Chapter 28

3.How did the Soviet Union's treatment of Czechoslovakia in 1948 demonstrate its intention to consolidate its hold on Eastern Europe?

3. Under pressure from the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, President Eduard Benes allowed a communist-dominated government to be organized. The virtually bloodless communist coup was an example of Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe.

3.After the war, why did national governments quickly establish authority over questions of guilt and punishment for those who had collaborated with the Nazi regime?

3. Occupation authorities set up "denazification" procedures meant to eradicate National Socialist ideology from social and political institutions and identify and punish former Nazi Party members responsible for the worst crimes.

5.At the Yalta Conference, why was the position of the Soviet Union much stronger in negotiations with the U.S. & Great Britain?

5. When the Big Three met again in 1945 at Yalta, Soviet armies had already occupied Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, part of Yugoslavia, and much of Czechoslovakia, and were within a hundred miles of Berlin. The stalled American-British forces were yet to cross the Rhine into Germany. The USSR's position on the ground was far stronger than that of the US and Britain, which played to Stalin's advantage.

7.Why was West Germany allowed to build an army after 1955?

7. With US backing, West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was allowed to rebuild is military to join in defense of Western Europe against possible Soviet attack.

1.According to the best estimates, about how many people died in the Second World War?

1. At least 20 million Soviets, soldiers and civilians, died in the war. Between 9 and 11 million noncombatants died in Nazi concentration camps, including 6 million Jews and over 220,000 Sinti and Roma (Gypsies). Three out of every five Poles died. 5 million Germans died, 2 of those million were civilian deaths. 350,000 French and 400,000 US soldiers died. In total, about 50 million human beings perished.

1.What did the West German minister of the economy do in 1957 to foster economic growth?

1. Signed the Treaty of Rome, which created the Common Market.

1.How did Stalin behave as leader following the Second World War?

1. Stalin reasserted his dictatorial powers by moving the USSR back toward rigid dictatorship. Worked to extend Communist influence across the globe by establishing the Cominform, an international organization dedicated to maintaining Russian control over Communist parties abroad, in western Europe and the East Bloc. Stalin reasserted the Communist Party's complete control of the government and his absolute mastery of the party. Stalin employed rigid ideological indoctrination, attacked religion, kept civil liberties absent. Millions of supposed political enemies were sent to prison, exiled, or forced-labor camps.

10.What was the purpose of the Nuremberg trials?

10. The Nuremberg trials, an international military tribunal organized by the four Allied powers, tried the highest-ranking Nazi military and civilian leaders who had survived the war, charging them with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Testimonies revealed the horror of Nazi atrocities and sentenced 12 to death and ten more to lengthy prison terms.

10.To receive Marshall Plan aid, European states were required to cooperate with one another. What was the result of this cooperation?

10. The battered economies of western Europe began to improve.

11.What was a result of breaking the Berlin blockade in 1948-49?

11. It paved the way for the creation of two separate German states in 1949: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), aligned with the US, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), aligned with the USSR. It also showed that containment worked, and thus strengthened US resolve to maintain a strong European and military presence in Western Europe - led to formation of NATO.

2.How did the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries treat displaced persons returning home after the war?

2. Soviet citizens who had spent time in the West were seen as politically unreliable by political leaders in the USSR. Many DP's faced prison terms, exile to labor camps in the Siberian gulag, and even execution upon their return to Soviet territories. Jewish DP's faced unique problems. Their families and communities had been destroyed, and persistent anti-Semitism often made them unwelcome in their former homelands.

2.What was the ultimate goal in creating an international organization to coordinate coal and steel production in Europe in the 1950s?

2. The European Coal and Steel Community quickly attained their immediate economic goals - a single, transnational market for steel and coal without national tariffs or quotas. Advocates hoped that close economic ties would eventually make the six nations so close that war among them would be unthinkable. In 1957 the six countries signed the Treaty of Rome which created the Common Market. The first goal of the treaty was a gradual reduction of all tariffs among the six in order to create a single market almost as large as that of the US. Other goals included the free movement of capital and labor and common economic policies and institutions. The Common Market encouraged trade amend European states, promoted global exports, and helped build shared resources for the modernization of national industries.

9.How did Big Science foster the Green Revolution?

9. During the postwar green revolution, directed agricultural research greatly increased the world's food supplies.

2.How did the Soviet Union initially organize the Eastern European nations as it threw out pro-Nazi regimes?

2. The Soviet Union organized the Eastern European nations into satellite states - national Communist parties remade state and society (including the economies) on the Soviet model. Popular Communist leaders who led the resistance against Germany were ousted as Stalin sought to create obedient instruments. The nations established one-party dictatorships subservient to the Communist Party in Moscow.

3.Which six Western European countries formed the European Economic Community, a.k.a., Common Market in 1957?

3. West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France.

4.In the 1950s & 1960s, what became the basic objective of all Western European governments?

4. European unity; across much of western Europe, politicians and citizens supported policies that brought together limited state planning, strong economic growth, and democratic government and this political and social consensus accompanied the first steps on the road to a more unified Europe.

4.How did the East German government respond to the nationwide demonstrations against poor wages and working conditions in 1953?

4. The demonstration in East Germany were put down with Soviet troops and tanks, though the East German government subsequently made concessions.

4.What was the consequence of FDR's agreement with Stalin at the Teheran Conference that the British & American armies would launch a frontal assault on France?

4. While the delay in opening a second front fanned Stalin's distrust of the Allies, the agreement on a British-US invasion of France also ensured that the American-British and Soviet armies would come together in defeated Germany along a north-south line, and that the Soviet troops would play the predominant role in pushing the Germans out of eastern and central Europe.

5.Which position (concerning the Soviet Union) did Christian Democrats across Europe endorse during the 1950s?

5. Christian Democrats rejected authoritarianism and narrow nationalism and placed their faith in democracy and liberalism. Their anticommunist rhetoric was unrelenting . Rejected the class politics of the left and championed a return to traditional family values.

5.What did Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign call for?

5. The liberalization of the post-Stalin Soviet Union. It strengthened the reform movement. Khrushchev brought in new party members and called for a "peacefully coexistence" with the West. State planners shifted resources from heavy industry and the military toward consumer goods and agriculture, and relaxed Stalinist workplace controls.

6.What was the outcome of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944?

6. The Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 linked Western currencies to the US dollar and established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to facilitate free markets and world trade.

6.What did the Marshall Plan accomplish?

6. The Marshall Plan was an American plan to provide economic aid to Europe to help it rebuild. It was one of the most successful foreign aid programs in history. It ended in 1951 after the US had given about $13 billion in aid to fifteen western European nations, and Europe's economy was on the way to recovery. Although aid was initially offered to the Eastern bloc, fearing Western influence, the Soviets rejected the offer.

6.Who was the only Communist leader to successfully resist Soviet domination?

6. Tito of Yugoslavia was able to proclaim political independence and successfully resist Soviet domination. Tito stood up to Stalin in 1948, and because there was no Russian army in Yugoslavia, he got away with it.

7.What was socialist realism?

7. An artistic movement that followed the dictates of Communist ideals, enforced by state control in the Soviet Union and East Bloc countries in the 1950s and 1960s; idealized the working classes and the Soviet Union.

7.Why did the Council of Europe fail to evolve into a European parliament with sovereign rights?

7. Britain, with its still-vast empire and its close relationship with the US, consistently opposed conceding sovereignty to the council. Many prominent nationalists and Communists agreed with the British view.

8.What was a byproduct of military weaponry and the space race?

8. After 1945 roughly one-quarter of all men and women trained in science and engineering in the West - and perhaps more in the Soviet Union - were employed full-time in the production of weapons to kill other humans. By the 1960s both sides had enough nuclear firepower to destroy each other and the rest of the world many times over. The space race led to great achievements: NASA landed manned spacecraft on the moon in 1969, and four more landings by 1972. The search for better weaponry boosted the development of sophisticated data-processing. The invention of the transistor advanced computer design. Transistors also used in consumer products. Big science created new sources of material well-being and entertainment as well as destruction.

8.Why did Charles de Gaulle withdraw France from NATO?

8. De Gaulle viewed the US as the main threat to genuine French (and European) independence. He withdrew all French military forces from what he called an "American-controlled" NATO, developed France's own nuclear weapons, and vetoed the scheduled advent of majority rule within the Common Market.

8.What was the point of Khrushchev's "secret speech" in 1956?

8. To strengthen his position and that of his fellow reformers, Khrushchev launched a surprising attack on Stalin and his crimes. In the speech, he told Communist delegates of errors that Stalin had "supported the glorification of his own person" to build a propagandistic "cult of personality." He reported that Stalin had bungled the country's defense in WWII and unjustly imprison and tortured thousands of loyal Communists.

9.Why did Solzhenitsyn's, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich create such a sensation when it was published in 1962?

9. His novel portrays in grim detail life in a Stalinist concentration camp - a life which he himself had been unjustly condemned - and a damning indictment of the Stalinist past.

9.In which country did Christian Democrats promote a "social-market economy"?

9. West Germany; their "social-market economy" was based on a combination of free-market liberalism, some state intervention, and an extensive social benefits network.