Essay plan Which of the following marked the start of the Cold War: Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech (1946), the Truman Doctrine (1947) or the Berlin Blockade (1948- 49)? Explain your answer

USSR Reaction: Still wanted peaceful co-existence with the Western powers as they were still weak due to large scale destruction of USSR during the war as well as massive loss of lives. Response to Iron Curtain Speech was that the Soviets felt it was meant to ‘sow seeds of dissension among the Allied states’; the Soviets still considered the Western powers as Allies.

2. Truman Doctrine (1947)

• Open and direct confrontation of Soviets

Calls the Soviets: ‘political oppression’, ‘suppression of personal freedoms’, ‘evil’

• Policy of US to support people who resist attempted subjugation by ‘outside pressure’ which meant the Soviets
• The need to assist the ‘free’ people
• Sees the Soviet as the enemy.
• The first concrete and coherent American foreign policy towards the USSR.

USSR Reaction: No immediate official response from the Soviet government. However, a few months later, the Soviet ‘Two Camps Speech’ emerged stating Soviet stand. It stated officially that the USSR was anti- democracy. Also the need to prevent Western powers’ desire to dominate the world was emphasized; therefore the policy of cooperation between the Socialist and Liberal parties would cease to exist. Communist parties in Western European countries were told to adopt militant anti-government stance.

3. Berlin Blockade (1948- 49)

• Soviet response to the merging of Western zones in Germany to form West Germany
• Also seen as a symbol of the Cold War between USSR and the Western Powers
• Blockade prevented all communication routes as well as supplies of food, electricity, gas and other necessities to starve the West Berliners into submission
• Soviets did not want the prospect of an economic recovery in West Germany as it revived fears of invasion from the West
• Western powers’ zone in Berlin lay within Soviet occupation zone; Soviets wished to use Berlin to pressure the Western powers from creating the separatist Western German state whereby the Soviets held no power
• If this failed, at least the Western powers’ zones in Berlin would belong to the Soviets.

Western Reaction: Airlift was used to send all supplies. Highly successful and was considered as a major victory for the Americans when the Soviets found that the blockade was no effective in starving the West Berliners into submission and ended the blockade.