HIS 120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Warsaw Pact, Yalta Conference, Marshall Plan
Document Summary
Cold war is ideological struggle between communist soviet union and usa. Hostile words, economic clout, political proxies, nuclear threat. Some say started 1917 when lenin/bolsheviks took power in russia (but no one thought russia would bomb/invade europe) Arose from fundamental disagreements to the post war world and misperceptions the us & ussr had of each other. Ideologically driven liberal capitalism and communism were antithetical and unacceptable to true believers. Intended to shape post war peace and give self determination to liberated europe. First un meeting poland didn"t show---poland under ussr control. Those germans who had not already fled the red army expelled, vengeance, brutality. The soviet union and western allies quickly clashed over how to democratize germany now divided. Vindictive but practical reinstitute food rationing nazis that were arrested were then released and got off easy because they were needed for taxes. 1945 general eisenhower forced germans into concentration camps to clean up bodies.
