After WWII, the world saw the rise of the Cold War between the Western allies led by the US and the Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union. Germany and Korea were divided, and tensions increased as the USSR exerted control over Eastern Europe. The US implemented the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan to promote containment of communism. The early Cold War saw conflicts in Korea and escalating arms races. Meanwhile, former European colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence through both peaceful and violent means in the process of decolonization.

1. The Cold War
and Decolonization

2. The Post WWII World
and the Early Cold War
2

3. After WWII
• Japan is occupied from 1945-1952
• Wrote a new constitution (modeled after the US) - 1946
• They are limited to a small defense force which is not allowed to
leave Japan – this is why the US serves as the international
protector of Japan
• Women gain the right to vote
• Korea is divided into the North (occupied by the USSR) and the South
(occupied by the US) – more on this to come
• While at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 it became clear to
Truman that Stalin had no intentions of allowing free elections in
Eastern Europe
• Europe would be divided along east/west lines throughout the Cold War
3

4. Changing Borders and Occupations - Korea
The Korean Peninsula was taken from Japanese
control. The US feared that Korea would
become communist, and the Soviets feared US
intervention and control, so the country was
divided along the 38th parallel. The Soviets
occupied the north, while US troops occupied
the south.
4

5. Changing Borders and Occupations - Germany
Germany was divided into four parts, each
controlled by one of the main allied victors:
Britain, France, the US, and the Soviet Union,
eventually, these would become East and West
Germany
Likewise, the German capital of Berlin was also
divided by these four powers, though it was well
within the Soviet controlled part of the country
5
Berlin ->

6. Changing Borders and Occupations - Austria
Initially Austria would also be divided amongst the allies, as would the capital,
Vienna
Austria was never divided between the Soviets and the Western powers like
Germany, and in 1955 they were able to form their own independent government
6
Vienna

7. Changing Borders and Spheres of
Influence - Europe
• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent
states between the two World Wars.
• After the war, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became Soviet
Socialist Republics within the USSR, as did Moldova
(territory kept from Romania).
• Territory from interwar Eastern Poland was taken and
incorporated into the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs.
Most of the Ethnic Poles living in this territory were forcibly
relocated west, into the (communist) Republic of Poland.
• The historic homeland of German Unification, East Prussia,
was divided between communist Poland and the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic within the USSR. Ethnic
Germans were forcibly removed and sent to East Germany.
• Territory of mixed Polish/German settlement in interwar
eastern Germany was taken and given to Poland. Germans in
these areas were forced to move west into East Germany,
while Poles removed from Byelorussian and Ukrainian
territory were encouraged to relocate there.

8. Changing Borders and Spheres of
Influence - Europe
• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent
states between the two World Wars.
• After the war, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became Soviet
Socialist Republics within the USSR, as did Moldova
(territory kept from Romania).
• Territory from interwar Eastern Poland was taken and
incorporated into the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs.
Most of the Ethnic Poles living in this territory were forcibly
relocated west, into the (communist) Republic of Poland.
• The historic homeland of German Unification, East Prussia,
was divided between communist Poland and the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic within the USSR. Ethnic
Germans were forcibly removed and sent to East Germany.
• Territory of mixed Polish/German settlement in interwar
eastern Germany was taken and given to Poland. Germans in
these areas were forced to move west into East Germany,
while Poles removed from Byelorussian and Ukrainian
territory were encouraged to relocate there.

9. Changing Borders and Spheres of
Influence - Europe
This area was also taken from
Italy and given to Yugoslavia.
• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were independent
states between the two World Wars.
• After the war, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania became Soviet
Socialist Republics within the USSR, as did Moldova (territory
kept from Romania).
• Territory from interwar Eastern Poland was taken and
incorporated into the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. Most
of the Ethnic Poles living in this territory were forcibly
relocated west, into the (communist) Republic of Poland.
• The historic homeland of German Unification, East Prussia,
was divided between communist Poland and the Russian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic within the USSR. Ethnic Germans
were forcibly removed and sent to East Germany.
• Territory of mixed Polish/German settlement in interwar
eastern Germany was taken and given to Poland. Germans in
these areas were forced to move west into East Germany, while
Poles removed from Byelorussian and Ukrainian territory were
encouraged to relocate there.

10. Germans from here
And here
Were forced to move
into the modern area
of Germany
Poles from here
Were forced to
move to the new
borders of Poland,
and many moved
here.
Ethnic Russians were moved into here, now called KaliningradForced Population Shifts
When I was studying
Polish my instructors told
me a joke: Where do you
go to study the Eastern
dialects of the Polish
language? Western
Poland, of course! (these
population shifts are why)

11. Changing Borders and Spheres of
Influence - Europe
• There were actually elections in Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1946
• Czechoslovakia had a non-communist president (Edvard Benes)
and a communist Prime Minister (Klement Gottwald)
• Initially agreed to the Marshall Plan, but forced to leave
• Stalin met with Gottwald in Moscow in 1947, then in
1948 used militias and the police to take the remaining
power away from opposition groups.
• Jan Masaryk, moderate Foreign Minister (and son of the
interwar president) was found dead.
• Hungary, similarly, formed a coalition government
• Communists merge with a less radical party, and use that
to take control of key offices, then force opposition parties
to merge and later, declared them illegal.
• Wrote a new constitution in 1949 modeled after the 1936
Soviet Union constitution.
• Communists took power in Poland early on, forcing the opposition into
exile. Romania, likewise, saw a communist takeover, within a few years
both countries saw pro-Stalin leaders in power.

12. The Early Cold War
• The “Long Telegram”
• George F. Kennan, expert on the USSR working in
the embassy in Moscow
• Asked by the president to give insight into Soviet
strategy/intentions
• February 22, 1946 – responded with a 5,000
word telegram (hence the name)
• Recommended a policy of containment towards
Soviet expansionism
• Believed that the Soviets, viewing democratic
capitalism as fundamentally opposed to
communism, would continue to build their military
strength and attempt to subvert capitalist
democracies all over the world
• Also believed that the economic potential of
capitalism was the best way to combat Soviet
expansion, and that this would eventually lead to
Soviet collapse (foreshadowing)
Divided Berlin
Why was it called the Cold War?
George F. Kennan

13. The Early Cold War
• The Truman Doctrine
• A civil war started in Greece in 1946 between Monarchists and Communists
• By 1947 Great Britain could no longer afford to help the Monarchists and
asked the US for help
• Truman, acting on the ideas of containment from Kennan, needed to gain
public support for helping Greece
• He used the idea of a “domino theory” to strike fear into the hearts of
Americans
• The more aggressive form of containment envisioned by Truman would influence
policy for the next half-century (against communism)
• For all its force it was, in fact, very vague and much less of an actual foreign
policy
• Many saw this as potentially getting the US into conflicts all over the world,
and forcing the US to ally with less-than-ideal governments and movements,
just because they were anti-communist
• His posturing was successful, though, and Congress passed aid to help Greece

14. The Marshall Plan
• A plan developed by George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, in 1947
• Used ideas of Kennan and others to suggest using heavy US financial and technical
assistance to rebuild Europe
• By this time it was apparent that all of the European states were struggling to rebuild
(physically and economically)
• Was not just because of the goodness of our hearts, it was also strategic
• Kennan’s ideas about subverting communist beliefs by showing how good life could be
under capitalism, with goods (particularly American goods) making life better
• Also connected participating countries to a broader economic system, driven by the US
• Soviet Union (and the Eastern Bloc) declined to participate
• Czechoslovakia initially joined, but was forced to back out by the USSR
• Between 1948-1951 $13 billion was poured into European countries

16. The Berlin Blockade – June 1948-May 1949
• The Marshall Plan enabled the British/French/American sectors of Germany
(and Berlin) to unite into a formalized government with their own currency and
economy
• Stalin did not want to allow West German currency to be used in West Berlin
and stopped allowing vehicles and trains to cross East Germany to get into West
Berlin
• The US and UK bypassed this blockade by flying in supplies
• Known as the Berlin Airlift
• Lasted 321 days
• Eventually the Soviets lift the blockade
• In 1949 West Germany and East Germany
officially became become separate countries

17. International Treaties and Reorganization in the US
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
• Military pact to defend member states from military attack
• Initially joined by 12 countries in 1949
• Included the US and Canada
• Greece and Turkey joined in 1952
• West Germany joined in 1955
• National Security Act (1947)
• Created the Department of Defense
• Secretary of Defense - Cabinet
• Joint Chiefs of Staff (Military Branches)
• Created the National Security Council
• Created the Central Intelligence Agency
• Tasked with intelligence gathering abroad

18. Global Events during the early Cold War, pt. 1
• 1949 – Chinese Civil War ends with Mao Zedong and the communists taking over
China, nationalist retreat to the island of Formosa
• What is Formosa known as to the world today?
• 1950-1953 – Korean War
• North Korean forces cross the 38th Parallel and push well into South Korea
• UN reinforcements arrive and push back into North Korea
• Chinese troops enter and push back to near the original border
• The war never officially ended and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) is set up on
the border

19. Global Events during the early Cold War, pt. 2
• 1955 – Warsaw Pact – set up as a communist counterbalance to NATO
• 1956 – Hungarian Revolution
• Put down with troops from the Warsaw Pact – signified that the Warsaw Pact was
mostly going to be used to justify ending rebellions against communist rule in the
Eastern Bloc
• 1961 – Berlin Wall
• In an effort to stop the movement of Western goods and
money into East Berlin, and to stop people from defecting
to West Berlin, East Germany and the Soviet Union built
the Berlin Wall, surrounding West Berlin and dividing the
city
• It stood until 1989

20. Global Events during the early Cold War, pt. 3
• 1953-1959 – Fidel Castro led an armed insurgency to take over Cuba with the help of
Che Guevara
• 1961 – Bay of Pigs – US President JFK authorized an invasion of Cuba using exiled
Cubans living in the US, with US military support, they were defeated and it resulted in a
major embarrassment for the US
• 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis – Castro sought stronger ties with the USSR and allowed
them to begin building a nuclear missile launch site, the US places a blockade on ships
going to Cuba to prevent the delivery of nuclear missiles (but some had already been
delivered); this results in a standoff, with both sides very close to starting a nuclear war
• It was the closest the Cold War came to actually becoming nuclear war
• 1965 – 1973 – Vietnam War (US Military Advisors had been in Vietnam since the
1950s, first supporting the French, then the South Vietnamese, more about Vietnam will
be in the Decolonization section).

21. Space Race
• USSR
• 1957
• First Satellite – Sputnik
• First animal – Laika (dog)
• 1959
• First lunar spacecraft and impact –
Luna 1 and 2
• 1960
• First animals returned from space –
Belka and Strelka (dogs) – Sputnik 5
• 1961
• First human in space – Yuri Gagarin –
Vostok 1
• 1963
• First woman in space – Valentina
Tereshkova – Vostok 6
• 1966
• First impact into another planet
(Venus)(first to do a flyby in 1963)
• US
• 1958
• Solar-powered satellite
• Communications satellite
• 1960
• First successful spy satellite
• 1961
• First hominid (Chimpanzee named
Ham) – Mercury-Redstone 2
• First pilot-controlled space flight –
Freedom 7, Alan Shepard
• 1968
• First human orbit of the moon –
Apollo 8
• 1969
• First humans on the moon – Apollo 11

22. Nuclear Culture
• The fear of nuclear warfare enters popular culture during the Cold War
1954 - Godzilla
1962
Hulk and
Spider-
Man
Bombing drills
And yes, the original Hulk was grey, and the original
Peter Parker (apparently) liked sweater vests.

23. Decolonization in Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East
23

24. In this video John Green talks about Decolonization broadly
He looks at British India, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Egypt, and briefly parts
of Africa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_sGTspaF4Y&list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF8
0C9&index=40
Crash Course Video 24
Some recap: while the British leave this area
relatively peacefully, violence and division erupt
between Hindus and Muslims, resulting in large,
forced population shifts and the creation of India
and Pakistan (which included Bangladesh until
1971)

25. Egypt: overthrew the monarch, expelled the British, and formed a secular, nationalist
government
Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam: gain independence from France 1949-1954
• Laos and Cambodia become independent states
• Vietnam is divided between North and South
• Fearing a communist takeover, the US sends more advisers to aid the South
Vietnamese leadership (which was basically a dictatorship)
• Notice I said “more,” US military advisers had been in Vietnam going
back into the 1950s to aid the French in their attempt to keep the
territory
• This would escalate into the Vietnam War in 1964, which did not end until
1975
• It was widely unpopular after the late 1960s, due to casualties, the
draft, and televised war reporting showing the realities of the war
Decolonization (cont.) 25

26. Indonesia: British and Dutch forces attempted to reassert Dutch control after WWII
(when Japanese occupation ended). Much like in Vietnam (where the French sought to
keep control of rubber resources) the Dutch relied heavily on Indonesian resources.
European forces were defeated and colonial authorities were violently removed.
More Decolonization 26
The Philippines: After the allies defeated the
Japanese, the Philippines was officially recognized as
independent in 1946, and joined the UN.

27. The British began to enact varying levels of self-rule, geared towards independence
after the end of WWII. Many emerging African countries agreed to keep colonial
borders in order to fast-track independence. This would result in inter-tribal and inter-
ethnic violence due to the often arbitrary nature of those borders (see Rwanda as an
example). There also remained power struggles between the permanent white settlers
and the indigenous Africans (see South Africa)
The French initially sought to retain their colonies in North Africa (Algeria in
particular) because of the presence of European settlers, this resulted in a violent
independence movement. After this the French sought a commonwealth structure which
some states remained in (such as Senegal), while others (Such as Guinea) rejected for
full independence
Portugal fought indigenous groups to keep Angola and Mozambique until the
1970s, and Belgium abruptly pulled out of the Congo in 1959 leading to violent
destabilization
Decolonization in Africa 27

28. Decolonization in Africa 28

29. Other Developments
29

30. Mexico: remained under the single-party control of the PRI , which had been in power under
different names since 1929. This provided relative stability under which the economy grew, but
with little real democracy.
Brazil: Had a military populist dictatorship until 1954, then a brief period of democratic populism
from 1955 until 1964 when the military (backed by the US) overthrew the government and held
power until 1985.
Argentina: Juan Peron was elected as a populist leader in 1946. He and his wife, Evita (“Don’t
cry for me, Argentina,”) led the country to prosperity after WWII, selling Argentinian goods to
Europe while those countries rebuilt after the war. When the European economy returned to
normal, however, profits fell and Peron lost support of the labor unions and the military, who
deposed him and sent him into exile. Argentina saw multiple periods of military rule after this.
Elsewhere in Latin America: The US overthrew an elected communist in Guatemala, Jacobo
Arbenz in 1954, and sought to undermine leftist movements and leaders in Venezuela, Columbia,
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru, often supporting authoritarian regimes
sympathetic to the US and its economic interests.
Latin America 30

31. USSR: Joseph Stalin died in 1953 and his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, relaxed some of the harsher
aspects of living under the Communist party. This period is known as de-Stalinization. Many statues to
Stalin came down, and there was an acknowledgement of the harshness of Stalin’s policies.
Poland: While the USSR was under de-Stalinization, Poland protested in 1956 and was allowed to reform
their government (still communist, but less tied to the USSR)
Hungary: also in 1956, tried to follow Poland’s lead by electing a reform candidate (still communist) into
power. Hungary tried to leave the Warsaw Pact, which resulted in Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops
being brought in to Hungary to replace the government.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which was seen as an embarrassment in the USSR, Khrushchev
was removed from power in 1964 and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, a much more hardline communist.
Elsewhere in Europe: In 1957 the European Economic Community (the Common Market) was formed,
creating a unified economic area in most of Western Europe, the predecessor to the modern EU.
America: The Civil Rights Movement grows, gaining momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. led using Ghandi’s nonviolent resistance, while others such as the Black Panther Party, sought to
fight for rights in a more violent way. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm
Workers Association and fought for Latinx (and other farm workers’) rights in the West and Southwest.
Europe and America 31

32. We will start with the year 1968
(which is at the end of Chapter 31),
then move into Chapter 32.
Next 32