Summary GCSE Edexcel Cold War Detailed Notes

The Conferences
Tehran: November 1943
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
o USA and UK would open a ‘second front’ by attacking Nazi-occupied France.
ü USA and USSR – support in war and USSR were pleased to not be fighting
Germans alone.
û USA and UK – Roosevelt feared threat of British colonialism and Churchill
disappointed in his siding with Stalin and opening up a ‘second front’.
o USSR would help USA against Japan once Germany defeated.
o International body to be established after war to maintain international peace.

 Disagreement over Germany’s future:
- Churchill and Roosevelt believed Germany should be rebuilt.
- Stalin thought they should be punished to ensure they would never be a threat
again.
 Agreed to split Europe into two spheres of influence.

Yalta: February 1945
Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
o Germany would pay $20 billion in reparations.
o Germany and Berlin divided into four zones.
o The right to join the UN.
o USSR agreed to fight Japan.
o Eastern Europe would be a Soviet ‘sphere of influence’ but all countries liberated
from Nazi control would be allowed free elections to choose their own governments.

 Soviet troops had not removed presence in Eastern Europe and made Churchill doubt
Stalin’s intentions.
 Communist government established by Stalin in Poland.
 Disagreed on meanings of free elections:
- Stalin believed it to be where people would vote for communism, as only
communism truly represented the people.
- Roosevelt and Stalin saw it to be where lots of parties competed for votes.

Potsdam: July 1945
Churchill (replaced midway by Attlee), Truman, and Stalin
o Germany still to be divided.
o Berlin divided.
o Nazi party banned and war criminals prosecuted.
o Democracy to be re-established in Germany.

 Arguments over boundaries of zones.
 Arguments over reparations Germany had to pay.
 Stalin learns of the Manhattan Project.
 Communist government established in Poland.

, Takeover of Eastern Europe: 1945-49
 Soviet satellite states appear.
 Rigged elections to establish communist dictatorships.
- Czechoslovakia last to fall fully communist in 1948.
 Access to new resources

 Fear of communist expansion leads to the Truman Doctrine and ‘policy of
containment’.
 All of Eastern Europe now communist.
 Creates a ‘buffer zone’ and expands Soviet sphere of influence.
 Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech (1946)

Cominform: 1947
 In response to the Marshall Plan.
 Allowed Stalin to direct and control the governments of the satellite states, as well as
the communist parties in other European countries.
 Discouraged acceptance of Marshall Aid.
 Discouraged contact with non-communists.

 Brought together Eastern European communist parties for Stalin to reassert his
power over his satellite states.
 Removed opposition as it ensured loyalty to the USSR.

Comecon: 1949
 Established trade control between the Soviets and satellite states.
 Economic specialisation within the bloc.
 Discouraged trade with USA and the West.
 Minimised reliance on the West.

 Minimised US influence in Eastern Europe as it was in response to the Marshall Plan.
 Prevented the East from experiencing economic prosperity of the West, by making
themselves reliant on the Soviet bloc. This undermined communism against the
prospering West, and made it look weak.

 NATO
 Warsaw Pact