AP World History Unit 8 Cold War and Decolonization

Unit 8: Cold War and Decolonization: 8%-10% of the AP test (c. 1200 to c. 1450) TOPIC 8.1 Setting the Stage for the Cold War and Decolonization Bringing the War to an End ° During World War II, the leaders of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, known as the Big Three, held several meetings to plan for the post-war world. ° During the Tehran Conference in Iran in November 1943, the Allies agreed that the Soviet Union would focus on freeing Eastern Europe, while Britain and the United States would concentrate on Western Europe. ° At the Yalta Conference, at a resort on the Black Sea, the leaders focused on plans for reconstructing Eastern Europe and for defeating Japan. o Franklin Roosevelt wanted free democratic elections in Eastern Europe. He also wanted the Soviets to join the war against Japan. o Stalin demanded influence over Eastern Europe. ° The final meeting among leaders of the Big Three, the Potsdam Conference, began in July 1945 in Germany o Harry Truman represented the United States. Churchill started the conference but lost his position as prime minister in mid-July and was replaced by Clement Atlee. o Truman insisted on free elections in Eastern Europe. However, by then Soviet troops had occupied the region. Stalin refused Truman’s demand. Shifting Balance of Power ° When the war ended in 1945, parts of Europe and Asia had been devastated. The war resulted in 40 million to 60 million deaths. ° It destroyed factories, roads, bridges, and other structures needed for industry ° Worst hit were the Soviet Union, Poland, and Germany. ° Countries such as Great Britain and France, despite their losses, maintained strong traditions of democracy and the rule of law. ° Of the major countries involved in the war, the United States suffered the least. ° The United States provided financial aid with the Marshall Plan TOPIC 8.2 The Cold War & TOPIC 8.3 Effects of the Cold War TOPIC 8.4 Spread of Communism After 1900 Communism in China ° In China, the Communists and the Nationalists began fighting for control of the country in 1927. However, after the Japanese invaded, the two sides agreed to focus on fighting them instead of each other. ° After the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the Chinese Civil War resumed. ° In 1958, China went through more land reform as part of the policy called the Great Leap Forward. o Peasant lands were organized into communes, large agricultural communities where the state held the land, not private owners. Those who protested this policy could be sent to “reeducation camps” or were killed. ° In 1966, Mao attempted to reinvigorate China’s commitment to communism. Its impact on China was similar to the impact of Stalin’s purges in the Soviet Union. Land Reform in Latin America ° Throughout Latin America, leaders saw the concentration of land ownership as a barrier to progress. Hence, as countries freed themselves from colonialism, they considered land reform. ° In Venezuela, the government redistributed some five million acres of land ° A democratically elected government under Jacob Arbenz in the Central American country of Guatemala began efforts at land reform. Land Reform in Asia and Africa ° During World War II, Japan occupied Vietnam, which France still claimed as a colony. At the end of the war in 1945. Vietnam declared independence from Japanese and French control. ° Southern Asia had been under British rule since 1858. That changed in 1947. India was partitioned in 1947, creating two countries: Pakistan and India. Both countries struggled to establish their new relationship and economies. India undertook economic reforms: o 1960: The state passed land reform, but they were overturned by courts. o 1963: Tenants won the right to purchase land from landowners. o 1969: New laws allow tenants to become frill owners of land. o 1974: Laws provide for fixed hours of work and minimum wages. TOPIC 8.5 Decolonization After 1900 Decolonization in Ghana and Algeria ° Britain agreed to negotiate independence for its West African colony of the Gold Coast, just as it had for its colonies in South Asia. o The Gold Coast combined with the former British Togoland to form Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence in the 20th century. o Ideas from modern nation-states influenced Ghanaian nationalism. ° In northern Africa, the French colony of Algeria endured far more violence than Ghana before becoming independent. Mounting social, political, and economic crises in Algeria resulted in political protests. o Many Algerians, driven by feelings of nationalism, campaigned for independence after World War II. The Algerian War for Independence began in 1954, and it involved many groups. o In 1958, French President Charles de Gaulle had a new mandate for expanded presidential power under the constitution of the new Fifth Republic. De Gaulle planned the steps through which Algeria would gain independence. Nationalism and Division in Vietnam ° World War II interrupted France’s long colonial rule in Indochina, but France reoccupied the southern portion of Vietnam when the war ended. ° A bloody struggle began against the forces of Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam. ° Ho Chi Minh appealed to nationalist feelings to unite the country under a single communist government. ° France responded by attempting to reestablish its colonial rule, sparking a Vietnamese war of independence that lasted until 1954. ° War broke out between the communist North and the South. Struggles and Compromise in Egypt ° Having long been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt became a nominally independent kingdom in 1922. ° However, the British retained some of the same treaty rights there that they had held under their mandate following World War I. ° A 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty allowed more Egyptian autonomy. ° The Suez Crisis began on October 29, 1956, when Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal after Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70) nationalized the canal, a valuable waterway that controlled two-thirds of the oil used by Europe. TOPIC 8.6 Newly Independent States Israel’s Founding and Its Relationships with Neighbors ° The Zionist movement originated in the 1890s from reaction to the Dreyfus Affair. ° Zionists hoped that the new state could be established in Palestine because that was where their ancestors had lived. In modern times, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, and most of its inhabitants were Arabs who practiced Islam. ° In a new state, Zionists argued, Jews could be free of persecution ° In 1915, after World War I, Britain was given a mandate over former Ottoman lands in the Middle East. Soon Zionists began to immigrate to Palestine from Europe and from other Middle Eastern areas ° World War II and the deaths of six million Jews in the Holocaust provided another impetus for Jewish immigration. ° War broke out immediately between Israel, which had support from the United States, and the Palestinians, who had support front neighboring Arab countries Women Gain Power in South Asia ° In some newly emerging countries, women became heads of state. Often, they replaced their fathers or husbands. ° In India and Pakistan, women won the right to vote in 1947. ° The world’s first female prime minister was Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She won that position in 1960 in Ceylon (later Sri Lanka). ° In 1966, two years after the death of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, his only child, Indira Gandhi, became India’s leader. ° Pakistan elected Benazir Bhutto prime minister in 1988. She was the first elected female leader of a majority Muslim country. TOPIC 8.7 End of the Cold War Nonviolent Resistance as a Path to Change ° The most prominent of African American civil rights leaders in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s was a Baptist minister, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights movement used various tactics to achieve its goals: o Court decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that banned forced racial segregation of schools in the United States o A year-long boycott of public buses in Montgomery, Alabama ( 1955-1956), which ended segregation in public transit o Massive marches, such as the 250,000-person March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1964 ° In South Africa, the white-minority government codified a system of racial segregation, called apartheid into law in the 20th century. Leading the black resistance to apartheid was a socialist lawyer, Nelson Mandela. He was known for leading nonviolent protests. 1968: The Year of Revolt ° In Yugoslavia, students marched against the authoritarian government. ° In Poland and Northern Ireland, people protested over religious issues. ° In Brazil, marchers demanded improvements in public education and fairer treatment of workers. ° In Japan, students protested both university financial policies and government support for the United States in the war in Vietnam. An Age of Terrorism ° The Catholic-Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland became more violent in the l960s with Catholics fighting as part of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Protestants with the Ulster Defense Association. Some members of the IRA took their independence campaign to England by engaging in acts of terrorism, the use of violence to achieve political ends. ° Another group that used terrorist tactics to advance a political agenda was the Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) organization, founded in 1959, which wanted independence for the Basque region in northern Spain. ETA actions killed more than 800 people and injured many others. ° One of the deadliest groups was al-Qaeda. Financed by Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda carried out attacks in many countries, including one in the United States on September 11, 2001.