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Berlin Airlift of 1948-9. Beneath the flight path is
a cemetery, with a runway approach light between
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 CONTENTS

Part One: Who started the Cold War?

Introduction 1
1 What was the Cold War? 2
2 Origins of the Cold War 4
3 From Yalta to Potsdam 6
4 Europe 1945-8 8
5 The Berlin Blockade 10
Revision guide 12

Part Two: The nuclear arms race

Introduction 13
6 From the A-bomb to the H -bomb 14
7 The arms race 16
8 Ban the bomb! Anti-nuclear protests 18
Revision exercise 20

Part Three: Containing Communism

Introduction 21
9 Containment in }Corea 22
10 The Cuba Crisis (1) 24
11 The Cuba Crisis (2) 26
12 The Americans in Vietnam (1) 28
13 The Americans in Vietnam (2) 30
Revision exercise 32

Part Four: The Soviet Union's unwilling

satellites

Introduction 33
14 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 34
15 The Berlin Wall 36
16 Czechoslovakia, 1968 38
Revision exercise 40

Part Five: The end of the Cold War

Introduction 41
17 Detente and a new Cold War 42
18 The collapse of Communist Europe 44
19 After the Cold War 46
Revision guide 48
 JF&ill1f
(Q)NIE
wHo S TARTED THE'
COLD WAR?
A poster issued by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1962
For nearly half a century - from 1945 to 1989 -the
world's most powerful countries opposed each other
in what they called 'the Cold War'. On one side was
the United States and its allies, often known as 'the
.West'. On the other was the Soviet Union and its
allies, often known as 'the East'.
This war between East and West was unusual in
one respect : the two most powerful countries on
either side - the USA and the Soviet Union - never
fought each other. For 45 years they threatened to
go to war but never fired a single shot directly at
each other.
1
-----
people
For the two billion livipg on the two sides,
these were years of fear
anp anxiety. On at least one
occasion, it seemed certaip that there would be an
all-out war with nuclear weapons, and that this
would destroy the world.· The picture above reflects
some of that fear.
This book will allow you to find answers to three
key questions. First, why did th�. �ast and the West
become involved in such a long at:id dangerous con­
flict? Second, why did this 'Cold War' not turn into
a 'hot' third world war? Finally, how did ·the Cold
War come to an end?
 WHAT WAS THE COLD WAR?
The term ' Cold War' was first used by an American
banker in 1947. He was describing the hostility that
existed between the United States and the S oviet
Union. By 'cold' he meant that the two countries
were doing all they could to harm each other without
using their armed forces to fight a 'hot' war.
But how w a s it p o s sible to make war without
fighting each other? The map and diagram on these
pages show some of the ways in which they did so .
Look first at the map . It shows that the two sides
used other countries and other people to do their
fighting for them. They did so in many ways:
• They fought each other's allies . For example, the
United States fought against North Vietnam, a
pro-Soviet country, in the Vietnam War.
• They helped their allies to fight each other. For
example, the USA backed Israel and the S oviet
Union backed Egypt in the wars in the Middle
East.
• They gave help to oppo sing sides in civil wars . For
example, they supported rival governments in a
civil war in the Congo .
• The Americans used armed force to get rid of
pro-Soviet governments in countries close to the
United States, such as Cub a .
• The S oviet Union used armed force t o stop
rebellions against pro-Soviet governments in
nearby countries, such as Hungary.

Soviet forces invaded Soviet forces invaded

countries to help set up countries to stop rebellions
pro-Soviet governments against pro-Soviet

US forces fought
against allies of the
Soviet Union

The USA used armed force

agaiflst pro-Soviet governmen
in Central and South America

The Superpowers:

1 Soviet Union

The Superpowers helped other

. C ountries involved in
countries fight each other

D Superpower conflict The Superpowers backed

rival sides in civil wars

How the Superpowers used other countries to do their fighting for them

2
 Area of Example: the USA Example: the Soviet Union
conflict

The arms 1952: the USA exploded its 1953: the Soviet Union
race first H-bomb and started exploded its first H-bomb and
building long-range bomber started building long-range
aircraft missiles

The space 1969: an American astronaut 1957: the world's first artificial
race became the first person to satellite, Sputnik, was
walk on the moon launched into space

Defence 1980s: work began on 'Star 1980s: Soviet researchers

Wars' satellites which use laser experimented with particle
beams to destroy incoming beams to destroy incoming
Soviet missiles American missiles

Propaganda The 'Voice of America' radio Progress Publishers printed

station broadcast pro­ pro-Soviet books in foreign
American programmes to the languages for export to
Soviet Union western countries

Sport 1980: the United States 1984: the Soviet Union

MOSCOW1980

�
boycotted the Moscow Olympic boycotted the Los Angeles

�
Games as a protest against a Olympics through fears for
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Soviet athletes' safety in USA
LOS ANGELES 1984-

~
Espionage The CIA (Central Intelligence The KGB (Committee for
Agency) was set up to carry out State Security) carried out
intelligence-gathering, spying spying, subversion and
and subversion intelligence-gathering

Aid The Marshall Plan, 1948: the 1960: the Soviet Union
USA gave $16 billion of aid to started giving money and
European countries to stop the arms to the new anti­
spread of communism into American government of
western Europe Cuba

Examples of the methods which the Superpowers used to fight each other in the Cold War

But th e s e were n o t the o nly ways in which the
Superp owers fought each other. Loo k now at the
diagram . It shows that they also fought a propagan­
da war, trying to damage each other's reputation and
to improve their own. They competed in an arms
race to develop more and more powerful weapons .
They tried to outdo each other in science and tech­
nology, especially in the 'space race' to land first on
the moon. Even in sport they competed with each
other, for example to get gold medals in the Olympic
Games. In all of these areas of conflict, they used
espionage to find out each other's plans.

Questions
A. Study the map carefully.
1. Which two countries were the ' Superp owers' in the Cold War? ·

2. Write four sentences to explain why you agree or disagree with this statement: 'There was no
actual fighting between the Superpowers during the Cold War ' .

B. Study the diagram above.

1. Choose three of the areas of conflict listed in the left-hand column.
2. Suggest what you think each Superpower hoped to gain by doing these things.

3
 ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

East West

Government A one-party state. Only the Communist Party is
allowed. In theory, the country is run by elected
councils called Soviets. But as most members of the
Soviets are Communists, the country is really run by
the Party.
A democratic state. Many parties are allowed to stand
in elections. The leader of the party which wins an
election becomes the head of the government.

Human rights Strict limits on many human and civil rights e.g. limits Fewer limits on human and civil rights than in the
on free speech, travel, worship etc. Dissidents (i.e. East, and some rights are guaranteed by law. (But
people who try to break those limits) risk until the 1960s many rights were denied to black
imprisonment. Americans.)

Social Average living standards lower than in the West.Wealth

more evenly distributed, so fewer people are either
.
Iii-=�=
�
�-�-._"",.���;;:.�:��n.-,-.-f. .
..

Average living standards higher than in the East.

Wealth distributed unevenly, so there are more poor
rich or poor. people than in the East.

Economic A government-run economy: factories, farms, mines, A free-market economy: farms, factories, mines, shops,
shops, etc. are publicly owned. Profits are used for etc. are privately owned. Profits go to the company.
the public good.

oonPABQ�
ANOTHER GREAT
SUCCESS FOR
OUR LEADERt

Cultural The media are owned and run by the government. The media are owned by private companies and
Newspapers, books, radio, films, TV are strictly individuals. Newspapers, books, radio, TV and films
censored. are rarely censored.

Differences between the communist East and the democratic West

The Sup erpowers h a d not always b e en enemies . Though they were on the same side, there was
During the S econd World War they fought o n the deep mistrust b etween the S oviet Union and the
s a m e s i d e a g a i n s t N a z i G e r m a n y . A l o n g with western Allies . The mistrust had many causes. At its
Britain, they were known as the 'Allies ' . h e art w a s a d i s a gr e e m e n t ab o u t h o w c o untrie s

4
should be run. The Soviet Union was a communist
country run by a dictator, Joseph Stalin. Britain and
the USA were capitalist countries run by elected
g o v e r n m e n t s , l e d b y Wi n s t o n C h u r c h i l l a n d
Franklin Roosevelt respectively. The picture opposite
shows some of the issues on which they were split.
A history of mistrust
Why should a disagreement about how to run coun­
tries cause so much mistrust? The disagreement had
begun in 1917 when Communists had overthrown
the Russian government during the First World War.
The new C ommunist government made changes
which angered Rus s i a ' s allies, especially France,
Britain and the USA. For example, they stopped
fighting and made peace with Germany; they confis­
cated land, factories and banks from their owners;
and they murdered the Russian royal family as well
as thousands of political opponents .
The governments of Britain, France and the USA
decided to get rid of this dangerous new govern­
ment. In 1918 they sent armies to invade Russia and
overthrow it . They fai l e d, and th e C ommunists
stayed in power. The Communists never forgot that
the western countries hated them badly enough to
make war on them.
Fears of Russian expansion
In 1922 Russia merged with five neighbouring states
to form a new country, the Soviet Union. By 1936,
five more states had joined the Soviet Union. In less
than 15 years, Russia had added to itself an area the
size of Europe . This made the western countries fear
that the Communists were building a powerful new
empire in the East.
Their fears doubled during the first year of the
S econd World War, when Soviet forces marched into
eastern Poland and the Baltic states . This added an
area the size of Britain to the S oviet Union, and
brought its frontier even closer to Europe .
The Soviet Union at war
Stalin, the Soviet leader, was able to do this because
in 1939 he had made an agreement with Hitler, the
German leader, that they would not make war on
Questions
A. Look carefully at the diagram opposite.
1. Which aspects of life in the East do you think westerners were most likely to criticise?
2. Which aspects of life in the West do you think e asterners were most likely to criticise?
B. Copy the timeline on p age 12 onto the middle of a sheet of paper.
1. Write on the left of the timeline events which made the West suspicious of the Soviet Union.
2. Write on the right of the timeline events which made the Soviet Union suspicious of the West.
C. Look at the five points of the Yalta Agreement above. Why do you think Stalin was likely to disagree
with Roosevelt and Churchill about the meaning of point 1 ? (Hint: look at box 1 in the diagram.)
5
e a ch other. In 1941, however, Hitler broke this
agreement and invaded the Soviet Union. Churchill,
the British leader, immediately put aside his dislike
of c o mmunism and started s en ding help to the
S oviet Union to fight Germany, which was now
their c o mm o n enemy. Th e Am eri c ans, t o o , put
aside their doubts and started to send aid.
Friction between the Allies
Although they were now fighting together against
Germany, there was friction b etwe en the m . The
western allies did not forget the agreement that
Stalin had made with Hitler in 1939, and suspected
that he might make a separate peace with Germany.
For Stalin, the main cause of friction was the great
l ength of time that Britain and the USA took to
open a 'second front' against Germany by invading
German-o ccupied France . This meant that S oviet
forces did most of the fighting in Europe up to 1944.
The Yalta Agreement
In February 1945 the three leaders met to settle
their differences (see the picture on page 6). At a
c o nference in the s e a side res ort o f Yalta, in the
S oviet Union, they discussed plans for ending the
war and for making a peace settlement. They agreed
on five main issues :
1. Liberated Europe. The people of countries
liberated (freed) from Nazi rule should be
allowed to set up their own democratic,
independent governments.
2. Germany. They would divide Germany into
zones at the end of the war. They would each
occupy a zone and would take 20 billion dollars
for reparations; half to go to the Soviet Union.
3. Poland. The S oviet Union would be given the
eastern part of Poland to improve its defences .
To make up for this loss, Poland would take land
from eastern Germany.
4. United Nations. They would set up a United
Nations Organisation to promote world peace .
5. Japan. Soviet armies in the Far East would invade
Manchuria to attack Japanese forces there .
 FROM YALTA TO POTSDAM
This photograph was
taken in Berlin in July
1 945. It shows British
soldiers who had just
taken part in the Allied
victory parade through
Berlin, resting
underneath a picture of
the 'Big Three' Allied
leaders at the Yalta
Conference of
February 1 945:
Churchill (left),
Roosevelt (centre) and
Stalin (right).

... .... .,.4

·-

Post-Yalta tensions looked at his watch. "I will announce the new
government in exactly two hours and five
The Yalta Agreement seemed a great success at first.
minutes, " Vyshinsky snapped, and stalked out,
B u t w i t h i n w e e k s of s i g n i n g, the B r i t i s h a n d
slamming the door so hard the plaster
Americans were having serious doubt s . I t quickly
cracked. '
became clear to them that Stalin did not share their
ideas about democracy for the countries of eastern The aim o f the S oviet forces was clear. A s they
Europe . This is an example of the Soviet approach advanced further into Europe, they wanted to make
to setting up new governments there : sure that the governments which took over from the
retreating Germans would be l oyal to the S oviet
'Visiting the Romanian capital, Vyshinsky [the
Union. The reasons for this were not so clear. Was
Soviet deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs]
Stalin simply trying to protect the Soviet Union by
stormed into the !Zing's study, slammed his fist
making sure that it had friendly neighbours? Or was
on the table and demanded a new, pro-Moscow
he trying to expand the Soviet empire even further
government. When the King of Romania
into Europe, as he had done b efore the war (see
demurred [objected], noting that the Yalta
page 4) ?
Agreement guaranteed free elections, Vyshinsky

6
 In April 1945 relations between Stalin and the Although Truman told Stalin very little about the
western Allies b e came even more strained whe n bomb, Stalin had already found out about it from
Ro o s ev e l t, t h e U S P r e s i d e nt, d i e d . T h e n e w S oviet spies in the USA. He knew, therefore, that
Presi dent, H arry Trum an, w a s l e s s symp athetic the Americans had the most powerful weapon in the
towards the S oviet Union. Within days of taking world.
office, Truman received reports that S oviet forces in Now that the Americans had the atom bomb, they
Poland were trying to set up a pro-Soviet govern­ had less need of S oviet help in fighting Jap an . In
m e nt th e r e , i n s t e a d of a l l owing fr e e e l e cti o n s . August the United States dropped atomic bombs on
Truman decided to take a tough line on this, and he Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying both cities and
sent a strongly worded protest to Stalin . Relations killing 150,000 people. Although Stalin now declared
between the two countries grew colder. war on Japan, hoping to gain land before the war
ended, Soviet help was no longer needed . Japan sur­
rendered just two days later. The war in the Far East
The Potsdam Conference ended with the Americans firmly in control of Japan.
In May 1945 Germany surrendered. By this time
the S oviet armies had reached the centre of Ger­
many and had occupied most of Eastern Europe .
Meanwhile, the war against Japan continued in
the Far East. To discuss this, as well as the future of
defeated Germany, the Allied leaders met for a final
wartime conference at Potsdam in Germany. Since
the Yalta Conference, two great changes had taken
place . Ro osevelt had died and President Truman
now spoke for the USA. In Britain, the Conservative
Party l o st a general election halfway through the
c o nfe r e n c e , so C hu r c hi l l ' s p l a c e w a s t a k e n by
Clement Attlee, the new Prime Minister.
At Potsdam, the Allied leaders confirmed some of
the decisions made at Yalta . Germany was to be split
i n t o fo u r z o n e s , e a c h r u n by an A l l i e d a r m y .
Germany was t o be disarmed, the Nazi Party abol­
ished, and war criminals put on trial. Germany was
to pay reparations for war damage . On three issues,
however, they made no decision:
• They did not draw up a peace treaty with
Germany.
• They did not agree a frontier between Poland and
Germany.
• They did not confirm the promise they had made
at Yalta to allow democratic elections in Eastern
Europe . TROUBLE WITH SOME OF THE PIECES

This cartoon appeared in the British magazine Punch in

The atomic bomb
The tension at Potsdam was increased by a new
development in the war against Japan. On the day
before the Conference started, the United States
t e s t - e xp l o d e d the w o rl d ' s fir s t a t o m i c b o m b .
February 1 945) after the Yalta Conference. It shows
Europe as a jigsaw puzzle being put together by
Roosevelt) Stalin and Churchill. They are finding it
hard to put the pieces together in Germany and Eastern
Europe.

Questions
A. Look at the photograph opposite, and read again the Yalta Agreement on page 5. Suggest why the
Allies wanted to publicise the Yalta Agreement with huge posters like the one in the photograph.

B. Look at the cartoon above, and read again the information about 'post-Yalta tensions ' on page 6.
1. What were Stalin's aims in Eastern Europe early in 1945?
2. What different aims in Eastern Europe did Churchill and Roosevelt have?
3. Which country in the jigsaw do you think they found hardest to put together?
4. Which pieces of the jigsaw were unfinished after the Potsdam Conference in July 1945?

7
 ·EUROPE 1945-8
The Iron Curtain
In May 1 945, only days after the defeat of Germany,
Churchill sent a message to President Truman. It
was about the S oviet forces which had o ccupied
Eastern Europe . He wrote :
A. 'An iron curtain is drawn down upon their
front. We do not know what is going on behind.
There seems little doubt that the whole of the
regions east of the line Lubeck-Trieste-Corfu
will soon be completely in their hands . '
The map below shows what Churchill meant: there
were 1 2 million S oviet s o l diers in s even of the
countries of eastern Europe . This gave Stalin the
power to make whatever changes he wanted in these
countries .
The map shows how h e used that power. Over the
next two years, S oviet forces did all they could to
give these countries communist governments . In
FRANCE
0 km 600
The 'iron curtain) and the Soviet take-over of Eastern Europe
8
some of the countries they did so by rigging elec­
tions in favour of communist candidates. In others
they simply overthrew the existing leaders and put
communist leaders in their place. By 1 948, six of the
seven countries had governments which supported
the S oviet Union and were willing to take orders
from Stalin.
Why did Stalin do this? The Americ ans had a
simple explanation: he was continuing the process of
building a mighty Soviet empire that had begun in
1 9 2 2 (see p age 4) . Stalin himself had a different
answer. He said in 1 9 4 6 :
B. 'The Soviet Union's loss of life (in the Second
World War) has been several times greater than
that of Britain and the USA put together . . . So
what is so surprising about the S oviet Union,
anxious for its future safety, trying to see that
loyal governments should exist in these
countries?' /
til
.,__ Advances of Soviet armies
Soviet forces in Europe in 1945
States which became communist,
D with date of takeover
� The 'Iron C urtain'
SOVIET UNION
T URKEY
The Truman Doctrine (Cominform) in 1 947. Its job was to co-ordinate the
activities of the communist parties in Europe, thus
Only one East European country escaped S oviet
strengthening their power and influence .
c o nt r o l . Gr e e c e , w h e r e a c i v i l w a r b e t w e e n
By 1 948, then, Europe was divided between the
Communists and Royalists had started i n 1 944, was
communist East and the non-communist West. At
o ccup ied inste a d by B ritish tro op s . To stop the
first, the division was no more than a line on the
Communists from winning the civil war, the British
map . But before long the communist countries start­
gave guns and money to the Royalists . They also
ed to fortify their western borders with barbed wire,
gave aid to Greece's neighbour Turkey. But by 1 947
watchtowers and minefields . By the 1 9 5 0s the 'iron
the British could no longer afford to pay for this aid.
curtain' had become an actual barrier across Europe
Yet without it, the Royalists were sure to lose.
which few people were allowed to cross.
President Truman of the USA decided that this
must not be allowed to happen. He said that com­
munism must be 'contained' - that is, not allowed
to spread beyond the countries that were already
c o m mu n i s t . This p o l i cy b e c a m e known a s t h e
Truman D octrine . T o stop communism spreading
into Greece, the US government gave the Royalists
400 million dollars in aid. With this help, they went
on to win the civil war in 1 9 4 9 .

Marshall Aid
That 4 0 0 million dollars was a drop in the ocean
compared with what followed. Three months later,
t h e U S S e c r e t a ry o f S t a t e , G e o rg e M a r s h a l l ,
announced a much bigger inj ection of aid for the
whole of Europe . By the 'Marshall Plan ', the US
government provided 1 6 European countries with
1 7 billion dollars of aid over the next four years
( 1 948-5 2) . The money was used to repair war dam­
age and to build up industry. The idea was that peo­
ple would be less likely to support communism if
they had jobs, homes and food.

Cominform
Stalin bitterly criticised the Truman Doctrine and
the Marshall Plan. He said that the aid was part of
an American plan for world domination, and he did
NEIGHBOURS
not allow the East European countries to accept any
of it. Moreover, he tightened his grip on them by 'Come on Sam! It's up to us again.' This cartoon
s e t t i n g up a C o m m u n i s t I n fo r m a t i o n B u r e a u appeared in Punch in October 1 94 7.

Questions
A. Look at the map . Using the text on these pages, explain:
1 . why there were so many Soviet soldiers in Eastern Europe in 1 94 5 .
2 . how so many countries i n Eastern Europe became communist.
3. what might have happened if the British and Americans had not given aid to Greece and Turkey.

B. 1 . Look at the passage marked B on page 8 . How did Stalin justify the fact that he had imposed
pro-Soviet governments on Eastern Europe?
2. Look back to page 5. What different explanation did the western Allies have of the S oviet take­
over?

C. Look at the cartoon.

1 . Who was 'Marshall' and what was the 'American Aid' shown in the foreground?
2. What did the cartoonist want us to think was about to happen to Western Europe?
3. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement:
'Marshall and Uncle Sam wanted to give aid to Europe because they were kind-hearted . '

9
 THE BERLIN BLOCKADE
In 1 948 the Cold War very nearly became a 'hot'
war when the S oviet Union disagreed with the west­
ern Allies over the future of Germany.
For the p ast three years, Germany had been a
divided country. After defeating Germany in 1 945,
the Allies had split it into pieces . As the map below
shows, they gave Prussia to Poland, and divided the
rest of the country into four zones. Each zone was
o c cupied by an Allied army. B erlin, the capital,
which was deep inside the S oviet zone, was split into
four sectors .
Two views of Germany's future
The S oviet and western Allies ran their zones in
e n t i r e ly d i ffe r e n t w ay s . S t a l i n w a n t e d to k e e p
Germany weak and divided so that i t could never
again attack the S oviet Uni o n . He a l s o want e d
Germany t o pay the cost o f repairing war damage .
Like the S oviet Union itself, the Soviet zone was run
as a communist country.
Britain, France and the United States ran their
zones along capitalist line s . Far from wanting to
keep Germany weak, they wanted their zones to
recover quickly from the war. A strong Germany,
they b elieved, would help the rest of Euro p e to
recover. So they did what they could to encourage
German businesses to grow. In particular, they started
using a new currency - the Deutschmark - in their
zones . This replaced the Mark which had dropped
in value through inflation.
These changes quickly strengthened the economy
in the western zones and in the western sectors of
Berlin. Before long, output was rising and there was
more to buy in the shops . This alarmed Stalin. If
w e s t e r n G e rm a ny b e c a m e r i c h a n d stro ng, h e
thought, i t might once again be able t o threaten the
S oviet Union.

P 0 L A N D

.. .
.
··
. ..':t
.. .
·· .

.
··

Berlin

0
The division of Germany in 1 945 and the Berlin Airlift of 1 948-9

10
West Berliners watch
an. American plane,
loaded with food
suppliesJ touching
down at Tempelhof
Airport in Berlin)
during the blockade
of 1 948-9.

The Berlin Blockade and Airlift Consequences of the Blockade

Stalin decided to force the western Allies to leave
Berlin. In June 1 9 48 S oviet forces closed all rail­
ways, roads and canals leading from their zone into
the western sectors of the city. This immediately cut
off all foo d and fuel supplies . The people of West
Berlin faced starvation.
But the Americans, British and French refused to
abandon B erlin . If We st B erlin was taken by the
Soviets, western Germany would surely be their next
target. So they gathered together a huge fleet of air­
craft to take food, coal and clothing to Berlin along
three air corridors (see map) . The Berlin Airlift, as
this rescue mission was known, lasted for nearly a
year. It kept the people of West Berlin alive until
Stalin gave in and lifted the blockade in 1 94 9 .
The Blockade failed to stop the Americans, British
and French from strengthening the western zones .
In 1 949 they joined their zones together to form a
new country, known as West Germany. The Soviet
Union responded by turning its own zone into a new
country, known as East Germany.
The Blo ckade also forced the western Allies to
think about how they should deal with any future
disagreements with the Soviet Union. Together with
Canada and nine western European countries, they
formed in 1 949 a military defence structure called
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) . If
any one of them was ever attacked by the S oviet
Union, they would j oin forces and fight the attack
together.

Questions
A. 1 . Why did Stalin want to make the western Allies leave Berlin in 1 948?
2 . Why were the western Allies so determined not to leave Berlin?

B. Look at the photograph.

1 . Suggest the most likely reason why the children were taking an interest in the airlift.
2. For what extra reasons might the adults have been watching the airlift?

C. Look at the p ainting on the cover of this book, and read the caption on the inside back cover.
1 . D escribe in your own words the scene shown in the painting.
2. The artist could have shown happy children watching the plane land (as in the photograph
above) . Why do you think he decided instead to paint the airlift from a graveyard?
3. Which do you think best portrays the importance of the Berlin Airlift: the painting or the
photograph? Explain your answer.

11
Revision guide 1917
A. Find the timeline which you started after reading pages 4-5 . 1918

B. Now add these events to the timeline for 1 944-8, using

pages 6- 1 1 to remind yourself when they happened . (Remember
to put events which made the West suspicious of the S oviet
Union on the left, and events which made the Soviet Union
suspicious of the West on the right.) 1 922
• The USA test-explodes the first atomic bomb .
• Stalin blockades the western sectors of Berlin.
• Soviet forces in Romania set up a pro-Soviet government there .
• Truman protests at Soviet attempts to set up a pro-Soviet
government in Poland.
• The western Allies form a military defence organisation, NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) .
• Harry Truman, not a S oviet sympathiser, becomes US
President.
• The Potsdam Conference fails to agree on the frontier between
Germany and Poland, or on democratic elections in Eastern
Europe .
• The Second World War ends with 1 2 million S oviet soldiers
occupying Eastern Europe .
• The western Allies introduce a new currency into their
occupation zones in Germany.
1 93 6
• Truman announces the 'Truman Doctrine ' of containing
communism .
• Start of Marshall Aid to help European countries repair war
damage .
1 939
• Stalin sets up Cominform to co-ordinate communist parties in
1 940
Europe .
1 94 1
C. Look at your completed timeline . Which events on it were
long-term causes of the Cold War?

D. Judging by your completed timeline, do you think that the Cold

1 944
War was caused
1 . mainly by the West? 1 945
2. mainly by the Soviet Union?
3 . by both of them equally?
Explain your answer. 1 946

1 947

1 948

1 949

Timeline, 1 91 7-49

12
 IF&IRl1r

------ limY (Q)

THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE

An underwater test-explosion of an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean) on 25 July 1946. The ships in
the test area were old warships put there to find out whether they could survive a nuclear explosion.

Look carefully at the warships in the photograph.
An atomic bomb has just exploded in the water
beneathJ them. One of the ships, the 26, 100-tonne
battleship 'USS Arkansas', has been sucked up by
the blast into a mighty column of water. (It is the
dark streak on the left of the column.) During the
next second or two it will be ripped into thousands
oftiny pieces which will fall like raindrops back into
the sea. All the other warships moored there will
also be destroyed. One bomb did this.
Yet this single bomb was tiny in comparison with
thousands of other bombs made during the Cold
War. From 1949 onwards the Soviet Union compet­
ed with the West to build up stocks of bigger arid
bigger nuclear weapons. Within ten years they had
bombs powerful enough to destroy not only fleets of
ships but to wipe whole islands from the face of the
earth. And they had enough of them to destroy each
other's countries.
Fortunately, they never used the bombs. They
spent many trillions of dollars making them, but
then kept them hidden for more than 40 years. Part
Two of this book asks what was the point of this
dangerous and expensive nuclear arms race.

13
 FROM THE A-BOMB TO
THE H-BOMB
The United States was the first country to own
nuclear weapons . The Americans test-exploded the
world's first atomic bomb on 1 6 July 1 94 5 . Three
weeks l ater they dro p p e d their se cond b omb on
Hiroshima, and the third on Nagasaki, killing more
than 1 5 0,000 people and forcing Japan to surrender.
For the next four years, the USA was the only
c ountry with n u c l e ar w e ap o n s . By the time the
S oviet Uni o n exp l o d e d its first atomic b omb in
August 1 949, the Americans had built up a stock of
nearly a hundred bombs, as well as long-range air­
craft to drop them.
When they learned that the Soviets had exploded
an atomic bomb, the Americans began work on a far
more powerful nuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb .
This used the fusion, rather than fission, of atoms to
create a 'thermonuclear' explosion of immense heat
a n d fo r c e . They exp l o d e d the fir s t H - b o m b in
November 1 9 5 2 .
Unknown to the Americans, the Soviets had started
work on their own H-bomb at almost the same time.
They exp l o d e d their first H-b omb nine m o nths
later, in 1 9 5 3 .

Why the H-bomb?

Atomic bombs were so powerful that there was no
real need for the more powerful hydrogen bomb . So
why did both sides build such destructive weapons?
As you h ave read (page 8 ) , in 1 9 4 7 President
Truman started to follow a policy of 'containment' This cartoon reflected the fears of many Americans
towards the Soviet Union. In other words, he aimed during the Cold War. A bear, the symbol of Russia and
to ' contain' communism within the countries where the Soviet Union, is about to take hold of the world.

electromagnetic blast wave

1 Flash pulse 2 Heat 4Wind

A nuclear bomb exploding
above the ground produces a
blinding flash, an
electromagnetic pulse, and
nuclear radiation.
Then it produces a fireball with
a temperature of over one·
million degrees centigrade.
A heat wave radiates from the
fireball.
The heat wave is followed by The low pressure at the centre
a blast wave. This is doubled sucks up dust in a mushroom­
in strength when reflected blast shaped cloud which disperses
merges with the original wave. as radioactive fallout.

Set of diagrams showing the effects, in stages, of a nuclear bomb exploding above ground.. Turn to page 1 8 for a
description of the after-effects of the Hiroshima bomb.

14
 PA3b

•••

This Soviet poster of 1 952 shows an American general placing the American flag on an air base in Greece) which
joined NAT O in that year. Flags show that there were already air bases in Britain) Spain) Italy and North Africa. As
he does so) an American politician in his pocket is making a speech about 'peace)) 'defence) and 'disarmament).

it already existed - in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union. In 1 949, however, China became a commu­
nist country. A year l ater, c ommunists in N o rth
I<orea invaded South I<orea, threatening to make it
communist too . Truman and his advisers decided
that they must increase US military strength to halt
this spread of communism in the Far East. The car­
toon opposite reflects their views .
To Stalin, the S oviet leader, it seemed that the
Americans were not only trying to contain commun-
i s m b u t w e r e a l s o trying to d e s tr o y the S oviet
Union. As you have read, Stalin saw the Truman
Doctrine and Marshall Aid as part of an American
plan to dominate Europe . He saw the build-up of
American forces in Europe after the formation of
NATO in 1 949 as part of the same plan. Most wor­
ryingly from the S oviet point of view, the US Air
Force set up air b as e s in NATO countries fro m
which its bombers could reach targets i n the Soviet
Union. The poster above is a comment on that.

Questions
A. Look at the American cartoon (opposite) .
1 . Which country is represented by the bear?
2 . What did the cartoonist want people to think the bear was doing?
3 . Using the information on these pages, name two events which may have made the cartoonist
portray the country in this way.

B. Look at the Soviet poster.

1 . Which country is represented by the soldier?
2. What did the artist want people to think about this country? (Refer in your answer to the gun
and money in the soldier's pockets, and to the soldier's appearance.)
3. Using the information on these p ages, name two events which may have made the artist
portray this country in this way.

15
 THE ARMS RACE
Now that they both had H-bombs, the S oviet and
Ameri c an governments b egan an ' arms ra c e ' to
build nuclear weapons . By 1 9 8 7 they had around
5 0, 0 0 0 between them. Their explosive power was
equivalent to 1 5 billion tonnes of TNT or, to put it
another way, equal to three tonnes of TNT for each
human being. Both sides had enough nuclear bombs
to kill the entire human race several times over.
It isn't p o ssible, of course, to kill p eople more
than once . S o why did the two sides make more
weapons than they could ever possibly need?
Eisenhower, the 'new look' and
deterrence
T h e fi r s t s t e p i n t h i s a r m s r a c e w a s t a k e n b y
Presid ent E i s e nh ower of t h e U S A . H e fo l l owed
Truman as President in 1 9 5 3 . Eisenhower wanted
to keep taxes low while also making the American
e c o n o my stro ng . But he a l s o w a n t e d p o w e rfu l
defences against the S oviet Union. At that time it
cost 1 700 dollars to make one tonne of high-explosive
TNT, but nuclear material could produce as big an
explosion for only 23 dollars . The cost of matching
Soviet military strength with conventional weapons
was therefore 70 times greater than matching it with
nuclear weapons .
E i s e n h o w e r th e r e fo r e o r d e r e d a ' n e w l o o k '
defence p olicy - the m aking o f s o m any nuclear
weapons that the USA could answer any S oviet
threat with 'massive retaliation ' . He thought that
fear of this retaliation would deter the Soviets from
making a threat in the first place . This idea was
known as nuclear deterrence.
16
The 'bomber gap'
Even so, the Americans made more weapons than
were needed to deter the S oviet Union. This was
partly because they over-estimated the strength of
the Soviet Union. In 1 9 5 5 , for example, the Soviet
Air Force put on an air show to display their new
B-4 bomber, capable of carrying nuclear weapons to
the USA. As only ten bombers had been built, and
as the S oviets wanted to impress foreign observers,
the pilots flew in a wide circle and passed over the
air show a second time, making it seem as if there
were 2 0 b ombers . Worried that there would be a
'bomber gap ' between the American and Soviet air
forces, Eisenhower ordered twice as many of a new
American bomber, the B-52, to be built.
The 'missile gap'
In 1 9 5 7 the Soviets tested the world's first intercon­
tinental ballistic missile (ICBM) . This could carry a
nuclear bomb to its target much further and much
faster than any aircraft. The Americans immediately
began their own missile-building programme.
Again they built m o r e than were n e e d e d .
American experts estimated that the S oviet Union
would have ten times more missiles than the USA
by 1 9 6 1 , so there would be a 'missile gap ' between
the two countries . When a presidential election took
p l a c e in 1 9 6 0 the D em o c r a t i c c a n di d at e , John
K.ennedy, criticised President Eisenhower for not
building enough missiles. He promised to close the
'missile gap ' by building more missiles if he became
president.
This was popular with the voters, and it was one
of the reasons why he won the election. When he
took office, IZennedy soon found out that there was
in fact no missile gap . However, he did not think it
p o s sible to go b ack on his e l e ction promi s e . By
1 9 63, therefore, the USA had 550 ICBMs while the
S oviets had fewer than 1 00 .
The policy of MAD
When h e b e c am e P r e s i d e nt, IZe n n e dy dro p p e d
Eis enhower's p olicy of deterrenc e . H e could s e e
that, even though the Americans had more missiles
than the Soviet Union, there was a defect in the idea
of 'massive retaliation' . The defect was that they
could not be sure of destroying every single Soviet
missile when they retaliated . Even if only two or
three S oviet missil e s remained untouched, they
would still cause immense damage if they hit the
USA. There was, therefore, no advantage in having
more missiles than the Soviet Union.
S o IZennedy adopted a new policy. His aim was
not to have more missiles than the S oviets, but to
have roughly the same . Both sides would thus have
the ability to d e stroy e a ch other. N e ither c o u l d
defeat each other without itself being destroyed and
so there would be a 'balance of terror' between them.
Questions
A. There are several kinds of reasons why so many missiles were built in the 'arms race'. Find one
example of each of these kinds:
1 . financial reasons
2. political reasons
3. military reasons
4. mistakes .
B. Many people at the time felt that the policy of MAD really was mad.
1 . What do you think they felt was so wrong with it?
2 . How can the policy be defended against this criticism?
An American long-range Titan missile is test-launched from its underground silo in California in 1 963. In a war, the
black nose cone would have contained a hydrogen bomb.
17
This policy was known as MAD - short for 'mutual­
ly assured destruction ' .
From MAD to NUTS
MAD was quickly overtaken by two new develop­
ments . First, both sides started to build anti-ballistic
missiles (ABMs) . These were rockets designed to
intercept attacking ICBMs before they reached their
targets . B oth soon realised that the new missiles
made war more, rather than less, likely. If ABMs
really could protect them, each might be tempted to
attack the other in the belief that they could survive
a war.
At about the same time, both sides also started to
make missiles which could carry more than one war­
head. IZnown as a MIRV (multiple independently
targeted re-entry vehicle) , a single missile could hit
several targets . Moreover, these new missiles were
highly accurate . This undermined MAD thinking
because, if b oth sides could now hit small targets
such as each other's missile launch sites rather than
cities, it would be possible for one of them to win a
war without b eing destroyed in the pro c e s s . The
Am e ri c an s c a l l e d t h i s the N u c l e ar Uti l i s at i o n
Targeting Strategy, o r NUTS for short.
 BAN THE BOMB!
ANTI-NUCLEAR PROTESTS
This set of photographs
shows what happened
to a brick-built house
5 km away from a
nuclear test-explosion.
It was hit 1 1 seconds
after the explosion) first
by a searing blast of
heat) then by a shock
wave with a force of
around 200 tonnes)
then by a 300 km-per­
hour wind.

During the early years of the arms race, few people
had serious doubts about nuclear weap ons . Many
Americans were proud to have the most powerful
bombs in the worl d . S oviet people generally wel­
comed the news that their country had exploded its
first atomic b omb in 1 9 4 9 ; as did the B ritish in
1 9 5 2 . This quickly changed . During the 1 9 5 0s the
public grew to fear nuclear weapons, and millions
joined protest groups to campaign against them.
The Hiroshima aftermath
Public fear b egan to grow as information became
available about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in
1 9 4 5 . At first, p eople knew only that the atomic
explosion was 2000 times more powerful than the
biggest bomb ever made . They had no idea of what
this meant in practice. In the years after 1 9 4 5 , a
growing number of books and articles described the
effects. Near the centre of the explosion, people had
been vaporised by its heat (turned to steam) leaving
only their shadows on r o a d s and wall s . Further
away, people had b een dreadfully burned, crushed
beneath falling buildings, or torn to pieces by flying
glass (look again at the artwork on page 1 4) .
The heat and the blast killed nearly 8 0,000 people
instantly, but a third killer was to claim many more
lives: radiation, which alters the chemical balance of
a person's body and injects excessive energy into the
cell s . Tens of thousands died within weeks of the
atomic exp l o sions fro m internal b l e e ding, m any
more from cancer in the years which followed.
Nuclear testing
F e ar of nuclear weapons c ontinued to grow as a
result of weapon tests in the 1 940s and 1 9 5 0s . As
each c ountry developed more and more powerful
bombs, they tested their power by exploding them,
sometimes underground but more often in the air.
These tests released huge clouds of radioactive dust
into the atmosphere . People started to realise what
this meant when, in 1 9 5 4, the crew of a Japanese
fishing boat, 'Lucky Dragon', were badly injured by
r a d i a t i o n a ft e r fi s h i n g 1 0 0 km a w a y fr o m a n
American nuclear test site . S cientists warned that
atm o spheric t e s ting c o u l d s eriously d am age the
environment in all p arts of the world.
As nuclear weapons grew in p ower, s o p e op l e
became more aware o f what might happen to them

18

in a nuclear war. Many, for example, believed that
there would be only a 'four-minute warning' before
enemy missiles exploded overhead - giving them no
time to e s c ap e . S ome p eo p l e built underground
'fall-out shelters ' in their gardens, but most people
knew that they s t o o d l i t t l e c h a n c e of s urviva l .
S cientists c al culated that in a nuclear attack on
Britain, more than 1 00 S oviet missiles would hit tar­
gets all over the country, killing at least 40 million
p e op l e (three-qu arters of the p op u l ation) . The
photographs opposite gives some idea of what would
happen to people's homes in a nuclear war.
Protest movements
In response to such fears, many people j oined or
supported anti-nuclear movements which sprang up
in Europe and the United States. The largest were
B r i t a i n ' s C am p a i gn fo r N u c l e a r D i s a r m a m e n t
( C N D ) fo r m e d in 1 9 5 7 , a n d We s t G e rm any ' s
Questions
A. Look at the photographs opposite .
1 . Describe in your own words what happened to this house.
2 . Use your imagination to describe what would happen if a whole town was hit by an explosion
like this .
B. Look at the photograph above .
1 . Why do you think these people wanted the government to 'ban the bomb '?
2 . The picture shows that men and women, young and old, wanted to 'ban the bomb ' . Why do
you think there was such a wide range of people in CND?
C. Look back to chapter 7 on pages 1 6- 1 7 . What arguments were there against banning nuclear
weapons?
19
Members of CND on
their annual march
from London to the
government's nuclear
research base in
Aldermaston, in 1 959.
Many of the marchers
are carrying circular
'ban the bomb' signs.
C ampaign Against Nuclear D eath . Through mass
protests such as CND 's annual Aldermaston March
(see photograph above), campaigners tried to per­
s u a d e governments to stop the d e v e l o p ment o f
nuclear weapons - t o 'ban the bomb ' .
In 1 9 6 3 t h e U S A, S oviet Uni o n a n d B ritain
sign e d a Te s t B an Tre aty, agreeing n o t t o test
nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater or
in space . It seemed that CND had achieved one of
its main aims, and memb ership dropped sharply.
The protest movement revived in the 1 9 80s when
the Americans and S oviets stationed powerful new
m i s s i l e s in s everal western Euro p e an c o untri e s .
Probably the m o st famous protest t o o k p l a c e at
G r e e n h a m C o m m o n , b etwe en 1 9 8 1 a n d 1 9 8 9 ,
when women maintained a 'peace camp ' outside the
gates of a US nuclear air base in England. By the
end of the 1 9 8 0 s there were at least 1 4 0 0 p e ace
groups in countries around the world, with many
millions of members .
Revision exercise
Test your knowledge and understanding of Part Two by answering these questions :

A. When, where and by whom have nuclear weapons been used in a war?

B. 1 . Why did Americans feel confident until 1 949 that they could win a war using nuclear weapons?
2. What events in 1 949, 1 9 5 3 and 1 9 5 7 reduced American confidence that they could win a nuclear .
war?

C. The policy of MAD (mutual assured destruction) created a 'balance of terror' between the USA and
Soviet Union in the 1 9 60s.
1 . Explain the idea of a 'balance of terror' .
2 . How was the 'balance of terror' upset by the development of (i) ABM missiles, (ii) MIRV missiles?

D. Look at the cartoon below. Explain as fully as you can what you think the cartoonist meant.

An American cartoon of the 1 960's

commenting on the failure of the
USA and Soviet Union to agree a
reduction in their nuclear weapons.

20
 JP&JR?,il

---- 1riHI�JEJE----
CONTAINING C OMMUNISM

One o f the weapons used i n the Cold War was propaganda.. This propaganda poster o f 1 95 0 shows chained South
Koreans being marched off into captivity by a communist North Korean soldier.

You have read (page 8) that President Truman
l a u n c h e d a new p o l i c y i n 1 9 4 7 k n o w n a s the
Truman Doctrine. The policy was to contain com­
m u n i sm within the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe. The method was to give money, weapons
and military aid to countries threatened by commu­
nist take-over.
That policy of 'containment' was the foundation
stone of US foreign policy for the next 40 years. In
Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, successive
US Presidents did all they could to stop the Soviet
Union expanding beyond its frontiers to take over
non-communist countries.
How successful were they? How f�r did the policy
of containment work? Part Three of this book tries
to answer those questions by looking at three famous
examples of containment. Two were in the Far East
and involved the USA in major wars : Korea and
Vietnam. The other was· an incident which nearly
started a third world war: the ·Cuban Missiles Crlsis.

21
 CONTAINMENT IN KOREA
Causes of the war
From 1 9 1 0 to 1 945 K.orea was part of Japan. When
the Allies defeated Japan in 1 9 4 5 , US and S oviet
forces occupied I<orea. Soviet troops occupied the
area north of the 3 8th Parallel, or line of latitude .
US troops occupied the area south of it.
The Allies ' intention was to make I<orea an inde­
pendent country, but they could not agree on a form
of government for it. The United Nations tried to
settle the matter by holding elections for a new gov­
ernment in 1 9 4 8 . But c ommunists in the North
refused to accept the election result, which brought
to power a Nationalist government led by Syngman
Ree . They set up their own communist government
in the North, led by I<im 11-Sung. The USA and
S oviet Union withdrew their troo p s from I<orea,
leaving it divided between the two .
The new governments quickly started to quarrel .
Both claimed authority over the whole country, and
both backed their claims with force . Thousands of
soldiers died in border clashes between them. Then,
on 25 June 1 9 5 0 , North I<orean forces crossed the
border in a full-scale invasion of the S outh.
A South I<.orean observation post on a mountain ridge between North and South J<.orea in 19 50. North I<.orean
territory is on the right of the ridge.
The American response
The United States immediately asked the United
Nations to take action to stop the invasion. Under
US pressure, the UN created a military force from
the armies of 1 6 member states, and sent it to help
the S outh I<orean army fight the invaders . Though
this was a United Nations army, it was dominated
from the start by the United States. The USA was
to provide 3 0 2, 4 8 3 of its 3 4 1 , 8 2 8 troops, 86 per
cent of its ships and 9 3 per cent of its aircraft.
Why did the USA send so many troops to I<orea?
Early rep orts of the invasion t o l d them that the
North I<oreans were armed with S oviet tanks, air­
craft, guns and ammunition. To the Americans, the
invasion seemed a clear case of Soviet aggression.
It was not just S oviet aggres sion, though, that
alarmed the Americans . Nine months earlier, com­
munists had taken power in China, I<orea's nearest
neighbour. Communists were also fighting for power
in Vietnam, Malaya and Indonesia . It appeared to
the Ameri c an s that while c ommunism had b e en
contained in Europe, it was fast spreading from the
S oviet Union into Asia.
1 North Korea invades 2 UN forces move North,
Korea June-Sept. 1 950 Sept.-October 1 950
• C ommunist-occupied area D Areas occupied by UN
Four stages in the I<.orean War_, 1 950-53
Only ten years earlier, Asia was being conquered
by another force - the Japanese empire . The United
States had done little to stop it, and in 1 94 1 was
humiliated by Jap an's attack on its b a s e in P e arl
Harbor. Looking at IZorea in 1 9 5 0, the Americans
were determined that this mistake would not b e
repeated.
Events of the war
The North Korean invasion was very fast. Within
two months the Communists had trapped the S outh
Korean and UN forces in a small area around Pusan
(see map 1 ) . Their defeat seemed certain until UN
sea-borne forces landed at Inchon and recaptured
the capital, Seoul . Now the South IZorean and UN
troops at Pusan were able to counter-attack and to
drive the Communists back to North IZorea (map 2) .
Despite a warning by China not to cross the 3 8th
Parallel into North IZorea, UN forces advanced to
within 1 00 km of the Chinese b order. As a result,
the Chinese government sent 3 0 0 , 0 0 0 'volunteer'
tro ops to supp ort the North IZorean army. They
drove back the UN troops and advanced into South
IZorea (map 3) .
UN forces h alted the C ommunists in Janu ary
1 9 5 1 , a n d p u s h e d t h e m b a c k a c r o s s t h e 3 8 th
Parallel in March . General M acArthur, the UN
Commander, wanted to continue north and attack
C hi n a d i r e ctly, u s i n g n u c l e ar w e a p o n s a g a i n s t
Questions
A. Loo k at the photograph.
1 . On what line of latitude was this border post?
2 . Why was Korea divided by this line in 1 94 5 ?
B. Write captions for each of the maps, briefly explaining the events shown.
C. Give three reasons why the Americans sent so many troops to IZorea between 1 9 5 0 and 1 9 5 3 .
D. Did the Americans succeed i n their aim? Explain your answer.
23
3 The Chinese offensive, 4 The UN counter-attack,
1950-Jan 1 95 1 1951
o· o·
� C ommunist advances j UN advances
Chin e s e citie s . But Truman, the US President,
feared that this would bring the Soviet Union into
the war, and he sacked MacArthur.
The war now settled into a long stalemate . The
two sides built trenches and fortifications on either
s i d e of the 3 8 th P a r a l l e l s o that n e ither c o u l d
advance any further. Two years later, they signed an
arm i s t i c e at P anmunj o m (July 1 9 5 3 ) . This l e ft
IZorea divided at the 3 8th Parallel into two separate
countries .
Results of the Korean War
For both North and South, the IZorean War brought
appalling destruction. Around four million people
were killed. Millions more were homeless and starv­
ing. Huge areas of land lay wrecked and useless .
Did the Americans achieve their objective of con­
taining communism? In one way, the answer was
ye s . Like the Iron Curtain in Eur o p e , the 3 8 th
Parallel became an unpassable b arrier. Behind it,
S outh IZorea not only remained independent and
n o n - c o m mu n i s t but a l s o b e c a m e o n e of t h e
strongest economies i n the region. B y the 1 9 9 0 s it
was one of the 'tiger economies ' of Asia. But on the
o t h e r s i d e of t h e 3 8 th P a r a l l e l , N o rth IZo r e a
remained a communist country. B y the mid- 1 9 9 0 s it
was the only country in the world still with a Soviet­
style government and economy.
 THE CUBA CRISIS ( 1)
In 1 9 6 2 the S oviet Union and the United S tates
came very close to fighting a nuclear war against
e a c h o t h e r . T h i s c ri s i s c a m e a b o u t w h e n t h e
Ameri cans found out t h a t t h e S oviets h a d built
launch-pads for nuclear missiles on Cuba, an island
1 5 0 km from the Florida coast.
Why Cuba?
Khrushchev, the S oviet leader, had three reasons for
building nuclear missile sites in Cuba. First, he was
d e s p e r a t e t o c r e a t e a n u c l e a r b al a n c e with the
United States. As you have read, the two countries
w e r e in an ' a r m s r a c e ' to b u i l d m o r e n u c l e a r
w e a p o n s than the o ther. By 1 9 6 2 the U S A w a s
c l e arly winning t h e race . It h a d 2 9 5 l ong-range
missiles against the Soviets' 7 5 . As the S oviet Union
had plenty of shorter-range missiles, a cheap and
quick way of catching up with the Americans would
be to put s o m e of the s e on a b a s e c l o s e to the
United States.
A s h o rt-range m i s s i l e b a s e c l o s e to the U S A
Soviet SS-4 and
SS-5 missiles
based ill C uba�
Cuba and the United States) and Turkey and the Soviet Union
24
w o u l d m a k e up fo r a n o th e r a dvantage that the
U n i t e d S t a t e s h a d o v e r t h e S ov i e t U ni o n .
IZhrushchev disliked the fact that the Americans had
1 5 Jupiter missiles based in Turkey, not far from the
Soviet border (see map below) . These could destroy
every city in the south of the S oviet Union within six
minutes of being launched.
Why did IZhrushchev pick Cuba? Cuba was an
obvious choice because, in 1 9 5 9, a government sym­
pathetic to the Soviet Union had come to power. Its
leader, Fidel C a stro, quickly angered the US gov­
ernment by taking over American-owned compa­
nies, by making trade agreements with the S oviet
Union, and by declaring that he was a communist.
In 1 9 6 1 the US government decided to get rid of
him . It helped a group of C astro 's enemies try to
overthrow him by invading Cochinos Bay (The Bay
of Pigs) in April 1 9 6 1 . The invasion failed, and all
1 5 0 0 attackers were killed or wounded. This 'Bay of
Pigs incident' led Castro to see the USA as an enemy
and to look for more support from the Soviet Union.
Cuba was thus a natural friend of the Soviet Union.
<�r;j �
z
:;:J
N
�
�
j ::::...
0
(ja "'
A photograph taken by an
American U-2 'spy-plane'
showing a missile site
being built on Cuba
on 1 4 October 1 962

The missiles are discovered The SS-4 missiles could hit the capital, Washington,
within 20 minutes of being launched. The S S-5 mis­
In 1 9 6 2 C astro agreed to the placing of 6 4 S S-4
siles could hit almost any US city. The missiles
and S S-5 missiles on nine bases in north-west Cuba.
seemed to threaten totally the security of the United
Between July and October 43,000 S oviet servicemen
States.
arrived in Cuba, along with hundreds of tanks and
In fact ' the missiles didn't add to the nucl e ar
anti-aircraft missiles, to operate and to defend the .
threat that already existed. ExComm knew that 1n a
bases. It was all done in secrecy. The equipment was
nuclear war the USA would be hit by the S oviet
unloaded at night, and the servicemen arrived on
Union's long-range missil e s . With or without the
cruise-ships dressed as holidaymakers .
Cuban missiles, the USA would be destroyed . But
O n 1 4 O ct o b e r, the s e c r e cy w a s b r o ke n . An
few people outside ExComm could see this. To the
American U-2 'spy-plane', flying high above Cuba,
American public, the Cuban missiles appeared to be
took photographs of large-scale construction work.
a major threat. IZennedy could not afford to ignore
Exp erts who studied the photog� aphs conclu � ed
public opinion, especially as elections for the US
that it was an SS-4 missile launch s1te. The Amencan
Congress were only three weeks away.
P r e s i d e nt, J o h n F. IZ e n n e dy, w a s i m m e d i a t e l y . op1n1on 1n.
The S oviet missiles outraged pubhc
informed.
another way. In 1 823 President James Monroe had
On hearing the news, IZennedy summoned a me et­
. said that the United States would not allow any
ing of top officials known as ExC omm (E_xecutlVe
European country to take control of any country in
Committee of the National S ecurity Councll) . They
North or S outh America . IZnown as the Monroe
discussed three possible courses of action: to launch a
D octrine, US governments had followed this policy
nuclear attack against the missile sites; to invade
ever since . The placing of Soviet missiles on Cuba
Cuba; or to blockade the seas around Cuba to stop
challenged this cornerstone of American policy.
more missiles being brought to the island. They knew
There was another reason for ExComm's strong
that any of these actions could lead to war with the
respons e . They felt that if they didn't take ·toug�
S oviet Union. Why did they respond so strongly?
action over Cuba, America 's allies might doubt the1r
willingn e s s to stand up to the S oviet Union o n
The American response future o c casions . Moreover, i f the S oviets them­
selves doubted American willingness to stand up to
At first sight, it seemed that the main reason was the
them, they might be encouraged to challenge the
closeness of Cuba to the United States (see map) .
United States elsewhere in the world.

Questions
A. 1 . What was the 'Bay of Pigs incident'?
2 . How did it change relations between the USA and Cuba?
. . .
3 . If it had not happened, do you think Khrushchev would have been able to put Sov1et m1ss1les on
Cuba? Explain your answer.

B. 1 . I n what ways do the photograph and map show that American security was threatened b y the
missiles on Cuba?
2 . Why was this threat more apparent than real?

25
 THE CUBA CRISIS (2)
The U S blockade
IZennedy was told about the Cuban missiles on 1 6
October 1 9 6 2 . For the next six days, in round-the­
clock meetings, he and his advisers (ExComm) dis­
cussed what they should do. They kept the news of
the missiles secret.
On 22 October IZennedy went on television to tell
Americans about the missiles and to explain what
he i n t e n d e d to d o . He t o l d t h e m t h a t he h a d
ordered a blockade o f Cub a . This meant that US
warships would stop Soviet ships from bringing any
more missiles to the island . IZennedy said that he
would not lift the blockade until the missiles already
there had been removed. And he told viewers that
Marines read about President John I<.ennedy's blockade
of Cuba (23 October 1 962)
26
he had ordered the armed forces to get ready for
'any eventuality ' .
H a d they known what this involved, people would
h ave b e e n even m o r e s c a r e d than they were by
IZennedy's broadcast. US nuclear bombers and mis­
siles were put on their highest stage of readiness for
war - 'Defence Condition 2 ' - the only time in the
Cold War that this ever happened. In ports on the
Florida coast, the largest sea-borne force since the
Second World War gathered for an invasion of Cuba.
Khrushchev's response
At first, it s e emed that IZennedy's appro ach was
working . O n Friday 2 6 O ctober IZhrushchev sent
IZenn e dy a s e cret m e s s age sugge sting a d e a l . If
IZennedy promised not to invade Cuba, IZhrushchev
would withdraw the missiles from the island . The
next morning, two S oviet ships steaming towards
Cuba with missiles on their decks, turned round
when they r e a c h e d the b l o c k a d e line and went
h o m e . One o f IZe nn e dy ' s a d v i s e r s s a i d o f
IZhrushchev's actions : 'We were eyeball t o eyeball,
and the other fellow just blinked. '
But two events later that day worsened the crisis.
First, an American U-2 'spy-plane' was shot down
by a S oviet m i s s i l e as it t o o k photographs over
Cub a . Then Khrushchev sent IZennedy a second,
much tougher message . And this one was not secret:
it was broadcast on the radio. It said that Kennedy
must not only promise not to attack Cuba but must
promise also to remove the Jupiter mis sil es from
Turkey.
Pressures on Khrushchev and
Kennedy
IZhrushchev took this second, tough& line under
pressure from the S oviet military leaders . He later
des crib e d how, that S aturday morning, he asked
them if they were sure that this would not lead to a
war in which 5 0 0 million people would die :
'They looked a t m e a s i f I was out o f m y mind,
or, what was worse, a traitor. The biggest
tragedy, as they saw it, was not that our country
might be destroyed, but that the Chinese or
Albanians (communist countries which were not
allies of the Soviet Union) would accuse us of
weakness . '
Like Khrushchev, IZennedy was also under pressure
from his generals . The Air Force chief, for example,
 ... ,.

..
Long-range ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles) are wheeled through Red Square in Moscow on 7 November
1 964 during the military display held every year to mark the anniversary of the 1 91 7 Revolution.

told him on the day when the missiles were discov­
ere d : 'It's the gre atest defe at in our history, Mr
President. We should invade today. '
However, Khrushchev's second, tougher message
did not lead to war. IZennedy got round the problem
of the two messages by accepting the first in public
and replying se cretly to the s e c o n d . He sent his
brother Robert to the Soviet embassy in Washington
to say that they would remove the Jupiter missiles
from Turkey once the crisis was over. IZhrushchev
therefore agreed to remove the Soviet missiles from
C u b a . To the p u b l i c , h o w e v e r, IZh ru s h c h ev
appeared to have backed down.
Aftennath of the crisis
Both sides continued to exchange angry messages
for some weeks, but the immediate danger of war
was now over. Moreover, the crisis had shown both
sides how dangerous the arms race had b ecome .
Within months of the end of the crisis; IZennedy and
K.hrushchev had agreed that they should discuss
ways of reducing the threat of nuclear war. The first
result of their discussions was the setting up in 1 9 63
of a 'hot-line ' b etween Moscow and Washington .
This was a teleprinter link which would allow the
two leaders to communicate with each other quickly
and easily in any future crisis . Later in 1 9 63, the two
sides signed a partial nuclear test ban treaty, agree­
ing not to test nuclear weapons in the atmosphere .
The crisis did not, however, end the arms race .
The S oviet military le aders were now more than
ever determined to catch up with the United States.
They speeded up their long-range missile-building
programme and by 1 9 7 0 had 1 3 0 0 missiles com­
pared to 1 0 54 American missiles (see picture above) .

Questions
A. Look at the picture on the opposite page .
1 . What was the 'blockade' on the newspaper headline?
2 . Suggest why the man reading the paper was looking worried.
3. As there was a bomb shelter nearby, did the man need to be worried? Explain your answer.

B. Why were Kennedy and Khrushchev both under pressure to take tough action against each other?

C. Look at the picture above .

1 . Why did the S oviet Union build so many of these missiles after 1 9 62?
2. Suggest why the S oviet government displayed such missiles in public.
3. Does the fact that the Soviet Union continued to build long-range missiles after the Cuba
Crisis mean that they had learned nothing from it? Explain your answer.

27
 THE AMERICANS IN VIETNAM ( 1)
From 1 9 45 to 1 9 7 5 C ommunists and their oppo­
nents fought a war for control of Vietnam, a country
in S outh-East Asia (see map b elow) . For much of
that time, the United States was involved in the war;
at first by giving money and weapons to the anti­
Communists, later by using its own armed forces to
fight the Communists .
Origins of American involvement
When the Vietnam War began in 1 945, Vietnam was
a F r e n c h c o l o n y . T o g e t h e r with L a o s a n d
Cambodia, it was known a s French Indo-China.
During the S econd World War, however, Indo­
China had been occupied by the Jap anese . When
D F rench Indo-C hina 1 8 8 8- 1 9 5 4
- 1 7° C easefire line between North and
Parallel South Vietnam decided by the
1 9 5 4 Geneva Agreements
C H I N A
B URMA
0 km
Vietnam and South-East Asia in 1 954
Japan was defeated in 1 94 5 , the French returned to
take back control of Indo-China . But a communist
i n d e p e n d e n c e m o v e m e n t c a l l e d t h e Vi e tm i n h
w a n t e d to b e free o f b oth Jap a n e s e a n d French
c ontrol . Led by H o C hi Minh, they declared in
September 1 94 5 that Vietnam was a free republic,
and took control of much of the northern part of the
country.
The French government did not want to lose this
valuable colony - which provided rice, sugar, rub­
ber, and minerals - and sent French forces to get rid
of the Vi etminh . Although the s e were s o m e o f
France's best troops, including the Foreign Legion,
they made little progress in the thick jungles and
mountains of north Vietnam. Over the next seven
years more than 7 5 ,000 French soldiers were killed
in action against the Vietminh. Finally, in 1 9 5 4, an
entire French army surrendered to them after being
c u t o ff in th e i r fo rtre s s a t D i e n B i e n P hu .
Humiliated and beaten, the French left Indo-China
in 1 9 5 4 . By the G e n e v a Agr e e m e nt s of 1 9 5 4 ,
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became independent
countries, though Vietnam was divided between the
communist-held North and anti-communist South.
The domino theory
I n th e i r w a r a g a i n s t t h e Vi e t m i n h t h e F r e n c h
r e c eived h u g e a m ounts of a i d fro m t h e Unit e d
State s . By 1 9 5 4, t h e Ameri c an government h a d
poured 1 . 4 billion dollars into the French war effort
- a third of the total cost of the war. Why did they
do so? Vice-President Nixon of the USA explained
why in a speech in 1 9 5 3 :
'Why i s the United States spending hundreds
of millions of dollars supporting the French in
the fight against Communism? If Indo-China
falls, Thailand is put in an almost impossible
position. The same is true of Malaya with its
rubber and tin. The same is true of
Indonesia . . . '
400
In that speech, Nixon was describing what the US
government called 'the domino theory' . This was
the idea that if one country fell under communist
control, the country next to it would soon fall too,
followed by the next - like a row of dominoes falling
over.
Fearing that the domino effect would lead to all of
Vietnam becoming communist, the US government
gave aid to S outh Vietnam and started training a
South Vietnamese army. When an anti-communist
p o l i t i c i a n , N g o D i n h D i e m , b e c am e t h e fi r s t
28
A Vietminh regiment marches through a jungle clearing in North Vietnam in 1 952

President of S outh Vietnam in 1 9 5 5, the USA gave
him their full support. Diem received aid totalling 3
billion dollars over the next four years .
Diem's dictatorship
President Diem governed as a dictator. He impris­
oned and executed opponents, and he persecuted
Buddhists, the c ountry's main religious group . In
resp o n s e to thi s , c o mmunist guerri l l a s set up a
N ational Lib eratio n Front in S outh Vietna m in
1 9 60. IZnown as the Vietcong, they had the backing
of North Vietnam . They b egan an armed struggle
against Diem. By 1 9 6 1 almost 60 per cent of South
Vietnam was under their control.
To help Diem fight the Vietcong, the USA sent
military ' advis ers ' to S outh Vietnam, along with
large amounts of equipment including helicopters .
The advisers helped the South Vietnamese to fight
but did not take part in combat. While IZennedy was
President, from 1 9 6 1 -3 , their number grew from
9 0 0 to 1 1 , 0 0 0 .
But D iem w a s a deeply unp opular l e ader. B y
1 9 63 there were widespread demonstrations against
his rule, led mainly by Buddhists . This increased
support for the communist Vietcong. Hoping that a
change of leader would reverse this, the USA cut off
aid to Diem and did nothing to stop his generals
from murdering him in a coup in November 1 9 6 3 .
Diem's death changed nothing. H e was followed
by a succession of incompetent generals, and there
were six changes of government in 1 9 64 alone . With
each change of government, the communists gained
support while the S outh Vietnamese army steadily
l o st c o ntrol of the c ountry. Fe aring th at S outh
Vietnam would fall to the communists if nothing
was done, US President Johnson decided that much
greater American involvement was needed.

Questions
A. Look at the photograph above.
1 . Who were the Vietminh?
2. Why were they at war with the French when this photograph was taken?
3 . Who won the war and what was the result of it?

B. 1 . Explain in your own words the ' domino theory' .

2 . On a copy of the map opposite, show what the Americans thought would happen in South-East
Asia if Vietnam became communist.

c. 1 . Who were the Vietcong?

2 . Why did the Americans help the South Vietnamese to fight the Vietcong?
3 . Why did they decide to give more help in 1 9 6 3-4?

29
 THE AMERICANS IN VIETNAM (2)
The Tonkin Resolution
C H I N A
American involvement in Vietnam grew rapidly in
1 9 6 4 . It grew after North Vietnamese naval boats
fired on an American warship, 'USS Maddox', in
the Gulf of Tonkin. In retaliation, President Johnson
ordered the US Air Force to bomb targets in North
Vietnam . S oon after, C ongress p assed the Tonkin
Resolution, giving Johnson the power to take any
action he thought necessary to halt further aggres­
sion. Johnson used this power to send combat forces
to South Vietnam in March 1 9 6 5 . Soon after, giant
B - 5 2 planes b egan regular bombing raids on the
North in 'Operation Rolling Thunder' .
T H A I L A N D

The Americans get bogged down

The n u m b e r o f U S tro o p s in Vi etnam grew to
3 8 0 , 0 0 0 in 1 9 6 6 , and the b ombing of the North
continued. But the Americans made little progress
against the Vietcong, who avoided fighting them in
major battles . B ased in well-hidden underground
shelters like the one pictured below, the Vietcong
instead used guerrilla tactics, such as ambushes and
sabotage . Although heavily armed, the Americans
often found it difficult even to find their enemies, let
alone fight them. Moreover, many of the Americans
were young conscript soldiers, often led by inexperi­ ,

enced officers .
km 400 Towns attacked by Viet Cong
Ju st as the United States gave military a i d to •

in the TetOffensive
the S o uth, s o C o mmunist China and the S oviet
Union gave aid to the North. The S oviet Union, for The Vietnam War> 1 964-75

hut with hidden

entry/exit shaft

BOOBY TRAPS

can be used as
emergency exit by
widening hole

An artist)s impression of a Vietcong tunnel system used for storage and concealment

30
examp l e , provided the N o rth with a nti- aircraft
defences against American bombers . Much of this
aid found its way to the Vietcong in the South along
a network of hidden forest paths known as the Ho
Chi Minh trail (see map) .

Hearts and minds

B oth the Americans and the Vietcong tried to win
the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese peo­
ple with acts of kindnes s . For example, American
army doctors provided medical services in poor vil­
lages, while the Vietcong gave land to peasants . But
the Americans did more harm than good to the ordi­
nary people . In their search for the Vietcong, they
often went on 'search and destroy' missions, burn­
ing the homes and possessions of anyone suspected
of help ing the m . They u s e d ch e m i c a l sprays to
uncover Vietcong supply trails in the j ungle, but
these destroyed rice-crops as well a s tre e s . Their
bombs caused massive destruction: more American
bombs fell on Vietnam in three years than fell on
Euro p e in the whole of the S e c o n d World War.
Although the Vietcong also used extreme cruelty on
many occasions, it was the Americans who came to
be hated most as aggressors .
Anti-war protests
The war also became very unpopular in the United
States . By 1 9 67, 1 60 American soldiers were being
killed every week, while the huge cost of the war
took money away from much-needed health and
housing reforms. Young people especially organised
anti-war protests and many young men burned their
draft cards.
The Tet Offensive, 1968
B y 1 9 6 8 th e r e w e r e m o r e t h a n h a l f a m i l l i o n
Americ a n s o ldiers in Vietn a m . D e spite thi s , o n
3 0 J a n u a ry 1 9 6 8 t h e V i e t c o n g a n d N o rth
Vi etna m e s e Army were able to l aunch the ' Te t
O ffensive ' . They t o o k control of dozens of towns
a n d c i t i e s in S o u t h V i e t n a m . A l t h o u gh t h e
Americans and S outh Vietnamese eventually drove
them back, the US government now began to realise
A US marine sets fire to a Vietnamese hut during a
'search and destroy' mission against the Vietcong
that the war could not be won. A new President,
Richard Nixon, decided to bring the troops home.
Vietnamisation
Nixon did not bring the troops home immediately.
An immediate withdrawal would be seen as a defeat
and harm US credibility around the world . Nixon
therefore b egan a p r o c e s s of 'Vietnami s ati o n ' -
s l owly h an d i n g o v e r the fi ghting t o the S o u th
Vietnamese army while providing them with air and
naval support.
By 1 9 7 3 the process of Vietnamisation was com­
plete . The US and North Vietnamese signed a peace
settlement, ending direct American involvement in
the war. But the S outh Vietnamese army, poorly led
and demoralised, was no more able to win the war
than the Americans had been. In 1 9 7 5 the. North
Vietnamese Army launched another great offensive,
captured the southern capital, S aigon, and toppled
t h e g o v e r n m e n t . H o C h i M i n h , the N o rth
Vietnamese leader, took control and united North
and S outh as a single country.
The governments of Cambodia and Laos fell to
Communists at around the same time: the IZhmer
Rouge in Cambodia and the Pathet Lao in Lao s . All
of Indo-China, as the French had called it, was now
communist.

Questions
A. Look at the picture opposite. Make a list of difficulties that American soldiers would have faced if
they fought the Vietcong in this area.

B. 1 . Why did the American soldiers in the photograph above burn the huts?
2. What effect was this likely to have on the 'hearts and minds' of villagers?

C. Find three reasons why the Americans decided in 1 9 68 to withdraw from Vietnam.

D. From 1 947 onwards the policy of the US Presidents was to 'contain communism' . They feared that
if they did not contain it, one country after another would fall to communism. How successful
was the policy of containment in South-East Asia? Explain your answer.

31
Revision exercise
A. Part Three of this book describes three American attempts to ' contain' communism . How successful
were they? Use the information on pages 2 1 to 3 1 to complete a copy of this table. (One colqmn has
been done for you as an example .) Then answer the questions beneath.

IZorea Cuba Vietnam

When did it 1950-53
happen?
Why did the To stop comm unist North
USA take Korea from taking control of
action? South Korea

What actions It sent 300,000 troops as

did the USA well as planes and ships to
take? support the South Korean
army.

What were Ever since 1953 Korea has

the results of been divided at the 38th
its action? Parallel between the
com m unist North and
non -comm un ist South.

What were Four m illion people were killed

the costs of in the war. There was massive
the actions? destruction of land and
housing .

B. Looking only at the fourth row of your table ( 'results'), which of the three attempts to contain
communism do you consider were (i) most successful, (ii) least successful? Explain your answer.

C. Looking at the fifth row of your table ( ' costs'), explain whether you think each attempt to contain
communism was worth the cost.

32
 IF&JMJT

JF CQ) llJ� -------

THE S OVIET UNION' S

UNWILLING SATELLITES

This picture was taken in Budapest, the capital of Hungary, in October 1956. Rioters have pulled down a huge iron
statue of Stalin, and dragged it through the streets behind a lorry, before cutting off its head. The pole in Stalin's eye is
a street sign torn up in the rioting. It means 'Dead end '.

You read in Part One of this book that Europe came
to be divided by an 'Iron .Curtain' in the years after
the Second World War. Behind it, Communists took
control of six countries in Eastern Europe. Their
governments and economic systems were so closely
tied to those of the Soviet Union that people in the
West called these countries Soviet 'satellites'.
As the Cold War grew colder after 1948.., the east­
ern European 'satellites' became more and more
important to the Soviet Union . In a war with the
West, they would help to protect the Soviet Union
from invasion. So, for more than 40 years, the
Soviet Union used a mixture of force and persuasion
to keep its satellites under control. On the few occa­
sions when a satellite tried to break free, it used
massive military force to recapture it.
Part Four of this book shows how three of the
Soviet satellites were kept under control, and . w):lat
happened to people who challenged its control .

33
 THE HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION OF 1956
Hungary was one of the S oviet 'satellites ' in Europe. communist, had never become a satellite because
In 1 9 5 6 its people j oined in a revolution to break the Soviet Army did not occupy it in 1 94 5 . Tito had
free of Soviet control. What caused them to do this, resisted Stalin's attempts to take control, and had
and what were the results? broken off relations with him . Now K.hrushchev
restored relations and accepted that Yugoslavia had
the right to b e independent . This raised hopes of
Soviet control of Hungary greater independence in the satellite states.
The Soviet Union controlled Hungary in the same The second event concerned Austria. For the past
way that it controlled all its satellites . As you know, ten years Austria, like Germany, had been occupied
the S oviet Army o ccupied Eastern Europe at the by the wartime Allies . Now, in 1 9 5 5 , an Austrian
end of the Second World War. The presence of the State Treaty ended the occupation. As Soviet troops
army gave Stalin the power to put men who sup­ l e ft th e i r z o n e o f A u s t r i a , n e i ghb o u ring E a s t
ported him into the governments, armed forces and Europeans began to hope that Soviet troops would
communist parties of these countries . By 1 949 each soon leave their countries .
satellite state was headed by a 'mini-Stalin' who was P e o p l e 's h o p e s ro se still further in 1 9 5 6 . In a
the country's Communist Party leader. In Hungary speech to the S oviet Communist Party, IZhrushchev
the 'mini-Stalin' was Matyas Rakosi. criticised Stalin as a tyrant who had done much
With such people in power, Stalin was able to run damage . Soon after he began a programme of 'de­
the satellite states as if they were part of the Soviet stalinisation', allowing S oviet citizens a little more
Union. Their economies were run on Soviet lines, fre e d o m . P e op l e in the s atellite states began t o
with five-year p l an s to build up he avy industry. expect a similar 'thaw ' .
Private farms were j oined together to make state­
owned collective farms . Opposition was crushed by
a large secret police force . Moreover, the satellites
Revolution in Hungary
w e r e l i n k e d by two S ovi e t - d o m i n a t e d b o d i e s : In Hungary they demanded an end to the rule of the
Comecon, created in 1 949, set up a common market mini-Stalin, Rakosi . In mass demonstrations they
to boost trade between communist-controlled coun­ c a l l e d for d e m o crati c rights, for the s a c king o f
tries; and the Warsaw Pact, created in 1 9 5 5 , put Stalinists, and for the withdrawal o f S oviet force s .
their armies under joint control. They tore down statues and pictures of Stalin (see
picture on p age 3 3 ) . When police fired on them,
heavy street fighting began.
Dislike of Soviet control
None of this was popular with the people of Eastern
Europe . Collective farming led to food shortages .
The emphasis o n heavy industry led t o a shortage of
consumer goods, and living standards dropped. The
secret police persecuted churchgoers and non-com­
munists . The communist-controlled media stifled
free speech.
But the secret police could not crush all opposi­
tion . When Stalin died in 1 9 5 3 , workers in East
Germany went o n strike a n d d e m o n s t r a t e d fo r
economic reform. Although the Soviet leaders who
succeeded Stalin crushed the demonstrators with
armed force, they could see that action was needed
to stop further protests in the satellite states.

Khrushchev's 'thaw'
Two events in 1 9 5 5 raised people's hopes for more
freedom in E astern Europe . First, the new S oviet
leader, Nikita IZhrushchev, ended a long argument Hungarian rebels burn official portraits of the Prime
with the Yugoslav leader, Tito . Yugoslavia, although Minister) Matyas Rakosi) on 23 October 1 956

34
Hungarian rebels walk past a Soviet tank during a lull in the fighting in Budapest in November 1 956. The holes in the
building behind them show the effects of Soviet gunfire on the city.

Desperate to keep order in Hungary, I<hrushchev
at first allowed two moderate leaders to take power:
I m r e N a gy ( p r o n o u n c e d Noj) b e c a m e P r i m e
Minister; Janos IZadar became Party leader. With
demonstrations and street fighting continuing, both
were under pressure to make big change s . At the
end of O ctob er, N agy announced that Hungary
would leave the Warsaw P a ct, that it would b e a
neutral country, and that there would be democratic
elections .
T h i s d e l i ght e d t h e p e o p l e , b u t a p p a l l e d
I<hrushchev. H e gave orders for the Soviet Army to
halt the revolution before it could go any further. On
4 November 1 9 5 6, 2 0 0 0 tanks and 60,000 troops
invaded the capital, Budapest.
The people of Bucharest did what they could to
halt the tanks . They threw p etrol bombs at them
and poured barrels of liquid soap onto street corners
to m a k e them s ki d . But they c ou l d do n o thing
a g a i n s t the h e avy gu n s of t h e t r o o p s . T h e s e
destroyed half o f Budapest, killed some 3000 peo­
ple, and forced at least 1 60,000 people to flee from
the country. Soon after, Nagy was arrested and later
hanged.

Questions
A. Look at the picture on page 3 3 . Find at least three reasons in the text on page 34 why these people
wanted to destroy the statue of Stalin.

B. 1 . Who was Rakosi, whose picture is being burnt in the photograph opposite?
2. Why did these people want to burn his picture?

C. 1 . The people in the photographs on these pages appear to be happy. Suggest why.
2 . How and why would these people's feelings change in the week after the photographs were
taken?

35
 THE BERLIN WALL
You have read that Berlin, the capital of Germany,
w a s divi d e d into four s e ctors at the e n d o f the
Second World War. Soviet forces occupied the east­
ern s e ctor. B ritish, American and French forces
o ccupied the western s e ctors . Stalin disliked this
arrangement because it allowed the western allies to
keep their forces inside the Soviet zone of Germany.
He tried to force them to leave by blockading their
sectors in 1 948-9, but the blockade failed and they
stayed there .
In 1 949 the western allies merged their zones of
Germany and allowed them to become an indepen­
dent country - the German Federal Republic, better
known as West Germany. Five months later, Stalin
allowed the Soviet zone also to become an indepen­
dent country - the German Democratic Republic,
b etter known as East Germany. However, B erlin
remained a divided city, occupied by Soviet, British,
French and American troops . West Berlin belonged
to West Germany, while East B erlin belonged to
East Germany.
not allow this to continue. Many of those who left
were skilled workers . Without their skills, factories,
hospitals, schools and offices would gradually grind
to a halt. Moreover, it was deeply embarrassing to
the Soviets . Ever since their revolution in 1 9 1 7, the
S oviets had tried to p ersuade other countries that
the communist system was far better than the capi­
talist system. This was hard to do when a thousand
East Germans a week were leaving their communist
society to live in a capitalist one .
A wall is built
On 1 2 August 1 9 6 1 a record 4 0 0 0 East Germans
made their way into West Berlin to start new lives in
the West. In the small hours of 1 3 August, S oviet

The West German 'economic

miracle'
Over the ten years that followed, an 'economic mira­
c l e ' t o o k p l a c e in We s t G e r m a n y . H e l p e d b y
Marshall Aid and b y the new currency introduced in
1 948, West Germans quickly rebuilt their war-dam­
aged country. As output and trade grew, living stan­
dards improved dramatically.
The economic miracle did not happen, however,
in East Germany. The S oviet Union continued to
take reparations from it to repair its own war dam­
age . With a quarter of its industrial output going to
the Soviet Union, East Germans continued to suffer
from foo d and housing shortages, low wages and
poor living standards.
Hoping to share in the West German ' economic
miracle', many East Germans left their country to
live in West Germany. Their government tried to
stop this by clo sing and fortifying the b order in
1 9 5 2 . The East-West German border thus became
part of the Iron Curtain which divided Europe .
But there w a s still o n e gap in the Iron Curtain:
Berlin. East Germans could still leave their country
by crossing from the Soviet-occupied sector into one
of the western sectors . From there they could travel The border between East and West Berlin was closed so
by plane to West Germany. By 1 9 6 1 around three suddenly and the wall built so quickly that thousands of
million people had done this. That was about a sixth people were cut off from friends and relations. This picture
of the entire population. shows people in West Berlin waving across the wall to
The East Germans and the S oviet Union could family and friends in East Berlin in autumn 1 961.

36
West Berliners look over the Berlin Wall soon after it was built in 1 961. Later) it was rebuilt with reinforced concrete to
a height of 4 metres.

and East German ' shock workers ' closed the border
b etween the S oviet and we stern s e ctors and put
barbed wire across the streets .
The western allies in Berlin were taken by sur­
prise. They protested to the East German and Soviet
authorities, but did not try to re-open the border.
Three days later, the East Germans began to replace
the b arb e d wire with a wall o f c o n crete b l o cks .
When they had finished, West Berlin was surround­
ed by a wall, four metres high and 1 1 1 kilometres
long. B order guards in 3 0 0 watch towers and 5 0
bunkers made sure that nobody could cross it.
The E a s t Germ a n s exp l ai n e d their a ct i o n by
claiming that enemy agents had been using West
Berlin as the centre of spying operations against East
Germany and the S oviet Uni o n . They called the
wall 'the anti-fascist protection barrier' . But nobody
was ever caught trying to cross the wall into East
Berlin. It was the other way round: East Germans
continued to escape to the West. They did this by
digging tunnels, swimming across canals, and even
by climbing the wall: 1 9 0 people were shot dead try­
ing to do so . West Germans called it the 'wall of
shame ' . To them, it was a prison wall whose only
purpose was to keep 1 7 million people inside East
Germany.
For the next 28 years, the Berlin Wall was the
most famous symbol of the Cold War. On one side
of it, the citizens of West Berlin enjoyed high living
standards, with p lenty to spend in well-stocked
shops; while, on the other, the citizens of East Berlin
lived in cramped apartments and had much less to
spend their money on. On one side they could vote
in elections for the party which they wanted to gov­
ern them, while on the other they could only vote
for candidates belonging to the Communist Party.

Questions
A. 1 . What was the West German 'economic miracle' of the 1 9 5 0 s?
2 . Why did this 'miracle' not take place in East Germany?

B. 1 . Why did the East German government close the border between East and West Germany in
1 952?
2 . F o r what additional reason did they close the border and build a wall between East and West
Berlin in 1 9 6 1 ?

C. Use the photographs and your imagination to list ways in which everyday life in Berlin was affected
by the building of the wall .

37
 CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1968
For 1 2 years after the Hungarian revolution of 1 9 5 6,
few people in the satellite states dared to oppose the
Soviet Union . They had seen what had happened to
the Hungarians . This changed in 1 9 6 8 when the
people of Czechoslovakia mounted a new challenge
to S oviet authority.
The countries which today are called Slovakia and
the Czech Republic were a single country in 1 9 68 -
Czechoslovakia. Like the other S oviet satellites, it
was a one-party state governed by Communists . Its
economy was government-run. The emphasis was
on heavy industry, rather than consumer goods, and
on collective farming. Strict censorship made it diffi­
cult for opponents to criticise the government, and a
large secret police force arrested anyone who did so .
In the early 1 9 60s the Czech economy began to
weaken. This was p artly because the Iron Curtain
prevented the Czechs from trading with two of their
neighbours, West Germany and Austria. As trade
slumped, factory output went down, so wages and
living standards fell.
Novotny's dictatorship
The Czech leader, Antonin Novotny, was a hard­
line C ommunist. Although he could s e e that the
economy was in trouble, he was unwilling to move
away from Soviet-style control of the economy. As
wages and living standards continued to fall, dislike
of Novotny grew, and there were demonstrations
against him. He was especially disliked in the east­
ern part of the country, Slovakia, because he would
not allow the Slovaks equality with the Czechs .
Novotny cracked down in 1 9 67, increasing cen­
sorship and arresting opponents, but this made him
even more unpopular. Fearing that he was l osing
control, the Communist Party sacked him in 1 9 68
and put in his place a man who favoured reform,
Alexander Dubcek (pronounced Doob-check) .
The Prague Spring
Dubcek quickly got rid of the other hard-liners in
the government and relaxed press censorship . Then
he issued an Action Programme of plans for reform.
The reforms included allowing minor parties to j oin
the communist-run government, giving people more
democratic rights, and allowing equal rights to the
Slovaks . As it was announced in April, people saw
the Action Programme as the start of a ' Pragu e
Spring' (Prague was the Czech capital) .
D u b c e k ' s p l an s w e r e s i m i l a r t o s o m e o f t h e
reforms which the Hungarians demanded i n 1 9 5 6 .
38
But there was one big difference : where the Hungar­
ians were anti-communist and anti-soviet, Dubcek
tried to keep on good terms with the Soviet Union,
and he had no intention of getting rid of commu­
nism. His aim was to improve communism, to make
a system of 'communism with a human face ' .
The Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, did not see it
in t h e s a m e l ight . N o r d i d the l e a d e r s of E a s t
Germany and Poland. They feared that the Czechs
would leave the Warsaw Pact and become friendly
with western countries . They also feared that the
desire for reform would spread to their own coun­
tries . So, in July 1 9 6 8 , the leaders of five Warsaw
P a ct c ountrie s (the S oviet Union, P o land, E a s t
Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria) sent a message to
Dubcek that he must end his ' anti-socialist' pro­
gramme . In reply, Dubcek told them that he would
not l e ave the War s aw Pact and that his reforms
would not endanger any of their countries.
The invasion of Czechoslovakia
A week later, Dubcek started to put his Action Pro­
gramme into effect. Fearing that there would be no
end to the reforms, the Group of Five decided to
remove him and his supporters from power. On 2 1
August 1 9 6 8 S oviet troops, b acked by units from
the other four countries, invaded Czechoslovakia to
end the Prague Spring.
Although half a million soldiers swept into the
country, there was little bloodshed. The government
told the people to make only passive resistance. So,
for example, they removed almost every street sign
in the country to confuse the tank drivers, but they
did not fight the tanks as the Hungarians in 1 9 5 6 .
Within a few days, the whole country was under
occupation and Dubcek was under arrest.
Dubcek was very popular, and the Soviet forces
could not find anyone to replace him. He was there­
fo r e a l l o w e d to s t ay in p o w e r fo r s o m e t i m e ,
although with restrictions o n his power. I n 1 9 69 he
was d e m o t e d to a much l e s s p ow e rful p o sition
before being expelled from the Party in 1 9 7 0 .
The Brezhnev Doctrine
After the Prague Spring, Brezhnev made it clear to
the world what would happen to any country which
tried to follow Czechoslovakia's examp l e . He said
that if a c o mmunist c ountry start e d to go b ac k
towards c ap it a l i s m , o th e r c o mmunist countri e s
would take action t o stop i t doing so . This became
known as the 'Brezhnev Doctrine ' .
Czech protesters in Prague following the Soviet invasion in August 1 968

Questions
A. Make a copy of the blank table below. Use the information on pages 34-3 5 and 3 8-3 9 to write
answers in the blank spaces to the questions in the left-hand column.

Hungary in 1 9 5 6 Czechoslovakia in 1 9 68
Why did people dislike
Soviet control?
Who was the
country's leader?
Who replaced him
as leader?
What changes did the
new leader make?
How did the
S oviet Union react?
What were the results
of its actions?
What happened to
the new leader?

B. Look at your completed table. What similarities and differences were there between the events
in Hungary in 1 9 5 6 and the events in Czechoslovakia in 1 9 68?

39
Revision exercise
A. Part Four of this book (pages 3 3-3 9) describes four revolts which took place in the Soviet 'satellites' in
Eastern Europe .
1 . On a timeline 1 945-6 8 write down when and where they took place.
2 . Underneath the timeline, write down the names of the 'satellite' states . In how many of them were
there no revolts?
3. In how many of the years on the timeline were there no revolts?
4. Do your answers to 2 and 3 mean that the people of the satellite states were not unhappy about being
satellites for most of the time? Explain your answer.

B. This is an example of one way in which the Soviet Union got control of the 'satellite' states . It comes
from an interview in 1 9 9 3 with a Hungarian, Bela IZinily, who was one of the commanders of the
Hungarian Army in 1 949 . In the interview, he was describing how the army came under the control of
Soviet commanders .
'A Soviet adviser was attached to every command or supply institution . . . This
coincided with the replacement of experienced officers in key positions with
workers . . . You saw many a new officer looking awkward in his uniform . Two
weeks before he was a yokel; now he was a colonel . He didn't know anything about
the army, but beside him there was a S oviet adviser who would give the Hungarian
a piece of paper and told him, "Here you will sign it. " It was a Soviet text
translated into Hungarian . . .'

1 . Using only the information in the interview, explain how the advisers were able to give orders rather
than advice .
2 . Why do you think the Soviet Union wanted to have such control over the Hungarian Army?
3 . Many Hungarians disliked the Soviet Union's control of their army. Suggest at least two reasons for
their dislike .
4. Which military organisation was created in 1 9 5 6 to link the armed forces of the satellite states?

40
 IF&IRlil

------- IFII\/JE -------

THE END OF
THE COLD WAR

Joyful Berliners celebrate the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 by climbing on top of it. During the
previous 3 8 years, anyone trying to climb the wall was shot by border guards.

On 3 December 1989 the Presidents of the USA
a n d the S o vi e t Union h e l d a m e e t i n g on the
Mediterranean island of Malta. There they agreed
that the Cold War was over and that they would
make sweeping cuts to their armed forces.
Earlier that year, communist rule had ended in
several of the sat€llite states of Eastern Europe. The
last Soviet troops in Mghanistan had gone home,
and those in Hungary started to withdraw. In East
Germany, the crossing points between East and
West Berlin had been opened, and the Berlin Wall
was being knocked down.
Forty-four years of ' Cold War' has passed since
rel ations between East and West had started to
break down in 1945. After so long, what had hap­
pened to bring it to an end in 1989? Part Five of this
book shows how events in three areas led to the end
of the Cold War:
• in the US-Soviet arrru� race
• in the Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe
• and in the Soviet Union.

41
 DETENTE AND A NEW COLD WAR
The ye ars 1 9 7 1 to 1 9 7 9 were a time of d etente
b e twe e n the U n i t e d S t a t e s and S o v i e t Un i o n .
Detente i s a French word meaning 'relaxation ' . In
other words, relations between them improved. Why
did this happen, and why did it not last?
Reasons for detente
During the 1 9 6 0 s b o th the USA and the S ovi et
Union had been in an 'arms race' against each other
(see pages 1 6- 1 7) . By 1 9 7 0 the Soviet Union had
caught up with the USA. Its 1 0 5 0 long-range mis­
siles almost matched the USA's 1 0 5 6 . As they now
had the p ower to destroy e ach other comp letely,
there was no need to continue the race.
E a ch c ou ntry had other r e a s o n s fo r w a nting
detente . The S oviet Union could not really afford
the huge cost of the arms race. It needed to spend
more on non-military needs, such as housing. It also
wanted to increase its trade with the West and to
share in the West's new technology. The United
States wanted to end the unpopular Vietnam War
(see page 3 1 ) . If it was on better relations with the
S oviet Union, the S oviets might help to restrain
communist North Vietnam.
Both countries, therefore, were willing to make
agreements with each other which would have been
unthinkable ten years before. The first was an arms
reduction treaty. By the SALT 1 Treaty ( 1 9 7 2) they
agreed to limit the number of ABMs (anti-ballistic
missiles) and to 'freeze' the number of their nuclear
bombers and long-range missiles .
Further agreements followed in 1 9 7 3-4, such as a
ban on the testing of small nuclear weapons, and in
1 9 7 5 they carried out a j oint S oyuz-Apollo space
fl i ght . Al s o i n 1 9 7 5 they s i gn e d t h e H e l s i n k i
Accords, agreeing n o t to u s e force t o change any
c o untry ' s b o rd e r in E u r o p e , a n d p r o m i s in g t o
respect human rights . I n 1 97 9 a SALT 2 Treaty put
fu r t h e r l i m i t s on the n u m b e r o f m i s s i l e s a n d
bombers they could have.
The failure of detente
D e s p it e t h e s e a g r e e m e n t s , t h e t w o c o u n t ri e s
remained enemies . For example, they continued to
back opposite sides in other countries ' wars, such as
the 1 9 7 3 Arab-Israeli war, and they continued to
spy on each other and to criticise each other's way of
life .
In 1 9 7 9 , rel ations b etween t h e m b roke d o wn
again when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan. They
42
did so to stop the country's pro-Soviet communist
government from being overthrown by rebels. The
United S tates reacted by putting restrictions o n
S oviet trade, suspending the SALT 2 Treaty, and
boycotting the 1 9 80 Olympic Games in Moscow.
The 'New Cold War', 1980-85
This was the start of a new phase in the Cold War,
and of a new arms race . When the S oviet Union
started to replace its older missiles with modern S S-
20 missiles, each with several warheads, the United
S tates announced p lans for several new kinds of
weapon: in 1 9 8 1 for a neutron bomb, which could
kill people with radiation without damaging build­
ings; in 1 9 8 2 for the MX (missile experimental) ;
and in 1 9 8 3 for the ' Star Wars ' Strategic D efence
Initiative to develop a defence umbrella of l as er
weapons in space (see picture) . In Europe in 1 9 83,
US air b a s e s were e qu i p p e d with C ru i s e a n d
Pershing missiles armed with nuclear warheads . By
1 9 8 5 the two countries had around 1 0,000 nuclear
warheads each, a fraction of which could destroy not
only both countries but also most of the northern
hemisphere.
This new arms race was accompanied by a new
war of w o r d s . P r e s i d e n t R e a g a n , fo r e x a mp l e ,
denounced the S oviet Union a s a n 'empire o f evil',
while the S oviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles
Olympic Games in 1 9 84.
Gorbachev's 'new thinking'
In 1 9 8 5 there was a change of l e adership in the
S oviet Union . Mikhail Gorb achev, the new P arty
Chairman, wanted to concentrate on the country's
growing internal problems . He wanted, for example,
to modernise industry and make it more efficient.
This could only be paid for by a reduction in arms
spending. Gorbachev therefore needed to ease ten­
sion with the USA, to halt the arms race, and to end
the occupation of Afghanistan.
As a result of this 'new thinking' Gorbachev was
more willing than his predecessors to talk to the
United States, and he held a number of meetings
with President Reagan. Results came quickly. In
1 9 8 7 they sign e d an INF (Interm e diate Nuclear
Forces) Treaty, promising the elimination of all
medium-range missiles in Europe within three years .
With the S oviet Union giving up 3 0 0 0 warheads,
and the USA 8 00, this was the most dramatic step
they had taken towards nuclear disarmament.
 'Star Wars': an artist 's impression) painted in 1 985) of American laser weapons on space satellites destroying Soviet
MIRV missiles while still in space. These weapons were never put into space: the Cold War ended before they had been
fully developed.

Task
Make a timeline for the years 1 9 7 0 to 1 9 9 0 . Put the following events onto the timeline, using one
colour for events to do with detente, a second colour for events to do with the New Cold War, and a
third colour for events connected with Gorbachev's 'new thinking' :
• Soviet invasion o f Afghanistan
• Helsinki Accords
• US Strategic Defence Initiative
• SALT 2 Treaty
• US boycott of Moscow Olympics
• S oyuz-Apollo mission
• Cruise missiles deployed in Europe
• Soviet boycott of Los Angeles Olympics
• INF Treaty
• SALT 1 Treaty

43
 THE COLLAPSE OF
COMMUNIS T EUROPE
Striking workers bar an entrance to the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, in 1 980. Notice the picture of the
Blessed Virgin Mary on the left.
C ommunist rule in much of Eastern Europe col­
lapsed in 1 9 8 9 . The first signs of the collapse could
be seen much earlier, in Poland in 1 9 8 0 .
Poland and Solidarity
In 1 9 80 the Polish government announced a massive
increase in food prices . The government was already
unpopular, and this led to strikes by shipworkers in
the Baltic ports . The strikers demanded wage rises,
the right to form a free trade union, and more free­
dom for the Catholic Church.
The government tried to calm the situation by
allowing workers in Gdansk to form a union called
S olidarity. For the first time ever in a communist
country, there was a non-communist trade union.
44
Led by Lech Walesa, and with around 1 0 million
members, S ol i darity qui ckly b e came a powerful
force in Poland.
When Solidarity began to make new demands -
for example, for free elections - many people feared
that the Soviet Union would invade Poland to crush
the new movement. But Soviet forces were already
having a hard time in Afghanistan, and an invasion
of P o l an d would have over-stretched them . The
S oviet government d e c i d e d to rely on P o l a n d ' s
l e a der, General Jaru z e l s ki, to s t o p t h e situ ation
. running out of contro l . J aruzelski took action in
1 9 8 1 . He declared martial law, b anned S olidarity
and had thousands of Solidarity members arrested,
including Wal e s a . C ommunist rule again seemed
safe .
Gorbachev and the satellites
Only three years later there was a new challenge to
communist rule, this time from the S oviet Union
itself. In 1 9 85, as you have read, Mikhail Gorbachev
became the Soviet leader, and began to reform the
country. He started a process of 'perestroika', which
meant the 'restructuring' of Soviet society and the
economy. He also called for 'glasnost', or openness,
as a way of making the government and industry
more efficient and less corrupt. As a result, the press
became more free, factories started to manage their
own affairs, and voting was allowed for places in
some government organisations .
All this encouraged people in the S oviet satellite
states to hope for the same in their own countries .
But their leaders were old-fashioned communists
who found it difficult to accept the need for change .
As they hung onto power without any attempt at
reform, dislike of their rule increased. S o too did
dislike of communism. Living standards in Eastern
Europe remained generally low, while those in the
West were generally rising. Forty years of commu­
nist rule did not seem to have created the fair, pros­
p erous societies described by communist thinkers
such as K.arl Marx.
At the same time, Soviet attitudes to the satellites
were changing. In 1 945, Stalin and his generals saw
E a stern Eur o p e as a buffer z o n e to p r o t e ct the
S oviet Union against any invasion from the West.
For them, the country's security depended on S oviet
control over Eastern Europe . By the 1 9 80s this was
no longer true. The development of long-range mis­
siles meant that the Soviet Union could be attacked
from every dire ction. E astern Europe could only
protect it from a single direction.
By 1 9 89, therefore, the satellite states were ready
for change while the S oviet Union had less need
than ever before to stop change from taking place.
1989 : a 'year of miracles'
Poland
The changes b egan in P o l an d . Sharp pnce n s e s
again led to m a s s protests a n d strikes . This time,
General J aru z e l s ki d e c i d e d against u s ing for c e .
Hoping to get the support of the strikers, he ended
the b an on S o lidarity and arranged free elections .
H e miscalculated . S olidarity won so many of the
seats in the election that he was forced to appoint a
Solidarity member as Prime Minister.
Hungary
In Hungary the communist leaders had also accept­
ed the need for change . In 1 9 89 they allowed politi­
cal parties to be set up and arranged elections. They
a l s o to o k away the b arb ed wire and fences fro m
their border with Austria, thus opening the first gap
in the Iron Curtain.
East Germany
T h i s i m m e d i a t e l y trigg e r e d c h a n g e s in E a s t
Germany. Now that there was a gap in the Iron
Curtain, many thousands of East Germans rushed
to escape through Hungary into Austria and then to
West Germany. As in 1 9 6 1 , East Germany could
not affo r d this d r a i n of s ki l l e d w o r k e r s . I n an
attempt to slow the rush to escape, the government
announced that people could travel freely abroad .
When this led to the opening of the Berlin Wall in
November, j oyful Berliners began to destroy the wall
with hammers and chisels .
Czechoslavakia and Romania
These events in turn triggered changes elsewhere .
After m a s s protest r a l l i e s in Pragu e , the C z e ch
p a r l i a m e nt e n d e d t h e ' l e a d i n g r o l e ' o f t h e
Communist Party i n Czechoslovakia and announced
free elections . In Romania, the Communist leader
Ceaucescu was shot while trying to flee the country
after widespread demonstrations against his rule.
By the end o f 1 9 8 9 , then, c o mmunist rul e had
e n d e d in all the S ov i e t s a t e l l i t e s and the I r o n
Curtain had been torn down. This was s o sudden
and unexpected that 1 9 8 9 has since been described
as 'the year of miracles ' .

Questions
A. 1 . What was 'Solidarity', and what were its aims?
2 . What part did i t play i n causing the collapse of communism i n Eastern Europe?

B. 1 . Who was Mikhail Gorbachev and what were his aims?

2. What part did he play in causing the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe?

C. Would communism have collapsed in 1 9 8 9 if Solidarity had not existed? Explain your answer.

D. 1 98 9 : 'the year of miracles' (chapter heading in Martin Walker's book The Cold War,
published 1 993)
1 . Why do you think many people at the time were surprised by the events of 1 989?
2. Looking back from today, is it still surprising that communism ended in 1 989? Explain your
answer.

45
 AFTER THE COLD WAR
The break-up of the Soviet Union
Throughout the Col d War, the S oviet Union had
been a single country consisting of 1 5 republics, the
l arge st and m o st p owerful of which was Ru s s i a .
When the satellite states of Eastern Europe started
to break away from S oviet control, some of these
republics also began to demand their freedom . At
the same time, Gorbachev was pushing ahead with
his p erestroika reform programme . However, the
restructuring of the economy was far from easy, and
the reforms created more problems than they solved.
Inflation and unemployment rose rapidly.
Events came to a head when old-style communists
who opposed Gorbachev tried to overthrow him in a
coup in 1 9 9 1 . The coup failed and its leaders were
arrested. In the chaos that followed, the Communist
Party was suspended and, one by one, the republics
declared their independence from the communist­
run Soviet Union (see picture below) . At the end of
the year the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and 1 5
independent nations were left in its place.
Free from communist rule, the people of the new
nations had greater freedom than before - especially
the right of free speech and the right to elect their
governments . But there was no end to their eco­
nomic problems . Without Soviet central control of
industry, trade and transport, prices rose alarmingly
while wages remained level. People's savings became
worthless, and living standards dropped.
This photograph was
taken on 2 4 August
1 991) the day after
communists tried) and
failed) to overthrow
the Soviet leader)
Gorbachev) in a coup.
It shows the statue of
Lenin) leader of the
1 91 7 Communist
Revolution and first
leader of the Soviet
Union) being removed
from its place in
Vilnius) the capital of
Lithuania.
46
Conflict in the new nations
Communist rule had kept the lid on many old quar­
rels . Without it, those quarrels flared up in many of
the new nations (see map) . The most serious flare­
up was in Yugoslavi a . Like the S oviet Union, this
was a union of republics whose people belonged to
different ethnic groups and had different religions .
For more than 40 years they had been held together
by a communist dictatorship which allowed them
little freedom .
Communist control collapsed in 1 9 9 0 when elec­
tions were held for new governments in each repub­
lic . One by one, these new governments declared
their independence from Yugosl avi a . But one of
them, the Serbian government, opposed this . Serbia
had been the most powerful republic in Yugoslavia
and its communi st leaders wanted it to stay that
way. M o r e o v e r, i n two of the r e p u b l i c s whi c h
declared independence, there were large numbers of
S erb s who wanted to be under S erbian rul e . In
Croatia, this led to a violent civil war ( 1 9 9 1 -2) in
which thousands were killed as Serbs fought to take
land from the Croats . In 1 9 92 a similar war began in
B o snia, with Muslims fighting Serb s . Among the
horrors of this war was the ' ethnic cleansing' of
Muslim areas .
Yugoslavia was not the only country to break up
as a result of the collapse of communism . In 1 9 93
Czechoslovakia separated into two new states, the
 D The Soviet Union during the C old War

�- - Yugoslavia during the C old War

R U S S I A

km 4000

Europe and Asia after the Cold War

Czech Republic and Slovakia. Two countries, how­
ever, went in the oppo site directi o n . In O ctober
1 9 9 0 , East Germ any a n d We s t G e r m a ny w e r e
reunited as a single country.
Disarmament
One of the first results of the end of the Cold War
w a s a reduction in arm s . T h e U S A a n d S oviet
Union signed the INF Treaty in 1 9 87 (see page 42) .
In 1 9 9 1 , they went even further and signed START
( S trategic Arms Limitatio n Tre aty) , eliminating
5 000 Soviet and 3 5 0 0 American nuclear warheads .
A START 2 Treaty in 1 9 9 2 began further reduc­
tions with the aim of reducing each side's total of
warheads to 3 0 0 0 by the year 2 0 0 3 .
The s e w e r e w e l c o m e m o v e s , b u t they did not
m e an that th ere w a s an end in sight to n u c l e ar
weapons . In 1 9 92, there were still 6 6 0 0 warheads on
long-range missiles in former S oviet territory. More
worryingly, now that the Soviet Union had broken
up, these were owned by the countries in which they
were b as e d - IZazakhstan, B el aru s , Ukraine and
Ru s s i a - so t h e re were now more a rm i e s with
nuclear weapons in the world than ever before .
The 'peace dividend'?
As the number of missiles fell as a result of the INF
and START treaties, people in the West looked for­
ward to a 'peace dividend' . By this, they meant that
the money saved by reduced arms spending would
allow more to be sp ent on s o cial n e e d s such a s
health care, education etc . But the end o f the Cold
War coincided in the West with the start of an eco­
nomic recession. In b oth Europe and the United
States, trade slumped, factories closed and unem­
ployment rose during the early 1 99 0 s . Much of the
p e a c e divid e n d w a s s w a l l o w e d up by incre a s e d
spending o n unemployment pay.

Questions
A. Some Americans claimed in the 1 99 0 s that they had destroyed Communism and 'won the Cold
War' . Which developments after 1 98 9 can be used to ( 1 ) support, (2) disagree with the view that
the United States won the C old War?

B. Many people in the West believed that the collapse of Communism in 1 98 9-9 1 was a good thing.
1 . What benefits resulted from the collapse of Communism?
2. What disadvantages resulted from the collapse of Communism?
3 . Explain which you think were greater: the benefits or the disadvantages .

47
Revision guide
Read this summary of the Cold War. Then test your understanding of this book by answering the questions
which follow.
'The Cold War was a unique combination. It was a global confrontation
between two superpowers and it was a war of ideologies . It was made all the
more dangerous - but was also kept in check - by the looming presence of
nuclear weapons . The ecstasy that greeted the passing of the Cold War has
not survived for long. The West has triumphed, but it has to live with m any
of the new dangers that have emerged as a result of the East's defeat. '
(Adapted from Gabriel Partos, The World That Came in from the Cold, 1 9 93)

A. 'The Cold War . . . was a global confrontation between two superpowers . '
1 . Who were the 'superpowers '?
2 . Give at least three examples of 'confrontations ' between them during the Cold War.

B. 'It was a war of ideologies . '

1 . What i s an ideology?
2 . Which ideologies did each superpower fight for?

C. 'It was made all the more dangerous . . . by the looming presence of nuclear weapons . '
1 . Which nuclear weapons do you consider were the most dangerous?
2. In what ways were they dangerous?

D. 'It was . . . kept in check by the looming presence of nuclear weapons . ' How did nuclear weapons keep
the Cold War in check?

E. 'The ecstasy that greeted the passing of the Cold War has not survived for long. '
1 . When did the Cold War come to an end?
2. Why was the end of the Cold War greeted with such happiness in (a) the East, (b) the West?

F. 'The West has triumphed, but it has to live with many of the new dangers that have emerged as a result of
the East's defeat. '
1 . Why can it b e said that 'the West triumphed' in the Cold War?
2 . What new dangers have emerged as a result of the East's defeat?
3 . Which danger do you consider to be the most serious?

48