Study guide: Establishment of the Bipolar Order

📋 Course Outline

1. Postwar Destruction and New Power Balance
2. Allied Conferences and Postwar Settlement
3. United Nations and Divided Europe
4. American and Soviet Doctrines
5. Military Alliances and Western Alignment
6. Berlin Crisis and Korean War

📅 Key Dates

1. 1943The Tehran Conference brought together Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin and opened a new front in Western Europe.
2. February 1945The Soviet Union agreed to attack Japan three months after victory in Europe.
3. July 1945The Allies organized the occupation of Germany and Austria, including four sectors in Vienna and quadripartite occupation of Berlin.
4. 6 March 1946Churchill's Fulton speech described the division between the Soviet and Western worlds through the image of an iron curtain.
5. 12 March 1947The Truman Doctrine argued that communism could attract populations who had lost hope and that the United States should preserve hope through a more effective capitalist system.
6. 1948The Organization of American States was created as another framework for American regional cooperation.
7. 1948–1949The first major Cold War crisis was the Berlin blockade, which affected West Berlin.
8. 4 April 1949The Treaty of Washington, or North Atlantic Treaty, was signed as a military alliance whose Article 51 expressed collective defense.

📖 1. Postwar Destruction and New Power Balance

★ Must-know

• Approximately 60 million people died during the Second World War, including 20 to 25 million Soviet citizens.

• The majority of those killed in the Second World War were civilians, which marked a new scale of violence linked to genocide.

• The Holocaust killed approximately 6 million Jews in Europe, about half of the Jewish population.

Further detail

• The Soviet Union killed approximately 90% of German soldiers who died during the war.

💡 Memory Hook

Mass violence and destruction → fear, instability, and a new bipolar order

📖 2. Allied Conferences and Postwar Settlement

★ Must-know

• The Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe committed the Allies to reorganizing liberated countries through democratic regimes, although Stalin understood democracy as workers holding power through communist systems.

• The Yalta decisions included: the occupation of Germany and Austria by France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, the prosecution of war criminals, the creation of the United Nations

Further detail

• At Yalta, Poland lost its eastern territory to the Soviet Union and received part of Germany in exchange.

💡 Memory Hook

Tehran → Yalta → Potsdam

📖 3. United Nations and Divided Europe

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• United Nations: a collective-security organization intended to protect world peace and provide a place for negotiation to prevent world war

★ Must-know

• The United Nations was negotiated in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 as a successor to the League of Nations.

• The five permanent members were:

  • the United Kingdom
  • the United States
  • the Soviet Union
  • France
  • China

• Korea, formerly a Japanese territory, became divided after the Second World War because the north was liberated by local communist resistance supported by Soviet intervention, while non-communist forces created a southern state.

Further detail

• The Greek Civil War opposed communist forces and monarchists during the formation of the postwar blocs.

💡 Memory Hook

UN negotiation replaces direct war, while Europe divides between communist and non-communist systems

📖 4. American and Soviet Doctrines

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Marshall Plan: a United States economic program intended to rebuild Europe and give populations hope, while countries that accepted it generally joined the Western bloc

★ Must-know

• George Kennan's analysis of the Soviet Union in the Long Telegram led to the strategy of containment.

• The Jdanov Doctrine divided the world into a democratic and anti-imperialist camp and an imperialist camp, while supporting communist parties and movements against imperialism.

Further detail

• Yugoslavia accepted the Marshall Plan in 1949 despite being communist because communist movements did not form a monolithic ideology and Tito was not aligned with Moscow.

💡 Memory Hook

Containment and economic aid oppose expansion of the communist and anti-imperialist camps

📖 5. Military Alliances and Western Alignment

★ Must-know

• European states asked the United States to remain engaged because they feared being left alone against the Soviet Union, while also beginning to organize Western Europe themselves.

• After the Korean War, the North Atlantic Treaty became an integrated military alliance known as NATO, and West Germany joined it in 1955.

• The Soviet Union responded to the Western military alliance by creating its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact.

Further detail

• In 1951, Eisenhower became SACEUR, the commander of all NATO forces in Europe.

💡 Memory Hook

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

📖 6. Berlin Crisis and Korean War

★ Must-know

• In the Soviet occupation zone, the left-wing parties were unified into the communist SED, which sought to win elections and control all of Germany.

• The Korean War began in 1950 as the first major proxy war of the Cold War between communist North Korea and the non-communist South.

Further detail

• Truman's policy toward the Western occupation zones emphasized economic reconstruction so that people could eat and regain hope.

💡 Memory Hook

Competing German reconstruction policies → Berlin blockade; divided Korea → proxy war

📊 Synthesis Tables

Competing Cold War Doctrines

Doctrine	Camp	Main objective
Truman Doctrine	United States and Western camp	Preserve hope and contain communist expansion through capitalism and aid
Jdanov Doctrine	Soviet and anti-imperialist camp	Support communist parties and movements against imperialism