The twentieth-century world, Year 10: the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Blockade (East and West (Cold War) option)

Greece and Turkey

HintBoth lay in the eastern Mediterranean region.

The whyBritain had announced that it would no longer support the Greek government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman's request led to the idea that the USA would support free peoples resisting outside pressure.

Containment

HintIt was the central idea of American Cold War policy under Truman.

The whyContainment accepted that communism already ruled in the USSR and its satellites, but aimed to stop it spreading any further. Truman committed the USA to this policy in 1947.

400

HintFewer than half of one thousand.

The whyThe sum was small beside the later Marshall Plan. Before the Second World War the USA had followed a policy of isolationism, so Truman's request marked a major change.

He saw it as a way for the USA to use its wealth to control other countries

HintHe suspected there were strings attached to the dollars.

The whyThe offer was open to every European country, including the USSR. Stalin feared American economic domination of his satellite states and was unwilling to open the Soviet system to outsiders.

A body to coordinate the communist parties of Europe under Soviet direction

HintIts full name began with Information Bureau.

The whyIt was founded in 1947 and Stalin set it up, with Comecon, in response to the Marshall Plan. Yugoslavia was criticised by it in 1948 after Tito refused to obey Moscow.

The Deutschmark

HintIt was introduced without informing the Soviets.

The whyThe western powers introduced the Deutschmark without telling the Soviets, and it was extended to West Berlin. The USSR then blocked the western powers' railway, road and canal access to their sectors of Berlin.

June 1948; May 1949

HintIt lasted for just under a year.

The whyThe crisis started on 24 June 1948. The western powers kept West Berlin supplied by air, and on 12 May 1949 the Soviet forces lifted the blockade of land access.

It lay deep inside the Soviet zone of Germany, so the USSR controlled the routes in

HintThink about what surrounded the city on every side.

The whyBerlin was divided between the four powers, but the whole city lay inside the Soviet-controlled east of Germany. The western powers could not simply drive supplies in, so they used the air.

NATO

HintIts founding members included the USA, Canada and several European nations.

The whyThe Berlin crisis helped push the western powers towards NATO. The alliance was founded in April 1949, while the blockade was still in force.

It split into two separate states, West Germany and communist East Germany

HintThe old occupation zones became two countries.

The whyThe Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was established on 23 May 1949 and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) on 7 October 1949. Germany stayed divided until 1990.