CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 9 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - DIFF...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 9 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. A presentation containing: the European and Soviet perspectives, views of Molotov, the balance of power.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POTSDAM CONFERENCE. THE ISSUES AND HOW THEY WERE RESOLV...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POTSDAM CONFERENCE. THE ISSUES AND HOW THEY WERE RESOLVED. THE PERSONALITIES OF THE PEACEMAKERS. Content: Potsdam location, participants: leaders and countries, post Yalta discussions, how to handle Germany, American position, agreements, changes in German society, Potsdam declaration, the atomic bomb, challenging negotiation, Churchill, Atlee, Truman and Stalin.
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 6 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - TRAD...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 6 WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - TRADITIONALISTS VIEWS. A presentation containing: a view over traditionalism, hero vs. villain scenario, the policy of containment, the dominant vision, views of Arthur Schlesinger, Michael Hart, Paul Wolfowitz, Christopher Andrew, Eugene Rostow, et all.
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 9 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - DIFF...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 9 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. A presentation containing: the European and Soviet perspectives, views of Molotov, the balance of power.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POTSDAM CONFERENCE. THE ISSUES AND HOW THEY WERE RESOLV...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POTSDAM CONFERENCE. THE ISSUES AND HOW THEY WERE RESOLVED. THE PERSONALITIES OF THE PEACEMAKERS. Content: Potsdam location, participants: leaders and countries, post Yalta discussions, how to handle Germany, American position, agreements, changes in German society, Potsdam declaration, the atomic bomb, challenging negotiation, Churchill, Atlee, Truman and Stalin.
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 6 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - TRAD...George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 6 WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - TRADITIONALISTS VIEWS. A presentation containing: a view over traditionalism, hero vs. villain scenario, the policy of containment, the dominant vision, views of Arthur Schlesinger, Michael Hart, Paul Wolfowitz, Christopher Andrew, Eugene Rostow, et all.
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: STALIN AIMS IN GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATIONGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: STALIN AIMS IN GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. Contains: the structure and organisation, party congress meetings, Politburo powers, General secretary powers, administrative hierarchy, party cells, united party, organisation of the party, elections in the party.
HISTORY IGCSE CONTENT - 20TH CENTURY OPTION - USA CONTAINING COMMUNISM: THE K...George Dumitrache
HISTORY IGCSE CONTENT - 20TH CENTURY OPTION - USA CONTAINING COMMUNISM: THE KOREAN WAR.
The Korean War was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the support of the United Nations, principally from the United States). The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and insurrections in the south. The war unofficially ended on 27 July 1953 in an armistice.
Vietnam war for Cambridge IGCSE HistoryJoanie Yeung
Introduction of Vietcong, Why did USA get involved in Vietnam? Why did USA fail to defeat the Vietcong? What were the roles played by the media and public opinion in USA? How did the Vietnam War end?
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: RUSSIAN TERROR TRADITION BEFORE STALIN - TSARS AND LENINGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: RUSSIAN TERROR TRADITION BEFORE STALIN - TSARS AND LENIN. Contains: last 2 czars, Alexander the third, nationalism, autocracy, russification, bloody Sunday, Lenin, Red Terror.
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: STALIN AIMS IN GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATIONGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: STALIN AIMS IN GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. Contains: the structure and organisation, party congress meetings, Politburo powers, General secretary powers, administrative hierarchy, party cells, united party, organisation of the party, elections in the party.
HISTORY IGCSE CONTENT - 20TH CENTURY OPTION - USA CONTAINING COMMUNISM: THE K...George Dumitrache
HISTORY IGCSE CONTENT - 20TH CENTURY OPTION - USA CONTAINING COMMUNISM: THE KOREAN WAR.
The Korean War was a war between North Korea (with the support of China and the Soviet Union) and South Korea (with the support of the United Nations, principally from the United States). The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and insurrections in the south. The war unofficially ended on 27 July 1953 in an armistice.
Vietnam war for Cambridge IGCSE HistoryJoanie Yeung
Introduction of Vietcong, Why did USA get involved in Vietnam? Why did USA fail to defeat the Vietcong? What were the roles played by the media and public opinion in USA? How did the Vietnam War end?
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: RUSSIAN TERROR TRADITION BEFORE STALIN - TSARS AND LENINGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: RUSSIAN TERROR TRADITION BEFORE STALIN - TSARS AND LENIN. Contains: last 2 czars, Alexander the third, nationalism, autocracy, russification, bloody Sunday, Lenin, Red Terror.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARIAL BEFORE STALINGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARIAL BEFORE STALIN. Contains: Bolsheviks taking control of the empire, Sverdlov and Lenin, Sverdlov/s death, bureaucracy, the privilege of being in the party, loyalty, party departments.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE SECRETARIAT UNDER STALIN. Contains: Stalin and first changes, Nomenklatura no 1,
Party Congress, assigning party members blindly, strengthening the organisation and accounting, responsibilities for the appointments, guberniia, the local party secretary, settling for conflicts, Georgian Affair, Democratic Centralists, Workers Opposition, struggle for power, conspiracies.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: WHY WAS STALIN VICTORIOUS OVER TROTSKY?George Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: WHY WAS STALIN VICTORIOUS OVER TROTSKY? Contains: Lenin's demise and thoughts, Stalin's propaganda, Stalin's political power, Trotsky's political power, Trotsky as a viable replacement for Lenin, New Opposition, exiled, Lenin's role in Stalin rise to power, downfall for Trotsky, differences between Stalin and Trotsky, Trotsky weak in playing politics.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARIAT BEFORE STALINGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARIAT BEFORE STALIN. Summary: Bolsheviks controlling the empire, Sverdlov, Lenin, Stalin, the privilege of being in a party, loyalty to the party, capturing positions, the struggle, various party departments, paralysis of the party, power struggle, homework.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POLICIES TOWARDS MINORITIES, OPPOSITION AND JEWSGeorge Dumitrache
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: POLICIES TOWARDS MINORITIES, OPPOSITION AND JEWS. Contains: the racial policy of Nazi Germany, the anti-Jews laws, the law for the protection of German blood and honour, the Reich citizenship law, persecution of German Jews, Romany minority.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR AFTER 1917 AND BEFORE 1940George Dumitrache
The second presentation for Paper 3, "The origins of the Cold War after 1917 and before 1940". Suitable for Cambridge Examination starting May/June and November 2016. It contains: the start of the hostility in 1917; the Cossacks; Lenin and the Great War; USA, Wilson and Germany; a synthesis of the American perspective; World War 1, the Great Depression and the World War 2; from wartime allies to Cold War enemies.
CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: IRON CURTAIN. Content: Stalin Balshoi speech, the Long telegram, the Fulton speech, historian opinion, suspicions after the speech, different beliefs, aims, resentments, events, Russia's salami tactics, cartoon.
Origins of the Cold War - Yalta Conference, Potsdam, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Blockade & Airlift, China, NATO http://curriculumglobal.blogspot.com
Overview of the Cold War. Adapted from "Cold War in a Global Context" by William J. Tolley, "The Cold War" by T. Sothers and Hugh 07, and "Second Red Scare" by Paul Kitchen.
07. DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: NAZI REGIME - REICHSTAG FIRE SOURCESGeorge Dumitrache
07. DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: NAZI REGIME - REICHSTAG FIRE
On February 27, 1933, the German parliament (Reichstag) building burned down. The Nazi leadership and its coalition partners used the fire to claim that Communists were planning a violent uprising. They claimed that emergency legislation was needed to prevent this. The resulting act, commonly known as the Reichstag Fire Decree, abolished a number of constitutional protections and paved the way for Nazi dictatorship.
05. DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: NAZI REGIME - HITLER CONSOLIDATING POWER 1933-34.PPTXGeorge Dumitrache
05. DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: NAZI REGIME - HITLER CONSOLIDATING POWER 1933-34.PPTX
Following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor the Nazis were finally in a position of power.
However, this power was limited, as the Nazis were just one party in a three party coalition government, under President Hindenburg.
This topic will explore how the Nazis managed to eliminate their opposition and consolidate ultimate power over Germany, whilst maintaining an illusion of democracy.
It will first explore this topic in chronological order, from the Reichstag Fire through to the death of President Hindenburg, and then explore it thematically in the last section. On the 31 January 1933, Hitler, conscious of his lack of a majority in the Reichstag, immediately called for new elections to try and strengthen his position. The Nazis aimed to increase their share of the vote so that they would have a majority in the Reichstag. This would allow them to rule unopposed and unhindered by coalition governments.
Over the next two months, they launched themselves into an intense election campaign.
On 27 February 1933, as the campaign moved into its final, frantic days, the Reichstag, the German Parliament building, was set on fire and burnt down. An atmosphere of panic and terror followed the event.
This continued when a young Dutch communist, Van der Lubbe was arrested for the crime.
The Nazi Party used the atmosphere of panic to their advantage, encouraging anti-communism. Göring declared that the communists had planned a national uprising to overthrow the Weimar Republic. This hysteria helped to turn the public against the communists, one of the Nazis main opponents, and 4000 people were imprisoned.
The day after the fire, Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People. On the 28 February 1933, President Hindenburg signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People. This decree suspended the democratic aspects of the Weimar Republic and declared a state of emergency.
This decree gave the Nazis a legal basis for the persecution and oppression of any opponents, who were be framed as traitors to the republic. People could be imprisoned for any or no reason.
The decree also removed basic personal freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, the right to own property, and the right to trial before imprisonment.
Through these aspects the Nazis suppressed any opposition to their power, and were able to start the road from democracy to a dictatorship. The atmosphere of uncertainty following the Reichstag Fire secured many voters for the Nazi party.
The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Many were terrified of voting of at all, and many turned to voting for the Nazi Party out of fear for their own safety. The elections were neither free or fair.
On the 5 March 1933, the elections took place, with an extremely high turnout of 89%.
The Nazis secured 43.9% of the vote.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: NAZI REGIME - 04. HITLER BECOMING CHANCELLOR 1933George Dumitrache
Hitler was not immediately appointed chancellor after the success of the July 1932 elections, despite being leader of the largest party in the Reichstag. It took the economic and political instability (with two more chancellors failing to stabilise the situation) to worsen, and the support of the conservative elite, to convince Hindenburg to appoint Hitler.
Hitler was sworn in as the chancellor of Germany on the 30 January 1933. The Nazis were now in power.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 08. NAZIS IN THE WILDERNESSGeorge Dumitrache
The “Lean Years” (also called the "wilderness" years) of Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany refer to the period between 1924 and 1928 when the Nazi party did not have high levels of support and still suffered from humiliation over the Munich Putsch. Why where these years “lean”?
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 07. STRESEMMAN ERA 1924-1929George Dumitrache
The period 1924-1929 was a time when the Weimar economy recovered and cultural life in Germany flourished. This dramatic turnabout happened in large part because of the role played by Gustav Stresemann who became Chancellor in August 1923 during the hyperinflation crisis.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 06. THE BEER HALL PUTSCH 1923George Dumitrache
The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch, was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers. Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason. The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released. Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 05. HYPERINFLATIONGeorge Dumitrache
Hyperinflation affected the German Papiermark, the currency of the Weimar Republic, between 1921 and 1923, primarily in 1923. It caused considerable internal political instability in the country, the occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium, and misery for the general populace.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 03. THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES IMPACT ON...George Dumitrache
Thanks to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany's ability to produce revenue-generating coal and iron ore decreased. As war debts and reparations drained its coffers, the German government was unable to pay its debts. Some of the former World War I Allies didn't buy Germany's claim that it couldn't afford to pay.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 02. THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION 1918George Dumitrache
The German Revolution or November Revolution was a civil conflict in the German Empire at the end of the First World War that resulted in the replacement of the German federal constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliamentary republic that later became known as the Weimar Republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the adoption of the Weimar Constitution in August 1919. Among the factors leading to the revolution were the extreme burdens suffered by the German population during the four years of war, the economic and psychological impacts of the German Empire's defeat by the Allies, and growing social tensions between the general population and the aristocratic and bourgeois elite.
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 01. THE EFFECT OF WW1 ON GERMANYGeorge Dumitrache
DEPTH STUDY GERMANY: WEIMAR REPUBLIC - 01. THE EFFECT OF WW1 ON GERMANY. This presentation covers the social, economic and political impact of war along with a brief analysis of the physical cost of war.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS - LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The League of Nations was an international organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to provide a forum for resolving international disputes.
ABYSSINIAN CRISIS. The Abyssinian Crisis was over in 1936. Italy and Mussolini continually ignored the League of Nations and fully annexed Abyssinia on May 9th 1936. The League of Nations was shown to be ineffective. The League had not stood up against one of the strongest members and fulfilled the promise of collective security.
Manchurian Crisis. On September 18, 1931, an explosion destroyed a section of railway track near the city of Mukden. The Japanese, who owned the railway, blamed Chinese nationalists for the incident and used the opportunity to retaliate and invade Manchuria.
05. LEAGUE OF NATIONS - Great Depression and LON.pptxGeorge Dumitrache
GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The Great Depression of 1930-33 meant people turned to extremist dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini, who were keen to invade other countries. This made it hard for the League to maintain peace. The League had some very ambitious plans and ideals – to stop war and make the world a better place.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
2. POST WW2 PEACE CONFERENCES BACKGROUND
• Yalta was not a conventional negotiation in this sense. There was no such
comprehensive peace conference after World War II, instead, we see a
string of arranged meetings between 1941 and 1946, several of which
may have contributed to the final outcome. The three great summit
conferences have drawn much attention:
• Teheran in 1943, a strategy-oriented meeting that saw the introduction of
basic but not yet crystallized political themes;
• Yalta in February 1945, for better or worse a kind of creative moment;
• Potsdam in mid-1945, a confrontation with practical post-war problems.
3.
4. POST WW2 BACKGROUND
• During the War, Britain and the USA were allies of the Soviet Union but
the only thing that united them was their hatred of Germany.
• In 1945, the Big Three held two conferences – at Yalta (in USSR, February
4-12) and Potsdam (Germany, outside Berlin, July 17 to August 2) – to try
to sort out how they would organize the world after the war. It was at
these conferences that the tensions between the two sides became
obvious.
5.
6. POLISH, FRENCH AND BRITISH PERSPECTIVES
• The high public emotion that Yalta has always inspired is a big problem
for the historians. The wide variety of perspectives include:
• a bitter Polish interpretation, considering territorial and political violations;
• a deeply resentful French view, soon to become a generalized European
sense of subjection to a United States–Soviet domination;
• a British suggestion of a hard-won victory prejudiced by tragically clumsy
diplomacy on the part of the two emergent superpowers;
7.
8. SOVIET AND AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES
• A Soviet belief that President Harry S. Truman, controlled and influenced
by Churchill and American capitalists, betrayed Roosevelt’s well-
intentioned Yalta commitments;
• A conservative charge in the United States that Roosevelt had been
either traitorous or incompetent and naïve;
• And the Truman administration’s conviction that Stalin had violated his
Yalta pledges, especially his declared acceptance of Polish independence
and Eastern European democracy.
9.
10. JOSEF STALIN
• Stalin had been dictator of the USSR since 1924. He had transformed the
country into a major industrial economy and one of the world’s strongest
military powers.
• During the Second World War the Soviet army did more than any other
to defeat Nazi Germany.
• Over 20 million Soviet citizens died in the war, including 13 million
members of the armed forces.
• By comparison, Britain had lost only 300,000 and the USA 500,000.
• By February 1945 the USSR had the largest army in the world. This army -
the Red Army - was preparing to attack Berlin, Germany’s capital.
11. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT
• FDR had been leader of the USA since 1933. The longest serving President
in the US history, he had helped the USA out of the economic depression of
the early 1930’s.
• He was also very influential in involving the USA in the war in Europe.
• But FDR survived the Yalta Conference by 2 months, dying in April 1945.
• By early 1945 USA was the world’s greatest economic power. It supplied
war materials and food to all its allies, including the USSR. It possessed the
world’s largest navy and air force.
• US armed forces had helped defeat German troops in Western Europe.
• At the time of Yalta Conference, the USA was developing a nuclear weapon.
12. WINSTON CHURCHILL
• Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and representative
of the British Empire. British troops had fought Nazi Germany longer than
the USA or the USSR but, by 1945, Britain was almost bankrupt.
• It kept fighting because it received aid from the USA.
• During the war Britain lost its position as the world’s greatest naval
power.
• By February 1945 Britain was much less powerful than either the USSR or
the USA.
13. OUTCOMES AT YALTA
• Held during the war, on the surface, the Yalta conference seemed
successful. The Allies agreed a Protocol of Proceedings to:
• divide Germany into four ‘zones’, which Britain, France, the USA and the USSR
would occupy after the war.
• bring Nazi war-criminals to trial.
• set up a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity 'pledged to the
holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible'.
• help the freed peoples of Europe set up democratic and self-governing
countries by helping them to (a) maintain law and order; (b) carry out
emergency relief measures; (c) set up governments; and (d) hold elections
(this was called the 'Declaration of Liberated Europe').
• set up a commission to look into reparations.
14. WHAT WAS DECIDED?
• How to defeat Hitler and Japan?
The Red Army would take Berlin, Vienna and Prague, securing the defeat of
the Nazis. Stalin also agreed to join the war against Japan.
• Zones of occupation in Germany, Austria, Berlin and Vienna
Once Germany and Austria were defeated, they would be occupied by Allies.
• Free elections in Poland and Eastern Europe
Poland was occupied by the Soviets, and a government of communists had
been set up. Stalin promised free elections in the occupied countries.
• Polish territorial changes
Poland lost 30% of the land to USSR and was given a part of Germany
• The United Nations
15. STALIN GAINS AT YALTA
• At Yalta, the negotiations went very much in Stalin's favour, but this was
because Roosevelt wanted Russian help in the Pacific, and was prepared
to agree to almost anything as long as Stalin agreed to go to war with
Japan. Therefore, Stalin promised that:
• Russia would join the war in the Pacific, in return for occupation zones in
North Korea and Manchuria.
• Russia also agreed to join the United Nations.
16. MORE FOR USSR
• The USSR committed itself at Yalta to enter the war against Japan two or
three months after the termination of the European war and to
participate actively in preparations for setting up the United Nations
Organisation.
• As a tangible reward for their cooperation, the Soviets were to receive
southern Sakhalin, the southern Kurile islands, a lease on Port Arthur and
Sino-Soviet control of the Chinese eastern and the south Manchurian
railways.
17. HISTORIAN PERSPECTIVES ABOUT YALTA
• Yalta – initially portrayed by the Big Three as a great success and then,
within weeks, exhibited to the world as a failure – was quickly and
inevitably seized upon as the crucially diplomatic event and was then
caught up in a worldwide media of partisanship and recrimination that
spilled over into academic circles.
• Professional historians during the Cold War wrote books about Yalta that
tended to mirror the political atmosphere of the day. It was difficult to be
objective.
18. POST-WAR DIVISION AND YALTA ORDERS
• Complexities were brushed aside as Yalta was made to serve, as it still
does today, as a shorthand explanation of the origins of the Cold War,
much as “Munich” has been used since 1939 as a catch-all reference
point for the lead-up to World War II.
• And there is nothing more functional than today’s conventional view, a
distillation of Yalta’s many diverse characteristics, that the three powers
created there the post-war division of Europe as well as “Yalta orders” for
that continent and Asia.
19. ROOSEVELT AND YALTA
• Yalta was in many ways President Franklin D. Roosevelt conference. Stalin
chose the remote site, to FDR’s and Churchill’s dismay, but Roosevelt did
most to stage-manage Yalta’s form and character.
• He began by refusing to join the Europeans in the traditional task of
setting a preliminary agenda. Determined to control the conference’s
presentation, he took with him carefully chosen domestic political figures
who could convey the right impression to the American people.
• He took the lead in refusing any independent press coverage and
selected a trusted photographer whose group portraits of the three could
be relied upon to send out from the Crimea a striking image of Allied
power and unity.
20. DECLARATION ON LIBERATED EUROPE
• Viewed bleakly across six decades, these pictures are in fact disturbingly
suggestive far beyond the president’s intentions: Roosevelt ill; Stalin cold
as a statue; Churchill grim. But at the time the grainy newspaper
reproductions served the cause.
• Roosevelt, by artful use of the language he had persuaded the European
allies to accept in the Declaration on Liberated Europe, gave the world
the impression, in the glowing vision he and his associates created
publicly after the conference, that he had been able to bring about a
surprising and deeply degree of harmony and constructive promise
among the Big Three victors, who would now go on, under the auspices
of a liberally refashioned world organization, to build a progressive
Wilsonian order of justice and goodwill.
21. SECRET DEALINGS AT YALTA
• A large number of Americans also blamed the naïve FDR, who now
became for many of them (and for even more Europeans) a logical if not
inevitable guily for Yalta’s failure to rein in the Soviets and for much else
that was now going wrong in Europe.
• Alarming revelations of Roosevelt’s secret dealings at Yalta – his
willingness to give additional United Nations memberships to the Soviet
Union, territorial concessions made to Stalin at China’s expense, the
forced repatriation of Soviet citizens – which emerged shortly after the
conference and mostly after the president’s death, stoked the fire.
22. SOLD-OUT OF EUROPE
• As Cold War tensions grew, Roosevelt became the focus of McCarthy-era
allegations that he had “sold out” Eastern Europe and China at Yalta. He
was accused of treason by American right-wingers.
• Even some moderate American opinion was inclined to wonder whether
Roosevelt’s dubious public portrayal of Yalta had not led more or less
directly to the breakdown of United States–Soviet cooperation.
23. FRENCH POSITION
• The French were also aggrieved from the outset. They, especially General
Charles de Gaulle, resented their exclusion from the conference,
manifestly signifying their lost status. Yalta was seen in Paris as the
symbol first of a disliked Anglo-American and then of a United States–
Soviet hegemony.
• British writers, drawing on memories of President Wilson’s alleged
ineptitude in Paris in 1919, soon joined the parade of resentment,
beginning in the early 1950s to suggest that Roosevelt had similarly
prejudiced a hard-won victory by his irresponsible Yalta diplomacy.
24. GERMAN POSITION
• The circle of grievance soon widened. As they recovered some self
confidence in international affairs, German spokesmen and writers in the
Federal Republic also began to look to Yalta as a prime source of their
post-war tribulations.
• By the mid-1950s, as the post-Stalin Soviets began to talk seductively of
“disengagement,” we find German scholars blaming “the punitive
attitude” of the British and Americans at the conference for the division
of their country.
25. EUROPEAN COMMENTATORS
• The most acute point of sensitivity for European commentators was the
apparent subjection of their continent to the hegemonic Anglo-American
and/or Soviet powers. They tended to see Yalta like an affair between
Americans and Russians.
• The abdicatory failure or reluctance of continental European historians
through the Cold War era to look for alternative explanatory scenarios
that might have recognized some purposeful European political role in
the wartime Allied coalition (Anglo-Soviet if not French) naturally
reinforced tendencies in the United States to assume that there had been
an all-encompassing American control of the significant events.
26. AMERICOPHOBIC SENTIMENTS
• It is demonstrable that Yalta served for millions of French and other
Europeans through the Cold War as a kind of rallying point for
Americophobic sentiment. But balancing this there was also a strong pro-
American symbolism associated, for instance, with memories of
Lafayette, World War I, and the Marshall Plan.
27. AFTER YALTA
• It was the French too who were initially instrumental in putting Yalta to
constructive uses in Europe. During the Cold War era the continental
lament was steadily transformed into a foundation of Europe-wide
solidarity.
• At every stage in the post-war move toward unity – in the progressive
social democratic Franco-British impulses of the late 1940s; during de
Gaulle’s federally oriented “Third Force” period in the 1950s and 1960s;
and later with the idea of a new Europe built around Franco-German
reconciliation and leadership – Yalta featured in at least some French
public commentary not simply as a moment of unwanted division
imposed from outside, but as a catastrophe to be transcended, a fresh
point of departure.
28. RECONNECTED, INDEPENDENT EUROPE
• French President Francois Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl were particularly focused on this. As Mitterrand put it in 1989,
“Yalta is the symbol of the division of Europe into zones of power or
influence between the Soviet Union and the United States. I dream of a
reconnected, independent Europe. I dream about it and I work for it.”
• Effusions of this sort, looking beyond the grievances of the immediate
post-war years to a larger European identity and the repudiation of
“Yalta’s dark legacy,” repeatedly appeared in editorial comment at the
anniversaries of the conference and steadily acquired an all-European
character.
29. HISTORIAN VIEWS
• In the 1980s, Eastern Europeans also began to see themselves as part of
a continent-wide struggle against what many had long seen as Yalta’s
hegemonic superpower imposition, despite a natural sense of the
difficult odds during the Cold War.
• The Hungarian intellectual George Konrad, writing in 1984, drew from the
failure of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule the pessimistic conclusion
that “it is impossible to alter the Yalta system from inside by means of
dynamic, uncontrolled mass movements.”
30. BRITISH HISTORIAN VIEWS
• How do British attitudes fit in here? It is a question that brings to
attention a curious feature of the whole post-Yalta process, namely, the
immunity from serious criticism of Britain and its wartime leader. Certain
flinty European conservatives never let Churchill off the hook.
• In his war memoirs de Gaulle was still grumbling about the “endorsement
given by the Anglo-Saxons at Yalta” to the Soviets. Alexander Solzenhitzen
also wrote scathingly of “the cowardly pens of Roosevelt and Churchill.”
• But this is unusual. Most British commentators took their line from two
influential books.
31. WILMOT’S STRUGGLE FOR EUROPE
• The first to appear was reporter Chester Wilmot’s Struggle for Europe
(1952), which was fiercely critical of Roosevelt’s supposed naivety at Yalta.
Wilmot revived many of the old resentments about American diplomacy
after the previous war and, in the words of one reviewer, “gave voice to the
nagging anti-Americanism that lurked beneath the English sense of
dependency and focused it on Roosevelt.” Fast on the heels of
• Wilmot’s book came Churchill’s Triumph and Tragedy (1953), which faulted
the former president with compelling and unique authority and gave these
negative emotions a respectable gloss. Politically this thinking was perfectly
compatible with the administrations of Truman and Eisenhower, with whom
Britain was now collaborating closely, and who had also now turned away
self-consciously from Roosevelt’s supposed legacy.
32. REYNOLD’S TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY
• Triumph and Tragedy was the last of Churchill’s six volumes on the Second
World War. It included an artfully Brutus-like critique of Roosevelt’s conduct
at Yalta. The historian David Reynolds, in a recent book titled In Command
of History, suggests that “Churchill’s main object … was to prove that he
had been a far-sighted prophet of the Soviet threat” and “to shift
responsibility for Western mistakes on to the Americans.”
• American liberal reviewers, with some solicitude for FDR’s reputation, had
seen this coming and had laid down a series of warnings as Churchill’s
previous volumes had appeared.
33. DAVID WATT’S TIMES
• As late as 1985 a respected columnist in The Times, David Watt, condemned
“Roosevelt’s fatuous belief in his own abilities to ‘handle’ Stalin in 1944 and
1945.” Not that there was very much scholarly work in Britain on such
topics during most of the post-war era.
• A traditional suspicion of “contemporary” history, combined, perhaps, with
the perception of declining British power in a fast-changing world, seems to
have inhibited the development of a school of Cold War historians.
• This was the reverse of the situation in the United States, where, following
World War II, a heightened sense of national power, destiny, and purpose
led many toward Cold War studies.
34. EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE
• Much of the difficulty was that the British documents for the World War II
era were released only in the 1970s, nearly two decades after the American
Yalta documents had appeared.
• From that moment on, British (and later some American) historians began
to break down, to some degree, the politically established Churchillian view
of an intimate Anglo-American wartime relationship that came to grief with
the fateful divergence at and immediately after Yalta, and to develop a
more typically European perspective. But, in general, the Wilmot-Churchill
perspective persists in much British thinking.