Unit 9 DBQ AMSCO European History - Withrow

Document 1
Let us not speak about promises but about realities. The peasants had always lived under terror, they did not have faith because they had been deceived, they did not have hope. While the enemy [the troops supporting Batista took away everything, stole everything, and did not pay for what they took, in spite of the many millions they had, the Rebel Army did the opposite. Nothing stopped Batista's Army from stealing personal belongings from the peasants, which were sold later. When they did not find anything to take, they just burned the houses. How little they thought about the efforts that had been needed to build them!

How easily they burned houses! How easily they murdered people! The conduct of the Rebel Army gained little by little the peasants' confidence, their love, and gave them faith in the final victory. We never took anything from the peasants without paying for it, we never invaded their houses.

The Rebel Army never took anything that had not been spontaneously offered. Never a rebel soldier humiliated a peasant.

Document 2

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory.

Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are its limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin.

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... It is my duty, however... for me to state the facts as I see them to you.

... From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the population around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high degree... of control from Moscow. If the Western democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter ... no one is likely to molest them. If however they become divided or falter in their duty... then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.

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Document 3
(Unity] binds the 14 nations of the Atlantic Alliance together. I stress the word unity because that is what matters more than anything else: that is the real answer to the threat of aggression, that is what potential enemies fear more than anything else; that is what they want to destroy more than anything else. We must be on guard against the sometimes persuasive whispers and insinuations of propagandists who seek to magnify our differences and try to drive a wedge in our unity. Nations cannot afford to stand alone to be picked off one by one. We have the eloquent evidence of countries that formerly were free, independent, and important members of the Western European community, who now have fallen under the domination and imperialistic exploitation of the Soviet. Clearly we must arm up to the limit in order to be as strong as possible as rapidly as possible, but not at the expense of national bankruptcy. We cannot afford, through excessive haste to avert the hot war, to lose the cold one. Our alliance, it cannot be too often repeated, is purely defensive. Not a ship, not a plane, not a gun will ever be used except in self-defense. And no one knows better than the Soviet General Staff that the forces we plan are of a magnitude which can never be put to offensive or aggressive purposes.

Document 5
Imperialism is weakening. Colonial empires and other forms of foreign oppression of peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America are gradually disappearing from the stage of history. Great successes have been achieved in the struggle of many peoples for national independence and equality...

The governments of countries participating in the Conference resolutely reject the view that war, including the "cold war," is inevitable as this view reflects a sense both of helplessness and hopelessness and is contrary to the progress of the world. They affirm their unwavering faith that the international community is able to organize its life without resorting to means which actually belong to a past epoch of human history.

Document 7
On March 12, President Truman addressed a message to the U.S. Congress asking for 400 million dollars to be assigned for urgent aid to Greece and Turkey, and for authority to send to those countries American civil and military personnel, and to provide for the training by Americans by specially picked Greek and Turkish personnel....

Commenting on Truman's message to Congress, the New York Times proclaims the advent of "the age of American responsibility. Yet what is this responsibility but a smokescreen for expansion? The cry of saving Greece and Turkey from the expansion of the so-called "totalitarian states" is not new. Hitler used to refer to the Bolsheviks when he wanted to open the road for his own conquests. Now they want to take Greece and Turkey under their control, they raise a din about "totalitarian states." This seems all the more attractive since, in elbowing in itself, the U.S.A. is pushing non-totalitarian Britain out of yet another country or two.