The Consolidation and Militarization of the Cold War 1947-1953 This Week’s Class •Housekeeping: Quiz •Review •The Long Telegram, The Novikov Telegram, The Truman Doctrine •The Marshall Plan •Yugoslavia and the Cominform •The Communist Take-Over of Czechoslovakia •The Berlin Blockade and the Reunification of Germany •NATO •Korea and NSC-68 • • REVIEW •Two radically different versions of post-war world •USSR: Belief in Essential Antagonism of Capitalism; Desire to strengthen Soviet Union and encourage splits among capitalist powers • Vision of sphere of influence, willing to negotiation in hope that US will leave Europe, that capitalism will suffer crisis, allowing USSR to dominate •USA: Fears economic crisis that will lead to new depression and war • Seeks to strengthen European economies and create global economic order that will support US domestic prosperity •1947: US comes to believe Stalin not honest in dealings—election speech in 1946, chooses CONTAINMENT STRATEGY Kennan Long Telegram: CONTAINMENT •Kennan was one of the best experts on Russia in US State Department •Had worked in Russia since 1930s, and read much more •Thought Stalin did not believe negotiation was possible •Thought Stalin always pressing for advantage •Thought Stalin understood only strength •Frustrated with Roosevelt’s efforts to persuade Stalin •Felt Roosevelt could have been tougher •By 1946, thought spheres of influence were locked in, must accept them •But must contain Soviet expansion in matters of importance • • Kennan Quotes • •Why does Soviet Union accept such an ideology? • •First, ideological language does not reflect Russian people: •“it does not represent natural outlook of Russian people. Latter are, by and large, friendly to outside world, eager for experience of it, eager to measure against it talents they are conscious of possessing, eager above all to live in peace and enjoy fruits of their own labor. ... But party line is binding for outlook and conduct of people who make up apparatus of power--party, secret police and Government--and it is exclusively with these that we have to deal. •Why does leadership propagate such a line? Arises from Ancient Roots of Russian system • At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule wasrelatively archaic in form fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to standcomparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. •. • • • • Kennan, February 22, 1946 •Why do Soviets not abandon ideology? •“In the name of Marxism they sacrificed every single ethical value in their methods and tactics. Today they cannot dispense with it. It is fig leaf of their moraland intellectual respectability. Without it they would stand before history, at best, as only the last long succession of cruel and wasteful Russian rulers who have relentlessly forced country onto ever new heights of military power in order to guarantee external security of their internally weak regimes. •[Marxism] provides justification for that increase of military and police power of Russian state, for that isolation of Russian population from outside world, and for that fluid and constant pressure to extend limits ofRussian police power which are together the natural and instinctive urges of Russian rulers.” • • Containment in Action: Events of 1946 •Iran, March 1946 • Soviets do not comply with agreed withdrawal date • US and Britain react strongly in complaint, • USSR withdraws •Turkey, August, 1946 • USSR seeks to intimidate Turkey to have more say in Bosphorous • US naval exercises and USSR backs down •Germany • May, 1946: US suspends reparation payments from West to USSR • September, 1946: US says will not leave Europe, announces Bizonia Novikov Telegram, September 1946: A Response to Kennan •“For this purpose broad plans for expansion have been developed and are being implemented through diplomacy and the establishment of a system of naval and air bases stretching far beyond the boundaries of the United States, through the arms race, and through the creation of ever newer types of weapons.” • •“All of the countries of Europe and Asia are experiencing a colossal need for consumer goods, industrial and transportation equipment, etc. Such a situation provides American monopolistic capital with prospects for enormous shipments of goods and the importation of capital into these countries -- a circumstance that would permit it to infiltrate their national economies. Such a development would mean a serious strengthening of the economic position of the United States in the whole world and would be a stage on the road to world domination by the United States.” • • Questions: • •What is role of personalities? •If Stalin had died in 1946, would things have been different? •If Roosevelt had lived until 1948, would things have been different? The Truman Doctrine, March 12, 1947 •Containment as the strategy • Do not allow Soviet expansion in areas of strategic importance • Not anti-communism, but directed against a great power • Keep firm, steady policy • Mostly economic •Turkey and Greece: • Both in economic need • Face Economic Press • Key areas in Mediterranean • Britain can no longer support: A Key Moment •Domestic Problems • Truman needs money to support Turkey and Greece • Needs Congress to approve that money, but many isolationists • • Truman Doctrine •To persuade Congress, Truman says he will : • •“Scare the Hell out of them” • • Truman Doctrine: Scaring the Hell Out of Them •First: Not Soviet Union, but communism everywhere in the world is a risk to security: • •“The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States. • Truman Doctrine: Scaring the Hell Out of Them •Second: A Simplistic View of the Ideological Struggle: • •“At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. •One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. •The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. • But NOT THROUGH THE MILITARY •“I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.” •… •“The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better lifehas died. We must keep that hope alive. The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.” • • The Marshall Plan, June 1947 •The need to strengthen European countries, particularly Germany •Offers over $20 million in aid; enables local governments freedom to • allocate •Some strings attached: must allow US corporate investment •All European countries invited, included USSR and other occupied countres •USSR goes to initial meetings, Molotov briefly interested, Czechoslovakia very interested • Stalin rejects Marshall plan, forces occupied countries to leave as well • • The Soviet Reaction •Initially some interest from Soviet Union and occupied countries, an and particularly from Czechoslovakia •Stalin decides it would undermine Soviet control •Summer, 1947. Cominform—Focus on conformity •Titoism and the Expulsion of Yugoslavia—June, 1948 •Ousts Yugoslavia The Communist Take-Over of Eastern Europe: The Case of Czechoslovakia •Soviet-installed governments in Eastern Europe • Installed provisional governments, including members of other • ”anti-fascist” parties • Land Reform • Communists, with Soviet help, held control over internal security, military • Elections of 1946: Poland, Romania, Bulgaria quickly under Soviet control • Hungary and especially Czechoslovakia: More open to wider coalition • Gottwald seems very willing to work with others • Czechoslovakia: A Constitutional ”Coup” •1946 Elections: Communists gain plurality with 38% • Right-wing parties outlawed • Land reform helped • Transfer of Germans helped • Strong labor, communist movement in interwar period • Western allies discredited by Munich • Beneš, others convinced alliance with Moscow a good idea • February, 1948 •After Marshall Plan, Cominform Stalin demands Gottwald consolidate power •Divisions widen between communists and others in cabinet • Particularly with regard to police and security personnel •Non-communists in cabinet (except J. Masaryk) resign when communists refuse to personnel policy in police and security •Communists create new government giving them full controle •Beneš accepts new government, Masaryk found dead •Widespread arrests • Germany and the Berlin Blockade •German remains the key piece in the European Cold War puzzle • •1947: USSR holds out possibility of unity as neutral, hoping to play on German nationalism, perhaps hoping US will leave •US and Britain build up West Germany, Creates Bizonia •1948: US and Britain create currency reform •Stalin responds with Berlin Blockade •US responds with airlift; cements US popularity in West Germany 1949: The Year of Consolidation •NATO. April, 1949. •Western European Union in 1948 •Spurred on by Czechoslovak February. •Call for US participation, 1948: •“Russia out, US in, Germans down” •The Soviet Bomb: August 29 •China: September 21 •Two Germanies •Bundesrepublik: September 21 •DDR: October 7, 1949 •Korean War • • NSC-68: Commissioned in 1949 after setbacks, but Korea made it possible •Kremlin policy has three main objectives: (I) to preserve and to strengthen its position as the ideological and power center of the Communist world; ( 2) to extend and to consolidate that power by the acquisition of new satellites; and ( 3) to oppose and to weaken any competing system of power that threatens Communist world hegemony. • These objectives are inimical to American ideals, which are predicated on the concepts of freedom and dignity. . .. It must be assumed that these concepts and objectives of American life will come under increasing attack. If they are to be protected, the nation must be determined, at whatever cost or sacrifice, to preserve at home and abroad those conditions of life in which these objectives can survive and prosper. We must seek to do this by peaceful means and with the cooperation of other like-minded peoples. But if peaceful means fail we must be willing and ready to fight. • The US perceives itself as weak •Russia's progress in the development of atomic bombs probably means that an approximate stalemate in nuclear weapons will be reached by about 1954. •… •In spite of these weaknesses, the Communist military capability for conventional, or nonatomic, warfare is now substantially superior to that of the West and is continuing to improve at a more rapid rate. • • NSC-68: The Recommendations •”[Our preferred policy] calls for the United States to take the lead in a rapid and substantial buildup in the defensive power of the West, beginning "at the center" and radiating outward. This means virtual abandonment by the United States of trying to distinguish between national and global security. It also means the end of subordinating security needs to the traditional budgeting restrictions; of asking, "How much security can we afford?" In other words, security must henceforth become the dominant element in the national budget, and other elements must be accommodated to it. The wealth potential of the country is such that as much as 20 percent of the gross national product can be devoted to security without causing national bankruptcy. This new concept of the security needs of the nation calls for annual appropriations of the order of $50 billion, or not much below the former wartime levels.” •