The Breakdown of Allied Cooperation and the Resumption of the Cold War

Abstract

Britain’s alliance with the Soviet Union during the Second World War was one dictated by a common enemy. It was a détente of sorts between two ideologically opposed imperial rivals. With the breakdown of Allied cooperation soon after the war, Cold War tensions returned, intensified by the introduction of nuclear weapons, US interventionism, and Soviet-dominated cultural warfare. Examined here in Part II, these issues were thus incorporated into the imperial conflict. In Cyprus, for example, AKEL combined its enosis campaign against British colonialism with its peace campaign against Anglo-American nuclear warmongering. In Hong Kong, while avoiding antagonizing the colonial government, the CCP continued to expand its influence in the cultural fronts of education and labour.