SUPERPOWER RELATIONS AND THE COLD WAR

THE ORIGINS OF
THE COLD WAR 1941-1958
1945-1946
WWII ENDED & THE ALLIANCE DISSOLVED
1941-1943 The Allied leaders met for the final time at
Potsdam. Stalin ordered the speeding up of the
THE GRAND ALLIANCE
1941: USA entered WWII against Germany and development of atomic weapons following the USA’s
Japan, creating a GRAND ALLIANCE with Britain first test on the eve of the Potsdam conference.
and the USSR. The leaders (the ‘BIG THREE’) A few days later the USA dropped atomic bombs
first met at The Tehran Conference (1943). on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. WWII
ended and the US/USSR alliance dissolved.

1947-1949
THE BERLIN CRISIS
1947: President Truman promised help to countries facing Communist takeovers;
1946
known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’. Financial and technical assistance to war-torn Europe, MOSCOW 8,000
known as The Marshall Plan was also offered. The USSR objected to the Marshall plan,
forbidding Soviet Bloc countries it controlled to apply for Marshall Aid. In September George Kennan, an official at the US Embassy in Moscow, was asked to provide a
1947: Cominform (the Communist Information Bureau) was established; aiming to summary of what the Soviets were up to. His response became known as The Long
tighten Soviet control in Eastern Europe. Telegram because it was 8,000 words! The Soviet response to The Long Telegram was
The Novikov Telegram, in which the Soviet ambassador to the USA, Nikolai Novikov,
1948: Saw the integration of French, USA & UK sections of Germany. The Soviets warned that the USA had emerged from WWII economically strong and bent on world
response was to cut all road and rail links to that sector, meaning food was domination.
brought in by US and UK airplanes, an exercise known as the Berlin Airlift. These two telegrams set the scene for the Cold War in Europe. The USSR would attempt
1949: USSR established Comecon – the Council of Mutual Economic to dominate Eastern Europe and spread communism where possible. The USA would
Assistance – to administer its own Molotov Plan of financial aid to keep the commit to a policy of ‘containment’.
Eastern Bloc countries on side.
April 1949: the North Atlantic Treaty was signed (NATO) and the USSR
finally ended the Berlin blockade.
1950-1955
THE WARSAW PACT
1950: The Korean war began in 1950 when North Korea invaded
South Korea.
1956-1957 THE COLD WAR CRISES
1955: The Warsaw Pact was formed with member states Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union.
HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION 1958-1970
1956: Demonstrations in Budapest
demanding free elections, freedom
of the press and the withdrawal of
Soviet troops led to Khrushchev
1958-1970 1962-1964
1958 – 1961
sending troops and tanks into THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS & ITS CONSEQUENCES
THE BERLIN WALL
Hungary leading to approximately 1962: American U2 spy planes took pictures of Soviet missile launch sites in
1958: Khrushchev gave the West an
3,000 Hungarian casualties. Cuba and of 20 Soviet ships carrying nuclear missiles in the Atlantic Ocean
ultimatum. He demanded that, as
heading for Cuba. President Kennedy set up a naval blockade; demanding
Berlin lay in East Germany, the Western
1957: The USSR launched removal of the missiles. War was averted after 13 days when the USSR agreed
powers should withdraw their troops from
Sputnik into orbit and to remove the weapons. The Cuban Missile Crisis was probably the closest
Berlin within six months.
the space race began. moment in the Cold War the world came to nuclear war.
1959: the USA feared it had a communist
state ‘in its own backyard’ Castro formed a 1963: President Kennedy visited West Berlin and addressed a huge crowd
liberal nationalist government. He wanted stating ‘all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin’.
Cuba to be free from US influence. Castro
nationalised all American-owned companies
in Cuba, and refused to pay compensation. THE END OF THE
COLD WAR 1970-1991
1970-1974
1961: US-supported and CIA-trained Cuban
exiles, attempted and failed to invade Cuba

1965-1969 at the Bay of Pigs, and overthrow Castro’s

Communist government.
DÉTENTE
After the scare of the Cuban Missile Crisis and then the humiliation of the
THE PRAGUE SPRING Vietnam War, the 1970s saw the USA, the USSR and China making an effort
1961: Construction of the Berlin Wall had
& THE VIETNAM WAR to improve relations. This led to a period known as détente, a word meaning
begun - the most iconic symbol of the
1965 – 1974: The Vietnam War. the relaxing of tension.
Cold War.
1968: The Czech people attempted 1972: SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) were signed by
to reform the communist system to US President Nixon and the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev.
create ‘Socialism with a human face’.
This attempt, known as the Prague
Spring, lasted for four months until its
suppression by the Soviet Red Army.
1980-1984
THE SDI (STAR WARS)
1980: The USA boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest at the invasion of

1975 – 1979 Afghanistan. The USA increased its defence spending with the Strategic
Defence Initiative (SDI), nicknamed ‘Star Wars’. The plan, had it been initiated,
HUMAN RIGHTS AGREEMENT would have swung the nuclear balance strongly in the USA’s favour. The
1975: American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts met and Soviet Union’s economy was struggling and the cost of matching such a
symbolically shook hands in space. The Helsinki Agreement was programme was too high.
signed by 35 countries including the USA and USSR. This effectively
meant Western Allies recognised Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
It also meant that, after decades of communist dictatorship, the
Soviet Union had signed up to a basic human rights agreement. 1985-1988
1977-79: The USSR began replacing its obsolete nuclear missiles in REFORM
Eastern Europe with newer missiles. America responded by developing Cruise 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader; slowly beginning
Missiles and deploying battlefield nuclear weapons to Europe. The Cold War to reform. Realising they could never out-spend the USA,
escalated further and SALT talks collapsed after the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Gorbachev began to cut spending on nuclear weapons; initiating
The Carter Doctrine: Believing that the Soviet invasion might lead to threats to US the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) with the USA. In 1987
interests in the Persian Gulf, the US President, Jimmy Carter, announced that the a deal was signed limiting production of Intermediate Range
USA was prepared to use force to stop any country from gaining control over the Nuclear Missiles (ICBMs).
oil rich states of the Middle East.

1989-1991
THE FALL OF THE WALL
9 November 1989: East Germans were allowed to cross the West
Berlin border.
In dramatic scenes, the Berlin Wall was torn down by demonstrators
and Germany reunited by 1990. The fall of the Wall was massively
symbolic as the Cold War’s end.

1990-91: Each of the former Soviet Republics of the USSR declared

themselves independent. By the end of 1991 the USSR had been

[Link] dissolved. Russia declared itself a republic in 1991.