Before Cold War And Conferences Flashcards
Before Cold War
1941-45
The USA and USSR joined with Britain to form the Grand Alliance against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.
However, both countries saw the other’s ideology as a threat.
The USA was capitalist, the USSR was communist.
The USA believed in democracy and personal freedoms.
The USSR was a single party state where individuals were strictly controlled.
Tehran conference
1943
First meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.
Roosevelt was keen to build a relationship with Stalin.
The USSR was promised land in Poland after the war.
Agreed that Germany should be weakened and pay reparations, largely to USSR.
The USA and Britain agreed to invade France to relieve pressure on USSR troops in Eastern Europe.
The USSR agreed to declare war on Japan, but only once Germany was defeated.
Yalta conference
February 1945
Second meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.
USSR had by now captured much of Eastern Europe from Germany, worrying the USA.
The USSR was promised more land in Poland, but not as much as Stalin wanted.
Stalin was forced to promise to hold free elections in Eastern European countries.
Germany was to be split into four zones once defeated, but Stalin felt he was getting the poorest zone.
Tension and mistrust increased.
Potsdam conference
July 1945
Meeting between Clement Atlee, Stalin and new US president, Harry Truman, after Germany had surrendered.
Truman was determined to stop the spread of communism into Europe.
Each power could take what it wanted from its own zone in Germany. The USSR could take 25% of the industrial equipment in other zones.
No agreement reached over land in Eastern Europe.
Truman told Stalin that the USA had developed a ‘powerful new weapon’.
