The Cold War Era: A Global Perspective

Posted on Sep 12, 2024 in History

The Peace Conference and the Aftermath of World War II

The Atlantic Charter (1941)

During the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941, the first agreements towards peace were reached.

Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (1945)

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Yalta and Potsdam to discuss the post-war world. The war was over, and the Allies needed to establish a new order. They agreed on the division of Germany into four occupation zones and the creation of an international organization to replace the League of Nations. However, collaboration between the Allies had begun to break down, and the West and the USSR were increasingly separated.

The New Distribution of Power

Germany and Japan disappeared from the major global powers, and the inferiority of France and Italy was evident. Power was primarily divided between the U.S. and the USSR.

The Organization of the United Nations

The United Nations conference was created in San Francisco in 1945. Its objectives were:

  • The maintenance of peace and security in the world.
  • The promotion of international cooperation in economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian fields.
  • The protection of human rights and equality among individuals, avoiding discrimination based on race, sex, or religion.

The main operating bodies are:

  • The General Assembly, representing all member countries.
  • The Security Council, composed of the big winners of World War II: the United States, the USSR, the UK, France, and China.
  • The General Secretary, the representative body implementing Council decisions.
  • The International Court of Justice, with headquarters in The Hague.

Subordinate bodies include the ILO (International Labor Office), FAO (responsible for matters relating to agriculture and food), UNESCO (for culture), and UNICEF (Protection of Children).

The Marshall Plan (1947)

In June 1947, the Marshall Plan was launched as a project to aid economic recovery in Europe. Its objectives were:

  • To avoid the mistake of isolating the United States after World War I, when it expressed indifference to the destruction and debt problems of Europe, which had serious implications for all economies.
  • To create a strong core of capitalist economies that could curb the temptations of Communism.

The Marshall Plan provided credit and grants to countries that benefited from it and was instrumental in their quick recovery.

The Escalation of Tensions and the Formation of Blocs

The United States and Britain accused the Soviets of destroying freedom. In March 1947, U.S. President Truman, in a speech, exposed the foundations of the Truman Doctrine: the need to contain the spread of communism, which at that time threatened Greece and Turkey. This statement is generally considered the beginning of the break between the two blocs.

The Division of Germany

Germany was divided into four occupation zones assigned to the Americans, British, French, and Russians. This division became a source of maximum tension. In protest, the Soviet Union, whose area included the former German capital, which had also been divided into four sectors, started the Berlin Blockade, whereby all land access to West Berlin was closed for almost a year. In 1949, the Russian zone became the German Democratic Republic. The partition of Germany divided the world into two blocs: the West, led by the United States, and the East, led by the USSR. In 1949, the Western Organization (NATO – North Atlantic Treaty) was formed, and in 1955, the Communist countries joined the Warsaw Pact.

The Cold War and the Korean War

The Cold War was a total clash of strategies and objectives between the U.S. and the USSR but never led to direct confrontation between them. A key reason to avoid confrontation was the fear of nuclear war. The United States already possessed the atomic bomb in 1949. The expression “balance of terror” accurately describes the situation.

The Korean War (1950-1953)

The first armed conflict of the Cold War was the Korean War. After the Japanese defeat, the Korean peninsula had been divided into two separate occupation zones: the U.S. south of the 38th parallel and Russia to the north. In 1950, North Korean troops invaded South Korea, and both the U.S. and the USSR sent aid to their allies. The war ended in 1953, returning to the baseline. The Korean War brought the features of so-called peripheral conflicts typical of the Cold War: the two superpowers fought indirectly without a formal declaration of hostilities between them. It was a conflict situated in a very concrete area, avoiding by all means its extension outside of it.

The Capitalist World and the Third World

The First and Second World blocs were capitalist and communist, respectively. Countries not clearly assigned to either formed the Third World.

The Capitalist Bloc

The main feature that distinguished the First World was the free-market capitalist economy. The most important of these crises was known as the 1973 oil crisis. The capitalist world included:

  • The United States, the leader and core of the system.
  • Western European countries, Japan, and the Asian dragons.

Japan, after the war, experienced its own “miracle” sponsored by U.S. aid. The Asian dragons—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea—had highly developed capitalist economies.

The United States

The United States was the undisputed leader, with a prosperous economy and a sense of moral victory. However, there were challenges:

  • The “harassment of liberties” as a result of anti-communist sentiment, exalted at the beginning of the Cold War. The most extreme case was the execution of the Rosenbergs, accused of spying for the Russians.
  • The witch-hunt launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Senator McCarthy.
  • The assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.
  • The Watergate scandal, in which the Republican executive tried to hide espionage against the Democrat Party by lying to the country. This was uncovered by two Washington Post reporters.
  • The racial issue. The U.S. black population, facing discrimination, began to claim their rights from the end of the war. Their leader, Martin Luther King, was assassinated in 1968. In his speeches, he expressed the ideals of equality. In 1954, equal access to schools was established. Kennedy and Johnson were distinguished for their special effort to try to solve the problem.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

With the victory in the war, Stalin’s dictatorial power and the cult of personality grew stronger. After Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev took control. The most important work of his domestic policy was the process of de-Stalinization, which softened the regime but maintained the Party’s control over institutions, censorship, and repression of freedoms. Problems persisted in the economy, such as low productivity, insufficient raw materials, and the ongoing agricultural crisis. Besides the low standard of living, the lack of supply of consumer commodities and the existence of a black market increasingly disillusioned society. After the fall of Khrushchev in 1964, the system was controlled by a gerontocracy, with Brezhnev at the forefront in the seventies. Later, a young Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.