Soviet actions in Europe 1944-45 - case study nations

Liberation of Europe and establishment of ACC’s

• Disagreements over Polish border.
  -USSR and Stalin wanted the Polish border further West and a Polish Communist government.
  -West did not want this as they saw it as communism spreading and Moscow controlling Poland

• Disagreements over Germany
  --USSR wanted harsher reparations + more alliances.
  -US and Britain disliked this as USSR would gain more power.

• Churchill and Roosevelt didn't want Stalin to gain more power.
• Tensions between Churchill + Roosevelt after percentages agreement Oct 1944, as Roosevelt felt betrayed.

• USSR gave too much land away to Poland from Germany (Oder-Neisse Line = New boundary for Poland)
  
  

TRUMAN

• Truman was wary of Stalin, not falling into the trap of being naive, like Roosevelt.
• Wanted open world trading system based on international economic cooperation + world economic reconstruction.
• This would minimise possibility of US regressing to conditions experienced in the Great Depression AND would fulfil US ideologies.
• Would ensure USA's geostrategc interests by limiting expansion of the territorial influence of other states, particularly by USSR.
• Hope US superiority in nuclear monopoly would be the key to ensuring Stalin's cooperation.

STALIN:

• By Potsdam, Stalin convinced that USA + allies were potential rivals for dominance in Europe. This reinforced his obsession with soviet security.
• Saw USA as having anti-soviet agenda.

ATLEE

• Attlee was very pro-Stalin and relied heavily on his foreign secretary.
• For Britain, Germany's geostrategic significance in Europe was supreme.
• Was vital that the USA acted as primary defender of the Western zones THEREFORE fp from this point onwards was anti-soviet.
  -Atlee supported the terms of Potsdam but was also conscious that they weakened Germany and that it also offered no long term plan for the future of Germany.

• Spheres of Influence, Red Army liberated many Eastern European countries from Nazi Occupation and installed their own communist governments.
  
  
  

• The USSR wanted many reparations from Germany, they stripped most of Poland and their sectors of Germany clean of any coal, steel and food - USSR received 15% of reparations from the Western Sectors

COMINFORM Set up to:

• Give the USSR more power over the communist governments of Eastern Europe.
  -Reject Marshall Plan.
• Stop US aggression towards Eastern European States and the USSR.
• Strengthen links between Eastern E. Communist Parties

• Truman is trying to show congress that the threat of communism spreading over Europe is that of a serious one and that if communism is not limited in its totalitarian efforts over Europe then millions of people will be under control.
  

LONG TELEGRAM:

• Kennan responded on February 22, 1946, by sending a lengthy telegram "The Long Telegram", from Moscow to Secretary of State James Byrnes outlining a new strategy for diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
  
  
  

• The Long telegram was widely accepted by the US Government and US public as fact and their new strategy was entirely based off of Kennan's Telegram.
  
  
  

• The Long telegram told Truman that peace between the USSR and USA was not possible and that the US needed to immediately up its defences and military.

IRON CURTAIN:

• Speech made by Churchill (not PM at the time) about the Soviet take over of many Eastern European countries 5 March 1946
• Spoken to American Audience in Missouri, was a direct attack on Soviet policies.
• Convinced Stalin that USA was complicit in a plot with Churchill and Britain to carry out an anti-Soviet ideological assault.
  

• The US did not want to give in to the USSR and held strong on their Western Sectors of Germany and Berlin
• The US saw that they could revive the German Economy and benefit from them, they also saw it as an instrumental part of Europe for them to seize political and economic power

• The US based liberty on free market economies which enabled competition and the free exchange of goods to take place with minimal government intervention.
• Economic emphasis on need for individual freedom, in order to achieve economic growth and personal happiness.
• Businesses would compete and this competition benefitted everyone.
• Capitalist democracies enshrined political freedom: there were free elections.

• Karl Marx= founding Father of communist ideology.
• Marx believed capitalism led to the exploitation of the proletarian majority by the ruling bourgeoisie.
  
  
  

• Russian Revolution led to creation of first communist state in the world, led by Lenin.
• Leninism was authoritarian in that it demanded rule by a relatively small workers elite or vanguard exercised by the communist party on behalf of the proletariat.
  
  
  

• Stalin modified Leninism to suit himself and allowed him to develop his 'cult of personality'.
  

MOSCOW CONFERENCE:

• agreed to establish the European advisory commission to finalise plans for the post war allied-occupation of Germany. - They also issued the’ declaration of General Security’ proposing the creation of an organisation to maintain global peace, the UN which would be joined by all peaceful states.
  

TEHRAN CONFERENCE:

• Churchill,Roosevelt and Stalin met to discuss post war Europe,the future organisation for the UN and Germany’s fate.
• was no opposition from Churchill or Roosevelt to Stalin’s determined claim to all the territories which the USSR had annexed in Poland and the Baltic in 1939-40 and that Poland would be compensated for the war with German territory.
• -It was decided that British, Commonwealth and US troops would land in France (Operation Overlord) rather than the Balkans meaning that the USSR would liberate both eastern and south-eastern Europe by itself and therefore be in the position to turn the whole region into a Soviet sphere of influence.
  
  
  

• Therefore, the west had little or no choice but to recognise USSR’s claims to eastern Poland and the Baltic states.
  

HOWEVER:

• Churchill dropped the agreement after he realised that it would be rejected by Roosevelt once it was brought to his attention. Churchill feared this would lead to tension in the Anglo-US alliance.
• Regardless, Stalin did recognise Britain’s interests in Greece and even denied the local Greek Communists any Soviet support.

• By early 1945, The Grand Alliance began to show cracks.
• The Western powers were conscious of the fact that many E.European states had been liberated from Nazi occupation by the USSR.

• Stalin, Roosevelt + Churchill.
• Conference represented higher point of inter-allied cooperation.
• Its outcomes appeared to reaffirm the belief the alliance was fine HOWEVER, the objectives of the key individuals were not in line.

What was agreed at Yalta?:

• Germany divided into 4 zones each administered by an allied power. (USA, USSR, UK, FRANCE).
• Berlin would be similarly divided.
• The UN would be formally ratified.
• USSR would gain land from Poland, and Poland would be expanded to North + West.
• Declaration on liberated Europe should be created.

STALIN:

• WW2 devastated the soviet union. Lasting security became a supreme objective for Stalin.
• Stalin and foreign minister Molotov viewe the other grand alliance allies as anti-ussr.
• Despite this, Stalin wanted to cooperate with the West. Poland was crucial in term of East-West relations.
• Wanted Eastern Europe to lay within a soviet sphere of influence.
• Wanted to keep Germany economically weak until it could eventually be secured as a communist state.

ROOSEVELT:

• Roosevelt was willing to cooperate with Stalin as he believed Stalin shared the same understanding and values in dealing with the post-war world.
• HOWEVER, Roosevelt had been criticised for a degree of naivety and for underestimating the security needs of the USSR in E.Europe.

CHURCHILL:

• Convinced that Stalin wanted to expand soviet power in post war Europe.
• Believed the USSR could threaten Britain's imperial interests and it was therefore essential for Britain to establish a close alliance with the USA in order to counter the potential threat.
• Was even more urgent due to the economic impact the war had on Britain.
• Percentages agreement underlined Churhills determination to control soviet expansion in E.Europe through spheres of influence as a means of protecting British interests.

Transition from war to fragile peace:

• -All three members of the Grand Alliance wished to continue the alliance after WW2, yet for this alliance to survive there needed to be either a common danger or agreement between its members on key principles.
• This was no longer the case in post-war Europe.

Key Changes between Yalta + Potsdam:

• Roosevelt died and replaced by Truman (anti-communist).
• Halfway through Potsdam: Churchill replaced by Atlee who beat him in general election.
  
  
  

Truman and Atlee = newcomers to politics which put Stalin at an advantage.

Truman's policy towards USSR + the impression it gave Stalin:

• Truman wanted the USSR to declare war against Japan which could potentially save the USA hundreds of thousands of casualties of invading Japan was necessary.
• Truman was more aggressive and decisive than Roosevelt but less experience. Truman became president when the government of the USA was becoming increasingly concerned about soviet societies in Poland,and was considering limiting lend-lease shipments to the USSR solely to material to be used for the war in Japan.
• The USA hoped this would persuade Stalin to become more cooperative in carrying out the Yalta agreement.
  
  
  

• This gave Stalin the impression that the USA was trying to extract political concessions through crude economic pressure.
  

What was agreed about the future of the UN?:

• Agreed on the establishment of the general assembly in which all member nations could be represented,and on the security council.
  
  • Britain,USA,USSR and China would be permanent members of this,with the right to veto any decision decided on by the assembly. 1945-was decided that France too should be a permanent member on the security council.
    

Disagreements USSR had over the UN, and were they successful in their opposition?:

• Disagreements over whether a permanent member of the security council,if it were involved in a dispute with another member of the UN,should have the right to deny a decision by the council of which it disapproved.
• The soviets also attempted to increase their influence by demanding that the 6 member republics of the USSR should also become members of the UN. At the subsequent conference in San Francisco,April 1945,the right of each individual permanent member of the security council to exercise a veto was conceded but only 2 of the soviet republics-the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Belarus) and Ukraine-were given seats in the Assembly,in addition to one for the whole of the soviet union.
• The USSR wanted all its countries on the security council and if 2 others had a disagreement they didn’t think it was fair for the security council to veto any agreements.
  

DECISIONS MADE AT POTSDAM:

• DAY BEFORE conference, 1st successful detonation of USA's atomic bomb had taken place.
• Truman hoped this would provide him with diplomatic leverage to ensure Stalin stayed loyal to agreements at Yalta.
• The conference resulted in some agreement BUT there was no medium or long term blueprint laid out for the future of Germany or international relations in the new world order.
  -Germany was to be completely disarmed + demlitarised.
  -De-nazification to be carried out.
  -Decentralisation of the political system to be undertaken.
  -Freedom of speech + free press to be restores, as was religious tolerance.
  -Germany was to become a single economic unit .
  -USSR WAS to receive reparations from its own zone and an additional 25% from the other zones.
  
  
  

• Conference aimed at reconstructing as long-term future for post-war Europe.
• HOWEVER, did nothing for ensuring non-confrontational relationship between the East and West.
• failed to address the growing suspicion and uncertainty that had developed between the powers.