The document summarizes the escalation of tensions between the Western allies (US, UK, France) and the Soviet Union following World War 2. It describes how the Soviets set up communist governments across Eastern Europe and divided Germany, leading the Western powers to implement the policies of containment and the Truman Doctrine to provide military and economic assistance to countries resisting Soviet influence. It also discusses the formation of NATO in response to the Berlin Blockade, as the Western powers sought to counter the Soviet military threat through a defensive alliance.

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WWW.NICKJORDAN.CA
HORTON HIGH SCHOOL 2014
GLOBAL HISTORY 12
Unit 2 – The Cold War Expansion & Containment

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The Cold War Heats Up!
GLOBAL HISTORY 12
• At the heart of the tension was a
fundamental difference in political
systems
• America is a democracy that has a
capitalist economic system, free
elections and competing political
parties
• In the U.S.S.R., the sole political party
– the Communists – established a
totalitarian regime with little or no
rights for the citizens
TENSIONS BUILD

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Make ‘em Pay!
• After the end of the war, a conference was
held in Potsdam, Germany, to set up peace
treaties .
• The countries that fought with Hitler lost
territory and had to pay reparations to
the Allies .
• Germany and its capital Berlin were
divided into four parts. The zones were to
be controlled by Great Britain, the United
States, France and the Soviet Union.
GERMANY DIVIDED

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YOU OWE US
• War reparations are
payments intended to
cover damage or injury
inflicted during a war.
• Generally, the term war
reparations refers to
money or goods
changing hands, rather
than such property
transfers as the
annexation of land.
REPARATIONS

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YOU OWE US
• At the Yalta Conference
(February, 1945), the
Soviet Union proposed that
German reparations be set
at approximately $20
billion of which the Soviets
wanted half.
• Great Britain and the
United States but didn’t
finalize an amount.
REPARATIONS

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Buffer Needed
BUILDING AN IRON CURTAIN
• The Soviet Union suffered an
estimated 20 million WWII deaths,
half of whom were civilian
• As a result they felt justified in their
claim to Eastern Europe. The
countries that they liberated should
be part of their new ‘union’.
• Furthermore, they felt they needed
Eastern Europe as a buffer against
future German aggression

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Buffer Needed
• The Iron Curtain symbolized
the ideological conflict and
physical boundary dividing
Europe into two separate areas
from the end of World War II in
1945 until the end of the Cold
War in 1991.
• The term symbolized efforts by
the Soviet Union to block itself
and its satellite states from open
contact with the west and non-
Soviet-controlled areas.
BUILDING AN IRON CURTAIN

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Warsaw Pact vs NATO
TEAM COMMUNISM VS TEAM DEMOCRACY
• On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the
countries that were connected to or influenced by
the Soviet Union.
• The countries who were part of the Warsaw Pact
created an economic and military alliances, with
the Soviet Union as the leading state
• Member countries of the European Community
and/or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
with the United States as the leading country

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Join Our Team!
• Stalin installed “satellite”
communist governments in the
Eastern European countries of
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and
East Germany
• This after promising “free
elections” for Eastern Europe at
the Yalta Conference
WE INSIST
In a 1946 speech, Stalin said communism and
capitalism were incompatible – and another war
was inevitable

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Policy of Containment
• Faced with the Soviet threat,
Truman decided it was time to
“stop babying the Soviets”
• In February 1946, George Kennan,
an American diplomat in Moscow,
proposed a policy of containment
• Containment meant the U.S.
would prevent any further
extension of communist rule
STOP THE COMMUNISTS!

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The Truman Doctrine
Helping to rebuild
Sir Winston 1948
This doctrine, first used in Greece and Turkey in the late 1940s, vowed to provide aid
(money & military supplies) to support “free peoples who are resisting outside
pressures”
Churchill
Stop Communism
Containment
Buying Friends
Loyalty $$Truman Doctrine
In a 1946 speech,
Churchill said, “An
iron curtain has
descended across the
continent” - the
division of Europe
The American policy
of “containment”
soon expanded into a
policy known as the
Truman Doctrine”
By 1950, the U.S. had
given $400 million in
aid to Greece and
Turkey

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The Marshall Plan
• Post-war Europe was devastated
economically
• In June 1947, Secretary of State George
Marshall proposed a U.S. aid package to
European nations
• Western Europe accepted the help, while
Eastern Europe (read Stalin) rejected the
aid
ECONOMIC AID TO REBUILD EUROPE
The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe
recover economically

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The Marshall Plan
• Over the next four years 16
European countries received $13
billion in U.S. aid
• By 1952 Western Europe’s
economy was flourishing
ECONOMIC AID TO REBUILD EUROPE

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GERMAN BATTLE
Super Powers struggle over Germany
• At the end of the war, Germany was
divided among the Allies into four zones
for the purpose of occupation
• The U.S, France, and Great Britain
decided to combine their 3 zones into
one zone – West Germany, or the federal
Republic of Germany
• The U.S.S.R. controlled East Germany, or
the German Democratic Republic
• Now the superpowers were occupying an
area right next to each other – problems
were bound to occur

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BERLIN BLOCKADE 1948
Battle for Berlin
• The Berlin blockade (June ‘48 – May
‘49) was one of the first major
international crises of the Cold War.
• During the multinational occupation of
post–World War II Germany, the Soviet
Union blocked the Western Allies' railway,
road, and canal access to the sectors of
Berlin under allied control.
• Their aim was to force the western powers
to allow the Soviet zone to start supplying
Berlin with food, fuel, and aid, thereby
giving the Soviets practical control over the
entire city.

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BERLIN AIRLIFT
Soviet Plan Foiled
• Not wanting to invade and start a war
with the Soviets, America and Britain
started the Berlin airlift to fly supplies
into West Berlin
• For 327 days, planes took off and
landed every few minutes, around the
clock

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BERLIN AIRLIFT
Soviet Plan Foiled
• In 277,000 flights, they brought in 2.3
million tons of food, fuel and medicine
to the West Berliners
• Realizing they were beaten and
suffering a public relations nightmare,
the Soviets lifted their blockade in May,
1949

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NATA FORMED
The West Creates a Military Alliance
• The Berlin blockade increased Western
Europe’s fear of Soviet aggression
• As a result, ten West European nations
joined the U.S and Canada on April 4,
1949 to form a defensive alliance
known as the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization