Communism The Cold War Communism began during WWI

Communism & The Cold War Communism began during WWI when Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik Revolution which would overthrow the government and remove Russia from WWI. ( Remember we covered this a few chapters ago) Definition of Communism: All property is public and people work and are given things according to their needs. In other words, the exact opposite of democracy and capitalism. During WWII, the US and Russia, under Joseph Stalin, were military allies, although not political allies, only because they needed each other to defeat Hitler and Japan and win the war.

Communism, Cont. The Communist Flag is a symbol to show unity between the Working Class, represented by the hammer, and the normally poorer Peasant Class, represented by the sickle, a tool used to swing and cut wheat.

The Start of Conflict: The Yalta Conference As discussed in the last chapter, the Big 3 Leaders, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, met after Germany’s surrender in Yalta, Russia to not only determine post WWII Europe, but also how to defeat Japan to end the war. The big problem was a couple of the main terms of the agreement. 1) Germany would be divided into 4 zones with each allied power, the US, Russia, England France, overseeing a zone to make sure Germany would not rise up again as they did after WWI. Problem: Berlin, the capitol of Germany, was located with the zone that Russia will oversee.

Yalta, Cont. The other agreement that caused a future problem was that Stalin agreed to allow open free elections in the countries that they had liberated from Germany’s control during WWII. These elections never happened which allowed Stalin to maintain control of the politics in these countries, thus making them Communist.

Cold War • A Very Simplified Definition: The non-military conflict, thus the term COLD, mostly between the US and Russia where Russia was trying to spread Communism and the US was trying to stop that spread. • The United Nations One of the things agreed to at the end of the war was the formation of a world wide peace keeping organization, which was begun in June of 1945, with its headquarters based in NY City. • Winston Churchill was the first to call the division between Communist and non-Communist countries an Iron Curtain, which symbolizes the strong division between the two. • In the picture, everything to the right of the red line became Communist and everything to the left was not.

Cold War Begins Truman Doctrine: In March of 1947, Pres. Truman convinced Congress to agree to send $400 million worth of economic and military support to Turkey and Greece to help them to stop the spread of Communism in their countries. This help to keep them strong enough to prevent Russia from taking advantage of them and spreading Communism there. In 1947, the Sec. of State, George Marshall got the Marshall Plan passed through Congress. It was very similar to the Truman doctrine. But it promised aid to ALL European countries that ask for it with their help to recover from WWII. We gave a total of $13 Billion dollars to 16 countries over the next 5 years to ensure they were strong enough to fight against the threat of Communist takeover.

The Berlin Blockade Remembering that Germany was divided into 4 zones during the Yalta Conference, in 1948, the US, England France decided to combine their territories into 1 while Germany refused, keeping control of their territory, which contained the capital city of Berlin. But Berlin also contained representatives from all 4 of the countries agreed to at Yalta. In June of 1948, Stalin cut off total access by road or railroad to Western Berlin, which was actually controlled by England, France, and the US, and its over 2, 000 residents, also cutting off all food supplies. As a peaceful way to fix the situation, the US daily dropped tons of food and supplies into W. Berlin by plane. After almost one year, Stalin lifted the blockade.