Causes of the Cold War

  • USA enters the Second World War

    USA enters the Second World War
    USA enters the war after a Japanese attack in the Pearl Harbor. Even though the Americans helped the Allies win the war, the USSR was participated from the beginning of the war so they were more damaged that the USA was. The Soviets interpreted as a plan from the Americans to enter the war as winners and not as a deliberate action against the Axis Powers.
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    Tehran Conference

    The main focus of this conference was the unconditional surrender for Germany and the opening of a “second front” in Western Europe. Later on, the reluctant agreement was stated for countries such as Poland and authority to countries such as Romania, the Baltic States and Finland. Nonetheless, the Soviets didn’t agree to give up the part of Poland conquered during ear. Only the German territory was retrieved to Poland.
  • First Ukranian Front

    First Ukranian Front
    Red Army entered central Poland and the National Liberation Committee set up. This was seen as an expansionist method of Stalin in order to start establishing his sphere of influence for the beginning of the Cold War.
  • Bretton Wood Institutions

    Bretton Wood Institutions
    The Bretton Woods Institutions are the World Bank that helped over 43 countries to recover after the Second World War. It was an initiative taken by the USA and its main objective was to promote economical cooperation. The only way to obtain some monetary fund was to have a capitalist ideology, to allow multinationals to enter the country and to have free trade agreements.
  • Fourth Moscow Conference

    Fourth Moscow Conference
    Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill decided to create the Percentage Agreement. The British and the Soviets decided to separate specific countries. The British took power of 90% of Greece, 10% of Romania, 25% of Bulgaria and 50% of Yugoslavia, along with other countries. The Soviets took the remaining terriotry.
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    Yalta Conference

    The principal product from this conference was the organization for the occupation of Germany. The Allies decided that it was very dangerous to leave Germany with the industrialization and the morals it had unwatched. They decided to separate the country and gave a part to the USA, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France. The Soviet Union took one-third of the territory and the remaining was divided equally between the other three powers.
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    Postdam Conference

    The Big Three, meaning the Soviet Union, Great Britain and United States met to discuss different topics related to how the Second World War would be developed. Truman, decided that he would disagree with the Polish agreement as well as the Percentages Agreement.
  • Hiroshima atomic bomb

    Hiroshima atomic bomb
    The first result of the Manhattan Project was the liberation and explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. The American project with the consent of the British Empire dropped the bomb in order to stop the Second World War. Nonetheless, many historians argue that it was actually dropped to demonstrate the Soviet Union the technological power of the USA in the beginning of the Cold War.
  • Nagasaki atomic bomb

    Nagasaki atomic bomb
    The second result of the Manhattan Project was the liberation and explosion of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, Japan. The Americans argued that the atomic bomb was needed to end the military bases of Japan after the war. This bomb also held another set of consequences regarding the political theory of the balance of power that started working actively after the Second World War.
  • UN

    UN
    Creation of the United Nations Organization (USA and the USSR involved) to promote international cooperation and world peace. The main and strongest countries would be the Allies of the Second World War and the decisions taken in the conferences would be applied in the entire world.
  • Long Telegram

    Long Telegram
    George Kennan, the American chargé d’affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-words telegram to the American Ambassador Averell Harriman to explain the Soviet position regarding USA. The Telegram was divided in five parts and detailed explained that the Soviets thought the USA had expansionist tendencies and so, they would try to protect themselves using the Marxist-Leninist theories.
  • Iron Curtain speech

    Iron Curtain speech
    Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, blamed the Soviet Union for an expansionist tendency in Eastern Europe. He also stated that the free and democratic ideals were in danger due to the communist theories of the Soviets and that it was the obligation of all free countries to contain these ideologies. Therefore, he divides Europe into two main spheres of influence, the “totalitarian” and the “free”.
  • Soviets deny economic aid

    Soviets deny economic aid
    Soviets refuse to support the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Stalin thought this was part of an expansionist practice of the Americans. By introducing their products and their capitalist ideologies, the bases of the Soviet society would crumble and they would loose the power gained during the Second World War.
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    Greek Civil War

    The Greek Civil War was a confrontation in Greece after the Second World War principally caused by the weak political and economical management. The Western sphere of influence principally occupied the territory but the British failed administrating it due to Economical difficulties. Due to this, the USA entered the zone and started to oppress the communist parties in order to establish an economical aid that would ensure Greece as part of the American sphere of influence.
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    Truman Doctrine

    The main focus of this doctrine was to contain the Soviet sphere of influence and stop its expansion. The doctrine specified in the political and territorial protection of Turkey and Greece from the Soviet Union. These two countries were close to the sphere of influence of the Soviets so Truman decided to take over them and later on, he would use them as centrals of military power.
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    Marshall Plan (European Recovery Plan)

    Knowing that poverty and distress were factors that could contribute to the rise of the Communist Party, the USA decided to create a plan in order to eliminate those factors and ensure its sphere of influence. USA gave approximately $13 billion of dollars ($130 billion in current dollar value) to reconstruct the affected countries by the Second World War.