Literature Notes
H1: THE COLD WAR IN GLOBAL CONTEXT, 1945-1991
Key Topics: Triumph and disquiet: the human prospect in 1945. Early superpower tensions.
Expanding the circle of conflict. The Khrushchev era, 1955-1964. From détente to denouement. Power
and principle.
Triumph and disquiet: The Human Prospect in 1945.
In the mid twentieth century Westerners saw the victory over fascist Germany and imperial Japan as a
resounding affirmation of Western-style democracy, personal liberty and the rule of law. During the
war the US and the USSR played down their differences to defeat their common enemy. Because of
the world war a lot of people were directly involved, the sacrifices of colonial people suggested to
many in the West that empire could no longer be justified. The UN (1945) was a hope for a new
international cooperation, where mistakes from after WWI could be avoided.
The Fragile West. During WWI the illusion that the Western world had unlocked the secrets of
political stability shattered. According to Wilson (US wartime president) the war was the one to end all
wars and a struggle to make the world safe for democracy, it did neither. A decade of German
resentment against the victors set the stage for the rise of Nazism. Britain and France enlarged their
empires instead of extending the principles of democratic self-government. The US turned to
isolationism, the revolutionary communist government in Russia rejected the foundations of Western
political and economical order. The Depression of 1929 only confirmed the verdict that political
pluralism and parliamentary democracy were doomed to extinction.
Democracy on the Defensive. During the crisis the few democracies appeared unable of lifting their
people out of the economic crisis, while the autocratic regimes seemed to place food on the table by
guaranteeing full employment. In 1956 Khrushchev denounced the brutal terror of Stalin, he had no
intention of relaxing one-party rule but it did stand as a sober testimony to the crimes committed in the
name of the alleged communist utopia.
An Optimistic View. After 1991 historians argued that now the struggle against totalitarianism had
concluded now with the failure of Soviet-style tyranny. The economic transformation of Western
Europe after the war seemed to legitimize a high level of confidence in democratic rule. The
Enlightenment political and economic valued had triumph, with the decolonisation and the downfall of
communism in Europe.
A Pessimistic View. There was another reality, the years of war had made no distinctions between
combatants and civilians, one-half of those who died in the war were unarmed innocents. Not only
cities, but also farms, manufacturing plants, sewage systems, and transportation networks had been
severely damaged, leaving manufacturing capacity in Europa at 20% of prewar production. Soviet
agricultural output did not reach prewar levels until 1952. The Holocaust had claimed the lives of six
million European Jews and a similar number of other people the Nazis discriminated against. In Asia
many people died of famines (war-induced). North Africa and islands in the Pacific were scenes of
terrible carnage. No one was secure in a war where technology and industrial production were focused
on the goals of physical destruction and psychological demoralisation.
The Eclipse of Europe. Before WWII Western ideas and power had defined the parameters of early
modern society and the modern world around the world. But after the war parts of Europe were
occupied by the US and the USSR.
Intellectual disquiet. The horrors of the war transformed the texture of the argument in favour of self-
government. According to some humans are too wicked to be trusted with more than the minimum
,power over man. How could the victors call for self-determination in postwar Europe and deny the
same opportunity to non-Westerners?
Early Superpower Tensions
The Cold War became the dominant feature of international relations from 1945 till 1989. But at first it
didn’t seem like that, both the US and the USSR agreed on the need for reconstruction and both
strongly opposed European imperialism. They were both in the UN.
A Second Front. The Soviet Union distrusted the Western font because it was opened so late. He
though they had done that to undermine Soviet resources.
Eastern Europe. The second area of disagreement was Stalin’s insistence that future Soviet security
mandated the formation of friendly governments to the west of the USSR. The Soviets had lost 20
million people during the war, the birth rate dropped and farms and factories were destroyed. So a
secure frontier isn’t a surprising demand. The invasion reinforced the perception that Russia’s sorrows
originated in the West. These friendly states meant subservient client states. Stalin had no intention of
allowing the formation of Western-style liberal democracies in Soviet-occupied countries.
Deepening Western Suspicions. The US had emerged from the war as the dominant global power. The
continent had not been attacked and its immediate neighbours never posed a threat to national security.
Russia on the other had was a major military power but economically it was poor and backward. This
was offset somewhat by the rapid postwar demobilisation of American troops in Western Europa. The
Soviet military withdrew a lot less. Soviet prisoners that returned home were exiled by Stalin to
forced-labour camps of executed because he feared they were contaminated by anti-Soviet ideas.
Many citizens viewed their leader as a national hero. In the minds of the West, an effective
countervailing force was necessary to prevent the extension of Soviet power. Churchill counselled that
security could only be found in an alliance among the Western democracies.
The Communist Perspective. From the communist perspective the West had the long and
undistinguished record of international aggression and imperialism. To Stalin, the hostility of the West
toward newly formed communist states demonstrated a strong defensive posture was necessary for the
Marxist alternative to survive. He argued a heavy hand of state was necessary as long as the forces of
international capitalism stood united in their opposition to the dream of a classless society.
The German Dilemma. In the absence of a formal peace settlement with Germany, a dangerous power
vacuum emerged in may 1945. The British, Americans and Soviets had agreed that the political
disintegration of the Nazi regime was essential to the future security of Europe. Nazi officials were
tried at Nuremberg in 1945. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that a punitive peace that left Germans
bitter and resentful would only serve to advance Soviet interest on the continent. They opposed
Stalin’s call for reparations from Germany and focused on the need for reconciliation and
reconstruction. In July 1945, at Potsdam, Stalin, Truman and Attlee agreed to divide Germany into
temporary occupation zones. The Soviet decision to remove natural resources and relocate whole
manufacturing plants from eastern Germany to Russia played an important role in prompting the
West’s decisions to unite the French, British and American occupation zones in 1947. Free provincial
elections were called and the dominant political parties looked to the West for economic aid and
political support.
The Marshall Plan. 1947. Stalin rejected the offer and prohibited Eastern European client states from
participating. Because of the requirement of the US to have a supervisory role over and access to the
budgetary records of receiving countries. The additional requirement was that the money would be
used to purchase American products. They saw it as a ploy to establish the world supremacy of
American imperialism. Sixteen nations did accept, the OEEC (Organisation for European Economic
Cooperation) was created. By 1953 13 billion dollars had been given, an enormous help to restart
Europe’s industrial base and modernising the AGRICULTURAL SECTOR. The contrast between life
,in East and West Germany became obvious to all who visited both zones. The reemployment of
Europe’s labouring population translated into the rapid stabilisation of Europe’s democratic political
system. Communist parties in the West lost influence as prosperity returned.
The Truman Doctrine. The first crisis between the US and the USSR was in Iran in 1945/46. In
Turkey in 1946 again. In 1947 Truman stated that there must be a policy of the US to support free
people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. This was
the Truman Doctrine, it played a major role in helping to refocus American public opinion concerning
the West’s wartime ally. It put the USSR on notice that the US would not withdraw from Europe as it
had after WWI.
Berlin Airlift. In July 1948 Stalin closed off road and rail access to the Western-controlled part of
Berlin, for the next 11 months the US organised airlifts into the city. The USSR finally reversed their
policy but not before the Western powers decided to unify their three zones into a new state: German
Federal Republic (BRD), elections were held and Adenauer was the new Bondskanselier. In 1949 the
Soviets created the German Democratic Republic (DDR).
NATO. Part of the containment policy was the building of traditional alliance systems. The Truman
administration concluded that the US needed to make a more formal commitment to the defence of
Europe along conventional military lines. In 1949 the NATO was created. In 1955 the BRD joined
NATO and began the process of rebuilding its military. Almost every European country had taken
sides in the unfolding bipolar word.
The Nuclear Arms Race. Soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Stalin ordered a Soviet
counterpart. Their work put an end to America’s atomic monopoly in July 1949. Four years later both
countries had hydrogen bombs. In 1957 the Space Race started when the Soviets send Sputnik into
space. The age of the ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) had started. For the first time, the
continental US was vulnerable to surprise attacks from an enemy thousands of miles away.
Expanding the Circle of Conflict.
The first phase of the Cold War ended with the Truman Doctrine and the adoption of containment
policy as the basis of America’s posture towards the USSR.
Communism in China. The defeat of Japan had created a dangerous power vacuum in a number of
strategic areas. East Asia, which prior to the rise of Japanese imperialism had been part of the larger
European-dominated world system, was now to find itself drawn into the Washington-Moscow rivalry.
In China there was a civil conflict between the nationalist government (with support form the US) and
the rural-based communist insurgents. The nationalist did not win a single significant battle against the
Japanese. But the alternative movement under Mao Zedong had won support of increasing numbers of
resistance fighters. Mao had insisted that the revolutionary potential and leadership capacity of the
peasantry was enormous (in conflict with classical Marxist-Leninist theory). But 1945 Mao stood at
the head of a communist army of over one million men. Despite this obvious majority over the
nationalist, many (also Russia) doubted Mao’s ability to prevail. In 1946 a ceasefire was signed but it
was of little effect. Frustrated by the lack of progress, US forces were withdrawn from China. In 1949
Mao officially announced the formation of the Communist People’s Republic of China. Because this
was so close to the Berlin blockade and the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia, many Westerners drew
links and believed the worldwide communist conspiracy led by the USSR. In truth Stalin an Mao were
not friends. And the Soviets supported the nationalists.
Korean Domino. Like Germany, Korea had also been divided after WWII and the Soviets and
Americans had failed to reach an agreement for reunification. After separate governments were
installed the US and USSR armies had withdrawn. In 1948 a highly volatile situation in which neither
side was prepared to make tangible concession to the other was left. Military and financial assistance
flowed into both Koreas over the next two years. On June 25 1950 a North Korean army (with implicit
, endorsement of the USSR) crossed the 38th parallel to ‘liberate’ the people of the South from their
‘reactionary’ nationalist government. Stalin and Kim Il Sung were both gambling that the Truman
administration would not intervene, but they did. Because of what happened in China, the USSR
testing an atomic bombs and memories of appeasement policy of fascist aggression in 1930s Europe.
Communist forces scored early victories, capturing Seoul two days after the initial incursion. Many
American forces were send. The conflict quickly escalated into a full-scale war. Within two weeks,
UN troops, took to the offensive, driving the enemy back across the line of partition and killing of
capturing nearly half of the invading army from the North. Pushing forward the army captured
Pyongyang and after two months they reached the border of China. Then 200,000 Chinese ‘volunteers’
entered the conflict, pushing the UN army back south. The fighting continued the next three years. In
1953 a ceasefire was signed. It is estimated that the war had 4 million casualties.
Red Scare. The Red Scare was the fear of an alleged global communist conspiracy. It seriously
impaired domestic political freedoms in the US. Led by McCarthy the idea that there was a communist
infiltration at the US State Department was born.
Southeast Asia. After WWII the British, Dutch and French returned to their former colonies in
Southeast Asia. Dutch troops occupied Indonesia in late 1945, ignoring the fact that nationalists had
declared independence after Japan withdrew. A bloody four-year war ensued. Only threats from the US
to stop the Marshall Plan put a stop to the conflict. In 1950 the Republic of Indonesia was formed. In
1946 French soldiers and administrators returned to Indochina. They were immediately confronted by
an indigenous guerrilla movement led by the communist leader Ho Chi Minh. He established a League
for the Independence of Vietnam during WWII. It was composed of nationalist groups who organised
an underground resistance to the Japanese occupation. After the Japanese left the communist declared
an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But the French refused to recognize that claim. This
turned into a 30 year guerrilla war. Originally the US hadn’t agreed with the French operations but in
1950 (in the wake of the Chinese revolution and Soviet sponsorship of North-Korea) they changed
their mind. Although the Soviets had given little encouragement to Ho, it was now viewed as part of a
larger pattern. By 1954 the US was paying a large part of France’s military costs. However in 1954 the
French suffered a humiliating defeat and conceded that they could not win. They had already suffered
lots of casualties and domestic popular opinion was decisively against the war. A conference was held
for a peace. The land was again partitioned. But it was never completed because they didn’t agree.
Washington intervenes. The US proceeded to recruit a nationalist leadership for the South, provided
military training and funding for a new South Vietnamese army. Conditions in the North weren’t great.
Ho Chi Minh ordered the collectivisation of agriculture, outlawed opposition parties and exercised
violent coercive measures against anyone who resisted the state-imposed communism. In 1959 the
guerrilla war against the South was resumed. Kenedy decided not to give up but to give even more
support for the corrupt and authoritarian Diem regime (capitalist and south). Within a year the
communists were close to victory. The successful communist revolution in Cuba played a significant
role in America’s unwillingness to give up. But their efforts were in vain, Diem’s government was torn
and failed to win the loyal support of the population. The social and economic disorder visited upon
the civilian population of Vietnam was without precedent in the history of the region.
An Undeclared War. In 1965 America send the first land forces and enormous air power to Vietnam.
They dropped more bombs in Vietnam than were on Germany during the entire course of WWII. But
this did little against the highly mobile and deeply committed guerrilla forces. In the US there was
increasing opposition. Nixon extended the conflict in 1969 to Cambodia. Which caused massive
popular protest in major cities and on college campuses. He send National Guard troops to open fire
on antiwar protestors in 1970 in Ohio. Resistance to the draft increased. In 1973 the American soldiers
left. Two years later South Vietnam fell to the communist North. In the same year the communist
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia overthrew the American backed government and the non-communist
H1: THE COLD WAR IN GLOBAL CONTEXT, 1945-1991
Key Topics: Triumph and disquiet: the human prospect in 1945. Early superpower tensions.
Expanding the circle of conflict. The Khrushchev era, 1955-1964. From détente to denouement. Power
and principle.
Triumph and disquiet: The Human Prospect in 1945.
In the mid twentieth century Westerners saw the victory over fascist Germany and imperial Japan as a
resounding affirmation of Western-style democracy, personal liberty and the rule of law. During the
war the US and the USSR played down their differences to defeat their common enemy. Because of
the world war a lot of people were directly involved, the sacrifices of colonial people suggested to
many in the West that empire could no longer be justified. The UN (1945) was a hope for a new
international cooperation, where mistakes from after WWI could be avoided.
The Fragile West. During WWI the illusion that the Western world had unlocked the secrets of
political stability shattered. According to Wilson (US wartime president) the war was the one to end all
wars and a struggle to make the world safe for democracy, it did neither. A decade of German
resentment against the victors set the stage for the rise of Nazism. Britain and France enlarged their
empires instead of extending the principles of democratic self-government. The US turned to
isolationism, the revolutionary communist government in Russia rejected the foundations of Western
political and economical order. The Depression of 1929 only confirmed the verdict that political
pluralism and parliamentary democracy were doomed to extinction.
Democracy on the Defensive. During the crisis the few democracies appeared unable of lifting their
people out of the economic crisis, while the autocratic regimes seemed to place food on the table by
guaranteeing full employment. In 1956 Khrushchev denounced the brutal terror of Stalin, he had no
intention of relaxing one-party rule but it did stand as a sober testimony to the crimes committed in the
name of the alleged communist utopia.
An Optimistic View. After 1991 historians argued that now the struggle against totalitarianism had
concluded now with the failure of Soviet-style tyranny. The economic transformation of Western
Europe after the war seemed to legitimize a high level of confidence in democratic rule. The
Enlightenment political and economic valued had triumph, with the decolonisation and the downfall of
communism in Europe.
A Pessimistic View. There was another reality, the years of war had made no distinctions between
combatants and civilians, one-half of those who died in the war were unarmed innocents. Not only
cities, but also farms, manufacturing plants, sewage systems, and transportation networks had been
severely damaged, leaving manufacturing capacity in Europa at 20% of prewar production. Soviet
agricultural output did not reach prewar levels until 1952. The Holocaust had claimed the lives of six
million European Jews and a similar number of other people the Nazis discriminated against. In Asia
many people died of famines (war-induced). North Africa and islands in the Pacific were scenes of
terrible carnage. No one was secure in a war where technology and industrial production were focused
on the goals of physical destruction and psychological demoralisation.
The Eclipse of Europe. Before WWII Western ideas and power had defined the parameters of early
modern society and the modern world around the world. But after the war parts of Europe were
occupied by the US and the USSR.
Intellectual disquiet. The horrors of the war transformed the texture of the argument in favour of self-
government. According to some humans are too wicked to be trusted with more than the minimum
,power over man. How could the victors call for self-determination in postwar Europe and deny the
same opportunity to non-Westerners?
Early Superpower Tensions
The Cold War became the dominant feature of international relations from 1945 till 1989. But at first it
didn’t seem like that, both the US and the USSR agreed on the need for reconstruction and both
strongly opposed European imperialism. They were both in the UN.
A Second Front. The Soviet Union distrusted the Western font because it was opened so late. He
though they had done that to undermine Soviet resources.
Eastern Europe. The second area of disagreement was Stalin’s insistence that future Soviet security
mandated the formation of friendly governments to the west of the USSR. The Soviets had lost 20
million people during the war, the birth rate dropped and farms and factories were destroyed. So a
secure frontier isn’t a surprising demand. The invasion reinforced the perception that Russia’s sorrows
originated in the West. These friendly states meant subservient client states. Stalin had no intention of
allowing the formation of Western-style liberal democracies in Soviet-occupied countries.
Deepening Western Suspicions. The US had emerged from the war as the dominant global power. The
continent had not been attacked and its immediate neighbours never posed a threat to national security.
Russia on the other had was a major military power but economically it was poor and backward. This
was offset somewhat by the rapid postwar demobilisation of American troops in Western Europa. The
Soviet military withdrew a lot less. Soviet prisoners that returned home were exiled by Stalin to
forced-labour camps of executed because he feared they were contaminated by anti-Soviet ideas.
Many citizens viewed their leader as a national hero. In the minds of the West, an effective
countervailing force was necessary to prevent the extension of Soviet power. Churchill counselled that
security could only be found in an alliance among the Western democracies.
The Communist Perspective. From the communist perspective the West had the long and
undistinguished record of international aggression and imperialism. To Stalin, the hostility of the West
toward newly formed communist states demonstrated a strong defensive posture was necessary for the
Marxist alternative to survive. He argued a heavy hand of state was necessary as long as the forces of
international capitalism stood united in their opposition to the dream of a classless society.
The German Dilemma. In the absence of a formal peace settlement with Germany, a dangerous power
vacuum emerged in may 1945. The British, Americans and Soviets had agreed that the political
disintegration of the Nazi regime was essential to the future security of Europe. Nazi officials were
tried at Nuremberg in 1945. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that a punitive peace that left Germans
bitter and resentful would only serve to advance Soviet interest on the continent. They opposed
Stalin’s call for reparations from Germany and focused on the need for reconciliation and
reconstruction. In July 1945, at Potsdam, Stalin, Truman and Attlee agreed to divide Germany into
temporary occupation zones. The Soviet decision to remove natural resources and relocate whole
manufacturing plants from eastern Germany to Russia played an important role in prompting the
West’s decisions to unite the French, British and American occupation zones in 1947. Free provincial
elections were called and the dominant political parties looked to the West for economic aid and
political support.
The Marshall Plan. 1947. Stalin rejected the offer and prohibited Eastern European client states from
participating. Because of the requirement of the US to have a supervisory role over and access to the
budgetary records of receiving countries. The additional requirement was that the money would be
used to purchase American products. They saw it as a ploy to establish the world supremacy of
American imperialism. Sixteen nations did accept, the OEEC (Organisation for European Economic
Cooperation) was created. By 1953 13 billion dollars had been given, an enormous help to restart
Europe’s industrial base and modernising the AGRICULTURAL SECTOR. The contrast between life
,in East and West Germany became obvious to all who visited both zones. The reemployment of
Europe’s labouring population translated into the rapid stabilisation of Europe’s democratic political
system. Communist parties in the West lost influence as prosperity returned.
The Truman Doctrine. The first crisis between the US and the USSR was in Iran in 1945/46. In
Turkey in 1946 again. In 1947 Truman stated that there must be a policy of the US to support free
people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. This was
the Truman Doctrine, it played a major role in helping to refocus American public opinion concerning
the West’s wartime ally. It put the USSR on notice that the US would not withdraw from Europe as it
had after WWI.
Berlin Airlift. In July 1948 Stalin closed off road and rail access to the Western-controlled part of
Berlin, for the next 11 months the US organised airlifts into the city. The USSR finally reversed their
policy but not before the Western powers decided to unify their three zones into a new state: German
Federal Republic (BRD), elections were held and Adenauer was the new Bondskanselier. In 1949 the
Soviets created the German Democratic Republic (DDR).
NATO. Part of the containment policy was the building of traditional alliance systems. The Truman
administration concluded that the US needed to make a more formal commitment to the defence of
Europe along conventional military lines. In 1949 the NATO was created. In 1955 the BRD joined
NATO and began the process of rebuilding its military. Almost every European country had taken
sides in the unfolding bipolar word.
The Nuclear Arms Race. Soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Stalin ordered a Soviet
counterpart. Their work put an end to America’s atomic monopoly in July 1949. Four years later both
countries had hydrogen bombs. In 1957 the Space Race started when the Soviets send Sputnik into
space. The age of the ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) had started. For the first time, the
continental US was vulnerable to surprise attacks from an enemy thousands of miles away.
Expanding the Circle of Conflict.
The first phase of the Cold War ended with the Truman Doctrine and the adoption of containment
policy as the basis of America’s posture towards the USSR.
Communism in China. The defeat of Japan had created a dangerous power vacuum in a number of
strategic areas. East Asia, which prior to the rise of Japanese imperialism had been part of the larger
European-dominated world system, was now to find itself drawn into the Washington-Moscow rivalry.
In China there was a civil conflict between the nationalist government (with support form the US) and
the rural-based communist insurgents. The nationalist did not win a single significant battle against the
Japanese. But the alternative movement under Mao Zedong had won support of increasing numbers of
resistance fighters. Mao had insisted that the revolutionary potential and leadership capacity of the
peasantry was enormous (in conflict with classical Marxist-Leninist theory). But 1945 Mao stood at
the head of a communist army of over one million men. Despite this obvious majority over the
nationalist, many (also Russia) doubted Mao’s ability to prevail. In 1946 a ceasefire was signed but it
was of little effect. Frustrated by the lack of progress, US forces were withdrawn from China. In 1949
Mao officially announced the formation of the Communist People’s Republic of China. Because this
was so close to the Berlin blockade and the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia, many Westerners drew
links and believed the worldwide communist conspiracy led by the USSR. In truth Stalin an Mao were
not friends. And the Soviets supported the nationalists.
Korean Domino. Like Germany, Korea had also been divided after WWII and the Soviets and
Americans had failed to reach an agreement for reunification. After separate governments were
installed the US and USSR armies had withdrawn. In 1948 a highly volatile situation in which neither
side was prepared to make tangible concession to the other was left. Military and financial assistance
flowed into both Koreas over the next two years. On June 25 1950 a North Korean army (with implicit
, endorsement of the USSR) crossed the 38th parallel to ‘liberate’ the people of the South from their
‘reactionary’ nationalist government. Stalin and Kim Il Sung were both gambling that the Truman
administration would not intervene, but they did. Because of what happened in China, the USSR
testing an atomic bombs and memories of appeasement policy of fascist aggression in 1930s Europe.
Communist forces scored early victories, capturing Seoul two days after the initial incursion. Many
American forces were send. The conflict quickly escalated into a full-scale war. Within two weeks,
UN troops, took to the offensive, driving the enemy back across the line of partition and killing of
capturing nearly half of the invading army from the North. Pushing forward the army captured
Pyongyang and after two months they reached the border of China. Then 200,000 Chinese ‘volunteers’
entered the conflict, pushing the UN army back south. The fighting continued the next three years. In
1953 a ceasefire was signed. It is estimated that the war had 4 million casualties.
Red Scare. The Red Scare was the fear of an alleged global communist conspiracy. It seriously
impaired domestic political freedoms in the US. Led by McCarthy the idea that there was a communist
infiltration at the US State Department was born.
Southeast Asia. After WWII the British, Dutch and French returned to their former colonies in
Southeast Asia. Dutch troops occupied Indonesia in late 1945, ignoring the fact that nationalists had
declared independence after Japan withdrew. A bloody four-year war ensued. Only threats from the US
to stop the Marshall Plan put a stop to the conflict. In 1950 the Republic of Indonesia was formed. In
1946 French soldiers and administrators returned to Indochina. They were immediately confronted by
an indigenous guerrilla movement led by the communist leader Ho Chi Minh. He established a League
for the Independence of Vietnam during WWII. It was composed of nationalist groups who organised
an underground resistance to the Japanese occupation. After the Japanese left the communist declared
an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But the French refused to recognize that claim. This
turned into a 30 year guerrilla war. Originally the US hadn’t agreed with the French operations but in
1950 (in the wake of the Chinese revolution and Soviet sponsorship of North-Korea) they changed
their mind. Although the Soviets had given little encouragement to Ho, it was now viewed as part of a
larger pattern. By 1954 the US was paying a large part of France’s military costs. However in 1954 the
French suffered a humiliating defeat and conceded that they could not win. They had already suffered
lots of casualties and domestic popular opinion was decisively against the war. A conference was held
for a peace. The land was again partitioned. But it was never completed because they didn’t agree.
Washington intervenes. The US proceeded to recruit a nationalist leadership for the South, provided
military training and funding for a new South Vietnamese army. Conditions in the North weren’t great.
Ho Chi Minh ordered the collectivisation of agriculture, outlawed opposition parties and exercised
violent coercive measures against anyone who resisted the state-imposed communism. In 1959 the
guerrilla war against the South was resumed. Kenedy decided not to give up but to give even more
support for the corrupt and authoritarian Diem regime (capitalist and south). Within a year the
communists were close to victory. The successful communist revolution in Cuba played a significant
role in America’s unwillingness to give up. But their efforts were in vain, Diem’s government was torn
and failed to win the loyal support of the population. The social and economic disorder visited upon
the civilian population of Vietnam was without precedent in the history of the region.
An Undeclared War. In 1965 America send the first land forces and enormous air power to Vietnam.
They dropped more bombs in Vietnam than were on Germany during the entire course of WWII. But
this did little against the highly mobile and deeply committed guerrilla forces. In the US there was
increasing opposition. Nixon extended the conflict in 1969 to Cambodia. Which caused massive
popular protest in major cities and on college campuses. He send National Guard troops to open fire
on antiwar protestors in 1970 in Ohio. Resistance to the draft increased. In 1973 the American soldiers
left. Two years later South Vietnam fell to the communist North. In the same year the communist
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia overthrew the American backed government and the non-communist
