[0:00]Welcome to this rapid revision session that is the first on a new series on superpower relations. This video is going to be looking at some of the origins of the Cold War, particularly the impact of the wartime conferences. There's quite a lot to cover here, but I'll keep it as rapid as I can, so let's get into it. Ideologies of East and West. Now I'm going to be talking in massive generalizations here, but this is a very quick side-by-side comparison. Capitalist democracies, sometimes referred to as the West, for example, the USA government. These are usually democracies and the governments are chosen in free elections. Their social structure though is unequal. Some people have more power because of family background, wealth, education or achievements. But these things can be earned as well, and that's largely down to the freedoms and rights. Individual freedoms are valued, but majority opinion rules overall, e.g. through elections. In democracies, people have the freedom to have a say in electing their leaders. Capitalism is the ideology of the USA and the West. Capitalists believe everyone should have the freedom to own property and businesses and make as much money as they can. This leads to wealth, but it can also lead to inequality. So there's usually a big gap between the very richest and the very very poorest people in society. Compare that then to communism, for example, the communist USSR. The government is a single Communist Party government, often a dictatorship. No free elections. In terms of the social structure, everyone theoretically equal in a 'classless' society. But it's not really as simple as that. In terms of freedoms and rights, well, there aren't as many. Individual freedoms are less important than the rights of all workers in society. The origins of this thinking come from the writings of Karl Marx in the 19th century, and this means that communism is sometimes referred to as Marxism. Communism is the belief that all property, homes, businesses, et cetera, should belong to the state. This was the ideology of the USSR. It is then the job of the state to ensure that everyone in society gets a fair share of property and wealth. Like I say, both of these things are massive oversimplifications, but as a side-by-side, at a glance guide, it should be fairly adequate. Let's consider the situation in World War II, leading to the end of the war and the post-war era. From allies to adversaries. Relations between the allied powers in World War II were dominated by the 'Big Three'. That's Churchill on the left, Roosevelt in the middle and Joseph Stalin. While they had many differences, they put these aside to defeat their common enemy: Nazi Germany. However, as the war was won, their differences came to define relations between the superpowers after WWII. Starting with Winston Churchill then, he was the United Kingdom Prime Minister between 1940 and 1945, when he lost the election to Labor's Clement Atlee. But he came back into power in 1951 until 1955. Churchill had very traditional views, not surprising, given that he effectively grew up in the Victorian era. He was a great believer in the British Empire and had always been deeply suspicious of Stalin. He wanted to stop the Soviet Union expanding, and keep hold of Britain's Empire colonies. This is in some contrast to Franklin Roosevelt, who was the US president between 1933 until his death in 1945. Roosevelt believed in democracy and disagreed with Churchill about Britain holding on to its empire. However, he believed the allies needed Soviet support to win WWII, so was not always tough with Stalin. He believed post-war peace was only possible by accepting the USSR. Like I say, he died in January 1945, to be replaced by Truman. And then there's Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union between the 1920s and until his death in 1953. Stalin came to power through ruthlessness and strengthened the Communist Party rule in the USSR at the expense of freedom. His purges of his own leaders and people were murderous. He believed the West wanted to destroy communism, so he wanted to stand up to them. But for the time being, during the war at least, they were prepared to work together. This was known as the Grand Alliance. The Grand Alliance was between the USA, Britain (and its Empire) and the USSR. It effectively began in June 1941 when Hitler's forces invaded the Soviet Union, despite a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany. Throughout the war there were a series of high-stakes conferences between these wartime superpowers. You can see in the top image there, an American airman with two Soviet airmen. That is an American P-39 fighter in the background, but you can see it's wearing the red star of the Soviet Red Army. And we can see the Soviet Union flag being raised over the Reichstag in Berlin in the ruins of Germany at the end of the war. Yes, that is a Ukrainian soldier who's raising that flag there. Ukraine at that time was part of the wider Soviet Union, effectively an empire. However, each of these powers would have a crucial role to play in shaping the post-war world. So what agreements were made? Each of these summaries of the conferences are going to be pretty wordy, so make sure that you've got this in high definition so that the text is clear, in case you want to screenshot it or pause it to read it for yourself. But let's get into it now. The Tehran conference in November 1943. Britain and the USA had first agreed on a 'Germany First' wartime strategy at Casablanca in 1942, but it was at Tehran, Iran in 1943 that the 'Big Three' met for the first time. At Tehran they agreed: The USA and UK would open a 'second front' to relieve pressure on the USSR. This would result in the D-Day landings in June 1944. Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan and send troops and supplies to help defeat the Japanese, but only once the war against Germany was won. Vague plans to keep Germany weak after the war were agreed, but importantly for Stalin he secured agreement that the USSR would keep Polish land seized in 1939. They agreed that an international organisation to keep peace should be created, laying the foundations of the United Nations. So who were the winners and losers out of this conference? Well, in terms of the winners, Stalin has done pretty well. He secured demands for a second front, which would take pressure off his own armies, and he secured his post-war western border. But what about people who didn't do quite so well? Well, poor old Churchill in this case. He had wanted to open a second front in the Balkans, not in France. Britain had gone to war over Poland, so ceding land to the USSR was something that he very much disliked, but he couldn't do anything about it. That wasn't the last conference though. Next up was Yalta, February 1945. By this time, Germany was close to defeat. The British, Americans and Western Allies were pushing into Germany from France and the West, and the USSR was in control of much of Central Europe pressing from the East. They met at Yalta in the Soviet Union. Roosevelt was visibly more frail at this meeting, which you can probably tell from the photograph. Here's what they agreed at Yalta. Germany was to be split into 4 zones: French, British, American and Soviet. A United Nations would be established, which would meet very soon after this meeting on April the 25th. Stalin set a timetable to join the war against Japan: three months after Germany's surrender. Stalin agreed to free elections in Eastern European countries after the war. We'll see if he kept to that promise. Poland was to return to its 1921 borders, which favoured the Soviet Union. There were to be free elections there after the war, but there was a catch. The winners in this case, really, this is Stalin again. He was delighted with the Polish deal. He expected the elections to choose pro-Communist governments, and that's the catch. And he was mostly right. Roosevelt was also happy at the guarantees of free elections in these countries, although of course, these guarantees were far from it. Churchill again, though, ends up as a loser here. Again, he was disappointed at apparent Soviet expansion and the way Poland was being treated. After all, Britain had gone to war over Polish freedom, but it wouldn't be the last time that he lost in 1945, as you're about to see. At Potsdam, July to August 1945. The Big Three here had changed by the time they met at Potsdam, outside of Berlin. Germany had been defeated in the war, Churchill had lost the 1945 election, and Roosevelt had succumbed to his long-term ill-health and died. The Big Three were now President Harry S. Truman of the United States, Labor Prime Minister Clement Atlee of the United Kingdom, and Stalin still. The dynamics, though, had changed. Truman and Atlee would find it hard to be tough with Stalin, though Truman deliberately delayed until after the USA had successfully tested the Atomic Bomb. He hoped that this would provide leverage. The United Nations had also met by this point. The Treaty of San Francisco had given the USA, Britain, USSR, France and China status as permanent members of the UN Security Council. This allowed them to veto or stop any decision, even if every other member of the UN voted for it. The Post-War World was taking shape, and we could see who was now going to lead it. At Potsdam, it was agreed that the leaders confirmed Germany's partition into four zones: French, British, American and Soviet, but with the German economy run as a whole. The capital, Berlin, would also be split into American, British, French and Soviet zones. The powers in charge of each zone would take reparations from each zone. These are payments to repair for war damage. So, in terms of the winners here, yet again, Stalin comes out pretty well from this. Stalin was happy to keep control of the areas the Soviet army had liberated in the war. He also secured industrial equipment from the Western zones to boost the economy in the East. But Truman was unhappy with Stalin's continued occupation in the East, but without starting another war, he had to put up with it. Atlee had little say. Britain's status was already in decline by this point, and he was focused on rebuilding Britain and the welfare state like the NHS.
[11:16]We've mentioned the Partition of Germany, but what did this actually look like? Well, these are the zones that were decided upon. Britain would be in the Northwestern part of Germany, France in the Southwestern, the United States in the South, and the eastern part of Germany would be under Soviet domination. But look closely and you'll see that Berlin is split into four as well, following a similar pattern. The eastern half would be dominated by the Soviet Union, and the Western half was divided further into three, with one French zone in the North, the British sector in the center, and the American sector in the South. Later on, Churchill would describe an iron curtain descending over Europe, which divided it between communist zones and the West. But more on that, another time. To sum up then, the agreements made between the leaders of the victorious Allies in World War II laid the foundations of the Post-War world. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin all had their own beliefs and aims. Stalin arguably got his way more often than the other leaders, especially after Truman and Atlee replaced Roosevelt and Churchill. A United Nations was set up to secure world peace, but divisions and the partition of Germany, Central and Eastern Europe after the war laid the foundations for the next big ideological showdown of the 20th Century: THE COLD WAR between the CAPITALIST WEST and the COMMUNIST USSR and its allies. So that's the end of this first video in this series. I hope it's been useful to you, and if it has, please do like the video and subscribe to the channel. I'm looking to release a Cold War video once every one to two weeks, from this point forward when this video has been released, until the whole course has been released. So, it's well worth subscribing to keep up to date on that, and it's a great way to thank the channel and help it grow. Anyway, that's enough of me talking for now. I hope it has been useful. Thanks very much for watching, and if you've got any priorities that you want me to cover, put them in the comments below and I'll do what I can. For now, goodbye.
