Exam 11-5

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HIST 420

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History

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Nov 24, 2024

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Question 1 In attendance at the Yalta Conference were three leaders of the victorious allied powers. They were President Roosevelt of the United States, Soviet’s Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of Britain. The meeting had three agendas: the fate of the defeated Germany, terms of entry of the Soviet Union in the ongoing war against Japan in the Pacific, and formation of the United Nations to replace the League of Nations. It was agreed that after the surrender of Germany, the country would be divided into four zones in which each would be militarily occupied and controlled by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The German capital of Berlin would be similarly divided into four occupation zones. The leaders agreed that Germany would be completely demilitarized and the denazification process would be carried out by the occupation powers. Unlike in the aftermath of the First World War where Germany was determined to have sole responsibility for the war, the three leaders apportioned some responsibility on Germany for the Second World War but were categorical that the country did not carry the sole responsibility. While discussing Germany, the question of Poland was raised by Stalin. The Soviet leader had concerns of how Germany had used Poland as a corridor to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin stated that his country would not return the Polish territories it had annexed during the war. However, at the insistence of the other leaders, Stalin agreed to allow free elections in the occupied territories. The Soviets also promised to sanction free elections in parts of Eastern Europe that had been freed from the Nazi occupation including Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia. In return, Britain and the United States promised that they would allow the Eastern European countries bordering the Soviet Union to have friendly relations with the Soviets.

On the issue of the Pacific War with Japan, Stalin agreed to send Soviet troops to aid in efforts to defeat Japan. In return, the United States and Britain agreed to allow the Soviet Union to regain control of territories that it had lost to Japan after the war of 1905. The two countries also agreed to recognize the independence of Mongolia from China and which was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Regarding the issue of the United Nations, Stalin agreed to Soviet participation in the organization. Stalin guaranteed the Soviet commitment to the United Nations after the three leaders agreed that the three nations represented would hold veto power as permanent members of the Security Council. It is important to note that France was not represented in the Yalta Conference having been recently liberated from Nazi occupation. Despite having not been invited, France was one of the four powers that would occupation different zones of Germany and Berlin. Stalin only agreed to inclusion of France to the post-war occupation and governance of Germany after the two other leaders agreed to curve out the French occupation zones from their own zones. As a result, the Soviet Union had the largest occupation zone. Question 2 The Domino Theory was a notion suggested by the United States during the Cold War and which was adopted by other Western countries as a policy. The theory suggested that a fall of a noncommunist country to communism would trigger fall of the neighboring noncommunist countries to communism as well. The theory was widely accepted by Western leaders and for this reason it shaped the foreign policy of the US and other western countries. The Domino Theory was informed by the writings of Vladimir Lenin who had called communism an international revolution. In his writings, Lenin had stated that the Russian

Revolution of 1918 would trigger similar revolutions in Germany, France and beyond. Indeed, Lenin had established an international committee on communism, Comintern, which would spread communism abroad. The Western countries had long harbored fear of communism spreading into their countries. The Soviet’s important role in the defeat of Germany and the allied victory, rapid expansion of communism in Eastern Europe and emergence of communist China helped feed into the paranoia of Western leaders and policymakers that communism was on the verge of taking over. The popular belief was that once communism gained traction in one country; it would spread to other countries as well just the same way one falling domino knocks others creating a chain until all the dominos have fallen. By late 1940s, the Domino Theory had been accepted as a logical explanation of the danger that communism posed to Western civilization. At that time, Western leaders and policymakers had seen how failure to check against the rise of Hitler had allowed central European countries such as Austria and Czechoslovakia to easily fall to Hitler. The same had been the case in Asia where the unchecked Japanese imperialism had led to the spread of Japanese rule in the region making Japan a force to reckon in the years before the Second World War. These experiences shaped the attitudes of leaders during the Cold War. These leaders were determined to do anything to stop the spread of communism across the world. Another concern was that most of countries in Europe had been devastated by the war and therefore were weak to resist communism if it was allowed to gain foothold closer to European borders. Countries in other parts of the world were deemed to be even weaker. During this time, the West was only focused on stopping the spread of communism and would embrace even dictators as long as they were opposed to communism.

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In the end, the Domino Theory proved to be nothing but a misconception. Communism proved to be a flawed system of governance that began collapsing from within until the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed in the late 1980s. Again, time proved that nations are not dominos that would easily be knocked down by a falling domino. For instance, the United States failed in its efforts to prevent communism in Vietnam after a lengthy and bloody war. Despite communism taking hold in Vietnam, most countries in Southeast Asia did not fall into communism perhaps with the exception of Cambodia and Laos.

Exam 11-5

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