The Yalta and Potsdam conferences remain as one of the cardinal beginnings when analyzing approximately Cold War and the confederation of the “Big Three. ” The focus inquiry of the essay asks. “To what extent did the Yalta and Potsdam conferences contribute to the development of Cold War in Europe? ” The two conferences have important relevancy when seeking to come to the decision as to why did the Cold War erupt?

To accurately understand the significance of the conferences. the personal interaction of the leaders. the determinations that were made and what was said is closely examined. Yalta marked the high point for the Big Three in the sense that the three were together in the belief that they were make up one’s minding the destiny of the universe. While Potsdam was more of a steep diminution. taging the prostration of the Big Three. The alteration of Roosevelt to Truman in the 2nd conference besides greatly affected the confederation because Truman had different attack towards Stalin than Roosevelt did. The conferences that were suppose to make up one’s mind the post-war universe and guarantee no hereafter war merely worsened the state of affairs as the different visions for that post-war universe collided with already heightened misconceptions.

The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences were non the ground for Cold War but were what kick-started the new sort of war that lasted for 46 old ages. Indeed. its necessary to analyze the two conferences as they played an of import function in make up one’s minding the hereafter of the universe during that period.

Introduction

On April 25. 1945. the Red Army. 58th Guards Division were observing their triumph over Nazi Germany with U. S Army. 69th Infantry Division on German Land1. Five yearss subsequently Adolf Hitler shooting himself and a hebdomad subsequently Germany surrendered. The “Big Three” who originally met – in hopes for a better universe – in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in February. 1945. met one time once more at Potsdam in July. 1945. Churchill was thanking Stalin for his ‘hospitality and friendship’ at the Yalta Conference2.

Then how come. despite these friendly gestures. did the Soviet Authorities tried to interrupt up pro-American presentations that erupted in Moscow? Why did American Authorities suspend cargos of assistance for the USSR and so restart them? Why did Truman turn cold towards Stalin and decided to maintain the cognition of the atomic bomb a secret from the Soviets? The reply lies in the fact that the war was won by the Grand Alliance and its member who were already at war – ideologically and geopolitically – with each other3.

Near the terminal of World War II. planetary political relations were at peak degree and after 1945 ; a series of clangs and misinterpretations widened the spread between the Americans and Soviets even more and finally take to unfastened ill will. The United States believed that a state should be run on a capitalist system – that is all industry. concern and agribusiness should be owned in private or by houses. In contrast. the Soviets believed in socialism. significance that everything should be owned by the province and should be run by the authorities. These two – really different political orientations – were conflicting to each other and believed that the alternate political orientation was a menace to their ain manner of life.

In 1945. two conferences. Yalta and Potsdam were held with the top political leaders of Russia. America and Britain. otherwise known as the ‘Big Three’ . These conferences were meant to make up one’s mind the hereafter of the universe after the war and what to make with Germany. America and Russia’s different beliefs and post-war purposes and the increasing tenseness between the two sides became evident at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Therefore. it is important to closely analyze what was said and decided during these conferences that drove both sides.

The focus inquiry of this essay trades with what was discussed and agreed upon during the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and will reply: To what extent did the Yalta and Potsdam conferences contribute to the development of the Cold War in Europe?

WHAT THEY BELIEVED AND THE POST-WAR AIMS

The two great powers. even though they had united to contend against the Nazis. were wholly different in everything else. Ideology was really of import for the Soviet Union. since it was built around it and the West viewed the USSR as a turning menace and distrusted them. The Soviet Union was a communist state. which was ruled by a dictator and put the demands of the province in front of human rights. while America was a capitalist democracy which valued freedom and feared communism. Although the ideological differences between the two great powers were huge and of import in making a tense ambiance between them. ideology entirely does non offer an account for the cold war.

A capitalist economic system is based on private ownership. private net income and free competition. It encourages private persons to ain concerns and do net incomes. A communist economic system on the other manus. is rather different. The economic system is controlled by the authorities. A country’s wealth and resources are owned by the province or authorities. The province controls and programs all economic activity so that everybody benefits. Therefore. it can be seen how different these political orientations were and how struggle could originate from these differences.

Traveling into the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Soviet Union wanted to guarantee security. set up control over Eastern Europe. and acquire reparation from Germany. On the other manus. Britain and America wanted to assist Germany retrieve to avoid any future convulsion from Germany and wanted to forestall big countries of Europe from coming under Communist control.

In recent history. the USSR had been invaded a sum of three times. one time in WWI. one time in the Russian civil war and one time in WWII4. As a consequence. there were many Russian casualties and as a manner of doing certain that the USSR would be unafraid from any future onslaught or aggression along the western boundary line. Stalin decided to environ Russia with a buffer of “friendly” states which subsequently came to be known as the Iron Curtain. During the World War. as the Russians pushed the Germans out of their boundary line. they besides pushed inwards into Eastern Europe. busying many states. doing it easier for them to set up control. As they established controls in these countries. they gave the local Communist parties a batch of support and therefore. widened their influence in their states. Besides. as they pushed back. they brought along Moscow-trained Communist leaders who had gone to the USSR during the war.

These leaders took over the reins of the authoritiess in some parts of Eastern Europe. distributing the influence of Communism. After the Soviets had pushed the Germans out of Poland. it fell under communism and remained so until Stalin’s decease. Romania. Hungary. Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia are some of other states that fell under Communism. Stalin so proceeded to set up one-party authoritiess in these states by first set uping alliance authoritiess. so taking the spouses in these authoritiess. The alliances were needed as the Communist Parties in the different states were non strong plenty on their ain to derive the support of the people and govern the state. In this manner. the USSR could so continue to fasten its control over Eastern Europe. successfully organizing the orbiter provinces or the Iron Curtain.

The West was afraid that the Communist political orientation would distribute as its nature was expansionist. Therefore. when the USSR attempted to better security by holding satellite provinces. the West saw this as an effort to distribute the influence of Communism. This particularly affected USA as it needed new markets and Europe could supply them. As more and more markets were dominated by USSR. USA lost these possible markets. There was common intuition and misgiving between the E and the West because of this. As good. there were still leery from WWII’s atomic bomb incident and the 2nd forepart. The 2nd forepart was non opened till 3 old ages after Stalin started demanding it and few yearss before it was dropped. the US informed the other Alliess except Russia that the atomic bomb was about to be dropped on to Japan. This badly discredited the West and spoiled the dealingss between the East and the West.

This meant that the ‘Big Three’ found it really hard to hold upon anything at the Conferences ( Yalta. Potsdam ) and if anything achieved more misinterpretations. Although political orientation made some grade of struggle probably between the Capitalist West and Communist East. in existent the battle was mostly fought over issues such as planetary power and prestigiousness which became obvious at the two conferences. Yalta and Potsdam.

The Yalta conference was held on February 4. 1945. The Americans arrived with the long-run end of deriving concluding Soviet blessing to the formation of a peace organisation. a construction to guarantee peace. the United Nations5. The Allies besides made it necessary to discourse European political and military jobs. Their major end was to repair a day of the month for the USSR to assail Japan. which the Soviets decided would be three months after Germany surrendered. Stalin kept this promise. in return for territorial grants in Asia6.

The future function of France was besides discussed. Britain wanted France to play a full function in postwar Germany but the Soviets felt that France had non played much of a function in the war and should non hold any say now. At the conference the Big Three agreed that France would hold a zone of business in Germany out of US and Britain’s portion – this sat well with the Soviets as they didn’t lose anything. France was to besides hold rank in the Allied control council for Germany. However. Gallic leader Charles DeGaulle was non invited to the conference.

The three leaders besides discussed German reparations. which required the Germans to pay for some of the harm done by them during the war. Churchill pointed out the Germany was so damaged by the war that the Allies could non trust to pull out any money from Germany. German reparations after World War I had been paid with the aid of loans from the United States. The official State Department proceedingss of the meeting noted that “ . . . there had been merely two billion lbs extracted from Germany in the signifier of reparations by the Allies after the last war and that even this would non hold been possible had non the United States given Germany recognition. ”7 Roosevelt responded to this. “that he remembered really vividly that the United States had lost a great trade of money. He said that we had lent over 10 billion dollars to Germany and that this clip we would non reiterate our past errors. ”8 Roosevelt ne’er anticipated how strong the United States would emerge from the war. and added that the United States could non afford to help the Germans economically.

Winston Churchill was strongest in raising the issue of the dangers of hungering Germany if excessively many reparations were demanded and taken. He focused on the fact that the Germans must be left adequate resources to pay reparations. A hungering Germany would profit no 1. Churchill was believing of the manner reparations were handled after World War I. Even though Germany paid reparations with loans from the United States. Germany was economically devastated. Poor economic conditions created bitterness. and laid the basis for Hitler. Realism at Yalta put bounds on reparations. Churchill was good advised to utilize the statements he used. that Germany needed to maintain adequate resources and to bring forth adequate to pay what reparations were demanded. The leaders decided to go forth the inside informations to a committee. Reparations did non turn out to be a major practical issue.

8 U. S State Department. 621.

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov subsequently complained “We collected reparations after the war. but they amounted to a pittance. ”9 However. the Soviets took plenty from their business zone in Germany to do it harder when they tried to make the German Democratic Republic. East Germany. Molotov subsequently commented on this quandary. “Quietly. spot by spot. we had been making the GDR. our ain Germany. What would those people think of us if we had taken everything from their state? After all. we were taking from the Germans who wanted to work with us. ”10

The most controversial determination to emerge from Yalta dealt with the postwar Polish authorities. Poland had been divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. and invaded by both that September. However. the Soviets were accurate when they told Churchill that the Nazi-Soviet treaty of that twelvemonth was made disused by the German invasion of the Soviet Union. By August 1944. the Soviet ground forces had pushed the German back about to Warsaw. On August 1. 1944. the Polish Home Army. the main non-communist opposition force. heard the sounds of German-Soviet combat non far to the east11. They began an rebellion against the Nazis. partially to emancipate themselves before the Soviets arrived. Stalin stopped his ground forces in the country for several hebdomads as the Germans defeated the rebellion. wiped out the Home Army. and about obliterated Warsaw.

Merely before go forthing for Yalta. Churchill told his private secretary. “Make no error. all the Balkans. except Greece. are traveling to be Bolshevised. and there is nil I can make to forestall it. There is nil I can make for Poland either. ”12

9 Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshkov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev

( Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1996 ) 31.

10Zubok 49.

11Bruce L. Brager. The Iron Curtain: The Cold War in Europe ( Philadelphia: Chelsea House. 2004 ) 32.

Churchill was a realist. in October 1944. for illustration. Churchill and Stalin had come to the “percentages” understanding on how much influence each state would hold in the Balkans. The Big Three. at Yalta. finally agreed that. until elections would be held. the Soviet-supported authorities of Poland would be the authorities. but with added non-Communist members. Before World War Two. Poland was fundamentally a landlocked state between the chief organic structure of Germany and East Prussia. A little corridor gave Poland an mercantile establishment to the Balkan Sea. Recreated in 1945. Poland moved west. giving up district to the Soviet Union in the East in exchange for German district in the West. 13

At Yalta. Churchill and Roosevelt were covering at Yalta with a adult male. Stalin. more complex than he is usually credited with being. uniting balance of power. Communist political orientation. a just sum of personal paranoia. and the overpowering desire non to let any farther invasions of Soviet district. 14 He had shown himself in the past willing to utilize utmost ferociousness. but this was non the lone method he had available. “By 1945 1 could happen some basicss of the radical imperial paradigm in Stalin’s foreign policy. but he was to the full prepared to postpone political orientation. at least for a clip. and adhere merely to the construct of a balance of power. ”15 This meant that Stalin was willing to set aside political orientation and concentrate merely on deriving power.

The Yalta Conference issued a statement declaring that all states had the right to take their ain signifier of authorities. Stalin made it clear what was his first precedence. In discoursing Poland’s station war hereafter. Stalin at one point said. Mr. Churchill had said that for Great Britain the Polish inquiry was one of award and that he understood. but for the Russians it was a inquiry both of award and security. Throughout history. Poland had been the corridor for onslaught on Russia. . . It was non merely a inquiry of award for Russia. but one of life and decease.

Roosevelt remained the most idealistic of the three leaders at Yalta. He wanted a station war universe based on common cooperation. non on power and domains of influence. The last clip he spoke to the American Congress. on March 1. 1945. Roosevelt summarized what he thought he had achieved at Yalta by saying that “The Crimea Conference ought to spell the terminal of the system of one-sided action. the sole confederations. the domains of influence. the balances of power all the expedients that have been tried for centuries – and have ever failed. ”

After the conference. Churchill and Roosevelt were criticized for giving off excessively much to the Soviets. Political observers and historiographers have besides complained that the Soviets broke their word. Historian Isaac Deutscher writes. “It is useless to seek to detect who made the first move to interrupt the confederation. It is impossible to follow the first ‘broken promise’ … In this ‘marriage of convenience’ ; the idea that a divorce was inevitable had been in the head of each spouse from the beginning“ . 18 However the Soviet Army already had control of most of Eastern Europe. or would hold this control before the war ended.

At Yalta. the dialogues went really much in Stalin’s favor. but this was because Roosevelt needed Russian aid in the Pacific and was ready to hold to about anything every bit long as Stalin agreed to travel to war with Japan. Although the conference appeared successful. behind the scenes tenseness was turning. peculiarly about reparation and Poland. Two old ages subsequently James F. Byrnes. who became American Secretary of State two months after Yalta. wrote about the conference that “There is no uncertainty that the tide of Anglo-Soviet-American friendly relationship had reached a new high. But President Roosevelt had hardly returned to American dirt when the tide began to ebb. ”

Potsdam

The Potsdam Conference was the last of the wartime acmes among the Big Three allied leaders. On July 17. 1945. the leaders met in Potsdam. Germany to finalise the rules of the post-war peace – Potsdam was the Versailles of World War II. Although still Alliess. much had changed since the three countries’ last major conference merely five months before: the Yalta Conference on February 4-11. 1945. Possibly most significantly. U. S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had died on April 12. taking with him the relationships he had built with Churchill and Stalin and his ability to smooth over differences.

His frailty president. Truman. was now president. and Potsdam was his first international conference. The lone changeless figure in the conference was Stalin. the leader of one of the most controversial states in the universe. Two capitalist states allied with a communist – who already poses communicating jobs – and the alteration from Roosevelt to Truman between the conferences merely added to the disagreements between Yalta and Potsdam. Churchill. excessively. was shortly replaced. After the Potsdam Conference was underway the consequences of the U. K. ’s general election were announced on July 26. Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as premier curate.

At the conference. the leaders agreed on puting up the four “zones of occupation” in Germany. The Nazi Party. authorities and Torahs were to be destroyed. and German instruction was to be controlled to wholly extinguish Nazi and militarist philosophies and to do successful development of democratic thoughts in peoples mind. They besides decided to convey Nazi-war felons to test and to acknowledge the Polish Probationary Government of National Unity and keep free elections every bit shortly as possible. This is important because shortly the Western-Allies recognized Poland as a Communist dominated authorities. Russia was allowed to take reparations from the Soviet Zone. and besides 10 % of the industrial equipment of the western zones as reparations. America and Britain could take reparations from their zones if they wished.

The ambiance at Potsdam was frequently acrimonious. boding the at hand Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West20. In the months taking up to Potsdam. Stalin took an progressively difficult line on issues sing Soviet control in Eastern Europe. arousing the new American president and the British premier curate to indurate their ain stance toward the Soviet leader. This is what Truman had to state about the Soviets. “The Russians merely understand one linguistic communication – ‘how many ground forcess have you got? ’ I’m tired of pampering the Soviets. ”21

20Joseph L. Nogee. “Potsdam Conference“ . Encyclopedia. 2004 2012

21Harry S. Truman. “Letter to James F. Byrnes“ . BBC. 2012 2012

During World War II. Roosevelt followed a policy of “the Grand Alliance” with the finding to acquire along with the Soviet Union. He was determined to follow this policy after the war and believed the United Nations. one of his favored undertakings. would keep the postwar peace. This policy continued throughout the war although there is some grounds Roosevelt began to hold some apprehensivenesss at Yalta over Soviet policy in Poland and the other eastern European states. but Roosevelt maintained he that could manage Stalin. With Roosevelt’s decease in April 1945. Truman attempted to keep Roosevelt’s policy in acquiring along with the Soviet Union. However. at the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945. Truman was exposed to the high-demands of Stalin.

Soon after geting at the conference Truman learned ( on 21 July ) that America had tested the first atomic bomb. It gave the Americans a immense military advantage over everyone else. It besides meant that Truman didn’t need Stalin’s assist in Japan. Alternatively. Truman’s chief purpose at the conference was to happen out from Stalin what day of the month the Russians intended to come in the war in the Pacific – something which ( unlike Roosevelt ) he did non desire. “On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new arm of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no particular involvement. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would do good usage of it against the Japanese. ”22 was said by Truman to Stalin.

Truman really ne’er told the Soviets what their `new weapon` was and when. a hebdomad after the Potsdam conference ended. the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and this farther added to the Soviet misgiving of United States. This is of import because after larning about the atomic bombs. Truman’s attitude at the conference became more aggressive and developed an attitude of confrontation. Stalin saw the dropping of the bomb as directed more at Russia than Japan. Many historiographers believe that Truman caused the Cold War when he dropped the bomb.

After the Potsdam conference ended and the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Stalin had lost any trust in the West. They became under the feeling that the West fixing to assail them and felt threatened.

Decision

Yalta and Potsdam were two major peace conferences in World War II which were suppose to guarantee no future war. They were both intended to accomplish a province of post-war peace. and yet someway changed into a cold war. If anything the conferences achieved a great heightening of tenseness among the leaders and farther widened the spread between the capitalist West and communist Soviet. During World War II. a really unusual confederation was made between America. Britain and the Soviet Union. Normally non on the friendliest footings. the Americans and the Russians saw each others as Alliess to get the better of their common enemy – Nazi Germany. But every bit shortly as war ended. the difference amongst the Big Three started to go noticeable. Stalin who wanted to guarantee the safety of the Soviet district and wanted more power set his post-world war demands consequently. This did non sit good with the Americans and the British.

Very shortly the politicians in Moscow started to believe that United States had no purposes of back uping the USSR any more than they had to. The American vision of the postwar universe conflicted with the ends of Stalin. who was besides motivated to determine postwar Europe and with Truman immensely different attack towards the Soviet that Roosevelt. prompted the two powers to go hostile towards each other. These two conferences were what set the criterions for life after World War II. and were the preliminaries to the events of the Cold War.

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