What caused the Cold War? How did it affect Europe up to 1961?
...1947, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia had fallen under the communist fist. Russia also had a say in Germany and the communist parties in Italy and France were getting stronger. For the defence of the USA, the CIA was set up, to gather information worldwide and organise espionage. Truman announced that America would give military and economic aid to any country that fought the spread of communism throughout Europe. He spent 400 Million Dollars on this. He strongly believed that once Greece became communist, Turkey would follow and so the whole Middle East would be at risk. This announcement became known as the Truman Doctrine. To prevent this, America sent “economic and military advisers” (military) to countries with political instability. With this action Truman divided the whole World in two, into pro and anti communist spheres, where Stalin had only divided Europe by building the “Iron Curtain” in 1946. He stationed Soviet troops in all Eastern European countries and forced the people to elect communist governments in order to protect the USSR. The Iron Curtain reached from the Baltic to the Balkans (clean through Germany) and was made up of barbed wire fences, minefields and machine gun posts. Stalin claimed that this curtain would protect the East from the West, but he hoped it would stop Western ideas reaching the East and refugees leaving for the West. In June 1947 the US Secretary of State George Marshall announced the European Recovery Programme (Marshall Plan). This was US economic aid given to Europe, totalling 13000 Billion between 1948 and 1952. The world’s richest nation helped to rebuild Europe in economic and physical terms, to prevent communist takeover. It was only given to countries prepared to cooperate with each other, in order to economically recover Europe. These countries therefore had to buy American products and allow American investors. In September 1947 a conference was held in Paris and 16 nations agreed on a 4 year recovery plan. By the mid 1950’s Western Europe’s economy had totally recovered from WW2. Stalin prevented the Eastern Bloc from partaking, but to tighten his control over Eastern Europe he formed the COMINFORM (Communist Information Bureau) in 1947, that coordinated governments in Eastern Europe and gave instructions to all communist governments and the COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) in 1949, that coordinated industries and trade in Eastern Europe with each other, not the West. It favoured USSR produced goods and guaranteed the USSR a cheap supply of raw materials. The Marshall Plan and Russia’s Reaction on it deepened the division of Europe into West and East. Between 1945 and 1947 the allies kept Germany weak, because they were afraid of a new rise. But they realised that a backward Germany would hold back the development of whole Europe, so in 1946 the Western powers joined their zones and sectors and formed one Germany. They extended the Marshall Plan on their zones and sectors and by 1948 Britain, France and the USA unified their currency (including Berlin). The next day, June 24, the Soviets blockaded Railways and Highways to Berlin, so the Western allies couldn’t supply their sectors anymore. The powers didn’t give Berlin to Stalin, as it would have been against the Truman Doctrine, which says that there should be no land given to a communist regime. They therefore started a monumental airlift, which flew goods, such as coal and food into the Western sectors of Berlin. To show Stalin how superior they were, they flew much more than they needed to Berlin. Stalin couldn’t simply shoot the planes down, as they said to have atomic weapons in them and Stalin at this time hadn’t such weapons on his own. In April 1949 , 12 members formed the NATO and one month later Stalin ended the blockade and the airlift finally stopped after 324 days. Truman signed the NATO treaty in July 1949. Ten European and both North-American members united against communism so that in the event of one being attacked, all of them would go to war (Article 5). Truman wanted to strengthen Europe’s forces but the Congress thought it would be better if America built up its nuclear weapons. Soon after Russia successfully tested their first atomic bomb and therefore the Congress allowed Truman to strengthen Western Europe’s ground forces. He ordered an increase in the amount of research going into and the production of nuclear weapons. In 1955 the USSR and the Eastern Bloc joined together in the Warsaw Pact. This was the Eastern response on the NATO. Russia called it a military alliance against Western aggression. The NATO and the Warsaw Pact did nothing but strengthen the already existing military division of Europe. Between 1945 and 1950 all eastern European states, except Yugoslavia, were under communist rule and there were no free elections. In Poland all non-communist leaders were killed and finally in 1947 there was a sham election, which the communist won. In Hungary at this time the most popular party was the Small Farmers Party, which won the elections with a large majority. But the communists filled all the important political positions and therefore the SFP leaders were force to abandon politics, to save their lives. In Romania the communists simply won the elections held in 1946. The same happened in Bulgaria in October 1946 where all non-communist leaders were killed and the communist achieved a massive victory. The only country Stalin couldn’t get at this time was Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was led by Tito, a wartime guerrilla leader, who won 96% of the votes in the November elections held in 1946. Stalin saw it was impossible to overthrow this government, because Yugoslavia had access to the Mediterranean Sea and therefore America wouldn’t have tolerated Russian domination in Yugoslavia, and as long as it was communist (though independent of Moscow) Stalin didn’t care and didn’t want to provoke America ...