ALEXIS LYNETTE MELENDEZ

5/15/18
THE COLD WAR
WWII finally ended, Europe and Germany were beginning to plan for their future

by the allied powers. The US and the British pushed Russia to hold free elections in

Poland and they refused. Government of Russia’s toleration was based on

communism which made them eliminate the right of owning private poverty also

the soviets a classes society. The US government implemented an economic system

with private ownership of goods and property and which society was goverened by

people. As the communists ideas of Stalin were spreading, the hostility of soviets

was increasing rapidly. The US and USSR have problems of their own but

concerning economic difficulties. The US began to spread capitalism and

democracy because they thought that the world would be peaceful i f they

continued with economic growth. On the other hand Russia began to feel as if

capitalism would eliminate communism. Then came the Cold War (1946 -1990).

President Truman, the anticommunist, demanded that Stalin could hold free

elections. The Yalta conference affected the relations between the US and the

soviets greatly. At the Potsdam conference, Truman gave Stalin German industrial

equipment from other zone but made the soviets pay part of its food shipping form

there zone. Truman was attempting to li mit reparations in order to keep Russia

weak. Presence of the soviet army in Eastern Europe ensured the establishment of

procommunist governments in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Poland and

Bulgaria. In 1947, happened the Truman doctrine, in which Trum an asked congress

for 400 million dollars to fight communist aggression. They used this to stabilize

the Greek government and ease soviet demands in turkey. The end of WWII,
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THE COLD WAR
Europe faced many economic difficulties. In 1947, George c Marshall, secretary of

state, proposed the Marshall, which ensured European nations as the struggle to

rebuild their economies. With the help of creating the West Germany, it convinced

the soviets they weren’t getting reparations. Because of this the soviets blocked

the transportation to West Berlin and any other roads which caused a crisis. So

began the fall of Western Europe. In 1948, the Berlin airlift began, which last 11

months. The airlift carried 2 million tons of supplies to drop all over West Berlin. In

May 12 after the blockade was lifted, the public and congress began to support a

military alliance with Europe. In 1949, an agreement was reached to begin NATO, it

was an alliance with eastern Europe which included the us, Canada, Portugal,

Britain, Italy, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Luxemburg, and

Iceland. An agreement to aid any country being attacked was met. 6 years later

West Germany was allowed to re-arm and join NATO. This decision alarmed the

soviets and gathered a military alliance in Europe. 1962, president john f. Kennedy

notified Americans of missals dropping in Cuba. The US navy surrounded the Cuban

island and people thought the US and the soviets were on the brink of war until

they agreed to the Khrushchev’s offer to remove missiles from Cuba is the US

promised not to invade Cuba, which Kennedy secretly removed from Turkey. Korea

was divided into a communist country and was split in two. North and South. The

North attempted to invade the South, which caused Truman to order the U.S. Naval

and Air Force armies into action. Truman then succeeded with the support of the

UN (United Nations) Troops and contained the communist from spreading. This war
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THE COLD WAR
was significant to the United States because it was the first armed battle of the

Cold War. This didn’t do much for decreasing the expansion of communism but it

did cost the US a lot of money as well as lives. Western victory in the Cold War was

because of the Reagan Doctrine. President Ronald Reagan promised to support

anti-communist governments in the world. Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Russia

suffered a collapse of communism. With all the money that had been spent in the

Afghanistan war, Russia became more and more isolated from the rest of the

world, thus ending the Cold War.