In what ways did relations between the USA and the USSR change between 1948 and 1962?

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Holley Willison UVY

In what ways did relations between the USA and the USSR change between 1948 and 1962?

        In 1948 the relationship between the USA and the USSR worsened after the communist take over in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade began the disagreements between the USA and the USSR over how to deal with Germany and Berlin, brought the worsening relationship to a crisis. This was as three out of the four zones of Germany had joined together to create one Western zone and then they created a new currency for this grouped zone. Stalin reacted to this by imposing the Berlin Blockade. Stalin hoped that the cutting off of all road, rail and canal traffic into the Western sectors of Berlin, the Western zone would be unable to attack, but Stalin also hoped that this could enable a wider spread of communism.

        However, by mid 1949, he had failed in his attempt to force the West out of Berlin. Stalin was now forced into reopening the land routes out of Berlin, which meant that the West had won. In the same year, the West set up NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), which was a defensive alliance. This showed how poor the relationship between the USA and the USSR had become by 1949 because the West feared an attack from the Soviet Union.

        Over the next few years, relations between the USA and the USSR seemed to of dramatically improved, but this climb was abruptly halted at the death of the USSR’s leader. In 1952, Stalin died, which created a new path way for an improvement in relations between the West, especially the USA and the USSR. However things were going to get worse before they got better. At the end of the Korean War there was a dramatic fall in the relations between the USA and the USSR. The relationship was not as steady as it rapidly declined and improved from 1953 to 1956, where after the Warsaw Pact the relationship rapidly improved. Khruschev, already by 1956, was the clear leader of the Soviet Union, his speech intended to help relations with the USA as it was on a peaceful co-existence, however this was not the case as once again their relationship worsened to the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

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        In 1956, the Hungarians revolted again Soviet control because since the Soviets had been in control, they had to pay war reparations to the Soviet Union, which decreased the Standard of Living and food shortages became common. Other long-term reasons for the Uprising were that they were controlled through terror as each satellite had its own feared secret police, prisons and labour camps, which had killed 25,000 people without trial. Also their immediate reason was that after Khrushchev’s De-Stalinisation speech in Feb.1957, they felt that they could rid themselves of the controls imposed on them by Stalin at the end ...

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