Cold War - Chapter 3

Stalin and the Soviets really made it obvious that they intended to set up Europe exactly as they pleased, and the Americans obviously noticed. Moreover, it appeared that Stalin was actively encouraging further war among his enemies. In a speech he made in February 1946, Stalin told the Supreme Soviet that, in order to survive, capitalist countries had to be constantly fighting with each other, or they couldn't grow and increase their strength.

America didn't like the sound of this. These weren't the words of an ally, who was interested in keeping the peace. Washington requested a report from George Kennan, who was the American ambassador in Moscow at the time. They wanted to know what Kennan thought the Russians were up to and what they were trying to achieve with their foreign policy.

Kennan minced his words. He REALLY went to town on his report and had it transmitted back to Washington as a telegram. This was known as the Long Telegram, and it was sent on 22nd February 1946 - all 8000 words of it. In it, Kennan said that the combination of Marxist-Leninist theory (which is the bit that says capitalism makes war inevitable) and Russian fears of being invaded again had made them incredibly hostile towards the capitalist world. They used this hostility to force an authoritarian regime on their citizens. He advised Truman that he had better give up turning a blind eye to the Soviets taking control of Europe, and instead take steps to limit their power and influence, or there would be an almighty smackdown between Communism and democracy. "Stand up to those bullies in the Kremlin!" he might well have written - except that he would have made that one sentence last for two pages, knowing him.

Tuman was worried. He hadn't really grasped that there was going to be such an issue. He probably thought that the atomic bomb would be enough to scare the Russians into submission, but it quickly became obvious that the Russians were not going to take that submissive role, especially when Stalin refused to remove his troops from Northern Iran. They'd been stationed there during WW2 to protect the oil supplies from Hitler, but there was no need for their continued occupation. Perhaps Stalin thought the world would just forget he was surrounding some of the world's biggest oil reserves.

Truman hadn't forgotten, though. Well, it's hard to forget that 30,000 troops are positioned such that they could overthrow the Iranian government, or attack Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Stalin used his troops to partition Iran and create a couple of "people's democratic republics" within the country. You can read more about the Iranian Crisis here.

Truman chucked his toys right out of the pram. He had previously said that he was "tired of babying the Soviets" and would henceforth "treat them with an iron fist and strong language". This was the first time his words had really been tested. America roared, and the Russians backed down. The troops were withdrawn from Iran.

This association of iron and the Soviets was strengthened when Winston Churchill gave a lecture in Missouri, echoing what Kennan had written. It was to become one of the most famous lectures ever, because in it, he said, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." Churchill had coined the phrase that would be used to describe the Soviet regime for the next 50 years.

Cold War - chapter 2

When we left our Big Three, they were all pretty unhappy with each other, following the Potsdam conference. They retired to their respective corners....er, I mean countries, and did their best to regroup following the second world war. America were still feeling quite smug because they had the atomic bomb; Russia were busy building a buffer zone.

Each country in eastern Europe that bordered Russia eventually had a Soviet-sympathising, communist government. Remember how Russia promised they'd allow free elections everywhere? Yeah, well...right now Russia was scuffing its feet along the ground and refusing to meet anybody's eye, because they totally reneged on that promise.

The Russians had several methods for getting their people into the governments of other countries..

In Poland (which never stood a chance really, did it?), once the Soviets had helped the communist government into power, they then helped them to remove members from all the other parties from the government, and then banned all the other parties anyway, just to make doubly sure.

In Romania, they relied on the good old policy of rigging the elections (perhaps George W Bush took his inspiration from here) to make sure they were in power by 1946, and then forced the King to abdicate so there was no threat to their authority.

In Hungary, they employed the tasty-sounding "salami technique", by encouraging splits and divisions between the political parties that made up the coalition government, so that it was severely weakened and couldn't hang on to power for very long. In 1947, the Soviets accused the Hungarian government of offending the Red Army and banned their party.

In Albania, they didn't have to do much at all - the Albanians happily copied the Russian model of government and had red leadership in 1945.

In Bulgaria, the Soviets made friends with the existing party and formed a coalition with them. Awww! Friendly Soviets, how sweet! Except that, once they were nice and cosy, they accused the leader of the other party of plotting a coup, hanged him, and purged all his supporters.

A similar thing happened in East Germany, where the Soviets merged with the ruling Socialist party and then purged all its members.

That just leave Czechoslovakia. This country proved a bit more difficult. They hadn't been a country for very long, having been founded in 1919 by Tomas Masaryk. This probably made them less willing to give in to Soviet demands. Although the communists were strong in the government in 1946, the foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, was keen to maintain the country's independence, and applied for Marshall Aid (more on that later). He was horrified when the communist members of the government rejected the application, and most of the non-communists ministers resigned in 1948, hoping to force an election.

It was the chance the communists had been waiting for. Instead of holding elections, they just filled the empty positions with their own people. Then Jan Masaryk appeared to commit suicide (hmmmm....) and the Czech government were Soviets through and through. Most of the world called this "the Czech coup", but the Russians and their mates called it "Victorious February."