To What Extent Did Events In The Final Years Of Wwii Turn War Time Allies Into Cold War Enemies?

To what extent did events in the final years of WWII turn war time allies into cold war enemies?


In 1945, the USSR, Britain and USA met as allies to discuss a peaceful future for Europe, first in Yalta and later in Potsdam. It is my intention to show how the events which drew WWII to a close, also, to a large extent became the seeds of future conflict. I will focus in particular on how thetwo superpowers responded to these situations. It is important to examine how the final events, Yalta, Potsdam, the red army’s position in Europe, changing leadership of USA and UK and the dropping of the atom bomb in Hiroshima antagonised possibilities of peace.

The end of war in itself means, that there was no common interest holding the USA and the USSR together and so there was already astrong like hood of them becoming enemies. Both countries, the USA and the USSR, had very different ideologies. Firstly they had two great economic differences; the USA though individuals should be able to compete with each other with a minimum of state interference and make as much money as they which. On the other side, the USSR though all businesses and farms should be owned by the state on behalfat the people, which this meant goods will be distributed to individuals by the state. Capitalism and communism are completely different, where the USA (capitalist) individuals work hard for the individual reports, which implies the expand of the market whereas in the USSR (communism) everyone worked for a collective good which implies trade only between communists countries. They also had agreat difference in political ideas. The capitalist individuals choose the government through voting where there is a range of political parties to choose from. Individuals have certain rights, such as freedom of speech; this is known as liberal democracy. But the communists had no range of parties, the communist party represents the views of all the workers, here individual freedom is not necessary;this is a one-party state.

The Yalta conference had already shown that the wartime allies had very different ideas on what Europe after the war should look like. This was to sow seeds of conflict for later on. Firstly Poland presented the greatest problem because, now the war had ended, where would the line of its borders be drawn and what would the political make-up of the post-wargovernment? The problem of the border lines was solved, but the political make-up no. Stalin agreed the establishment of a more democratic government in Poland, which was followed by ‘free-elections’. This became a problem; the British supported a group called ‘London Poles’, which were a pre-war government that had fled to England in 1939 but the Russians wanted the communist-dominated Lublin Committee inPoland to form the new post-war government. Also Eastern Europe was a great problem between Britain and the USSR. They agreed that Stalin would have some countries which he could control as USA aid. So they agreed that there should be ‘free-elections’. So this was perceived by USA and Britain as victory, but indeed, the population of Eastern Europe could have free elections but only betweencommunists’ countries. This was extremely unfair and would create problems in a future.

The Potsdam conference revealed that attitudes had hardened still further between the two sides, making a cold war conflict more likely. Roosevelt died and he was replaced by Truman who was very anti-communists. Truman was not happy about the agreement over Poland. He also insisted that the polish governmentshould be ‘reorganized’. They did not feel that there had been a ‘free and democratic’ vote and Stalin wanted to include Lublin Poles which had communists’ ideas and this did not benefit the USA in any way. Also the Red army was instructed to co-operate only with representatives of Lublin Poles. Another fact was that Truman did not tell the whole story about the atom bomb. They started developing it...