Roosevelt diligently tried to ignore the popular claim that soviet expansion into Eastern European nations bordering Russia was an attempt to spread communism and attain hegemony. In his view, Russia was just insecure having been the victim of the spurious Nazi-Soviet pact and Operation Barbarossa instigated primarily through Poland. He believed that Stalin just wanted to secure the Eastern front of Russia to avoid future invasions. Harriman, advised Roosevelt on taking a coercive stance with Russia, and on fulfilling the goals of the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt always took a moderate path and therefore loosely abided to encourage democracy in Europe, but not to the extent that it would be deleterious to soviet relations. The Russians repeatedly violated the demarcations negotiated in the Yalta conference. Roosevelt indirectly impacted the initiation of the Cold War by allowing Stalin to seize territories and by abiding to the demands of Russians allowing them to gain the upper hand in the Yalta Conference. The U.S.S.R. became self-reliant nation. However, that which is important to note is despite defiantly taking over territories, Stalin never had any intention on creating a world dispute at the scale of the Cold War, despite traditionalist claims, until Harry S. Truman came to power. Therefore, Roosevelt had no significant influence on the responsibility of the Cold War.
The events that epitomize Truman’s policy were the droppings of the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman promulgated that the U.S. had to be obeyed. This decision was based primarily on the idea that if communist overran democratic institutions, then the U.S. would lose trading partners and would fall into another depression. All his policies revolved around this focal point. In Potsdam, Germany was divided so that the soon to be victors of the war would have equal influence on the development of the nation. But in the end, Stalin again gained the upper hand in this deal placing his own officials into power. The conference in Potsdam was held during July of 1945, and then in August Truman excited the whole world by dropping the first atomic bombs first on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman wanted to show that the U.S. was now the world’s potentate; a message sent directly to the U.S.S.R. There was clearly no real incentive on using the bombs to end the war for several reasons: Japan was a democratic institution, they were at the point of negotiating after the first bomb was dropped but Truman was in implacable pursuit of using it, and Japan was essentially powerless at the time and therefore the use of ground troops would not have taken much longer to end the war. In collaboration with Truman’s rebuking of Molotov, the dropping of the bombs indicated to Stalin that Truman was willing to threaten the security parameters of the Soviet Union. Stalin therefore realized that he could only gain back negotiating powers by building a bomb himself.
It now appears inane to claim that Roosevelt’s attempt at avoiding a conflict such as the Cold War actually led to it, when contrasting his policies with those of Truman’s. Certainly the U.S.S.R. made tremendous progress in terms of securing its influence of power, and for that the blame is ascribed to Roosevelt. Yet he was never significantly responsible for starting the Cold War. The conflict could have easily been avoided. Without a doubt, Truman’s coercive diplomacy incorporated with his atomic threat really created the conflict. His policies also greatly shaped the conflict in its entirety.
