Timelines of the Cold War and the End of Empire

The Cold War and decolonization happened in roughly the same period of time. They were, to many people, one experience rather than two. Each influenced the way that the other developed. For these reasons, we tend to study these two trends together.

In many ways, the Cold War began before the Second World War even ended. The leaders of the big victorious powers, especially the United States and the Soviet Union, but also Great Britain, met several times during the last years of the Second World War. They tried to figure out what the post-war world would look like. The world would come to be divided into two separate spheres. One would be communist and Soviet-dominated. The other would be capitalist and US-dominated.

The Cold War timeline

In 1947, US President Harry Truman said he would support anti-communist governments anywhere in the world. What followed was a series of confrontations. They began with a Soviet blockade in Berlin, Germany in 1949. The victory of communist forces in China in 1949 spread this conflict to Asia. It resulted in the Korean War of 1950- 1953. Also in 1953, US-supported military leaders overthrew the Prime Minister of Iran, suspected of supporting the Soviet Union. In early 1959, communist rebels in Cuba overthrew a US-aligned government. The conflict quickly expanded in Central America and the Caribbean.

The conflict spread to Southeast Asia. US forces supported southern Vietnam as communist China and the Soviets supported northern Vietnam. In the late 1970s, Cold War confrontations really flared in southern Africa. They also
picked up steam in the Americas. Both of these regional conflicts continued into the 1980s. The communist governments of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed between 1989 and 1991.

The decolonization timeline

At the same time, much of the world was decolonizing. Societies everywhere were rejecting their colonizers. They were becoming independent, self-ruling nation-states. Movements to end colonialism had been in motion for a long time, but they only really took hold at the end of the Second World War. When Italy was defeated in 1945, some former Italian colonies—including Libya—became independent. Similarly, the former Japanese colony of Korea became two independent countries.

In the late 1940s, other countries began to win their independence. Probably the biggest change was the independence of the British colony of India in 1947. In 1954, in the French colony of Indochina—made up of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—Vietnamese forces defeated the French military. Vietnam became independent. Elections were planned for 1956.

In 1957, Ghana became the first independent sub-Saharan African country. The “year of Africa”—1960—saw seventeen colonies gain independence. In the Caribbean, Jamaica won its independence in 1962. Many other islands did soon after. But the process was slowed where there were European settlers. In southern Africa, in particular, it continued into the early 1990s.

Entanglements I: The view of anti-colonial leaders

Why did we give you these two, condensed, possibly confusing timelines? If your eyes just moved over those dates quickly, we don’t blame you. But go back and just see how those two timelines are connected.

The Cold War and decolonization didn’t just overlap in terms of the timing. They also overlapped in at least two other ways.

First, each trend was linked by the actions of anti-colonial leaders. These leaders were always looking for allies to help them achieve independence. Their own struggle was happening in the battleground of a conflict between two great powers. Naturally, they thought that one or both of those powers might help them. Many leaders of decolonization movements tried to get either the United States or the Soviet Union on their side.

Entanglements II: The view from the two superpowers

The Cold War and decolonization were also linked by the actions of the two superpowers. The US said that it supported democracy and free markets. The Soviet Union promised to liberate workers from capitalist, imperial rule. That meant both the US and the USSR could be recruited to help anti-colonial movements. Both superpowers declared themselves to be anti-empire. Though some historians argue they were really building empires of their own. The Soviets treated Eastern European states almost like colonies. They often tried to dominate their allies around the world. The United States practiced a kind of informal imperialism. They replaced leaders they did not like in other countries. Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile were prime examples. As a result, many leaders of independence movements in the 1960s and 1970s tried to be “nonaligned.” They tried to not pick a side. But in the end, many of these leaders faced interference from either the Americans or the Soviets. So they had to turn to the other side for help anyway.

Whether you were a superpower or the leader of an independence movement, you needed allies. That’s how the Cold War and decolonization became so deeply entangled.

Differing perspectives

From the perspective of many people engaged in these struggles, the Cold War and decolonization seemed like one experience. It did not appear to be two separate things. Imagine a farmer in Vietnam supporting her country’s independence from French rule. She likely saw the intervention of United States forces in the 1960s as just a continuation of colonial rule by Western powers. It would not have felt like something new.

Looking back, historians are able to separate these two long conflicts. We can see different motives from different people. It seems so obvious that the Cold War was a fight between two superpowers. We can also clearly see how and why people in colonies craved independence. But at the time, decolonization and the Cold War were deeply entangled.