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Period: to
the cold war
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1945-1950
By the summer of 1945 Europe was very different to the Europe that had existed at the start of World War Two in September 1939. The Allies (USA, Britain and France) had started to fall out with Stalin’s USSR during the war itself. Stalin had wanted the Allies to start a second front in 1943 to take some of the strain off his forces on the Eastern Front. This, the Allies claimed, was not possible. Stalin got it into his mind that the Allies were deliberately allowing the USSR to take on the might -
Berlin after 1945
Berlin, and what went on in Berlin from 1945 to 1950, seemed to symbolise all that the Cold War stood for. Berlin was to become the centre of the Cold War again in later years with the building of the Berlin Wall
The victorious forces at the end of the war divided Germany into four zones. They also divided Berlin into four zones. Each of the victorious nations controlled one zone and one sector of Berlin.
The Allies (Britain, America and France) ran their zones differently to the areas co -
The Iron Curtain
On March 5th 1946, Winston Churchill made his ‘iron curtain’ speech at Fulton, Missouri, USA. The speech was officially entitled “The Sinews of Peace” but became better known as the “Iron Curtain” speech. It set the tone for the early years of the Cold War. Some saw it as unnecessary warmongering while others believed it was another example of how well Churchill was able to grasp an international situation. -
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was the name given to a policy announced by US President Harry Truman on March 12th, 1947. The Truman Doctrine was a very simple warning clearly made to the USSR – though the country was not mentioned by name – that the USA would intervene to support any nation that was being threatened by a takeover by an armed minority. The Truman Doctrine has to be assessed against the background of what had happened in Europe at the end of World War Two and in the immediate aftermath. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was created in 1949. NATO was seen as being a viable military deterrent against the military might of the Soviet Union. In response to NATO admitting the membership of West Germany, the Soviet Union was to gather all its client states in Eastern Europe into the Warsaw Pact in May 1955. The heart of NATO beat around the military and financial muscle of the United States. However, because the post-war Soviet threat was perceived to be against Western E -
The Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was the Soviet Union’s response to West Germany joining NATO and came into being in May 1955. The Warsaw Pact, named after the meeting to create it was held in Warsaw, was based throughout the Soviet Bloc and troops in it were used in the ending of the 1968 Czech Revolt. The Warsaw Pact, officially the ‘Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance’, was obviously very much dominated by the Soviet Union. Soviet made tanks, aircraft and guns were used throughout the -
The Korean War
The Korean War lasted from 1950-1953. What happened in Korea pushed the boundaries of the Cold War towards 'Warm War'. Though America and Russia did not officially clash, client states did in that Communist China fought and was armed and encouraged by Russia. The peninsula was divided after World War Two into a Russian-backed north (The People’s Democratic Republic) and the American-backed south (the Republic of Korea). Each claimed the right to the other half in an effort to unify both. The -
The Hungarian Uprising of 1956
Hungary in 1956 seemed to sum up all that the Cold War stood for. The people of Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe were ruled over with a rod of iron by Communist Russia and anybody who challenged the rule of Stalin and Russia paid the price. The death of Stalin in 1953 did not weaken the grip Moscow had on the people of Eastern Europe and Hungary, by challenging the rule of Moscow, paid such a price in 1956. From 1945 on the Hungarians were under the control of Moscow. All wealth of what -
Hungarian Secret Police
The AVO (Allamvedelmi Osztaly) was Hungary’s State Security Agency a much hated and much feared secret police. The work of the AVO was one of the main causes of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. During this uprising, men known to be in the AVO were publicly lynched in Budapest in front of large crowds and money stuffed into their mouths. The work of the AVO created a constant climate of fear and by November 1956 this, along with the economic climate that existed in Hungary, spilled over into outright -
Matyas Rakosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian politician. Rákosi was very much a supporter of Joseph Stalin and was seen by Moscow as a safe pair of hands after the end of World War Two when the Red Army dominated what was to become the Eastern Bloc. Mátyás Rákosi was born in 1892 in Ada. He fought in World War One but was captured by the Russians and held in a prisoner-of-war camp. Radicalised by this experience, Rákosi joined the Hungarian Communist Party after returning to Hungary in 1918. After the
