I highly suggest checking out the Cold War International History Project at http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home. It includes primary source documents, and links to journals and articles which may further your research.
The Cold War initially resulted from a two-way misunderstanding between the United States, France, and Britain on the one hand, and the U.S.S.R. on the other. The evolution of events from 1946-1949 over both Eastern Europe, Germany, and East Asia after the allied defeat of the Axis Powers was the immediate context for its development. It isn't so much that there was intentional lying. More that each side was laboring under certain misapprehensions and therefore communicating what they knew (more specifically what they wanted everyone else to know) and so on.
At the Yalta Conference (February 1945), the “Big Three” (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) had agreed provisionally to the figure of $10 billion as a basis for reparations discussion after the allies insisted on the unconditional surrender of Germany and began discussions of zones of occupation. At Yalta, the Battle of the Bulge was being waged, FDR was ailing, and Stalin was able to negotiate from a position of relative strength. At Potsdam, with the Russian Red Army in possession of much of Eastern Europe and Berlin after April 1945, the allies, the allies additionally agreed to send industrial equipment and goods from their zones of occupation to Russia as reparations payments.
At this point, the British and the Russians did not believe the United States would remain in Europe long after WWII, and as was the case in 1919, the Americans were expected to withdrawal. Under FDR, in addition, the Americans tended to be more trustful of Stalin than Churchill was, and this remained the case until later in 1945. With Truman in power, relations with Stalin deteriorated more rapidly. Already as of 1945, the Americans ceased lend-lease payments with both Britain and t he USSR – an event Stalin interpreted as a premature stab in the back. The potential wealth and economic resources of Eastern Europe still occupied by the Soviets began to appear vital to Russian economic revival as well as to its political security. In short, Stalin’s insistence on a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe as a buffer to a powerful Germany, Hungary, Poland, etc. (i.e. avoiding a repeat of 1941) suddenly took on additional economic significance.
Economic cooperation over the fate of occupied Germany began to breakdown after 1946, however, as the U.S. became convinced that their Southwestern zone of occupation (and those of Britain and France) were not economically viable if the industrial wealth of the Rhineland was sent to Russia in the percentages promised at Potsdam. The U.S. therefore sent food to Western Germany and gradually came to the conclusion that European economic recovery could not be effected without German economic recovery.
Also during the interwar conferences, the allies (including Stalin) had agreed to free elections in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe. These governments were to be multiparty popular front regimes. But the Red Army was in possession of Eastern Europe, and Stalin became disgruntled by Anglo-American meddling in a region he thought vital for future Soviet Security. Poland and Czechoslovakia were particularly contentious, and Stalin had interpreted an earlier “percentages agreement” with Churchill to mean that he would have a free hand in Poland and Czechoslovakia (this was not long after the Tehran Conference). After all, Stalin had (he reasoned) given the Allies a free hand in Japan, Italy, and Korea south of the 38th parallel.
In Poland, the London Poles had been friendly to the British and the Americans; the Lublin Poles were supported by the Soviets in their ousting of the Nazis. Churchill seemed willing to concede Poland to the Lublin Poles, but FDR insisted that there be a coalition government. Stalin grudgingly promised this at Yalta but quickly moved to purge the London Poles from the government after 1946-47. Mikolajayzk, the Peasant Party Leader, was ousted, and Poland was strong-armed into Pro-Soviet tutelage. This aroused an atmosphere of distrust among the Atlantic allies, who viewed with alarm Stalin’s gradual undermining of the Popular Front leftist coalition governments in favor of loyal, Pro-Stalinist puppet regimes garrisoned by the Red Army after 1946-47.
In Northern Iran, moreover, the Soviet troops did not withdraw as promised as they tried to detatch Azerbaijan and other areas of Northern Iran from the government of the Pahlavi Shah. Similarly, in Turkey, the Soviets harassed the Turkish republic for naval bases near the straits and supported leftist leaders.
But the U.S. also sent some mixed messages.
In addition to Lend-Lease withdrawal, the U.S. demand for more of a say in Eastern Europe angered the Russians who stayed out of Japan and Italy, at the same time as the U.S. manipulated 1946 election results in both France and Italy to prevent large electoral gains by the French and Italian Communist parties which still had some links with the Soviets at that point.
2007-04-14 18:57:45
·
answer #5
·
answered by Anonymous
·
1⤊
0⤋