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Essay on The Origins of the Cold War

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The Origins of the Cold War

The Cold War period from 1945 to 1985 was a result of distrust and misunderstanding between the USSR and the United States of America. This distrust never actually resulted any fighting between the two superpowers but they came very close to fighting on several occasions. The Cold War was a result of many different events and factors including the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the differences between communism and capitalism, the 'Iron curtain' speech and Marshall Aid. Through looking at these we are able to comprehend the main reasons behind the development of the Cold War.

It can be said that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 which …show more content…

When Russia was attacked by capitalist Nazi Germany, America and Britain fought alongside Russia to defeat the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler but it cost twenty million Russian lives. The Russian leader Joseph Stalin was bitter that the western allies had not invaded Europe until 1944. He was still convinced that they wanted to destroy communism. Another major event which also contributed to the distrust between America and Russia was the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. President Truman learnt that the atomic bomb had been successfully tested, he told Stalin that America had developed a new weapon but he did not tell him that America was going to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

By 1945 nearly all of Eastern Europe including Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary was under Soviet control. In Fulton, Missouri on 5 March 1946 the British prime minister Winston Churchill gave his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent..."[1] This meant that Europe was divided into two: a Soviet controlled East, and a 'free West'. Churchill wanted and Anglo-American alliance but American President Harry S Truman did not support this as he and most Americans hoped that America and Russia would still co-operate as they had during the war. Churchill's speech

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