...To what extent did the breakdown of the Grand Alliance between the Autumn of 1945 and January 1947 happen solely because of the aggressive actions of the Soviet Union? Between the years 1945 to 1947, the Grand Alliance broke down entirely, it had been turbulent before that but these years saw the complete breakdown of the Alliance. This was due primarily to fundamental disagreements in ideology that never subsided and this manifested itself in a build-up of tension and rivalry between the members of the Grand Alliance. In these years particularly, there was the Yalta Conference which instead of leading to greater cohesion, actually caused many of the differences in ideology to surface and inadvertently caused tensions to deepen. The Yalta and Potsdam conferences were the primary causes of disagreement between the two great powers represented by the United States and the Soviet Union. In February 1945 at Yalta, the arguments started with the resentment which had been building up during the war, for example Stalin resented the failure to open a second front before 1944. Firstly he had to ensure Russia’s security and so wanted friendly governments in Eastern Europe to act as a buffer zone. Roosevelt was willing to make concessions for the Soviet Union, especially as he needed help from the Soviet Union in the Pacific against the Japanese. However, Roosevelt kept the development of an atomic weapon with Britain secret, which gave way to signs of future tensions. Britain, however...
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...offended Mao by announcing de-Stalinisation. National security was the basis of much strain as neither country felt safe mainly due to the advancement of nuclear weapons. Both countries had many attempts in order to gain stability ahead of the other such as the Korean War, where the USSR forced Mao to pay a large sum of money in order to pay back the USSR for its aid. However, this caused further rifts in the relationship. Due to the shared border of China and the USSR, territorial disputes were not unheard of however, throughout the Cold War, this became a larger issue as each wanted to assert more power. Although relations with the US was a factor involved in the split, it did little but cause tension and demonstrate the further rift that was happening between the two countries through the various meetings with presidents. Ideological differences were pivotal in the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations as they marked a significant flaw in the relationship; this was mainly due to their idea of the Nature of a Revolution. The Soviets believed in a Worker’s revolution whereas Mao was set on a peasant revolution, which can be seen through his attempt at the Cultural Revolution in 1966 in which he demonstrated a Breakdown of the Soviet Bureaucratic system and it created anarchy. Prior to this, Mao was accused by the USSR of ideological errors in the “Great leap forward”. A geopolitical view of the split is that both based their...
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...Preface The Cold War was a struggle for global influence between the United States and the Soviet Union. To that end, the two countries employed a variety of methods, all short of a direct, all-out attack on each other's homelands. The methods they used included the creation of rival alliances, the extension of military and economic aid to client states and would-be client states, a massive and expensive arms race, propaganda campaigns, espionage, guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency warfare, and political assassinations. The Cold War was one of the longest conflicts in human history, over seventy years in duration, with periodic lulls in the level of hostility. It was also the widest in scope of all the world's wars; it was fought on every continent on the globe and, considering the space race, over every conti- nent as well. The Cold War was also one of the costliest of the world's conflicts, not only in numbers of lives lost but also in resources expended. In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed, and communism, at least in the form that existed in the Soviet Union, expired. But, as Mikhail Gorbachev pointed out, both sides lost much in the Cold War. The United States lost many lives and consumed huge financial resources as well, and the demo- cratic principles on which it was founded were endangered. For decades, historians have argued about the origins of the Cold War. Who, or what, was primarily responsible? Was it inevitable? One...
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...The Cold War and Consumer Culture: 1945-1961 William (Mike) Nufer HIS/145 The American Experience Since 1945 January 12, 2012 Jason Rodarte University of Phoenix The Cold War and Consumer Culture: 1945-1961 In week one of this class it is asked of all students to write a paper on the Cold War and consumer culture. In this paper it will analyze the causes of the cold war, show Cold War policies and show international relations of the late 1940’s though the mid-1950’s. It will also show how anti-communism and McCarthyism impacted the United States. It will also explain how following World War II Affluent Society was developed.. and finally evaluate culture while Eisenhower was president. The Breakdown of Wartime Alliances: One vision of the post war world was the beginning of the Atlantic Charter, the Atlantic Charter is one where nations would dismiss there traditional views in how they run their military, and how they will govern their relations with one another, using democratic processes. This is only one of the visions that appealed to Present Roosevelt. The Yalta Conference did not settle any of the main topics of the post war events, and seemed to sidestep the most important issues. Upon leaving the Yalta conference Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin all thought they had signed an important agreement. The Americans understanding of the agreement strongly differed from the Soviet. The agents of 50 countries had a meeting in San Francisco in 1945...
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...During the Second World War, the USSR and the USA, the two great nations in the 1940s united each other to defeat their common enemy, Nazi Germany. Their alliance was however ‘unnatural’ as both countries had conflicting ideologies, capitalism vs. communism and both wanted to spread their power and control in the world. Their incompatible ideologies from the start together with their troubled relationship since 1918 when the west intervened on the Russian civil war on behalf of the White Army, created an uneasy alliance in 1941 that that was most certainly ‘bound to fall apart’ when the common enemy was defeated in 1945. In order to come to a conclusion on the extent to which “An unnatural alliance that was bound to fall apart after the defeat of the common enemy” explains the origin of the cold war the essay will be divided into four parts: the opposed ideologies, events from 1919 to 1945, the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, and events subsequent to the conferences until 1949. The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 leading to the establishment of the world’s first socialist state whose guiding ideas were those of communism. For the leaders of the western countries these ideas threatened the very basis of their societies, economically and politically, as they followed an ideology of Capitalism. For the USSR, capitalism which revolves around private enterprise was seen as creating divisions between rich and poor and thus the communists believed that all goods should be taken over...
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...World War II was the most significant period in the 20th century. It caused the breakdown of the european empires, it cost more money, damaged more property far more than any other war in history. The Cold War was a state influenced by geographical factors after World War II causing striking out for advantage or expansion not only in Europe but all over the world. How is LOTF informed by the politics of the time during which Golding wrote it? Golding wrote LOTF in a noteworthy period of time that our world went through. The Cold War was influenced by World War II, from 1947 to 1991 the world experience the probability of a nuclear war. Why is this event still important today? The Cold War was the first time the world could have been destroyed...
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...History Notes Topics * Alexander II (1855-81): emancipation of the serfs; military, legal, educational, local government reforms; later reaction * policies of Alexander III (1881-94) and Nicholas II (1895-1917): backwardness and attempts at modernization nature of tsardom growth of opposition movements * significance of the Russo Japanese water: 1906 revolutions; Stolypin and the duma; the impact of the first world war (1914-18) on Russia * 1917 Revolutions: February/ March revolutions; provisional government and Dual power (soviets): October/November Bolshevik Revolution; Lenin and Trotsky * Lenin’s Russia (1917-24): consolidation of new soviet state; civil war; War communism; NEP; terror and coercion; Foreign relations * * Gorbachev and His aims/Policies (glasnost And perestroika) and (1931-1991) consequences of the soviet state * consequences of Gorbachev’s policies for Eastern European; reform movements: Poland- the role of solidarity; Czechoslovakia- the velvet revolution; fall of the Berlin wall * china: Mao (1935-1976) Conditions that produced authoritarian and single party states * emergence of leaders: aims, ideology, support * methods of force and legal used to establish authoritarian * form of government ideology establishment * ...
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...Chapter 38 The Bipolar World THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE No sooner had World War II reached its bloody finish than the world was thrust into an even more frightening conflagration. The United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies faced off in a fundamental struggle to shape the postwar world. It was a contest based on power politics, competing social and economic systems, and differing political ideologies that lasted over fifty years and touched every corner of the globe. A spiraling arms race eventually brought the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. While the war remained technically cold, the fear of a nuclear disaster made it feel very different to the peoples of the world. OVERVIEW The Formation of a Bipolar World Despite the lingering general animosity and mistrust that the Soviets and Americans shared, at the heart of the cold war was a fundamental disagreement between political, economic, and social systems. Capitalism and communism, at least in the minds of the superpowers, remained mutually exclusive. The United States attacked communism and backed, at least in theory, liberalism. Consequently, the United States criticized the Soviet record on human rights and the suppression of civil and religious institutions. In turn the Soviets, led by Nikita Khrushchev, were critics of the failings of laissez‐faire capitalism and the wide gulf between rich and poor in western European and especially the United States...
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...Why did the Grand Alliance fall apart so soon after the victory in Europe and Japan? [Listen to Owen talk about choosing his topic] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The three great allies of the Second World War, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia together destroyed the Axis powers and shattered their imperial ambitions. Their "shotgun marriage" 1 was always unlikely, given the history of antagonism between them. The union was to be short lived, with the ideological and political differences leading to the collapse of the Grand Alliance within five years of the end of the war. Despite wartime hopes that the great allies may be able to continue in their relationship in peace and provide stability to the world community, the diplomatic and military relationship between the two dominant powers, the United States and Russia, quickly degenerated into the so-called 'Cold War' which was to dominate world politics for the next half a century. [Listen to Owen talk about presenting an argument] [Listen to Owen talk about writing intros] During the war the allied leaders were aware that victory in Europe and the Pacific meant much more than just the abolition of an intolerable political regime. Talking in 1944, Stalin said: "This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army has power to do so. It cannot be otherwise...
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...European power in any other light as manifestation of an type of unfriendly disposition toward the United States. The speech was delivered in the context of the formation of the Holy Alliance also the breakdown of the Spanish colonial rule...
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...of friendship to both. This plan fell apart when it became plain that Henry wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Charles V would not contemplate any form of association with Henry VIII – as Catherine was his aunt. Charles believed that Henry VIII was depriving Catherine of all honour, something he was not willing to tolerate. However, Henry was astute enough to know that the position of Charles V in mainland Europe was such that he could not do anything about Catherine’s plight in England. Charles had far too much to think about with the Turks on the southeast of his empire to be able to help his aunt. However, he made clear his displeasure at the way Catherine had been treated. Francis I of France tried to take advantage of this breakdown between Henry and Charles. He gave tacit support to Henry’s call for the Pope to nullify his marriage to Catherine. As a result both men met in great splendour at Calais in October 1532, where Francis greeted Anne Boleyn as if she was queen. Francis planned to help Henry further. In October 1533, Francis was due to sign a treaty with Pope Clement VII, which Francis hoped would include some settlement to Henry’s problem. Francis was not being altruistic – he simply wanted to create a powerful bloc against the Habsburgs. Henry ended this try by Francis when he made it plain that he planned to resolve the issue by himself. Henry himself had to play a delicate diplomatic game. He knew with a degree of certainty that Francis was only ‘befriending’...
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...in Peace and Conflict > The Cold War 1945-1991 > Overview of US-Soviet relations and the Cold War The Cold War 1945-1991 Overview of US-Soviet relations and the Cold War David Mclean Charles Sturt University Principal Focus: Students investigate key features and issues in the history of the Cold War 1945 - 1991 Outcomes Students: H1.1 describe the role of key features, issues, individuals, groups and events of select twentieth-century studies (Extract from Modern History Stage 6 Syllabus Board of Studies NSW 2004.) Key features and issues: • origins and development of the Cold War • influence of ideologies on the Cold War • impact of crises on changing superpower relations • the arms race • reasons for the end of the Cold War This is the transcript of a talk given at a seminar co-sponsored by the History Teachers’ Association of New South Wales and the US Information Service in Sydney on 2 September 1995. From this tutorial you will learn about: • influence of ideologies that led resulted in the division of the world into two opposed camps from 1945 • emerging differences between the superpowers Contents 1. US – Soviet relations were not synonymous with the Cold War 2. Chronology of the Cold War 3. Influence of ideologies of communism and capitalism on the Cold War 4. Soviet Objectives 5. American objectives 6. The Arms Race 7. The Third World was important for the Cold War 8. Why did the Cold War not end earlier? 9. Did the...
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...Lincoln High School IB History Internal Assessment Student Handbook Table of Contents What is the History IA? Planning Your Historical Investigation Examples of Types of Investigations Examples of Research Questions Choice of Topic 20th Century History of the Americas Alternative The Written Account & Assessment Criteria A. Plan of the Investigation B. Summary of Evidence C. Evaluation of Sources D. Analysis E. Conclusion F. Sources and Word Limit Sample History IAs 1Trotsky and the Russian Civil War 2US in Chile 3Women in the French Revolution 4PreWWI Alliances 4 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 14 1 2 2 3 4 10 16 Information in this guide is gathered from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to: The IB History Course Guide, Oxford’s IB Skills and Practice, IBOCC, and anecdotal experience. What is the History IA? The History IA is your chance to explore a period, theme, or event in history that you are interested in. For full IB Candidates, it also serves as 20% of your final History Grade. The final paper will be assessed by your teacher, with a sampling sent off to IB for score moderation. The History IA asks you to use the full range of skills you have been taught in class. In particular: ● knowledge and understanding ● application and interpretation ● synthesis and evaluation...
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...Ellie Smith POSC 344.03 Dr. Faegri September 23, 2014 Events Precipitating World War Two The subject of war has always been a touchy one. War, and all of its unpleasant components- death, fighting, and destruction- are never suitable for an agreeable discussion. Acts of war are invariably followed by suffering, which is exactly what Europe was doing in 1918 and the following years. The burden of World War I was so oppressive that it left Europe, in its entirety, in ruins. The countless efforts to ease the strain generated by the war had ultimately failed, sending Europe into a perpetual state of angst. The downfall of post World War I Europe gave way for World War II- a disaster that changed the global spectrum with enough significance...
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...I-Introduction: The term "realism" was first used to formulate the philosophical doctrine that "universals exist outside of the mind" (Freyberg-Inan, 1). Yet, in political theory, "realism" represents a school of thought that analyzes the political process as it is or as it is disclosed by historical forces " ... that the able political practitioner takes into account ... and incorporates ... into his political conceptions and his political acts "(Ibid, 1-2). In the field of international relations, realism became the dominant analytical paradigm mostly after the start of the Second World War, when it displaced idealist doctrines, promising "to provide more accurate information, more powerful, and more relevant answers" to the roots or causes of peace and war (Brecher& Harvey, 54). At the same time, many features of the current realist paradigm can be traced back to the time of Thucydides, Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. Among contemporary thinkers recognized as major writers and contributors to the realist tradition are Hans Morgenthau, Edward Carr and Kenneth Waltz (Freyberg-Inan, 8). What are then the basic tenets or common features of a realist thinker? Machiavelli would acknowledge that to be a realist one has to look at history as "a sequence of cause and effect whose course can be analysed and understood by intellectual effort, but not directed by imagination" (Carr, 64). Hobbes would persist in the same train of thought and insist that to be a realist thinker...
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