Cardinal Mindszenty
https://youtu.be/IH7rFQWP0Lk In February 1949 Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty was convicted of treason by the Hungarian Communist People’s Court. The Cardinal had been an outspoken critic of the persecution of Jews by the Hungarian fascist government during WWII....
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Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
https://youtu.be/dx2IUWXBcoQ In 1949, in response to the 1947 U.S.-backed Marshall Plan, eastern European countries established the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance...
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Pingjin Campaign
https://youtu.be/wdTPFW6RZPo Pingjing Campaign (Wikipedia) People's Liberation Army enters Peking January 1949 (Wikipedia) The Pingjin Campaign was part of the three major campaigns launched by the People's Liberation Army during the late stage of the Chinese Civil...
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General Elections in Korea
In May 1948 the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) arrived in Seoul to set up supervised Korean elections, after which the country would become independent of U.S. and Soviet control. Rejecting U.N. supervision of elections, Northern Korea blocked...
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Jeju Uprising
Jeju Island is a 40km x 90km island province of South Korea 120 km south of the Korean Peninsula The Jeju uprising, which began on April 3, 1948, resulted in extreme suppression by the South Korean Army, police and right-wing paramilitary groups. The rebellion...
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Communists Take Over Czechoslovakia
Summary of 1948 events in Czechoslovakia from MACROHISTORY Feb 8 - The Czechoslovakian Communist party, in cooperation with the General Confederation of Labor and left-wing Social Democrats, is preparing measures to nationalize apartment houses, office buildings and...
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Hollywood Black List
In October 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee (created in 1938) re-convened in Washington D.C. for public hearings on alleged communist infiltration within the American motion picture industry. 50 top Hollywood executives decided to suspend those who...
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Post-WWII USSR
Here is an optimistic view of postwar relationships between Great Britain and the USSR. To get a sense of life in the USSR in 1947 it's worth fast forwarding through these interesting, rather upbeat color scenes of everyday life. You don't need to...
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Korean Turmoil
In 1945 the unconditional surrender of Japan led to the division of Korea into two occupation zones. The 1945 division of Korea was meant to be temporary. The stated Allied intention was to reunify the country once a single government could be...
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Voice of America Calls USSR
Established in 1942 for Allied propaganda broadcasts during WWII, the Voice of America (VOA) continued broadcasts after the war aimed mostly at Western Europe. In September 1947, VOA began broadcasts aimed at the Soviet Union with: “Hello! This is New...
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Truman Doctrine
The purpose of the Truman Doctrine delineated in 1947 was to counter geopolitical expansion of the Soviet Union. Initially, in place of direct military action, the U.S. Congress appropriated financial aid to support the economies and militaries of Greece and Turkey....
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Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) In 1893, Mao Zedong was born into a prosperous peasant family in Hunan Province, After an elementary school education, Mao began working the fields at age 13. At age 17, he enrolled in a secondary school in Changsha, the capital...
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Joseph Stalin
Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, born in December 1878 in Georgia, assumed the name Stalin (man of steel) in his 30s. Growing up the poor, only child of a shoemaker and laundress, he attended a Georgian Orthodox seminary as a young man. Inspired by the works of Karl...
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Chinese Civil War Resumes
The civil war between Chinese Nationalists and Communists, begun in 1927, was put on hold during the fight against Imperial Japan in WWII. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalists agreed to peace talks and a...
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North & South Korea
This rapid-fire video is an excellent summary of Korean history since the 19th century. The division of Korea between North and South occurred after WWII, ending the Empire of Japan's 35-year rule over Korea in 1945. The United States and the Soviet Union occupied two...
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Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh, born in 1880 into the family of a poor country scholar as Nguyen Sinh Cung (also called Nguyen Tat Thanh or Nguyen Ai Quoc) attended grammar school in Hue, taught school in Phan Thiet, and was apprenticed at a technical institute in Saigon. In 1911...
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Soviet Propaganda
This quirky, undated Soviet propaganda film reflects the Communist view of Western imperialism during the Cold War.
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He May Be a Communist
While a bit over-the-top (Jack Webb?), this U.S. Army film made in 1950 reflects the post-WWII Cold War mentality.
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Kim Il-sung
From the Korean Movie: 백두산 전편 (Mount Paektu - First part) The words in the film are from the North Korean poet Cho Ki-chon's epic poem Mt. Paektu written in 1947. The poem relates the (possibly exaggerated?) story of the guerilla fighter Kim Il sung in the 1937 Battle...
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The Iron Curtain
In March 1946, as the Green Lecturer at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivered a lecture entitled the "Sinews of Peace" that became known as the "Iron Curtain Speech." "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "iron...
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Chinese Civil War Resumes
The Chinese Civil War fought between the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China (CPC) began in 1927. After a temporary truce to collaborate in the fight against Japanese aggression in China, the civil war resumed in...
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Animal Farm
George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm, published in 1945, described his book as an allegorical account of events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. George Orwell was the nom de plum of Eric Blair, a...
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The Long Telegram
In 1946, the American Chargé d’Affaires in Moscow George F. Kennan proposed the concept of "containment" in his famous 8,000-word "long telegram" to the U.S. State Department. These suggestions became the foundation of U.S. Cold War policy in the 1940s. in 1947,...
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COLD WAR BEGINS
After the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, most Americans viewed Communism as a threat to the Western democracies. Communist rhetoric envisioning the overthrow of capitalism was common in Depression-era America. Before WWII, both American and Soviet...
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Understanding Korea
Ancient Korea Gojoseon, Korea's legendary first kingdom, was founded in 2333 B.C.E. After its collapse, several small kingdoms coalesced into the Three Kingdoms Period (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla) around the year zero C.E. Gradually assuming power, Silla consolidated...
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