602 CHAPTER 18

One American's Story

Origins of the Cold War

Seventy miles south of Berlin, Joseph Polowsky and apatrol of American soldiers were scouting for signs of theSoviet army advancing from the east. As the soldiersneared the Elbe River, they saw lilacs in bloom. Polowskylater said the sight of the flowers filled them with joy.

Across the Elbe, the Americans spotted Soviet soldiers, who signaled for them to cross over. When theAmericans reached the opposite bank, their joy turnedto shock. They saw to their horror that the bank wascovered with dead civilians, victims of bombing raids.

A PERSONAL VOICE JOSEPH POLOWSKY

“ Here we are, tremendously exhilarated, and there’s asea of dead. . . . [The platoon leader] was much moved. . . . He said,‘Joe, let’s make a resolution with these Russians here and also theones on the bank: this would be an important day in the lives of thetwo countries.’ . . . It was a solemn moment. There were tears in theeyes of most of us. . . . We embraced. We swore never to forget.”

—quoted in The Good War

The Soviet and U.S. soldiers believed that their encounter would serve as asymbol of peace. Unfortunately, such hopes were soon dashed. After World WarII, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers, eachstrong enough to greatly influence world events.

Former Allies ClashThe United States and the Soviet Union had very different ambitions for thefuture. These differences created a climate of icy tension that plunged the twocountries into a bitter rivalry.

Terms & NamesTerms & NamesMAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA WHY IT MATTERS NOWWHY IT MATTERS NOW

•United Nations (UN)•satellite nation•containment•iron curtain•Cold War•Truman Doctrine

•Marshall Plan•Berlin airlift•North AtlanticTreaty Organization(NATO)

The United States and theSoviet Union emerged fromWorld War II as two“superpowers” with vastlydifferent political andeconomic systems.

After World War II, differencesbetween the United States and the Soviet Union led to aCold War that lasted almost tothe 21st century.

▼

American and Sovietsoldiers meet (top)at the Elbe River inGermany near the endof World War II. A 1996postage stamp (above)commemorates thehistoric meeting.

A

Under Soviet communism,the state controlled all propertyand economic activity, while inthe capitalistic American system,private citizens controlled almostall economic activity. In theAmerican system, voting by thepeople elected a president and acongress from competing politi-cal parties; in the Soviet Union,the Communist Party estab-lished a totalitarian governmentwith no opposing parties.

The United States was furi-ous that Joseph Stalin—theleader of the Soviet Union—hadbeen an ally of Hitler for a time.Stalin had supported the Alliesonly after Hitler invaded theSoviet Union in June 1941. Insome ways, the Americans andSoviets became more suspiciousof each other during the war.Stalin resented the WesternAllies’ delay in attacking theGermans in Europe. Such anattack, he thought, would drawpart of the German army awayfrom the Soviet Union. Relationsworsened after Stalin learnedthat the United States had keptits development of the atomicbomb secret.

THE UNITED NATIONS In spiteof these problems, hopes forworld peace were high at the endof the war. The most visible sym-bol of these hopes was the United Nations (UN). On April 25, 1945, the repre-sentatives of 50 nations met in San Francisco to establish this new peacekeepingbody. After two months of debate, on June 26, 1945, the delegates signed thecharter establishing the UN.

Ironically, even though the UN was intended to promote peace, it soon becamean arena in which the two superpowers competed. Both the United States and theSoviet Union used the UN as a forum to spread their influence over others.

TRUMAN BECOMES PRESIDENT For the United States, the key figure in theearly years of conflict with the Soviets was President Harry S. Truman. On April12, 1945, Truman had suddenly become president when Franklin Roosevelt died.This former Missouri senator had been picked as Roosevelt’s running mate in1944. He had served as vice-president for just a few months before Roosevelt’sdeath. During his term as vice-president, Truman had not been included in toppolicy decisions. He had not even known that the United States was developingan atomic bomb. Many Americans doubted Truman’s ability to serve as president.But Truman was honest and had a willingness to make tough decisions—qualitiesthat he would need desperately during his presidency.

Cold War Conflicts 603

BackgroundSee communismon page R39 andcapitalism onpage R38 in theEconomicsHandbook.

KEY PLAYERSKEY PLAYERS

HARRY S. TRUMAN1884–1972

Harry S. Truman, the son of aMissouri livestock trader andhis wife, did not seem des-tined for greatness. When hegraduated from high school in1901, he drifted from job tojob. After WWI, he invested ina men’s clothing store, butthe business failed.

Discouraged by his busi-ness failure, Truman sought acareer in politics. As a politi-cian, his blunt and outspokenstyle won both loyal friendsand bitter enemies. As presi-dent, his decisiveness andwillingness to accept respon-sibility for his decisions (“TheBuck Stops Here” read a signon his desk) earned himrespect that has grown overthe years.

JOSEPH STALIN1879–1953

As a young revolutionary, IosifVissarionovich Dzhugashvilitook the name Stalin, whichmeans "man of steel" inRussian.

His father was a failed shoe-maker and an alcoholic. Hismother helped support thefamily as a washerwoman.

Stalin is credited with turn-ing the Soviet Union into aworld power but at a terriblecost to its citizens. He ruledwith terror and brutality andsaw “enemies” everywhere,even among friends and sup-porters. He subdued the pop-ulation with the use of secretpolice and labor camps, andhe is believed to have beenresponsible for the murder ofmillions of Soviets.

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

A

AnalyzingCauses

What causedthe tensionbetween theSoviet Union andthe United Statesafter the war?

B

THE POTSDAM CONFERENCE Truman’s test as a diplomat came in July 1945when the Big Three—the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union—metat the final wartime conference at Potsdam near Berlin. The countries that partici-pated were the same ones that had been present at Yalta in February 1945. Stalinstill represented the Soviet Union. Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Britain’srepresentative mid-conference, because Churchill’s party lost a general election.And Harry Truman took Roosevelt’s place.

At Yalta, Stalin had promised Roosevelt that he would allow free elections—that is, a vote by secret ballot in a multiparty system—in Poland and other partsof Eastern Europe that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war. By July 1945,however, it was clear that Stalin would not keep this promise. The Soviets pre-vented free elections in Poland and banned democratic parties.

Tension MountsStalin’s refusal to allow free elections in Poland convinced Truman that U.S. andSoviet aims were deeply at odds. Truman’s goal in demanding free elections wasto spread democracy to nations that had been under Nazi rule. He wanted to cre-ate a new world order in which all nations had the right of self-determination.

BARGAINING AT POTSDAM At the Yalta conference, the Soviets had wanted totake reparations from Germany to help repay Soviet wartime losses. Now, atPotsdam, Truman objected to that. After hard bargaining, it was agreed that theSoviets, British, Americans, and French would take reparations mainly from theirown occupation zones.

Truman also felt that the United States had a large economic stake in spread-ing democracy and free trade across the globe. U.S. industry boomed during thewar, making the United States the economic leader of the world. To continuegrowing, American businesses wanted access to raw materials in Eastern Europe,and they wanted to be able to sell goods to Eastern European countries.

SOVIETS TIGHTEN THEIR GRIP ON EASTERN EUROPE The Soviet Unionhad also emerged from the war as a nation of enormous economic and militarystrength. However, unlike the United States, the Soviet Union had suffered heavydevastation on its own soil. Soviet deaths from the war have been estimated at 20million, half of whom were civilians. As a result, the Soviets felt justified in theirclaim to Eastern Europe. By dominating this region, the Soviets felt they couldstop future invasions from the west.

604 CHAPTER 18

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

B

AnalyzingCauses

What didStalin do to makePresident Trumandistrust him?

U.S. Aims Versus Soviet Aims in Europe

SKILLBUILDER Interpreting Charts1. Which aims involved economic growth of the United States?2. Which Soviet aims involved self-protection?

The United States wanted to . . . The Soviets wanted to . . .

• Create a new world order in which all nationshad the right of self-determination

• Gain access to raw materials and markets forits industries

• Rebuild European governments to ensurestability and to create new markets forAmerican goods

• Reunite Germany, believing that Europe wouldbe more secure if Germany were productive

• Encourage communism in other countries as part of the worldwide struggle between workers and thewealthy

• Rebuild its war-ravaged economy using EasternEurope’s industrial equipment and raw materials

• Control Eastern Europe to balance U.S. influence inWestern Europe

• Keep Germany divided and weak so that it wouldnever again threaten the Soviet Union

Cold War Conflicts 605

C

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

C

AnalyzingMotives

What wereTruman’s goalsin establishingthe policy ofcontainment?

Stalin installed communist governments in Albania, Bulgaria,Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland. These countries became knownas satellite nations, countries dominated by the Soviet Union. In early 1946,Stalin gave a speech announcing that communism and capitalism were incom-patible—and that another war was inevitable.

UNITED STATES ESTABLISHES A POLICY OF CONTAINMENT Faced with theSoviet threat, American officials decided it was time, in Truman’s words, to stop“babying the Soviets.” In February 1946, George F. Kennan, an American diplo-mat in Moscow, proposed a policy of containment. By containment he meanttaking measures to prevent any extension of communist rule to other countries.This policy began to guide the Truman administration’s foreign policy.

Europe was now divided into two political regions, a mostly democraticWestern Europe and a communist Eastern Europe. In March 1946, WinstonChurchill traveled to the United States and gave a speech that describedthe situation in Europe.

A PERSONAL VOICE WINSTON CHURCHILL

“ A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Alliedvictory. . . . From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ironcurtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all thecapitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. . . . Allthese famous cities and the populations around them lie in . . . the Sovietsphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influ-ence but to a very high and . . . increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

—“Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri

The phrase “iron curtain” came to stand for the division of Europe. WhenStalin heard about the speech, he declared in no uncertain terms that Churchill’swords were a “call to war.”

Winston Churchill,Prime Ministerof Great Britain

60°N

45°N

0°

30°E

ATLANTICOCEAN

AdriaticSea

BalticSea

NorthSea

M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

FRANCE

GREECETURKEY

ALBANIA

ITALYBULGARIA

YUGOSLAVIA

SWITZ.ROMANIA

HUNGARYAUSTRIA

BELG.

LUX.WEST

GERMANY

EASTGERMANY

NETH.POLAND

SOVIETUNION

DEN.

FINLANDNORWAYSWEDEN

PORTUGAL SPAIN

GREATBRITAIN

IRELAND

CZECH.

The "Iron Curtain"

N

S

EWCommunist nations

0 250 500 kilometers

0 250 500 miles

GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER1. Location Which communist nations were located

between the Soviet Union and the iron curtain?

2. Human-Environment Interaction Why didthe Soviet Union want to control these nations?

North Sea

FrenchZone

FrenchZone

BritishZone

AmericanZone

Berlin

WESTGERMANY

EASTGERMANY

0 150 300 kilometers

0 150 300 miles

Postwar Germany, 1949

The Iron Curtain, 1949

Spree R.Hav

elR

.

EastBerlin

WestBerlin

FrenchZone

British Zone

AmericanZone

0 6 12 kilometers

0 6 12 miles

Cold War in EuropeThe conflicting U.S. and Soviet aims in Eastern Europe led to the Cold War, aconflict between the United States and the Soviet Union in which neither nationdirectly confronted the other on the battlefield. The Cold War would dominateglobal affairs—and U.S. foreign policy—from 1945 until the breakup of the SovietUnion in 1991.

THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE The United States first tried to contain Soviet influencein Greece and Turkey. Britain was financially supporting both nations’ resistance togrowing communist influence in the region. However, Britain’s economy had beenbadly hurt by the war, and the formerly wealthy nation could no longer afford togive aid. It asked the United States to take over the responsibility.

President Truman accepted the challenge. On March 12, 1947, Truman askedCongress for $400 million in economic and military aid for Greece and Turkey. Ina statement that became known as the Truman Doctrine, he declared that “itmust be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resistingattempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Congress

agreed with Truman and decided thatthe doctrine was essential to keepingSoviet influence from spreading.Between 1947 and 1950, the UnitedStates sent $400 million in aid toTurkey and Greece, greatly reducingthe danger of communist takeover inthose nations.

THE MARSHALL PLAN Like post-war Greece, Western Europe was inchaos. Most of its factories had beenbombed or looted. Millions of peoplewere living in refugee camps whileEuropean governments tried to figureout where to resettle them. To makematters worse, the winter of 1946–1947 was the bitterest in several cen-turies. The weather severely damagedcrops and froze rivers, cutting offwater transportation and causing afuel shortage.

In June 1947, Secretary of StateGeorge Marshall proposed that theUnited States provide aid to allEuropean nations that needed it, say-ing that this move was directed “notagainst any country or doctrine butagainst hunger, poverty, desperation,and chaos.”

The Marshall Plan revivedEuropean hopes. Over the next fouryears, 16 countries received some $13billion in aid. By 1952, Western Europewas flourishing, and the Communistparty had lost much of its appealto voters.

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Vocabularysubjugation:bringing undercontrol

BackgroundThe Marshall Planalso benefited theUnited States. Tosupply Europewith goods,American farmsand factoriesraised productionlevels. As a result,the Americaneconomycontinued itswartime boom.

The Marshall Plan

Source: Problemes Economiques, No. 306

Great Britain

France

Italy

West Germany

Holland

Austria

Belgium/Lux.

Greece

Denmark

Norway

Turkey

Ireland

Sweden

Portugal

Yugoslavia

Iceland

Other

U.S. Aid (in millions of dollars)

2,826

2,445

1,316

1,297

877

561

547

515

350

257

237

153

146

119

51

33

29

SKILLBUILDER Interpreting Graphs1. Which two countries received the most aid?2. Why do you think these countries received so much aid?

D

Superpowers Struggle over GermanyAs Europe began to get back on its feet, the United States and its allies clashedwith the Soviet Union over the issue of German reunification. At the end of WorldWar II, Germany was divided into four zones occupied by the United States, GreatBritain, and France in the west and the Soviet Union in the east. In 1948, Britain,France, and the United States decided to combine their three zones into onenation. The western part of Berlin, which had been occupied by the French,British, and Americans, was surrounded by Soviet-occupied territory. (See map,page 605.)

Although the three nations had intended to unify their zones, they had nowritten agreement with the Soviets guaranteeing free access to Berlin by road orrail. Stalin saw this loophole as an opportunity. If he moved quickly, he might beable to take over the part of Berlin held by the three Western powers. In June1948, Stalin closed all highway and rail routes into West Berlin. As a result, nofood or fuel could reach that part of the city. The 2.1 million residents of the cityhad only enough food to last for approximately five weeks.

THE BERLIN AIRLIFT The resulting situation was dire. In an attempt to breakthe blockade, American and British officials started the Berlin airlift to fly foodand supplies into West Berlin. For 327 days, planes took off and landed every fewminutes, around the clock. In 277,000 flights, they brought in 2.3 million tons ofsupplies—everything from food, fuel, and medicine to Christmas presents thatthe planes’ crews bought with their own money.

West Berlin survived because of the airlift. In addition, the mission to aidBerlin boosted American prestige around the world. By May 1949, the SovietUnion realized it was beaten and lifted the blockade.

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

D

AnalyzingEffects

What were theeffects of theBerlin airlift?

Beginning in June 1948, planes bringing tons offood and other supplies to West Berlin landedevery few minutes.▼

In the same month, the western part of Germany officially became a newnation, the Federal Republic of Germany, also called West Germany. It includedWest Berlin. A few months later, from its occupation zone, the Soviet Union creat-ed the German Democratic Republic, called East Germany. It included East Berlin.

THE NATO ALLIANCE The Berlinblockade increased Western Europeanfear of Soviet aggression. As a result,ten Western European nations—Belgium, Denmark, France, GreatBritain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg,the Netherlands, Norway, andPortugal—joined with the UnitedStates and Canada on April 4, 1949, toform a defensive military alliancecalled the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO). (See map,page 624.) The 12 members of NATOpledged military support to oneanother in case any member wasattacked. For the first time in its histo-ry, the United States had entered intoa military alliance with other nationsduring peacetime. The Cold War hadended any hope of a return to U.S.isolationism. Greece and Turkey joinedNATO in 1952, and West Germanyjoined in 1955. By then, NATO kept astanding military force of more than500,000 troops as well as thousands ofplanes, tanks, and other equipment.

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•United Nations (UN)•satellite nation•containment

•iron curtain•Cold War•Truman Doctrine

•Marshall Plan•Berlin airlift

•North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO)

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.

MAIN IDEA2. TAKING NOTES

Use a graphic organizer like the onebelow to describe the U.S. actionsand the Soviet actions thatcontributed most to the Cold War.

Write a paragraph explaining whichcountry was more responsible andwhy you think so.

CRITICAL THINKING3. EVALUATING LEADERSHIP

People who had served as aides toPresident Franklin Roosevelt worriedthat Truman was not qualified tohandle world leadership. Consideringwhat you learned in this section,evaluate Truman as a world leader.Think About:

• his behavior toward Stalin• his economic support of

European nations• his support of West Berlin

4. MAKING INFERENCESWhich of the two superpowers doyou think was more successful inachieving its aims during the period1945–1949? Support your answerby referring to historical events.

5. ANALYZING MOTIVESWhat were Stalin’s motives insupporting Communist governmentsin Eastern Europe?

U.S. Actions SovietActions

▼

This cartoon depicts the nations that signed the North Atlantic Pact,which created NATO in 1949. The nations, shown as hats, are arrangedin a pyramid to show the bigger countries on the bottom supporting thesmaller, weaker nations on top.