Cold War
US and Soviet Union were allies during WWII, they quickly became rivals in a "Cold War" that would last for more than forty years. The war was "cold" only in the sense that, because of nuclear weapons, the two superpowers never confronted each other directly in open warfare.
Causes of the Cold War
Communism vs Capitalism
Communists believe that in non - Communist societies, landowners and businessmen, known as "capitalists," use their wealth and power to exploit workers.
The conflict of interest between capitalists and workers leads to class struggle. The conditions of workers in capitalist societies grow increasingly worse until workers were finally driven to overthrow the ruling class to landowners and businessmen in a violent revolution.
Causes of the Cold War
Soviet Communism
The Soviet Union under Communism became a ruthless dictatorship.
Lenin, Joseph Stalin, murdered political opponents or sent them gulags - concentration-type camps located in the frozen wastelands of Siberia.
Confiscate peasant lands and to "collectivize" Soviet agriculture. Combination of propaganda and coercion to build up basic indsutries (like steel production)
Major Events of the Early Cold War Years
Yalta Conference
In February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta in the Soviet Union. At the Yalta Conference, the "Big Three" laid plans for the postwar reconstruction of Europe.
Agreed that Germany should be divided into four separate occupation zones.
Stalin gave a pledge to his Western allies to free elections in Poland when the war ended.
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
Big Three confirmed the structure of the new United Nations organization.
Potsdam Conference
New President, Harry S. Truman, met with Stalin at Potsdam, Germany, in July and August 1945.
Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Serious differences between the Soviet Union and the US arose the future of Eastern Europe
Iron Curtain
With the failure of the Soviets to hold free elections in Poland and iof the US to share its atomic secrets, the "Cold War" began in ear -nest. Local Communist cam to power throughout Eastern Europe.
Trade and communications between Eastern and Western Europe were cut off. Winston Churchill told Americans in a speech in 1946 that an "Iron Curtain" had fallen, closing off eastern Europe from the West.
For the next forty years, travel and contact betwen the East and West was restricted.