Ch 15Sec 1

The Origins of the Cold War

Yalta Conference • Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt meet in Yalta (Soviet

resort on the Black Sea) in 1945 to hammer out some of the issues of what to do after the war

• The decisions made at Yalta eventually lead to some of the more complicated Cold War issues that we had to deal with up to the 1980’s

Poland • As you know, Germany

took over Poland at the start of WWII, and the Soviets pushed them out of Poland at the end of WWII

• When the Germans took over, the Polish government fled to Britain, and when Russia took it back, they set up a pro-Soviet Union communist government

Poland • FDR and Churchill wanted Poland to pick their own

government, but Stalin wanted the communist one in charge

• Stalin said that Russia needed a close alliance with Poland because every time Russia has been invaded it has been through Poland

• The three finally agreed that the communist government would stay, but it would have members of the old government in it…plus Poland would hold free elections as soon as possible

The Declaration of Liberated Europe • Also at Yalta, the three decided to accept “The

Declaration of Liberated Europe” which basically said that every nation in Europe would chose the government that they wanted to have = “to create democratic institution of their own choice”

• Roosevelt and Churchill will just trying to set it up so that Stalin could not just make every nation that he had some influence on communist

Dividing Germany

• The three then decided to divide up Germany between Britain, France, Russia, and the US

• The four nations would also divide up the German capital of Berlin as well

Reparations From Germany • Russia wanted reparations (payment for fighting the

war) from Germany• FDR wanted Germany to pay Russia, but wanted the

amount to be based on Germany’s ability to pay • FDR did not want all of the payment to be in cash as

well, he wanted Germany to have the option to pay some of the reparations in trade goods and equipment like industrial machinery

Tensions Rise Between the US and the Soviets

• Two weeks after Yalta, Stalin forces the King of Romania to set up a communist government = violation of The Declaration of Liberated Europe

• Stalin then appoints 3 members of the old Polish government to 18 total member group, and shows no signs of holding elections

• Cooperation was deteriorating

Why Stalin was doing it???• Stalin wanted to keep Germany

weak and never allow them to become a threat to the Soviet Union again

• He also wanted to set up a buffer of other Pro-Soviet nation on Russia’s western border

• Lastly, Russia believed that communism was superior to capitalism

Working on Economies… • We had pretty much pieced it together that the

Great Depression had caused WWII, if it had not been for the rough economic times people would not have turned to Hitler out of frustration and Japan would not have needed to expand itself

Working on Economies… • FDR then decided that the best bet was to set up

free democracies would be more stable and peaceful

• Free countries also develop better economies with private property and free enterprise in addition to limited government involvement

• Good economies = stable countries and prosperity

FDR Dead… • Just 11 days after confronting Stalin about a

communist Poland, FDR died • This left Truman in charge, and Truman then had to

pick up where FDR left off, and Truman made the decision early on that the US would not back down from Russia

Truman Gets Tough • Ten days after the death of Roosevelt, Truman has a

meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, and immediately asks about the elections in Poland that were promised in Yalta… pretty much from this point on, the US and Soviet relations are rough

Potsdam Conference

• Truman, Churchill, and Stalin all met in Potsdam, which is near Berlin

• There they decided what to do about Germany• Truman wanted to revive Germany economically so

that it and the rest of Europe could recover • Stalin wanted to steal as much as he could for

reparation, keep Germany weak, and turn as much of Germany as he could into a communist state

Potsdam Conference • Truman suggested that the Soviets take their

reparations from their sector, while the Allies would develop industry in their zones

• Stalin didn’t like this idea because the Soviet zone was mostly farmland

• Truman then suggested that the Soviets take some industrial equipment out of the other zones, but then the Russians would have to pay for it with food shipments from the Russian zone

• Truman also agreed to accept the new German-Polish border that Stalin had set up

Stalin and Truman • Stalin did not like the deal, but by this time Truman

knew that the atomic bomb had been tested successfully and he hinted to Stalin that the US now had an edge on the rest of the world

• This upset Stalin because he did not want to be bullied, and he felt that the US was trying to keep the Soviet Union weak

Potsdam Conference

• Eventually, Stalin had to accept the terms not only because of the pressure from the Allies, but because of the US’s new weapon

• The Allies kept the German industrial land mostly in tact and the Soviets got most of their reparations

• Overall…tensions were rising

Potsdam Conference • Truman had did a good job in

securing the German economy, but he was not able to get Stalin to hold up the Declaration of Liberated Europe

• The Soviet army remained in much of Eastern Europe, and thus influenced all of those government to become communist

Satellite Nations • The countries of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria,

Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were forced into communism by the presence of the Red Army

• These countries then became known as satellite nations because they were not considered part of the Soviet Union, but they were under their control

• Churchill described the communist takeover of Eastern Europe as an “iron curtain falling”

• The lines were now drawn, and the joy of victory over the Nazis was now turning into the Cold War