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Cold War in Europe · Saberian History Lectures

0:02
So, we finished up with World War II the other
0:05
day, and now we're going to get into the Cold
0:09
War. Now, it's kind of awkward talking about
0:14
the Cold War for me. Mine was the last generation
0:21
born into the Cold War. So when we talk about
0:26
the Cold War, The chapter says the Cold War and
0:30
the Fair Deal. Actually, the Cold War stretches
0:32
quite a bit longer. Depending on which historian
0:36
you ask, the Cold War, which is a period of perpetual
0:42
conflict between the United States and the Soviet
0:49
Union, between communism and capitalism, between
0:51
those ideologies, depending on who you ask, It
0:59
stretches from anywhere from 1946 to 1991. Now,
1:10
some historians put the start date at 1951, not
1:16
in 1946. Some historians put the end date as
1:20
1989 and not 1991. But for the most part, you're
1:25
talking about... a generational struggle between
1:29
an international order put forward by the U .S.
1:36
and its allies and an international order put
1:40
forward from the Soviet Union and their allies
1:44
and their ideology. And so this struggle lasted
1:49
that long. Before I get into it with some detail,
1:56
the beginning date is a little awkward. The reason
1:58
I say the beginning date is a little awkward,
2:00
some say it starts as early as 1946 because,
2:03
you know, you have the end of World War II in
2:04
1945. But even as we were talking about in our
2:09
last lecture, the outlines of the Cold War were
2:13
beginning to take form where Russia... The Soviet
2:18
Union and the United States were talking about
2:20
how to occupy the territories that used to belong
2:22
to the fascists. And you begin to see the breakdown
2:27
of how different spheres of influence emerged
2:31
in Europe at that time. So, let me give you just
2:35
a couple of end dates you want to keep in mind
2:37
as we talk about the end of communism, or rather
2:41
the end of the Cold War, not the end of communism.
2:47
1991 is Yeltsin's coup against Gorbachev. And
2:54
that is when Russia goes from being the Soviet
2:57
Union to being the Russian Federation. That is
2:59
the official end of the Soviet Union. 1989 is
3:05
the fall of the Berlin Wall. So again, depending
3:13
on who you ask... Different historians have different
3:17
ideas about when the Cold War began and about
3:20
when the Cold War ended. Certainly, no one has
3:23
it going past 1991. Actually, it's kind of funny.
3:29
John Lewis Gaddis, who is the historian on the
3:32
Cold War, he usually has it pegged from 1951
3:36
to 1991. So, let's sort of get into the... philosophy
3:45
of it, and the geopolitics of it. So we're going
3:51
to talk about how the Cold War tensions got started,
3:53
and then American efforts to contain the Soviet
3:57
Union. We're going to do the Fair Deal Monday.
4:03
I actually, if I have time to get past points
4:06
one and two, I actually want to talk about major
4:09
international developments in the Korean War
4:10
and how that changed policy. So I kind of want
4:12
to go military foreign policy today and then
4:18
do social and domestic policies in the next lecture.
4:21
Does that make sense? Okay, so let's go to...
4:32
And I'm going to see if I have a map I can use.
4:35
Do I have a map? I may have to go back to chapter
4:38
24 for a map, but that's okay. Okay, so origins
4:42
of the Cold War. So when I look at this for a
4:47
moment, who are the major players fighting the
4:51
Nazis during World War II in Europe? Okay, Soviet
4:57
Union is one. So you have... The Soviet Union.
5:04
Who else? The British. So we'll just say the
5:09
UK for the United Kingdom. You have the US. And
5:16
the French. Now, the French as a nation were
5:19
taken out of the war. But during the Nazi occupation
5:24
of France, you actually had two French governments.
5:29
You had two French political apparatuses. I'm
5:33
going to put France down here for a moment just
5:35
because I didn't really talk about it in lurid
5:37
detail. But now is as good a time as any. Also
5:43
it explains a few other things about France when
5:45
we get to the heart of the Cold War. So in France
5:48
you had the French fascists who were the puppet
5:54
state that was the Vichy government. And you
5:59
also had the French Resistance. Now, when the
6:10
United States and the United Kingdom have their
6:12
cross -channel invasion and the U .S. liberates
6:17
Paris, what happens to your Vichy regime that
6:21
was set up during the time of Hitler? They're
6:25
gone. They're gone. So now the people who are
6:29
the members of the French resistance form the
6:32
leadership of the new free French government.
6:36
And so we have that over here. Now, as a matter
6:43
of consequence, part of that resistance movement
6:46
included... French former imperialists, French
6:52
liberals, French socialists, but your French
6:54
conservatives tended to ally themselves with
6:57
the Vichy government and with the fascists. And
7:00
so what's very interesting about French politics
7:02
is World War II beats the right wing out of France
7:06
by force of arms. Even the ones who like... participated
7:11
in the Vichy government, they were politically
7:13
disenfranchised. Hmm. People who participated
7:16
in an internal split being politically disenfranchised.
7:21
Where else has that happened? American South.
7:26
Right? Okay. So, you have in the major players
7:31
the US, the UK, and France to the West. And you
7:37
have the Soviet Union. To the east. Okay? As
7:48
I look at the Soviet Union for a moment, what
7:53
is the Soviet Union politically? What is its
7:59
political system? Communist. Communism is both
8:05
a political system and it is an economic system.
8:10
Which is to say it is a one -party state with
8:13
a general secretary. That is what they called
8:19
the leader of the Communist Party. So Stalin
8:24
was the general secretary. Then Khrushchev was
8:28
the general secretary. Then Brezhnev was the
8:30
general secretary. Then there were a whole bunch
8:32
of general secretaries whose name escaped me.
8:34
And then Mr. Gorbachev was the last general secretary
8:37
of the Soviet Union. Okay. What type of governments
8:42
do we have in England and in France and in the
8:46
United States? We would call them liberal democracies.
8:52
Now, when I use the term liberal democracy...
8:55
I am not talking about liberal Democrats as we
8:58
use the term in our modern politics. The term
9:02
liberal democracy is the people have some say
9:05
in the government and you have a liberal number
9:09
of parties. In other words, you don't have the
9:11
number of parties restricted. Now, the United
9:13
States is for the most part a two -party constitutional
9:16
republic. But if I look at England and if I look
9:22
at France, they are parliamentary democracies
9:26
where, depending on the number of votes you get,
9:28
you get a number of seats in parliament. There
9:30
you go. So you actually have, by Beige, multi
9:32
-party democracy. Economically, what are the
9:41
systems of... the United States and the United
9:44
Kingdom. I don't really want to talk about the
9:46
economic system of France because coming out
9:48
of the war, the economic system of France is
9:50
destroyed. But the United States has what type
9:55
of economic system? Capitalism. And I would say
10:01
a mixed capitalist system. And in the case of
10:08
the United Kingdom and France, The United Kingdom
10:11
and France are still colonial powers. Now, a
10:22
couple of things that you have to understand.
10:29
Can capitalism and communism as systems freely
10:32
exist in the same space? No, and especially if
10:36
you look at... communism is practiced in the
10:39
Soviet Union. It was predatory towards other
10:42
ideologies. If you lived in the Soviet Union,
10:44
there was one party and it was not a party of
10:48
consent. What happened to the losers in the Russian
10:51
Civil War? They died and did not die well and
10:55
did not die pleasantly. By the way, I want you
11:04
to ponder this for a moment. You, who are about
11:07
to vote because tomorrow belongs to you, what
11:13
would justify escalating politics to something
11:22
making it worth killing people for? I mean, you've
11:27
all seen what type of crap people say in our
11:30
political process on the interwebs and what type
11:33
of memes. that are out there in the world. But
11:36
have you ever thought for a moment at what point
11:40
did people trade the ballots for bullets? I'm
11:46
not expecting a quick answer. I want you to ponder
11:49
this first, not just today, but for the rest
11:51
of your lives. At what point is it expedient
11:55
or is it necessary or is it that someone gets
11:57
it in their idea that I am so right and you are
12:00
so wrong that you don't even get to live in the
12:03
state? Now, how many of you maybe know people
12:11
who fit that bill already? It's kind of frightening,
12:15
isn't it? Alright, so, a couple of things going
12:21
on. First of all, who developed the atomic bomb
12:23
first? The US. And did the United States share
12:28
nuclear technology willingly with the other allies?
12:32
With England they did. That was part of the North
12:34
Atlantic Charter. But did they share it with
12:36
the Soviet Union? No. Now, I don't know if it's
12:42
a chicken or egg thing. They didn't share intel
12:44
with the Soviet Union because they didn't trust
12:46
them. But when the Soviet Union found out that
12:48
they didn't share nuclear intelligence, did the
12:50
Soviet Union like them even more? Probably not.
12:54
Now, here's what's going on. I'm going to go
12:57
back to a map from chapter 24, just because I
13:00
need a map. Let's go. All right. Come on, map.
13:15
Every time I start looking for a map and start
13:18
talking to a map, I get flashbacks from Dora
13:21
the Explorer. But anyway. All right. So this
13:25
is, let's see if I can get to, okay, that's Japan.
13:32
Here we go. Alright. So, you have the Russians
13:38
advancing to the east. They will take Berlin.
13:43
They will take what will become East Germany.
13:47
So, the Red Army takes over Finland, Estonia,
13:53
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Eastern
13:57
Germany. They even roll into Austria. Romania,
14:02
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece. So these are all
14:07
firmly in Soviet hands. Now, if I look over Russian
14:10
history for a moment, you have Hitler invading
14:16
the Soviet Union from the West. Who else had
14:18
previously invaded Russia in the annals of European
14:22
history? Napoleon. So, that's twice people coming
14:27
out of the West have come into their country.
14:29
So, one of the things that the Soviet Union is
14:32
trying to do is trying to establish buffer states.
14:35
So, if you're trying to establish a buffer state
14:37
between a West that you do not trust, oh, by
14:41
the way, what's one of the Western powers? France,
14:45
and has Russia been invaded by France before?
14:47
Well, yes. And they have this feeling that maybe
14:51
the Americans might be itching to stay in Europe,
14:53
and do the Americans stay in Europe? Yes, we
14:58
still have bases in Germany to this day. Some
15:02
of you have relatives who were stationed in Germany.
15:04
I know in the online class, I probably have one
15:07
or two students who were stationed in Germany
15:09
as part of their tour in the military services.
15:14
But anyway, so the Russians take over as part
15:20
of their line drive east. Hang on, that's not
15:23
the one I wanted. Let me escape out of this.
15:27
There we go. There we go. Czechoslovakia, Poland,
15:34
Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Yugoslavia.
15:38
In those countries... Part of what had happened,
15:42
and I'm going to go back to Yalta for a moment.
15:44
So, Yalta Conference. FDR, Joseph Stalin, and
15:50
Winston Churchill negotiate what the post -World
15:52
War is going to look like. Well, the Soviets
15:55
had promised a few things. One, they had promised
15:58
free elections in the states that they occupied.
16:08
in the occupied territories. Okay, let's think
16:14
about this for a moment. You're Joseph Stalin.
16:19
You just had your country invaded from the west
16:22
by Germany. And when I say invaded, I mean the
16:27
Nazi army had made it to Moscow, had made it
16:30
to Stalingrad, had made it to key parts of their
16:33
country. And now you have other colonial powers
16:44
on your door, and you want a buffer state. So
16:49
how do you make sure, in a world of free elections,
16:52
that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria
16:57
are going to be your allies in a world of free
17:02
elections? Before you have the elections, you
17:08
limit the choices down to one party. If you're
17:14
the communist leader of Soviet Russia, what's
17:18
the only party you want to see in Czechoslovakia,
17:21
Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Yugoslavia?
17:25
Communism. And how might you make sure that there's
17:28
only a communist party in those countries when
17:31
you have a large number of Soviet troops in those
17:33
countries? Kill, and you don't just have to kill
17:37
people. You would be amazed how much persuasion
17:41
could be done with the right amount of ordinance.
17:45
You can persuade a lot of people to do things.
17:50
I was going to say... I want to say that by this
17:56
point the Soviets are using the SKS, but yeah,
17:59
you can get people to do a lot of things when
18:02
you put a gun to their head. It's really quite
18:04
remarkable. I mean, I don't know this from first
18:07
-hand experience, but you get the idea. And so
18:10
you have the Soviet Union setting up communist
18:14
governments inside these countries, turning them
18:18
into one party state, and turning them basically
18:20
into satellites of the Soviet Union. Now, To
18:24
the people in the West, this was ominous. Winston
18:28
Churchill describes it as an iron curtain descending
18:31
across Eastern Europe. So the question becomes,
18:37
what to do? How to address it? What could be
18:45
done? So, now, also kind of want to talk to you
18:50
about a little... that I don't think most people
18:55
appreciate. Okay. Is communism as a philosophy...
19:04
And I don't know if it was this class or the
19:07
other class when I talk about the basic tenets
19:10
of communism. Alright. So, let me give you a
19:15
crash course in Marxism, if I may. Okay. Communism.
19:21
If you are a communist, you, and I'm going to
19:24
drop some terms from Marx's Manifesto and from
19:27
Marx's Das Kapital. Alright, so here's a basic
19:31
idea. You have the bourgeoisie and you have the
19:38
proletariat. The bourgeoisie are your elites.
19:48
who control the means of production. The proletariat
20:01
are the working people. Okay, now, according
20:09
to... And we'll put communism kind of over here.
20:18
So, this is Marx's critique of existing social
20:22
order. So, he's like, alright, nowadays you've
20:25
got your elites and you have your working people.
20:27
Religion, class, ethnicity, all of these are
20:31
social constructs to assure the domination of
20:34
the proletariat by the elites. So, according
20:40
to Marx, you have this idea that you would have
20:43
a revolutionary A period of revolutionary violence,
20:47
a period of revolutionary consolidation, and
20:50
in the end, you would have this glorious era
20:52
of communism where you have the state controlling
20:55
the means, the state controls the means of production,
20:57
and that it would be some golden era. Now, one
21:04
of the things that the state controls the means
21:06
of production and issues an allowance to the
21:09
people, and it's a glorious period of equality
21:11
between human beings. The thing about that is
21:14
two things. Again, why communism doesn't fly
21:19
well against American beliefs. First of all,
21:23
you have a massively expansive state apparatus.
21:27
Does that work in the land of the free and the
21:29
home of the brave? No. Also, communism posits
21:33
the idea that religion is a fiction and a measure
21:36
of control. So communism is godless. Now, kind
21:42
of interesting, and some social scientists have
21:46
pointed this out, that the glorious reign of
21:49
communism kind of has an apocalyptic tone to
21:52
it. Like, you know, okay, so here you have the
21:54
fallen world, here you have the great tumult,
21:56
and here you have the paradise, you know, the
21:58
city on the hill. But the other thing is about
22:01
communism, communism as a doctrine is expansive.
22:05
In other words, that... that the bourgeoisie
22:13
of the liberal capitalist democracies would try
22:17
and preserve their elite positions here, and
22:20
so that that revolution is not just national,
22:23
that revolution is global, and so you even hear
22:26
this later on when Khrushchev, speaking to the
22:29
UN, says, we will bury the West in communism.
22:34
Okay, so, a couple of things going on. So, as
22:42
the people of the West are seeing the expansion
22:45
of communism into Eastern Europe, the question
22:49
becomes what to do about it. What could you do?
23:03
Has the U .S. seen an expansion of a philosophy
23:07
before? Which one? Fascism. So, you've got option
23:15
one. Do nothing. Had it been tried before. Yes.
23:29
U .S. tried it when the Nazis invaded Poland
23:32
for three years. And then what happened? World
23:36
War II. That was called appeasement. And there
23:40
was a thought that if you appease the communists,
23:43
they would continue to expand as the fascists
23:47
had done, and that appeasement would lead to
23:50
a wider war. So, I would reference the fascist
23:53
experience. Alright, what's option two? Invade!
24:08
Go on ahead! Cross the Elbe River. We already
24:10
have the troops in the field. Break the alliance
24:13
and let's get this over with. Option two. War.
24:28
Now, a couple of things worth pointing out. In
24:31
1945, who is the only nuclear power in the world?
24:35
The United States. Soviet Union will acquire
24:39
nuclear weapons, but doesn't acquire nuclear
24:42
weapons until 47 or 49. But you have loss of
24:52
life, political will, retaliation, and by the
25:05
way, is war cheap? No. So we'll just put cost.
25:17
So, there has to be a third option. Neither one
25:24
of those options look good. And actually, you'll
25:26
notice that the third option was taken because
25:28
you and I are alive to have this conversation.
25:36
Option three is containment. So, George Kennan,
25:44
who... Actually, I have a whole funny side story
25:47
for him. I don't know if I have time for it.
25:49
George Kennan, who is working for the State Department
25:53
in Moscow, sends a long telegram back to Washington.
25:57
And what he points out is this. Russia has a
26:03
problem. The communist ideology is expansive
26:09
and not viable. It's not viable economically
26:14
and it's not viable with what you would call
26:18
Russian national interest. In other words, Russia
26:27
is expanding into these territories because it
26:30
wants a buffer state, because it's been invaded
26:32
twice, once by Napoleon, once by and it would
26:39
try to expand communism as a matter of its ideology,
26:43
but the Russian economy, which is backwards,
26:46
cannot support a massive expansion of communism
26:49
over the globe. And so the basic idea is, if
26:53
the United States strategically... Czechs' communist
26:58
advancement, the overall burdens of Russian national
27:02
interest and the backwardness of their own economy
27:05
would facilitate that the Soviet Union would
27:11
eventually collapse under its own weight. Basically,
27:16
contain them and wait them out. That is eventually
27:27
the choice that was made. But think about this
27:33
for a moment. Not everybody is on board for this
27:36
idea because what does waiting them out look
27:38
a lot like? Option one. And what would option
27:42
one lead to? Option two. And so there are some
27:48
in the... political class of the United States,
27:52
and actually there are plenty of people in the
27:54
United States who are thinking, wait, wait, wait,
27:56
wait, this option three looks an awful lot like
27:58
option one, and so, you know, and this isn't,
28:02
these are people having legitimate differences
28:05
about the best way to deal with an existential
28:10
threat to the United States and its way of life.
28:14
Now, the first test for the containment policy
28:17
will come In Turkey and Greece. I'm going to
28:22
go back to the map real quick. So here's Greece,
28:29
here's Turkey. So, Greece had been occupied by
28:36
the fascists. The Soviets are trying to set up
28:39
a communist government in Greece. And what the
28:44
United States is looking to do is to thwart the
28:47
spread of communism. Let me get this back where
28:51
I wanted it. There we go. Here we go. So, incident
28:59
shows up in Greece. Truman asks Congress for
29:02
funds to help Greece, to help Greek freedom fighters
29:08
avoid communist domination. So, the Truman Doctrine
29:14
is simple, that the United States will support
29:17
Free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
29:19
by armed minorities or outside pressure. When
29:23
I'm talking armed minorities, we're talking the
29:25
Communist Party in Greece and in Turkey, the
29:28
outside pressures being the Soviet Union. So,
29:30
he is asking Congress to approve one of the largest
29:33
foreign aid packages in the history of the American
29:36
Republic to support military and economic aid
29:39
to Turkey and Greece. That was what it was originally
29:42
about. Because here's what they're afraid of.
29:46
I'm going to go back to the map. If Turkey falls,
29:53
that then the Middle East would fall to communism.
29:59
And what does the Middle East have that is a
30:01
vital natural resource to the rest of the world?
30:04
Oil. And so there is a fear that if... communism
30:09
dominates the third world here, or if communism
30:11
even comes to dominate the economically destroyed
30:15
parts of Western Europe, that it would then dominate
30:19
the world and that would be the end of our way
30:21
of life. And that is the domino theory, that
30:25
once it gets started in one place, it goes to
30:27
another. Alright? So, to prevent the spread of
30:33
communism and As an act of humanitarianism, you
30:38
have the United States giving a massive amount
30:42
of foreign aid to rebuild Europe. The policy
30:46
was started by George Marshall. George Marshall
30:50
was the general of the army during World War
30:54
II. He will become the Secretary of State. And
30:58
so the idea is, hungry people are great candidates
31:02
for... dictatorial powers reference my bread
31:08
and chain speech think about it so if you know
31:15
that communism seems to rise in the impoverished
31:19
countries of the world like the Soviet Union
31:22
what do you do you make sure that they're not
31:29
impoverished and so you have the United States
31:34
giving foreign aid to devastated Europe. You
31:38
have the United States rebuilding the parts of
31:40
Germany that are in their zone. The United States
31:43
even offered assistance to the Soviet Union itself
31:45
and those eastern powers and they had declined
31:48
it. But yes, this rebuilding of Europe. Now here's
31:53
the thing. How is this weird? It makes sense
32:00
on paper. It would make sense, okay, you know
32:04
that starving people are more likely to become
32:06
communists than not starving people. It is in
32:08
our national interest to see to it that these
32:12
countries do not fall to communism. But here's
32:15
the part that's really weird. Let's go back.
32:20
Let's go back to 1301. What was George Washington's
32:26
last words? foreign entanglements. And what is
32:33
happening? The United States is becoming the
32:39
imperial power of the Earth. And it starts here.
32:44
And so, it is very awkward and ironic that here
32:49
you have the United States as almost an accidental
32:52
power entering World War II, but now that they're
32:55
in it, is there any going back? And so, you have
33:02
the division of Germany, and I am getting on
33:06
the clock on that one. Alright, more to follow
33:08
as we talk about the Cold War in Europe. Have
33:10
a pleasant weekend.