Ulbricht dismissed May 1971; Honecker named new party
leader, and détente negotiations begun. Ideological
Abgrenzung (demarcation) between East Germany and
West Germany. Four Power Agreement on Berlin, 1971. Basic
Treaty between East Germany and West Germany (1972)
recognized two German states. Admission to United Nations,
1973. Tenth Party Congress (1981) confirmed East Germany's
commitment to Soviet Union.
First Period: 1945 to 1947/48
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Thrust of Soviet policy - eradicate material roots of Nazism
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Land reform
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Nationalisation
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Denazification
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School reform
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Legal reform
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Cultural policy
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Main instruments - 4 new parties
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Merger of KPD and SPD
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Negative features of Soviet occupation (oppression, reparations, rape)
Second Period: 1947/48 onwards
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Change to harder line policies in 1947/8
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Reasons (i) Cold War (ii) Break with Tito (iii) Electoral failure
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Increased political persecution of political opponents
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Purges within SED (Parteikontrollkomissionen)
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Greater centralisation
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More central planning
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Stalinist economic practices
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Popular discontent
June 1945: Soviets allowed formation of political parties / in contrast with developments in the west
December 1945: talks of merger btw Communist and Social Democrats à referendum in March 1946 but rejected.
Soviets went ahead with the merger in their own zone.
German political leaders in the west decided to form groups within the other zones: Soviet attempt to control German political parties had failed.
June 1947: anti-Soviet Reuteur elected as Mayor of Berlin / Not recognized by Soviet General Kotikov à parties were henceforth to develop separately in the Soviet zone and the western zones.
Between 1945-47 the USSR strengthened the position of Communist parties in E.E. whilst denying western officials access to the area.
Policy of Containment:
USSR attended initial meetings but soon withdrew and obliged E.E. states to do likewise.
End August 1947: USSR replied to what it saw as a clear anti-Soviet measure by signing trade agreements with several states thus tying them into the soviet economic system (Bulgaria, .CZ, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland and Rumania)
June 1947: article by a US State Department Soviet specialist stated that the USA must develop "…a policy of firm containment, designe to confront the Russians with unalterable counter force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world…" / This involved:
Decision to maintain large US forces in Europe in peacetime.
Establishment of a peacetime alliance (NATO) with a strong US commitment.
The Soviet Response:
Tightened its grip upon the states of E.E. (1948 coup brought the last of the E.E. states, .CZ, under firm communist control)
Bilateral trade agreements.
Cominform established to strengthen links btw various communist parties.
Stated that WWII had been fought by USA and GB to eliminate German and Japanese industrial competition and warned that the world was now divided into "…two fronts, one imperialist, the other socialist and democratic…"
The Berlin Blockade: attempt to eliminate the only remaining area of western influence behind the ‘iron curtain´ à failed.
Europe Divided
Europe by 1949 was divided into two rival camps each with their own political, economic and military alliances:
Economically:
Western countries united through O.E.E.C. (initially formed to facilitate distribution of Marshall aid)
Countries of E.E. linked to USSR economically by bilateral trade agreements and Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance — Jan 1949)
Militarily:
Brussels Treaty (March 1948) allied GB, FR, and Benelux countries in the event of an attack / N.A.T.O. (April 1949) wider alliance.
Soviet countries united through the Warsaw Pact (1955)
Politically:
In western Europe various organizations were established to attempt to achieve greater unity.
In E.E. the USSR established Cominform to link together the various communist parties.
The effects of the development of the Cold War
International relations were dominated by the Cold War and all conflicts tended to be seen in terms of the struggle btw the USA and the USSR à international relations were bipolar.
Europe was divided with a clear line of demarcation btw the capitalist west and the communist east.
Germany was not united: instead western and eastern zones gained independence separately and were not prepared to recognize each other.
No peace treaty was signed with Germany: sense of insecurity amongst countries of E.E. (this was solved in 1975 at the Helsinki Conference)
Unity in western Europe was encouraged by the Soviet threat and USA who hoped that western European states would play a greater part in their own defences.
USSR tightened its control over the E.E. states à setting up of one party states.
USA abandonned its policy of avoiding peacetime commitments: it was instrumental in setting up of NATO and other regional forces.
USA adopted the policy of containment à led to US involvement all over the world assuming that any communist group was acting upon the orders of Moscow (i.e.: Korea, Vietnam) à USA became the ‘world policeman´.
UN was never able to fulfil the role which Roosevelt had envisaged (peaceful settlement of international disputes) b/c of the veto power of both the USA and USSR.
The Cold War spreads to the East
By 1949, the position in Europe was static: the last attempt to change the balance (Berlin Blockade) had failed
With the advent of nuclear weapons neither side was prepared to risk open conflict in order to change the position.
However, events in the East brought that area into the Cold War conflict:
An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favours to groups of left-wing German leaders.
If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas
2. the main stages in creating communist system in soviet bloc in europe
to wymyśliłam sama więc nie ręcze:
- military units placed in certain state
- supporting the native communistic leaders
- sending communistic authorities from Russia to help the native ones, and control the local situation
- placing native communistic leaders in government, and in local, municipial governments, tendence: creating a single-party (communistic) state
- centralization of state apparatus
- if people are not willing to elect communists: fight all opposite politicians: arrest them, oppress them etc.
- imposing Stalinist model
- communistic reforms : social, agricultural/collectivization/, educational, legal etc. => all communistic
- nationalization of industry
- indoctrination, propaganda, broadening of communistic propaganda, gaining new supporters of it, censorship, repressing of dissidence /political,religious, artistic/
- ideological regimentation, the police state, strict subordination to the Soviet Union, a rigid command economy, persecution of the Roman Catholic Church, and blatant distortion of history, especially as it concerned the more sensitive aspects of the state’s relations with the Soviet Union
- introducing Soviet-style centralized state planning (ileśtam-Year Plan)
- all the steps have to be confronted with the situation, and modified in order of the achieving the best effects
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cementing all achievements by :
expressing the friendship between all communistic states (and USSR – certain state), joining communistic pacts and agreements, developing a common anti-western attitude, not allowing greater contact between communistic states and the western ones
3. give the main thesis of churchill's fulton speech
z moich notateczek:
- western vision of USSR different than during the war
- no limits of USSR expansion, unless USSR will be stopped by using force
- status quo should be maintained : Europe divided , (Churchill invented description ‘iron curtain’)
- Isolation of Eastern part of Europe: native communists, USSR – limiting freedom, trying to monopolize politics and control life of people,
eastern Europe – under Moscow control, no chance for independent gov.
- Any sort of cooperation with USSR impossible
- West could build a World of their own, eliminate communistic influence there
- Soviet sphere must be recognized, no chance of taking away USSR possessions
- Conflicts should be avoided
- There are no common aims between those two worlds
Żywcem z przemówienia:
- Threat of growing popularity of communism in western countries.
- Churchill believed that USSR doesn’t want the war, wants territorial expansion and expansion of doctrine
- what should be done: prevention of war, establishing freedom, and democracy where it is possible
- soviets admire strengths,, they have no respect to weakness
do przeczytania :
Churchill's speech in Fulton, Missouri in which the British politician speaks for the first time in public about an "iron curtain" which divides the European continent from Stettin an the Baltic to Trieste an the Adriatic.
Winston Churchill's visit to Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, marked the first public recognition of the cold war that was to follow World War II. Churchill delivered his most famous speech, “The Sinews of Peace,” which became best known by the phrase he used to describe the cold-war division of Europe, the “iron curtain.”
In the United States and Britain, wartime alliances had fostered favorable feelings toward the Soviet Union. By 1946 democratic citizens on both sides of the Atlantic had begun to consider communitst Russia a friend. In his speech at Fulton, Churchill exhibited breathtaking flexibility and a clear recognition of the main threat as he reminded the public that true friendship must be reserved for countries sharing a common love of liberty. The “Iron Curtain” speech defined postwar relations with the Soviet Union for citizens of Western democracies. Although it initially provoked intense controversy in the United States and Britain, criticism soon gave way to wide public agreement to oppose Soviet imperialism.
Opening with the full text of the address churchill delivered in Fulton and concluding with Margaret Thatcher's fiftieth-anniversary address surbeying the challenges facing Western democracies in this post-cold war climate, the book brings together essays that reflect on the past fifty years, recognizing Churchill's speech as a carefully conceived herald of the cold war for the Western democracies. These powerful essays offer a fresh appreciation of the speech's political, historical diplomatic, and rhetoricl significance.
Churchill's speech at Fulton in 1946 did not start the Cold War, but he was the first to stop pretending to be friends with Russia. But his speech is often called the start of the Cold War, because after it America and Russia got into a number of conflicts.
Cytaty:
shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent
Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow
this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
4. the Truman doctrine: its contents and circumstances it was proclaimed
events in Greece; communists trying to overthrow the monarchy, GB troops, who had liberate Greece from Ger in 44 restored then the monarchy, now had to support Greece those loyal to king, against the Greece’s communists, who received help from Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
Bevin, GB Foreign Ministered appealed to USA.
Truman said (speech to congress, 12 march 47) that US will support (both econ, and milit.) all free people and nation which are resisting outside or inside (i.e. minorities )pressures made in order to subordinate them.
At the beginning this refered only to Turkey and Greece and their situation, but then it concerned all the countries endangered by communism pressure.
> Greece got arms. Supplies, it defeated communists. Turkey received ~60 mil $
US committed to a policy of containing communism, not only in Europe – worldwide – end of policy of isolationism