Can the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference be called the start of the Cold War?

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  • 16 april 2009
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How far can the Yalta and Potsdam conference be called the start of the Cold War?

Name:
Group: T3b
Date: 14-04-‘09

This is a broad question, which I’ll answer using both my own opinion and the facts listed in our book and on the internet.

The war against Hitler, seemed to unite Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, but they still had different ideologies.
Because Stalin wanted to have a communist country but Roosevelt and Churchill wanted a Capitalist country and these two forms of ideology were miles apart and were bound to cause tension between these men.
But their different ideas on how to govern a country were not the only the differences they had.
Because Stalin had liberated country after country during the 2nd World War he was still there, and instead of withdrawing he stayed there and governed the countries he liberated. He controlled these countries with his ideology and wanted to make the Communists as well. The big three disagreed before about the Soviet Policy in Eastern Europe, but Stalin had won the agreement from the Allies, that he could set up pro-Soviet governments in Eastern Europe. Truman became very unhappy about this and the Russian intentions and soon adopted a ‘get tough’ attitude towards Stalin. To make sure Stalin would not win another agreement.
This was not the only point which caused tension between the big three, they also disagreed about what to do with Germany.
Stalin, wanted to cripple Germany completely to protect the USSR against future threats. But Truman refused to make the same mistake as with the Treaty of Versailles which lead to furious and intense conversations between the leaders.

They also disagreed about the reparations that had to be paid by Germany, because Stalin’s USSR was devastated with twenty million casualties he wanted a big sum of money from Germany to compensate for it. Truman however, was determined not to repeat the mistakes at the end of the First World War and resisted this demand.

As you can imagine, this lead to great tension between the USA and the USSR. And the first disagreements were found at the Yalta conference and later on the disagreements continued at the Potsdam Conference so in my opinion these were the materials needed to make a bonfire which could be lighted and ignite the Cold War and the only thing needed was a small spark.

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