In February 1945, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin met up at Yalta to discuss postwar plans. The Allies had won against the Axis powers in World War II, and now they debate the fate of Nazi Germany, which would be divided into four occupation zones: British, French, American, Soviet. Stalin would also acquire some territory (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania) to be held under Soviet jurisdiction. The three leaders seemed friendly and cooperative, but that air would not last.
By the end of World War II, the world was already somewhat split into two major political camps: liberal democracy and authoritarian communism. While the United States and much of western Europe envisioned a world of free market capitalism and self-determination (for Western countries only), the Soviet bloc envisioned a world of communism. Somewhat ironically, both the United States and the Soviet Union emerged out of a revolution - one for democracy, one for Marxism-Leninism.
Five months later in July of 1945, Allied leaders once again convened for postwar planning, this time at Potsdam (a Berlin suburb). Harry Truman replaced Roosevelt, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill. The four occupying powers of Germany were allowed to decide how reparations were collected within their zones. Truman revealed the news of the successful test of the US atomic bomb in New Mexico to Stalin, who responded by forcefully strengthening the Soviet nuclear program. A divided Germany and the emergence of nuclear aggression set the stage for the Cold War.
In 1946, 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,” Churchill said. And he was right - Europe had split into two distinct camps, the line of division running right through Berlin, Germany. Later in 1961, Churchill’s metaphorical curtain became a concrete one with the construction of the Berlin Wall, put in place to halt the flow of refugees from the Eastern bloc to the West.
It is hard to put an exact date on when the Cold War started. There’s a reason why the Cold War is called the “Cold War” - it was not a series of hot battles between two sides, but an ideological, economic, political, and military war between two global superpowers, with proxy wars in smaller countries. There was no one incident that sparked it, instead it was a buildup of events and tensions. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact date of a defining conflict, but at least we know that the Cold War grew out of opposing interests post-World War II.
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