Early Cold War Distance Learning PDF

The late 1940’s The end of WWII and the Beginning of the Cold War  The Atomic Question ❖ All sides in WWII had been working towards a super weapon. The German program had collapsed early in 1944. The U.S and British program called the Manhattan Project ha...

The late 1940’s The end of WWII and the Beginning of the Cold War  The Atomic Question ❖ All sides in WWII had been working towards a super weapon. The German program had collapsed early in 1944. The U.S and British program called the Manhattan Project had a functioning Atom Bomb by July of 1945 after Germany had been defeated. ❖ 2 Bombs were created one out of Uranium and one out of Plutonium. The Uranium came from Canada. ❖ Calculations were made that showed millions more casualties in the war with Japan. Japan was all but defeated yet they were fighting island to island without surrender. ❖ The bomb could be so devastating that it may force surrender and actually save lives in the long run.  Hiroshima ❖ After substantial warnings, the military city of Hiroshima was chosen for the first bomb drop on August 6th 1945. A second was dropped on the industrial city of Nagasaki 3 days later before Japan formally surrendered. ❖ The first bomb killed roughly 150 000 people through the blast and the horrifying effects of radiation poisoning that came after. Conferences and the Post War order ❖ A series of meetings had been had between the allied powers throughout the war to discuss what the world would look like after victory. ❖ The U.S was going to occupy Japan ❖ Germany was to be split between the powers. ❖ The USSR would get Eastern Germany while the UK, US and France would split control over Western Germany. ❖ The capital city of Berlin would be divided in the same way even though it was in the USSR controlled Eastern sector of Germany. ❖ The country of Germany itself would no longer exist with any form of independent government. ❖ Surviving Nazi’s were rounded up and put on trial for war crimes. While Japanese generals were largely ignored for what they did in China and South East Asia.  The Cold War ❖ Almost right away there was conflict between the USSR and the U.S ❖ A soviet cypher clerk named Igor Gouzenko, working in Ottawa Canada, defected and claimed that there was a massive spy ring within the western powers that was stealing war secrets like the atomic bomb. ❖ This was completely true and by 1949 the USSR had their own Atomic Bomb without doing most of the development and research. In this time period both the U.S and the USSR had to deliver these bombs by plane if they were going to use them. ❖ The U.S panicked into a spy scare and placed many innocent people on trial for connections to the USSR or communism in general. They particularly liked picking on Hollywood stars for their left leaning politics. ❖ They caught very few spies. ❖ This was the first of many conflicts between the former allies in the coming decades.  Black Listed Notable people black listed were primarily from arts, entertainment and social advocacy groups since they all tend to have left wing ideologies that believe in helping humanity together through taxation and social assistance. Notable people black listed: Albert Einstein (famous physicist) Charlie Chaplin (Actor) Aaron Copland (composer) J. Robert Oppenheimer (director of Manhattan Project) Orson Welles (Actor, Author, Director) It took until the late 1957’s for this action and convictions to be deemed unconstitutional. In the 1940’s President Truman tried unsuccessfully to Veto these laws as a witch hunt.  Gouzenko ❖ Igor Gouzenko was ultimately protected by the RCMP and retired to Erindale Mississauga with his wife and children. ❖ His defection resulted in multiple people put on trial in Canada, the U.S and the UK with a very large important spy ring being found in the UK and 2 nuclear scientists found in the U.S  Tactics ❖ The Cold War is “cold” because the US and the USSR never actually fought each other. ❖ They paid and supplied smaller countries to fight each other or have civil wars. This was covered under policies such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshal Plan. ❖ Communism vs Capitalism was the war rather than physical countries. ❖ If the USSR was going to try and expand their influence in the world the US would try and contain them to prevent them spreading through a given area. Again they would do this with money and not actually physically fight. ❖ Though the US and the USSR engaged in physical wars during the Cold War they never actually directly fought each other. ❖ The more money and technology you had the more you could support your “little buddy” countries in their conflicts against the other side. This led to conflict in China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Greece and many others.  Berlin Blockade When the US, UK and France decided to unify their sectors of western Germany into one block the USSR was upset. Stalin wanted Berlin as his own trophy. He did not like having it split between the allied powers nor did he like that he had to allow western powers to enter the Soviet Zone of Germany to access Berlin. On April 1 1948 Stalin ordered the closing of all roads and rail to Berlin from the West due to “technical difficulties”. This was a blatant attempt to get the western powers to give up on Berlin and sacrifice the city to the Soviets in order to prevent a conflict. This made Berlin a key battle ground and symbol of the emerging Cold War. The western powers chose to start a massive air lift into Berlin. Over 200 000 flights of supplies were flown into Berlin to keep the city alive between April of 1948 and May of 1949. Eventually Stalin reopened the roads and accepted failure for now.  Candy Bomber ❖ As a part of the propaganda campaign the western powers littered Berlin with candy when the planes were coming in for the air lift. They were called the Candy Bombers. ❖ They were attempting to win the “hearts and minds” of the Cold War This may seem illogical given the fact that these planes had been used to bomb German cities only 3 years previously and now they were being used to supply the city with everything it needs to function. The Germans and specifically Berlin had now become a battlefield of the Cold War. Not a battlefield of soldiers and tanks but a battlefield of ideas. What system do you want to live under, capitalism or communism. Who is your better friend the USSR or the US. Winning the people of Berlin is a big victory in the Cold War. The Decline of the British Empire and influence ❖ After WWII the UK was financially broke. Like most of Europe it was relying on the U.S to financially allow it to continue existing. Wartime practices like rationing continued well into the late 1940’s. ❖ Eventually the UK was financially forced to give up on some of it’s more expensive activities like its Empire. ❖ In 1948 it stopped supporting Greece in their civil war, Turkey in its recovery and most notably it gave India its independence. ❖ Some people like to believe in manufactured nationalist ideas of Gandhi leading a revolution of independence but the truth is that his influence was much smaller than the UK being out of money. His protest movements were significant but the UK had crushed such movements in the past easily. They chose to walk away because they were out of money. ❖ India’s independence gave birth to 3 Nations of India, Pakistan and East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). A huge refugee crisis was created as people feared being on the wrong side of the boarder based on their religion, either Islam or Hindu. Many open fights between the sides resulted in thousands of innocents killed. This has created long standing hatred between these countries even through to the 21st century.