale nuclear hot war with the USSR. Blockade was chosen as the best possible option, with elements of some diplomacy in back channels at the same time. Cuba was blockaded by the US Navy, who had orders to stop and inspect any vessels trying to reach Cuba. Some. if they carried harmless supplies were allowed to proceed. However, fears were high, especially among the US leadership, that if a ship tried to run the blockade and get past it, a hot war would ensue with Cuban and Soviet forces. However, eventually, Soviet leadership realised that their desire to challenge the USA in its own hemisphere and gain an advantage in Cuba could lead to a full-scale war, which was not their objective. An exchange of letters between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev ensued. Both leaders backed down. The message... Missiles were removed under UN supervision, but the Cuban Missile Crisis to many represented the high watermark in Cold War tensions, a point at which the Cold War could easily have flipped into being a nuclear disaster. From the time of the US development and then deployment of the atom bomb, the USA and USSR were both trying to outdo each other in terms of both the number and superiority of weapons, especially missiles, and especially nuclear weapons. Once the USSR had developed nuclear weapons, a theory known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, was quickly developed. This theory put forward the idea that no single power would start a nuclear war, because the subsequent retaliation would be sure to destroy them. The development and manufacture of these weapons was expensive, in terms of raw resources, but also in terms of money. The US economy, which after 1945 grew spectacularly, could withstand to some extent the cost of these missiles while being able to provide for the basic needs of the US population. The economy of the USSR could not. The high cost of missiles and high military investment generally led to declining or stagnating living standards. The arms race also led to a space race. Both superpowers were seeking to use space exploration to demonstrate their superiority and possibly to gain a military advantage. The space race eventually concluded with the US moon landings in 1969, after which point the USSR were forced to admit that they had lost that particular battle. NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. This and the Warsaw Pact represented two competing military defensive alliances through the majority of the Cold War. Both were theoretically defensive organisations and brought collective security for their members, the idea being that in membership of both organisations, an attack on one would be regarded as an attack on them all. NATO was comprised of the US and Western European nations, such as France and the United Kingdom. The Warsaw Pact was comprised of the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations, such as Poland. Both suffered from similar problems and similar advantages. They were both dependent, to a large extent, on a single large superpower, for both military might and numbers. Other nations had smaller, or less capable, or less equipped militaries. Both were a financial burden. to their respective superpowers. In 1956, Hungarians, especially in the late 19th century, the capital, revolted against their communist government. This was the first major backlash against the domination of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. The revolution, as revolutions often do, began as a student uprising. However, it quickly spread throughout other elements of the country, spreading both in terms of social class and geographically. Student groups and revolutionary militias took to the streets, especially of Budapest, risking the communist control of Hungary. Initially, the Soviet government in Moscow appeared open to compromise and willing to negotiate with the revolutionaries. They feared the effects, especially worldwide, of using force to put down this revolution. However, on the 4th of November 1956, a large Soviet force, including tanks and armoured divisions, invaded Hungary. They put down the revolution with brutal and repressive force. For the Soviet Union, this was both a defeat and a victory. They had demonstrated that they had military power. especially to the outside world, but it was clear that their authority could be and had been challenged with some degree of success. As we have seen, Germany and Berlin in particular have been a particular troublesome issue throughout the Cold War. Huge numbers of East Germans were fleeing in the immediate post-war years from the communist East Berlin into the capitalist West Berlin with its glittering lights, stock shelves and higher living standards. Eventually and reluctantly Moscow was forced to physically divide the two. In 1961, barbed wire, quickly followed by a huge concrete wall, was constructed. This was the Berlin Wall. It divided the two halves of Berlin. The Berlin Wall quickly became a symbol of the Cold War. It became a symbol of Soviet failure to stop their citizens fleeing and to keep up with Western living standards. If conditions in East Berlin and East Germany were so good, why was the wall needed? The Berlin Wall lasted until 1989. A huge number of people were killed trying to cross it. There was indeed a kill zone on the Soviet side of the wall, where anyone trying to cross was shot. Eventually, its downfall would become a symbol of, and a trigger for, the downfall of the Soviet Union itself. In 1968, Alexander Dubček was elected leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. He was a moderniser and a reformist, who wanted to improve the political and economic system of Czechoslovakia. The country was strategically significant. It represented a long, thin corridor through Eastern Europe and through the Warsaw Pact, from East Germany all the way to the borders of the USSR itself. Being the modernizer that he was, Dubček quickly began a process of some liberalization and democratization. This opened the way for Czechoslovakia to have better relations with the West, with West Germany in particular. The Soviet Union and its government feared the consequences of this. They feared losing this strategically significant state within the Warsaw Pact to the west. They invaded to oust Dubček and stop the reforms. There was mass civilian protest at this. Defence mounted by civilian militias lasted eight months, frustrating the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and providing a clear message to the world that the Soviet Union and its forces could be resisted. Eventually, however, as would be expected given their superior numbers, the Soviet Union overcame the resistance. They began a slow process of restoring the old, hardline communist regime in Prague. The word détente means a relaxing of tensions. The period between 1969 and 1974 marked a thaw in the relations between the two superpowers, where they warmed gradually but noticeably. Through this period, the USA was led by Richard Nixon prior to his possible impeachment, and the USSR was led by Leonid Brezhnev. Both realized that the arms race was costing both their nations. economically. This was making a nuclear disaster, an accidental launch, or a quick hotspot intentions more likely. A number of treaties were signed between these years, such as SALT I, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, which limited the development and production of nuclear weapons. However, in 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The period of detente was definitely over, and in the 1980s, after his election, President Reagan began to push harder for the defeat. of the Soviet Union. Ouch! This is why in some videos I have unexplained scratches.

Victory in Japan was caused by the US dropping nuclear weapons, two of them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This left two global superpowers, countries with huge economies, military might and industrial capacity. They were the USA, the United States of America and the USSR.

The USSR was immediately concerned about the USA having sole possessions of nuclear weapons. In 1945, the only country which possessed the ability to use and drop these nuclear weapons of huge and massive destruction was the USA. There was also two competing ideas about how to govern countries. Capitalism, as found in the USA, and Communism, as found in the USSR.

Communism and Capitalism. Capitalism was found in the USA, as well as much of Western Europe. It had a focus on...

individual liberty and human rights, as well as civil and legal rights. Free markets and a limited government, the idea that the government should only involve itself in the economy in a limited capacity and generally leave markets and choice to be free to individuals. Democracy and a free vote, the idea that government should be appointed by a free vote of the people.

However, this inevitably led to some inequality, especially in wages and payments. Some people would have higher earnings and a higher standard of living than others. The general theory was that higher earnings would be gained through hard work and sometimes luck.

Inevitably, this ideology led to the idea of private business, not owned or involved with the state. Communism was found in the USSR and much of Eastern Europe. Latterly, it was also found in North Korea, China and Vietnam. Under a communist system, there was no private business.

Everything was owned by the state, by the government and by the nation. The idea was for a cohesive state that was more important than individual rights. and individual liberties, and by sacrificing these rights and liberties, equality and an advanced living standard for all could be achieved.

There was therefore, theoretically at least, an equality of earnings and wealth, with no free markets, with the Communist Party of the country as the only party of government. Immediately following the end of World War II, the USA had Harry Truman as its president. He had succeeded to the presidency following the death of Roosevelt. The USA was the largest economy, by some measure, and a major superpower.

It was unchallenged industrially and in many ways unchallenged militarily. Its primary focus was to limit the spread of communism. The UK, governed initially by Churchill, who was shortly replaced by Attlee, was an empire, gradually breaking up as it lost India, another part of its empire, and seeking to establish a place in the world for itself and ideally restore its former supremacy and importance in world affairs.

The USSR, run by Stalin until 1953, was massively damaged by the war. In military terms... in industrial terms, but most importantly, in terms of sheer numbers that had died. It was seeking to establish dominance over Europe, and Eastern Europe in particular, and protect itself against what it saw as an aggressive and imperialist USA. There were two important conferences in 1945, at Yalta and at Potsdam, which shaped the immediate events after the war.

Yalta Conference, held in February of that year, was between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Its purpose was to shape post-war Europe. After the war, as people disagreed about how Europe should be shaped, this conference and the decisions made at it became increasingly controversial.

Potsdam, held between July and August in 1945, was a conference between Stalin, Churchill and Truman, who had replaced Roosevelt as president. As we can see here, following the military defeat of Germany, the country was divided into four zones. A British zone, shown here in green, in the northwest of the country. A Soviet zone, shown here in red, in the east and northeast of the country. An American zone, shown here in orange, in the south of the country.

And a smaller French zone. shown here in blue, in the southwest of the country. Berlin was also divided into four. Despite being nominally within the Soviet zone of occupation, it was instead divided between the four powers.

Each zone, in most respects, acted separately, although shortly after the war the British, French and American zones would begin to quickly work together and coalesce. Eventually this would lead to two Germanies. West Germany comprising the former British, American and French zones and an East Germany comprising the Soviet zone.

The United States had four main foreign policy goals. The first of these was to prevent further Soviet expansion in Europe and Asia. The US feared the expansion of communism further into Western Europe, with countries such as Italy or the Netherlands, and further into Asia, perhaps into Mongolia, China, or even Japan. In order to do this, a second US post-war foreign policy goal was to develop alliances with friendly Western European states, such as France and the United Kingdom. To make this more likely, a third foreign policy goal was to encourage Western Europe to work together.

to coalesce in terms of their economy and political systems, and to work towards a military alliance. The fourth and final foreign policy goal, the superior US position, has a global policeman and a global hegemon. After World War II, the US stood alone as a major industrial power. Although the USSR could theoretically challenge it, it was so badly damaged by the war that this was, for now, not a realistic possibility. Immediately following the war, therefore, the US had a race to consolidate its superior position and mark itself out in the minds of most of the world.

as the global policeman and dominant superpower. The Truman Doctrine, sometimes also called the Truman Policy, was developed by and using the wishes of President Harry Truman. The idea was to contain communism and prevent it spreading to other countries using US influence, US military might, and massive US industrial resources.

There were some positives to this. It did prevent some countries, especially in Europe, heading communist, notably Italy. It did establish the US as the guardian of liberal democracy.

and what the US thought was the Western way of life. Lastly, it pushed Europe into NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and economic alliances, such as the still young but burgeoning coal and steel community. There were, however, some negatives. The Truman Doctrine did not succeed in preventing communism in China. It arguably led to the Korean War, and it dramatically worsened US-Soviet relations, a time when good relations between the superpowers were key to international stability.

The Marshall Plan was named after the senior US diplomat, George Marshall. The idea was to encourage the development and integration of Europe, especially Western Europe, using US financial aid. Over a period of years, this resulted in a transfer of $128 billion at 2020 currencies to Europe. Mostly, this went to France, the UK, and Italy.

A great deal went to the fast-developing West Germany. Offers were made to Eastern European countries, but at the behest of Stalin and senior communist officials in Moscow, Eastern European countries were forced to reject this offer, and a pale Soviet substitute was set up instead. There were many positive and negative aspects to the Marshall Plan, and many advantages and disadvantages. Some of the positives are the following.

It swiftly encouraged European development and also integration. It allowed the UK and Germany, among others, to trade with the US. It distributed currency around the world, allowing the world economy to get back to normality and back on its feet.

And in political terms... it cemented the image of the US as the guardian of free capitalism and free trade in the Western world. Western European economies have been devastated by the Second World War. In distributing American aid to them, America allowed them to trade, especially with the United States buying things from US producers and farmers. So the aid did not just prop up the European economy, it also contributed to the swift post-war development of the US economy.

There were, however, some negatives. The Marshall Plan was extremely expensive. It was politically unpopular in some parts of US society, especially those who sucked at undertaking an isolationist framework to withdraw from the wider world.

The money of the Marshall Plan was not directed equally. Some nations, such as the UK and West Germany, benefited much more than others. The Marshall Plan also led to a USSR counter-reaction in Comic-Con. Comic-Con and Cominform were two important organisations set up by the Soviet Union. The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, or Comic-Con, was set up in 1949. It was a communist, Russian-led response to the Marshall Plan, which had threatened communist solidarity and unity with the Marshall Plan's offers of aid to Eastern Europe.

Comic-Con was the USSR's version of the Marshall Plan, although it had much less scope in terms of financial aid. The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties, also known as Cominform, was set up shortly after the war in 1947. It was an international alliance of communist parties throughout all of Europe. Their primary aim was to coordinate their actions and policy and try and install communists in governments in Western Europe.

Many people later viewed Cominform as nothing more than the propaganda institution and the arm of the USSR in many Western states. As we have already seen, at the end of World War II, Germany was divided into four zones, each one under the control of one of the victorious Allied powers. France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. The same applied to Berlin.

Berlin was also divided into four zones. However, the effect of this was to cut Berlin in half, into a communist East Berlin and a capitalist West Berlin. At first, following the end of the war, both people and goods were permitted to move freely between the two halves of Berlin.

However, in 1948, currency unification happened in West Germany, where the three allied zones controlled by France, the United Kingdom and the United States began to merge, slowly but surely becoming a West German state. In reaction, the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin, preventing the movement of both goods and people into the city, especially via air corridors. Through much of 1949, however, both British and US Air Force forces dropped millions of tons of supplies into West Berlin.

This kept the civilian population supplied and fed through the period. By the time Berlin reached September 1949, the Soviet Union was forced to climb down and back off from its position of blockade. It eventually allowed goods into the city. The Berlin blockade and the subsequent airlift marked both a major escalation in superpower tensions where they nearly came to physical violence, but it also marked the first major foreign policy defeat after World War II for the Soviet Union.

Many people consider the Berlin blockade and the following airlift to be the first post-war flashpoint. between the two major superpowers. Before, during and even shortly after World War II, communist forces in China had been fighting the Kuomintang government of China. After World War II however, the communists led by Mao Zedong eventually prevailed and a communist government was set up in China. China therefore became the second major communist power after the USSR.

It was supported by the Soviet Union politically and financially. This outbreak of communism leading to a communist state in China was a development of deep concern for the United States government. They developed the domino theory, the idea that communism would spread swiftly from one country to another in the region of Southeast Asia, from China to Vietnam, perhaps to Korea, and even perhaps to British-held India. As we have seen, Mao Zedong, pictured here, was the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

He became the de facto ruler of China from 1943 all the way through to 1976. He was a brutally conservative Marxist-Leninist communist. He had a similar brutal style of repressive rule to Stalin, and the two greatly admired each other, even though they did not always get on personally. He aimed initially to develop Chinese industry, and transform the country into a modern industrial state.

China had, up until roughly 1945-50, been a primarily agricultural state. He also wished to expand Chinese communist influence, especially within Southeast Asia. Initially, Chairman Mao was supported by, and very friendly himself, towards the USSR. However, after the death of Stalin in 1953, and the takeover of the USSR by a younger, slightly more liberal generation of communists, through the Second World War, the Korean peninsula had been occupied by Japanese forces.

Like Germany, following the end of World War II, Korea had been partitioned into a Soviet-controlled communist north, and an American-controlled, or at least influenced, capitalist South. Korea was therefore divided into two ideologically opposing sides along the 38th parallel. Kim Il-sung, the leader of North Korea, made the decision.

This decision was made with Soviet and Chinese backing, approval, or at least tacit support. The decision was to invade the South and attempt to take over the entire country to establish a fully communist-controlled Korean peninsula. The newly formed United Nations or UN, sent troops to the country.

They were able, after brutal fighting, to eventually fight the North Korean troops back to what amounted to a stalemate on the 38th parallel. Korea therefore became two states, as it remains to this day, a North Korea and a South Korea. Both states claimed and claim to be the rightful rulers of the entire Korean peninsula. North Korea quickly became a withdrawn and closed communist totalitarian state, supported by the USSR and China. South Korea became a capitalist country and usually a democracy.

It was supported by the USA and Japan, and then other countries in the Western world. Prior to World War II, Vietnam had been a French colony, ruled with the French usual style of colonialism with some brutality. Following the end of the war and the withdrawal of Japanese forces, the French struggled to contain a communist uprising in the country, led by Ho Chi Minh. Like Korea, Vietnam was quickly divided into a communist USSR and China supported North, and the capitalist USA supported South Vietnam. There were repeated skirmishes between North and South Vietnam.

Eventually, at the request of the South Vietnamese government, the US sent advisers and then eventually ground troops to the nation. A brutal and bloody conflict ensued between US and South Korean forces and the North Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian supported forces, which lasted until 1975. Eventually, After 1975 and the withdrawal of US troops, Vietnam would become a single, unified communist state. This was a major communist victory in the area, especially for China.

Until 1953, Cuba had been a dictatorship, dominated by the interests of the military and US-organized crime, the mafia in particular. From 1953 onwards, however, a communist revolution gradually gathered pace in Cuba. This was led by Fidel Castro, pictured here. who would later become the ruler of a communist Cuba. Castro was a Cuban nationalist and a Marxist-Leninist communist.

He wished to transform Cuba into a Soviet-style communist state. He became ruler of the country from 1959 through to 2011. Following the revolution, therefore, Cuba became a hostile to the US communist state. located only about 90 miles off the US Florida coast. Following the revolution in Cuba, transforming it into a communist state, both the USA and the USSR had foreign policy objectives in the country. The USA wished to destabilize and ideally overthrow the communist regime, setting up its own puppet democratic government in the area.

The USSR wished just the opposite, to stabilize the regime and use it in the propaganda and cold war against the USA. In 1961, a group of Cuban émigrés tried to invade with the aim of toppling the regime, known as the Bay of Pigs incident. This failed spectacularly when the US government, fearing Soviet retaliation, withdrew their air support. This solidified communist control of the island and was a major propaganda victory for Castro and his Soviet backers.

However, in 1962, as a response to the presence of US missiles in Turkey and Italy, two countries relatively close to Soviet borders, Soviet missiles were placed on Cuban soil. The US at this time under the leadership of President Kennedy, was horrified and appalled. It began plans to try and remove the missiles as soon as possible, to eliminate the threat to its own continental state.

The US government quickly realised it had six possible options. Number one, do nothing. Number two, try and use diplomatic channels to resolve the crisis. Number three, a secret approach to Adacastro himself or the USSR to try and resolve the crisis and get rid of the missiles. Four, an outright invasion of Cuba.

Five, an airstrike on Cuba. And six, a naval blockade of the island. The US military wished for a full invasion, or possibly even a nuclear strike.

Political leaders feared that this could escalate into a full-scale nuclear hot war with the USSR. Blockade was chosen as the best possible option, with elements of some diplomacy in back channels at the same time. Cuba was blockaded by the US Navy, who had orders to stop and inspect any vessels trying to reach Cuba.

Some. if they carried harmless supplies were allowed to proceed. However, fears were high, especially among the US leadership, that if a ship tried to run the blockade and get past it, a hot war would ensue with Cuban and Soviet forces.

However, eventually, Soviet leadership realised that their desire to challenge the USA in its own hemisphere and gain an advantage in Cuba could lead to a full-scale war, which was not their objective. An exchange of letters between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev ensued. Both leaders backed down.

The message... Missiles were removed under UN supervision, but the Cuban Missile Crisis to many represented the high watermark in Cold War tensions, a point at which the Cold War could easily have flipped into being a nuclear disaster. From the time of the US development and then deployment of the atom bomb, the USA and USSR were both trying to outdo each other in terms of both the number and superiority of weapons, especially missiles, and especially nuclear weapons. Once the USSR had developed nuclear weapons, a theory known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, was quickly developed.

This theory put forward the idea that no single power would start a nuclear war, because the subsequent retaliation would be sure to destroy them. The development and manufacture of these weapons was expensive, in terms of raw resources, but also in terms of money. The US economy, which after 1945 grew spectacularly, could withstand to some extent the cost of these missiles while being able to provide for the basic needs of the US population.

The economy of the USSR could not. The high cost of missiles and high military investment generally led to declining or stagnating living standards. The arms race also led to a space race. Both superpowers were seeking to use space exploration to demonstrate their superiority and possibly to gain a military advantage. The space race eventually concluded with the US moon landings in 1969, after which point the USSR were forced to admit that they had lost that particular battle.

NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. This and the Warsaw Pact represented two competing military defensive alliances through the majority of the Cold War. Both were theoretically defensive organisations and brought collective security for their members, the idea being that in membership of both organisations, an attack on one would be regarded as an attack on them all.

NATO was comprised of the US and Western European nations, such as France and the United Kingdom. The Warsaw Pact was comprised of the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations, such as Poland. Both suffered from similar problems and similar advantages.

They were both dependent, to a large extent, on a single large superpower, for both military might and numbers. Other nations had smaller, or less capable, or less equipped militaries. Both were a financial burden.

to their respective superpowers. In 1956, Hungarians, especially in the late 19th century, the capital, revolted against their communist government. This was the first major backlash against the domination of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union.

The revolution, as revolutions often do, began as a student uprising. However, it quickly spread throughout other elements of the country, spreading both in terms of social class and geographically. Student groups and revolutionary militias took to the streets, especially of Budapest, risking the communist control of Hungary. Initially, the Soviet government in Moscow appeared open to compromise and willing to negotiate with the revolutionaries.

They feared the effects, especially worldwide, of using force to put down this revolution. However, on the 4th of November 1956, a large Soviet force, including tanks and armoured divisions, invaded Hungary. They put down the revolution with brutal and repressive force. For the Soviet Union, this was both a defeat and a victory. They had demonstrated that they had military power.

especially to the outside world, but it was clear that their authority could be and had been challenged with some degree of success. As we have seen, Germany and Berlin in particular have been a particular troublesome issue throughout the Cold War. Huge numbers of East Germans were fleeing in the immediate post-war years from the communist East Berlin into the capitalist West Berlin with its glittering lights, stock shelves and higher living standards.

Eventually and reluctantly Moscow was forced to physically divide the two. In 1961, barbed wire, quickly followed by a huge concrete wall, was constructed. This was the Berlin Wall. It divided the two halves of Berlin.

The Berlin Wall quickly became a symbol of the Cold War. It became a symbol of Soviet failure to stop their citizens fleeing and to keep up with Western living standards. If conditions in East Berlin and East Germany were so good, why was the wall needed?

The Berlin Wall lasted until 1989. A huge number of people were killed trying to cross it. There was indeed a kill zone on the Soviet side of the wall, where anyone trying to cross was shot. Eventually, its downfall would become a symbol of, and a trigger for, the downfall of the Soviet Union itself. In 1968, Alexander Dubček was elected leader of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia.

He was a moderniser and a reformist, who wanted to improve the political and economic system of Czechoslovakia. The country was strategically significant. It represented a long, thin corridor through Eastern Europe and through the Warsaw Pact, from East Germany all the way to the borders of the USSR itself. Being the modernizer that he was, Dubček quickly began a process of some liberalization and democratization. This opened the way for Czechoslovakia to have better relations with the West, with West Germany in particular.

The Soviet Union and its government feared the consequences of this. They feared losing this strategically significant state within the Warsaw Pact to the west. They invaded to oust Dubček and stop the reforms.

There was mass civilian protest at this. Defence mounted by civilian militias lasted eight months, frustrating the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and providing a clear message to the world that the Soviet Union and its forces could be resisted. Eventually, however, as would be expected given their superior numbers, the Soviet Union overcame the resistance. They began a slow process of restoring the old, hardline communist regime in Prague.

The word détente means a relaxing of tensions. The period between 1969 and 1974 marked a thaw in the relations between the two superpowers, where they warmed gradually but noticeably. Through this period, the USA was led by Richard Nixon prior to his possible impeachment, and the USSR was led by Leonid Brezhnev.

Both realized that the arms race was costing both their nations. economically. This was making a nuclear disaster, an accidental launch, or a quick hotspot intentions more likely.

A number of treaties were signed between these years, such as SALT I, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, which limited the development and production of nuclear weapons. However, in 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The period of detente was definitely over, and in the 1980s, after his election, President Reagan began to push harder for the defeat. of the Soviet Union. Ouch!

This is why in some videos I have unexplained scratches.

Transcript for:Conflicts of the Cold War Era

Transcript for:
Conflicts of the Cold War Era