COLD

WAR

Potsdam and the Cold War

The final World War II conference between
allied leaders transitioned the victors into a
new more deadly era that was called the Cold
War.
Wartime

alliances were now replaced with

suspicion and animosity as the nations of the
world witnessed a competition for proxy states
and satellites in the global conflict between
Liberal democracy and Communism.

CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR

The Soviet Union wanted to spread its ideology of

communism worldwide, which alarmed the Americans
who followed [LIBERAL] democracy.
The acquisition of atomic weapons by America caused fear
among the Soviets.
Both countries feared an attack from each other.
The Soviet Unions action of taking control over Eastern
Europe was a major factor for US suspicions.
The US President had a personal dislike of the Soviet
leader Josef Stalin.
America was annoyed by the Soviet Unions actions in the
part of Germany it had occupied.
The Soviets feared that America would use Western
Europe as a base to attack it.

BACKGROUND

Even

before the end of the 2nd World War, the

Soviet Union had gradually extended her
influence in Europe.
By the fall of 1944, the Red Army had liberated
and controlled a large part of eastern Europe.
By 1945, at the Yalta Conference, the Soviet
Union obtained the Curzon Line as her new
boundary line with Poland and also the control
of the eastern zone of Germany.
As the war was drawing to a close in May 1945,
the Soviet Union quickly consolidated her control
of eastern Europe.

 Despite

the increasing Russian influence

in eastern and central Europe, many
politicians in the United States were
optimistic about the chances of cooperation with the Soviet Union after
the war and did not advocate strong
resistance against Russian expansion.

But

from May 1945 onwards, the

situation was changed.

 The

U.S. government favored a policy of strong

resistance against Russia.

The

first reason was that President Roosevelt died

on April 12, 1945. He was succeeded by Harry S.

Truman.
President

Roosevelt was an optimistic man. He

seemed to have believed that although eastern
Europe had fallen under the influence of Russia, the
Russians would nonetheless keep her promise (made
at Yalta) by setting up freely-elected
parliamentary governments in the area.

So

Roosevelt did not advocate strong resistance

against Russian expansion.

 The

second reason was that just before

the Potsdam Conference was to take

place, the United States had successfully
exploded her atomic bomb.
President

Truman thought that since

the United States alone possessed the
atomic bomb, she could adopt a stiff
attitude towards Russian expansion in
Europe.

 The

third reason was that President Truman

was disgusted at the non-co-operative attitude

of the Russians at the Potsdam Conference.
Russia

was determined to exact heavy

reparations from Germany.

Russia

also accused the British of upholding a

reactionary monarchy in Greece and supporting
an Italian Fascist regime in Trieste.

Stalin

also blocked Truman's proposal on the

internationalization of all principal

waterways.

DETERIORATION OF RELATIONS

The deteriorating relations between the Soviet Union

and the United States were reflected in two minor
incidents in the year.
Land-Lease Program was abruptly terminated by
the United States and

During the Second World War, the U.S. supplied

much war material to the Allied nations through
a Lend and Lease program.

As the Lend and Lease program was suddenly

stopped, the war-ravaged Soviet Union could not
obtain American material support to help her
post-war economic reconstruction.
1.

The Russian request for American economic aid for the

purposes of post-war reconstruction was ignored by the
government of the United States.

 The

poor relations between the East and West

were also reflected in a speech by Winston
Churchill.
In March 1946, Churchill made a speech at
Fulton, Missouri in which he said,
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in
the Adriatic, an iron curtain has
descended across the continent ....
Behind that line lie all the capitals of
the central and eastern Europe - all are
subject in one form or another not only
to Soviet influence but also to a very
high and increasing control from
Moscow."

TRUMAN DOCTRINE

On March 12, 1947, President Truman enunciated the

Truman Doctrine.
The essence of the Doctrine was that "it must be the
policy of the United States to support free peoples
who are resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside pressure."
was clearly an anti-communist doctrine.
This amounted to an American declaration of war
upon Communist Russia.
This

 President

Truman followed his speech with

massive military and economic aid to Greece
and Turkey.
(The communist guerillas were defeated by
the American troops in 1948 in both Greece
and Turkey.)

With the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine

of March 1947 and the launching of the
Marshall Plan, the United States was clearly
leading the western nations to resist Russian
Communist expansionist activities in Europe.
Cold War thus begun.

The Potsdam Conference and the Cold War

The Final Meeting of Allied Leaders in WW II Began
a New Era of Wars
July 17, 1945 would be the last time the Big Three
Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, and Harry Truman,
would ever meet.
Truman had replaced Franklin Roosevelt earlier that
year when FDR died.
Churchill himself would be replaced before the
conference ended, having lost parliamentary elections in
Britain.
The new PM, Clement Attlee, would be inconsequential,
symbolic perhaps of the British Empire itself.
The Potsdam Conference would represent the first
crucial step in the origins of the Cold War.

First Signs of the Pending Cold War

History

writer Douglas Botting writes that,

The Potsdam conference was destined to

benot so much the finale to a past
conflict as the overture to a new one
the worldwide tremor of the Cold
War
Although

reparations issues were settled at the

conference, more ominous results involved a
Soviet-led Poland, recreated at the expense
of Germanys eastern frontier.

 The

American atomic bomb test in

New Mexico took place the day before the

Potsdam Conference began.
It

would be the subtle bargaining chip

Truman would hold over Stalin, not
knowing that the Soviets were already
working on their own bomb, a feat that
ended with a successful test four years
later.

 The

bomb, though used to end the war with

Japan, would ultimately be deemed a sterile
weapon in the face of Soviet divisions parked
across the European divide.

Yet

atomic bomb production would lead to the

hydrogen bomb, ICBMs, and a deadly arms

race characteristic of the Cold War and
producing such policies as mutually assured
destruction.

BUILDING OF ALLIANCES

Although the Soviet Union and China started off as allies in 1949
there emerged an estrangement between them, which was cleverly
exploited by the Americans.
The US formed an alliance with China in 1971 to contain the Soviet
Union.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1980, which led to the
United States and its allies boycotting the 1980 Olympic games in
Moscow.
In retaliation, the Soviet Union and its allies boycotted the 1984
Olympic games in Los Angeles, USA.
The US financed and armed the Afghan guerrillas to fight against the
Soviet troops.
The Afghan War was a major factor in bankrupting the Soviet Union.

 In

the '80s President Ronald Reagan of the

US dubbed the Soviet Union as an "evil
empire" and predicted that it would be
consigned to the ash heap of history.

He

announced a major weapons buildup and

the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) also
dubbed "Star Wars".

The

Soviet Union was too economically

enfeebled to reply in kind.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the

Soviet Union.

In

He

adopted a conciliatory attitude towards the

Americans and many arms reduction pacts were
signed.

In

1989 there was a Soviet withdrawal from

Afghanistan and in 1990 the Soviets agreed to the
reunification of Germany.

Movements

against communist governments in Eastern

Europe followed the Berlin event.

As the decade came to an end, much of the Eastern Bloc began to

crumble.
Hungarian government took down the barbed wire on its border
with Austria and the West. The Soviet Union did nothing in response.
Although travel was still not completely free, the Iron Curtain was
starting to unravel.

The

November 10, 1989, one of the most famous symbols of the Cold
War came down: the Berlin Wall.

On
By

the end of the year, leaders of every Eastern European nation except
Bulgaria had been ousted by popular uprisings.

By

mid-1990, many of the Soviet republics had declared their

independence.

Turmoil

in the Soviet Union continued, as there were several attempts

at overthrowing Gorbachev.

On

December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Boris

Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic, formed the

Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.).

After

45 years, the Cold War was over.

EFFECTS OF THE COLD WAR

Both the United States of America and the Soviet Union built up
huge arsenals of atomic weapons and ballistic missiles.
The military blocs NATO and The Warsaw Pact were formed

The Warsaw Pact is the name commonly given to the treaty between Albania,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the
Soviet Union, which was signed in Poland in 1955 and was officially called 'The
Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance'.

It led to destructive conflicts like the Vietnam War and the Korean
War.
The Soviet Union collapsed due to economic weaknesses.
The Berlin Wall was demolished and the two German nations were
unified.
The Warsaw Pact disintegrated.
The

Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved in Prague in 1991,

after successive governments withdrew their support of the
treaty.

The Baltic States and some former Soviet republics achieved

independence.
America became the sole superpower [Hegemony] of the world.
Communism collapsed in most part of the world, especially in
Eastern Europe.