Tag Archives: Stalin
The origins of the Cold War
This podcast aims to look at three key areas – why the alliance between the USA and the USSR broke down in 1945, how Stalin take control of eastern Europe in 1945 and America’s reaction to it, and the consequences of the Berlin Blockade.
The podcast opens with a short explanation of the deteriorating relationship between the USA and the USSR through the Second World War. It goes on to present an overview of the two major Allied conferences – Yalta and Potsdam – and outlines the key agreements and disagreements that emerged from them.
Opening with an extract from Churchill’s famous Iron Curtain speech, the second part of this episode explores the way in which Stalin extended Soviet control over eastern Europe to establish a ‘buffer zone’ of communist states around the USSR. It then goes on to detail the USA’s response in terms of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Examples are given of each.
The third section of the podcast focuses on the Berlin Blockade of 1948-9. It begins with the background of the divided Germany after the Second World War. An explanation is then given of how Berlin became further divided between the communist and non-communist zones leading to Stalin launching the Berlin Blockade. The Allied ‘air lift’ is then described.
The episode finishes with some exam tips on how to answer a question about who was to blame for the Cold War in a balanced way.
Brief introduction to the Yalta Conference
Attended by the “Big Three” Allied leaders, the conference saw United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin meet to discuss the government of post-war Europe.
The end of the Berlin Blockade
This short podcast presents an overview of how and why Stalin chose to end the Berlin Blockade.
Khruschev’s criticism of Stalin in his ‘secret speech’
Shortly after midnight on the 25th February 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered his ‘secret speech’, officially called “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences”, in a four hour “closed session” at the end of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The causes and effects of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
On 23rd August 1939, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop – the Soviet foreign minister and the German foreign minister – signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, otherwise known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
The origins of Pravda, the official newspaper of Communist Russia
Pravda, the official newspaper of what became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was first published on 5 May 1912.
Why was Trotsky expelled from the Communist Party in 1927?
Trotsky had been a key figure in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
The USSR’s first Five-Year Plan
On the 1st October 1928, the Soviet Union introduced Joseph Stalin’s first five-year plan.
