End of the War

The Second World War ended European colonialism. European nations had been weakened by the war, and their people avoided war. Revolts in colonies in Africa and Asia generally ended with the colonial powers withdrawing peacefully, sometimes after periods of guerrilla warfare. Many rebels had received combat experience during the war; often rebel groups were communist. Their uprisings for independence, land reform or other goals helped fuel fears of a global communist takeover—especially since eastern Europe had fallen under the control of the USSR at war’s end and communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949—and western nations often supplied aid or even military support to suppress them.

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