Second World War
During the Second World War the Soviet Union, USA and Britain formed an
alliance to fight against Nazi, Germany. Winston Churchill, prime minister of
Britain, named the alliance, The Grand Alliance. The Soviet Union, USA and
Britain were ruled in different ideologies, USA and Britain are capitalist
countries, whereas the Soviet Union is a communist country. Roosevelt,
Churchill and Stalin were referred to as the big three as they dominated world
politics until Roosevelt’s death in 1945.
Tehran Conference, November 1943
The grand alliance first met in Tehran to plan a winning strategy to end the war.
AGREEMENTS MADE AT TEHRAN:
➔ The USA and Britain would open up a second front by launching an attack
on Germany through Western Europe. This was because the Soviet Union
was suffering on the Western Front.
➔ The Soviet Union would help the USA defeat Japan and send troops - but
only when the war in Europe was over.
➔ The countries discussed what would happen to Germany when the war
was over, no agreements were made.
Stalin showed up to the Tehran conference, worried, as he thought the USA and
Britain were holding up putting up a second front to weaken the Soviet Union as
they had a lot of power.
Yalta Conference, February 1945
Two years after the first conference, the big three decided to have another one.
By this time, the second front had been put up.
AGREEMENTS MADE AT YALTA:
➔ After the war, Germany would be split into 4 zones, each controlled by a
different country. Germany would pay 20 billion in reparations, half of
which would go to the Soviet Union.
➔ A United Nations would be set up, with its first meeting on 25th April,
1945.
➔ Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan, 3 months after Germany was
defeated.
➔ Stalin agreed that future governments of countries in Eastern Europe
would be decided in elections.
,Potsdam Conference, July-August 1945
Roosevelt died and was replaced by Harry S. Truman. Winston Churchill and the
Conservative Party lost the 1945 general election. The new Labour prime
minister was Clement Attlee. Germany had surrendered in May 1945. Scientists
in the USA developed an atomic bomb.
AGREEMENTS MADE AT POTSDAM:
➔ Germany would be divided into four zones, the USA, Britain, Soviet Union
and France.
➔ Berlin would also be divided into four zones, same countries. It was based
inside a Soviet controlled zone.
Beginning of the bad relations
After the war, Stalin wanted to take control of Eastern Europe as he saw this as a
good defence for the Soviet Union, however Truman saw this as Stalin trying to
spread communism across the globe.
The impact of the atom bomb on US-Soviet relations
On 6th August 1945, the USA exploded an atom bomb over the Japanese city of
Hirishoma and Nagasaki which was on the 9th August. It was estimated that
about over 120,000 Japanese civilians were killed. Some historians say that the
USA really used the bombs to establish a stronger bargaining position with the
Soviet Union. The development of the atomic bomb made the countries of
Western Europe feel more secure about being under America’s protection,
rather than making an agreement with the Soviet Union. Stalin now felt even
more determined to make the Soviet Union secure. He wanted to make a buffer
zone of countries between Germany and the Soviet Union’s borders. The Soviet
Union started to work on their own atomic bomb and their first successful test
was on 29th August 1949, four years after the USA. By 1964, Britain, France and
China also had an atomic bomb. They entered an arms race where each side
tried to make their weapons more powerful than that of the opposing side.
Rising tensions: the Kennan Long telegram and the Novikov telegram
In 1946, both the USA and the Soviet Union asked their embassies to report on
attitudes in each other’s countries. These reports were sent over in the form of
telegrams. George Kennan, America’s ambassador in Moscow, had lived and
worked in the Soviet Union as a diplomat. Kennan’s telegram was long compared
to the average short one and so it was called the long telegram. He reported that
Stalin wanted to see the destruction of capitalism and that he felt the world
outside of the Soviet Union was hostile and looking to destroy communism.
, Kennan believed that the USSR was not suicidal and would back down with
strong resistance. Nikolai Novikov was a Soviet diplomat working in Washington.
His telegram said that the USA wanted to use their massive military power to
dominate the world.
Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech
In March 1946, Winston Churchill was no longer prime minister. On a visit to
Fulton, Missouri he gave a speech. In the speech he made it clear that the Soviet
Union was a threat to freedom and world peace. He was provoked to make his
speech by the fact that communist governments had recently been set up in
Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.
The creation of Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe
The impact of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan
After the war, many countries were very destroyed such as homes, buildings and
infrastructures. Communism looked very good to those countries as wealth
would be distributed. When the British government announced in 1947 that it
could no longer provide military support to the Greek government against
communist guerrillas, President Truman decided to take action. On 12th March
1947, President Truman delivered a speech to the US congress. The speech was
delivered to provide $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey and American
civilians and personnel to the region. In the Truman doctrine, he offered military
and economic aid to those countries trying to resist communism. The Truman
Doctrine was a containment for communism. The Marshall Plan was the
practical/economical arm of the Truman Doctrine. It provided economic aid to
help war-torn countries in order to stop the spread of communism from taking
over in Western Europe. Between 1948 and 1952, the USA gave $12.7 billion
dollars of aid, including the additional $13 billion that was offered before the
Marshall plan went into action.
‘Dollar imperialism’ - the Soviet response
Stalin argued that the Marshall Plan was a way of using economic might to divide
Europe in two and establish an American economic empire in Europe.
The Soviets called this ‘dollar imperialism’.
● Any belief that there was still a grand alliance was gone.
● Stalin’s suspicions of the West were reinforced.
● The Marshall Plan successfully tied Western European countries into
supporting the USA.
● The history of Europe for the next 50 years became one of intense rivalry.
