Berlin Blockade Document Analysis

Document Analysis

1. What type of document is this? What is its purpose?
     Both documents are primary sources.  They are both to the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington DC.  They are to give information to the US with regards for the Soviet Unions plans about Berlin.

2. When was it written? Why is that significant?
     They were both written on the same day, 30 June 1948.  This means that they sent and received just a few days after the letter was written (I think).


3. Who created the document? Who received the document?
     A spy from the US created the documents to share with the president and the Central Intelligence Agency.


4. Who is Marshal Sokolovsky?
     Marshal Sokolovsky was the German general who thought up/ presented the plans of what to do with Berlin.


5. How did the CIA get information of the meeting between Marshal Sokolovsky and German members of the German industrial committee?
     A spy sent by the US had gained access to the meeting between Marshal Sokolovsky and the German members of the GIC.  We obviously have good spies...

6. What were the three Soviet alternatives as they presented themselves when this document was written? What policy did the Soviets pursue over the course of the next nine months? Why?
     The three different choices that the Soviet Union came up with was to start a war with the United States, lift the travel restrictions from Berlin, or give up Berlin to the western part of it, which would also mean giving them the rail lines.  The Soviets decided to go with plan three, which would let them recover their food suplies and make the US and Britain feed the whole of Berlin by themselves...?  Or they would have to lift the travel restrictions into Berlin.
 
7. Stalin stated in a speech on February 9, 1946, "he [Stalin] blamed the last war on 'capitalist monopolies' and warning that, since the same forces still operated, the USSR must treble the basic materials of national defense such as iron and steel, double coal and oil production, and to delay the manufacture of consumer goods until rearmament was complete." Who are the "capitalist monopolies?" How does this statement enlighten the Soviet viewpoint against the United States? Were the Allies justified in canceling the shipments of German reparations to the Soviets at the end of World War II? Why did the Soviets rely so heavily on Germany for food and industry?        
     Stalin was trying to gain support from his followers.  He wanted to make the Us look bad by telling them that they were trying to stop Soviet Union.  He wanted to stock up his weapons and fule for the probability of a war that was bound to happen between the US and the USSR.  He tried to make the US look like the bad guys and turn people against them.