The superpowers were always suspicious of each other. America was trying to stop the spread of Communism, the Truman Doctrine, whilst Russia was trying to spread it. This is why America had decided to resist the Berlin Blockade. The Allies airlifted supplies into the city until the blockade was lifted in May 1949 after a year of the Blockade.
The Berlin blockade was the first real confrontation of the superpowers. It resulted in the permanent division of Germany, as two separate countries were formed. The French, British and American zones became the German Democratic Republic, West Germany. This country was a democracy, which meant that the people could elect their own government through free elections. It also benefited from Marshall aid, which helped to rebuild the economy and become an independent country.
The Soviet zone became East Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. It was Communist controlled by the Soviet Union and so the people could not elect their governments. With no Marshall aid and the USSR wanting to destroy East Germany West Germany, which was recovering quickly from the war, was a more desirable place and many people from the East wanted to over there.
After the blockade it showed that the USA no longer trusted the USSR and vice versa. The USA no longer wanted to put up with communist tactics while the Soviets were tired of American tactics. It increased tensions between east and west dramatically. The Western Allies had taken a risk that the USSR would not shoot their planes down. If they had, a war may have started. This made the Western Allies realise that they needed a military alliance in Europe to protect them from the USSR. The Soviet Union had a huge army and therefore the countries needed back up if anything did happen. They therefore set up North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which originally had 13 members including the USA, UK, Canada, Belgium and Netherlands. It was agreed that if one member were attacked the others would help. President Truman described it as a shield against aggression. If a war did break out though NATO would be no match for the Red Army and the USSR was in no way scared.
However the Soviet Union saw NATO as a threat after Greece and Turkey, its neighbouring country, joined NATO in 1951 and later in 1955, West Germany joined, the USSR felt as though it had to take action. Since the Second World War, Russia had feared the possibility of another German invasion, which is why it wanted influence in its neighbouring countries and used them as buffers. Now Germany would have the support of the other members of NATO and could be a huge threat. The Warsaw Pact was therefore set up, which was a military alliance for the Communist-controlled countries of Eastern Europe. It included Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
The time when West was against East was known as the Cold War. Each side tried to become better than the other – rivalry. They wanted more and better nuclear weapons than each other and to be the first to develop new technology. After the Berlin Blockade Europe was not only divided into East and West, but it was also split by two different systems of government; each side wanted to prove that theirs was the best. This meant that throughout the 1940s and 1950s relations between Communism and democracy were always very strained. The Berlin Blockade made the Cold war heat up and showed their rivalry to the whole world.
