GCSE Edexcel History - the Cold War (1945-91)

Does anyone have any notes/resources? I've got confused about the Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, all the agreements made seem to overlap and I can't tell what happened in each

Reply 1

StevetheIcecube

18

Tehran conference: 1943, initial discussions about the Polish border post-war. Probably the least important, but you can link it to discussion on how Stalin wanted a very controlled and friendly Poland because of fears of another invasion.
Yalta: 1945, division of Germany into four zones agreed, allowing free elections in eastern Europe. This is fairly important because of the agreement over Germany and the promise the USSR made to allow free elections, a promise that was later broken.
Potsdam: later in 1945, this is the really important one, the real beginning of Cold War tensions. The USSR having fun at this one because they broke their promise in Poland about free elections. They thought Truman would be a pushover because he was new and left leaning (I think?), but he was angry about reparation issues (USSR wanted high reparations, he thought it would lead to another war). There were also tensions because Churchill left during the conference because he was voted out, which made the UK look like a pushover too.

Hope this helped :smile:

feel free to ask me any other questions. Make sure you get this, because I don't think it came up in the exam last year.

Reply 2

physconomics

OP

14

Original post by StevetheIcecube

Tehran conference: 1943, initial discussions about the Polish border post-war. Probably the least important, but you can link it to discussion on how Stalin wanted a very controlled and friendly Poland because of fears of another invasion.
Yalta: 1945, division of Germany into four zones agreed, allowing free elections in eastern Europe. This is fairly important because of the agreement over Germany and the promise the USSR made to allow free elections, a promise that was later broken.
Potsdam: later in 1945, this is the really important one, the real beginning of Cold War tensions. The USSR having fun at this one because they broke their promise in Poland about free elections. They thought Truman would be a pushover because he was new and left leaning (I think?), but he was angry about reparation issues (USSR wanted high reparations, he thought it would lead to another war). There were also tensions because Churchill left during the conference because he was voted out, which made the UK look like a pushover too.

Hope this helped :smile:

feel free to ask me any other questions. Make sure you get this, because I don't think it came up in the exam last year.

Ah thank you! :smile:

Reply 3

katrin2000

3

Original post by physconomics

Ah thank you! :smile:

also, was potsdam the time when Truman tested the atom bomb?

Reply 4

physconomics

OP

14

Original post by katrin2000

also, was potsdam the time when Truman tested the atom bomb?

Yes

Reply 5

Surrayia

5

Original post by physconomics

Does anyone have any notes/resources? I've got confused about the Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, all the agreements made seem to overlap and I can't tell what happened in each

yalta-
agreements:
germany would pay reperations to the ussr
germany would be divided into subsections
russia would join the UN
nazis would be brought to trial
declaration of a liberated europe
3 months after the nazi's were dealt with russia would go to war on japan
(after this however churchill wrote to roosevelt saying that the soviet union was going to become a danger to the freeworld)

potsdam-
what had changed-
the nazis had been defeated
there was a new american president called Truman and he was much more anti communist than Roosevelt was ('get tough with the russians')
stalin had learnt about the americans developing a nucleur bomb
stalin became a bigger threat as he continued to spread communism- arrested the non communist polish leader which was against the declaration of liberated europe
agreements
that berlin which was part of the russian sector would be divided into 4 sections
nazis would be brought to trial
government laws and education would be controlled by the zone 'keeper' to make democratic ideas easier
russia would take reparations from soviet zone and up to 10% of all industrial equipment from western zones
disagreements
the exact amount of reparations
russian policy on eastern europe

hope this helps :smile:

Reply 6

username3057334

20

Original post by physconomics

Does anyone have any notes/resources? I've got confused about the Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences, all the agreements made seem to overlap and I can't tell what happened in each