Discussion of the Causes of the Cold War

Discussion of the Causes of the Cold War

The cold war was a direct result of many causes. The leaders of the

world could not agree on very much and lead the world into the cold

war. During the second world war, Britain, France, USA and the Soviet

Union had all been allies, fighting against Germany. After World War

Two, Britain, France and the Usa had become enemies of the Soviets.

The Cold War was caused by several events. The first of the nine

events was the yalta conference. The yalta conference was held on 4th

February through the 11th 1945. The main discussion was the future of

poland, it was decided that poland would be divided and much of the

eastern sector was given to the Soviets and the western sector was

given to Germany. It was also decided at Yalta that Germany would be

divided into four zones: British, French, USA's, and Soviet. In turn,

Berlin, Germany's capital, would also be divided into the same

zones.other decisions made were that east european countries would

hold free elections and the new organization that would replace the

League of Nation would be the United Nations.

Following the Yalta Conference was the meeting at Potsdam. At Potsdam

two of the 'Big Three' were not present, as they had changed.

President Roosevelt had died on April 12th 1945, and was replaced by

president Harry Truman. Also, Churchill had lost the general election,

and was replace by Clement Atlee. There were many disagreements at

Potsdam, it did not go as well as Yalta. Truman and Stalin were at a

disagreement on the decision of the future of Germany. Stalin had

wanted to "cripple" Germany's economy, to protect the USSR from future

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... them, as they were trying to 'Contain" Communism.

Many Russian Historians blamed the Cold war on Winston Churchill and

President Truman. They believed that Truman and Churchill wanted to

"Destroy" the U.S.S.R, which was just protecting itself from attack.

In turn, many weatern writers blamed the Soviets for the Cold War, and

said that Stalin was "Trying to build up the Soviet empire". As time

went on, many western historians began to blame the USA for the Cold

War. They said "Truman had not understood how much Russia had suffered

in the Second World War". Present day belief is that both sides were

equally responsible for the Cold War. The historian Isaac Deutscher,

Stalin (1969) says, "It is useless to try to discover who made the

first move to break the alliance. It is impossible to trace the first

broken promise."