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The Cold War

Rhiannon Turnbull-Innis

Since the First World War tensions around the world remained intact. But in an environment post-war economic difficulty, political, directly affecting the people, even countries that called themselves "allies" could not remain on good terms. It is in these circumstances that the Second World War took place and after it, the Cold War. There were several events that participated in the beginnings of this war between three major powers of World War II, Britain included among these, but especially the USSR and the United States. There is much speculation about what was the starting point of this war. Many share the assumption that Yalta and Potsdam represent the beginning of the Cold War. By cons, the true beginning of this war is marked by speeches by the totalitarian leader of the USSR, Josef Stalin, and former Prime Minister of Britain, Winston Churchill, who respectively took place between the months of February and March 1946. The Yalta and Potsdam are the early voltages. The speeches of Stalin and Churchill

demonstrate an undisguised hostility, and the Truman doctrines and Zhdanov illustrate this even more hostility. The Yalta Conference took place from February 4 to 11, 1945. Josef Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met near Yalta in Russia to discuss some important points about World War II, including its purpose, the distribution of territory among the allies, and to keep the world stable and free of war after the second Great War has ended. The conference took place in an atmosphere that was very pleasant and amicable, though beneath the surface there was something hostile happening between the Soviet, British and American representatives. Therefore, the atmosphere, as usual, is warm and even gay [1]." Despite this description of a pleasant ambience, the Yalta conference had not started off right. Stalin refused to have the conference outside of Russia and even repeatedly refused the suggestions offered by Churchill and Roosevelt. "It forced Roosevelt, weakened by illness, to a long and difficult trip [2]." The disrespect that shows from Stalin against the President of the United States is highlighted by this gesture, and shows the two great powers that Stalin considered superior to them. At the conference, tensions continue to escalate. The three leaders could not decide about the direction they should take. Against Germany, the three powers had not been able to decide how it would be fragmented, but Churchill was able to convince Stalin that France would have a part of that territory, something that was a loss to Stalin, and he hesitated to agree. Faced with the question of Poland, Stalin was in a good position for negotiations, because Roosevelt wanted to make sure to get aid for the Soviet War going on against Japan. Stalin, with the advantage of a powerful army, was exactly what Roosevelt believed that the U.S. needed [3]. Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan three months after Germany fell, and in return, receives a large part of Poland, something very important for Stalin. In return, he had to accept to establish a democratic government in the new portion of Poland, a detail he then fails to accept [4]. Furthermore, Stalin's intentions towards the declaration of war against Japan were not for the benefit of the United States. He

had in mind that a victory against Japan would allow him to regain the territories lost during the Russo-Japanese War [5]. Winston Churchill is not content with these events and later wrote a letter to the President of the United States, which expresses bluntly, The Soviet Union has become a threat to the free world [6]." At the Yalta Conference, Stalin was not very permissive and, thanks to his position, had obtained much of what he wanted; something that was much fretted about by Churchill. Despite this, the discontent that Churchill felt remained hidden, because after Yalta took place, he sent a letter to Stalin, thanking him for his hospitality. He even went as far to write, "No previous meeting has shown so clearly the results which can be achieved when the three heads of government meet together with the full intention to face difficulties and solve them [7]. " The Potsdam Conference was held July 16, 1945; the purpose of this conference is to resolve incomplete negotiations at the Yalta Conference. Clement Attlee replaced Winston Churchill in the elections and Harry S. Truman replaced Franklin Roosevelt, after his death a few months earlier. With this change of influential people involved, and the important development of the atomic bomb, the attitude of Americans faced with the Soviet had changed, unfortunately for Stalin. Americans had begun to doubt their connection with the USSR. In addition, with the atomic bomb, the U.S. did not need the support offered by the USSR, and Stalin had lost what he hoped to be a solution to living conditions that raged rampant in Soviet Russia He hoped that the negotiations that had not been decided at Yalta, about renegotiations that Germany would be a part of Russia, would be decided in his favor at Potsdam. He thought it would be the most effective method of getting the money that the USSR needed [8]. In addition, the Secretary of Commerce of the United States resigned after giving a speech calling for the U.S. to provide financial assistance to the USSR, which had caused a bad reaction. The insistence that Henry Wallace, the US Secretary of Commerce, resign after he made a speech in support of Soviet economic demands, convinced Stalin that the hostility towards the Soviet Union that had been in existence between the wars, had returned. "

By no surprise, it's not just at Yalta and Potsdam that the tension comes from. The Minister Counselor of the United States, George Kennan, sends in late February of 1946 a telegram of 8000 words to the President of the United States, which had the purpose of warning his country of Soviet expansion and to prevent Communism from becoming more powerful in Europe. The author of what would later be named the Long Telegram ", was an American who hated communism, but who had lived in the USSR since the early 1930s, therefore, who knew the truth of the Soviet governments actions. In his text The Sources of Soviet Conduct," an adaptation of the Long Telegram, Kennan wrote "As long as remnants of capitalism were officially recognized as existing in Russia, it was possible to place on them [...] part of the blame for the maintenance of a dictatorial form of society. [...] Since capitalism no longer existed in Russia and since it could not be admitted that there could be serious or widespread opposition to the Kremlin springing spontaneously from the liberated masses under its authority, it became necessary to justify the retention of the dictatorship by stressing the menace of capitalism abroad." His opinion is openly anticommunism expressed throughout his writing. George Kennan exposes that Russia wants capitalism eradicated from the capitalist countries of Europe and be replaced by communism. After the incidents of Yalta and Potsdam, and the long telegram from George Kennan, the relationship between Britain and the USSR are very strained, as well as relations between the U.S. and the USSR. It is the beginning of the hostility between these countries. Although, the tensions produced by his lectures were not strong enough to mark the beginning of the Cold War, as they were not expressed openly and publicly. Although they were clearly present after the incidents of the two conferences, Churchill and Stalin presented the attitudes of these two warring countries so openly, during hostile speeches in February and March of 1946. February 9, Stalin appears before a crowd of Soviet citizens and voters, and presented what he thought was the greatest cause of conflict that happened since 1914: capitalism. "As a matter of fact, the war broke out as the inevitable

result of the development of world economics and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism [9]." Britain and the United States are both capitalist countries, so that speech was an attack, and an embarrassment to their governments. It claims that the success of the Allies during World War II is due to the strength and stability of the Soviet government. Stalin also addresses the subject of the foreign presses that attack the Soviet system and said he would not last. His response is against any form of government. "The Soviet social system is a better form of organization of society than any non-Soviet social system [10]." Stalin's speech has the same ideas as to what George Kennan wrote in his telegram to prevent American capitalists. The Iron Curtain speech, made by Winston Churchill March 5, 1946 was presented to an American audience of students from Westminster University in Fulton, Missouri, as well as before U.S. President Harry S. Truman. In this speech, Winston Churchill spoke of the Soviet threat, the iron curtain, "That is to say, a border that separates Europe into two parts: European Soviet states and states involved in any form of capitalist behavior. Prior to this speech by Churchill, the American public opinion about Russia was not negative, viewing Russia as a strong ally, something that can be link to what Franklin Roosevelt had said about Stalin "[Stalin] does not want anything that would jeopardize the security of this historical country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can, and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he will not try to manipulate anything, and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace [11]." Though now, the famous speech from Churchill had changed the opinion of the American public. His concern is very evident when he talks about the atomic bomb and the importance that a communist or fascist totalitarian government was not in possession of that power. I do not believe we should all have slept so soundly had the positions been reversed and some Communist or neo-Fascist State monopolized for the time being these dread agencies. The fear of them alone might easily have been used to enforce totalitarian systems upon the free democratic world, with consequences appalling to human imagination.

[12]." This statement demonstrates a lack of confidence in Stalin felt by Churchill, and this sends his feeling clearly to Stalin. Consequentially, the speech must have sounded like a warning to the Russians, that unabated pressure on their part carried with it the danger of stirring up the United States [13]. The message is clear and Stalin can only interpret it in one way. His reaction to Churchill's speech is presented in an interview for a Soviet magazine. It is evident during this interview that Stalin considers Churchill an instigator of war. It was during this interview that tensions with the United States and Britain are clear. "He has friends not only in England but also in the United States. It should be noted that in this respect, Mr. Churchill and his friends are reminiscent of Hitler and his amazing friends [14]." This comment demonstrates several levels of discord between countries. Finally, the tensions between the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States are openly addressed. There is also the comparison of Churchill and Hitler - it was no secret that relations between Stalin and Hitler were very tense. Moreover, the Second World War had ended badly for Hitler and Stalin seems to hint that the same thing would happen to the other two countries. The first quote offered up by Stalin is full of innuendos that the western countries faced imminent conflict. " I think this speech is a dangerous act that seeks to sow seeds of discord between the States and Allies, to make it harder to achieve their collaboration [15]." These speeches made by Churchill and Stalin were the beginning of the Cold War, as it was the first time that the tensions between the countries were acknowledged openly. Now that issues and differences between these three great powers were no longer hidden, the Truman Doctrine of March 1947 and then the Doctrine of Zhdanov, September 1947, pushed farther down the tensions they were before. The Truman Doctrine was proposed by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to deter the Soviet Union from taking the other territories, although the USSR was not directly targeted. It was in the middle of the Greek Civil War, which began in 1946, and inspired the Truman Doctrine to pass; the USSR supported the Greek communists who tried to take control of their country. Who, then, among the American experts within the URSS, could have predicted that it would

have been little Greece, her link with the US mostly that of tourism, that would provide the occasion for the American President to appear in the halls of Congress and proclaim that it must be the policy of the US to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures1." When the president talks to foreign press, it is evident that he speaks of the USSR. The United States wanted to prevent communism from presenting itself more in Europe. So when Greek communists tried to take control of the Greek government, evidence that the USSR was testing their supports, the United States took action. Zhdanov Doctrine was the Soviet response against the Truman Doctrine and Zhdanov, who was responsible for the propaganda of the USSR and was assisting secretary in 1938, wrote the doctrine. The provisions of this doctrine are severely anti-capitalist and greatly worried the United States and Winston Churchill. This dictates that communist countries were refusing economic aid from the United States and countries that were not yet completely communist, should work to convert in full. The Zhdanov Doctrine condemns neutrality. The Prague coup took place in February of 1948, just months after the Soviet doctrine, and reflects the vision that was Stalin's communist Europe. It was a coup by the Czechoslovakian Communist Party with the support of Stalin and the USSR.

These two doctrines are not the beginning of the Cold War, but they had played an important role. The Truman Doctrine was a gesture connected to what Churchill had discussed during his Iron Curtain speech, as way to prevent communism spreading even more across Europe. The Zhdanov Doctrine was a kind of rebuttal to his U.S. counterpart.

Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt each had their own reasons to enter the war and needed the support of the other heads of state in order to succeed. Roosevelt wanted Soviet support to resolve the problem of war against
1

Ulam, Adam B, The History of Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-67, Praeger publication, p430

the Japanese. Stalin wanted to take territories and claim Germany in order to regain the money lost during World War Two. Churchill wanted to ensure that communist influence was not spreading across Europe. These tensions had remained hidden for so long, as not to lose the support of others against the other. The real beginning of the Cold War can be traced to the speeches of Stalin and Churchill, in beginning of 1946, as it was during these speech that the discord between the three great powers involved were voiced openly for the first time. Without recognition of the tensions through these speeches, the Cold War would not have escalated to become a war. 8

[1] Conte, Arthur, 1920 - Yalta or p ARTAGE World (February 11, 1945) / 1964. [Document monograph], p.11 [2] Pascal Boniface, International Relations Since 1945, Hachette, Paris, 1997, page 10 [3] http://library.thinkquest. org/10826/yalta.htm [4] http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/yalta.html [5] http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWpotsdam.htm [6] http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war4.htm [7] http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war4.htm [8] http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWpotsdam.htm [9] http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/SS46.html [10] IBID [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain [12] The Iron Curtain speech, http://www.historyguide.org/europe/churchill.html [13] Ulam, Adam B, The History of Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1967, Praeger, p 125 [14] http://histoire-geo-eluard.over-blog.com/pages/Staline_repond_ has _Churchill_1946-1705872.html [15] IBID

[16] Ulam, Adam B, The History of Soviet Foreign Policy 1917-1967, Praeger, P430

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