Truman opposed Stalin’s policy of spreading communism throughout Eastern Europe and moved to unite Europe under American leadership. Mistrust grew as both sides broke wartime agreements: Stalin failed to honour pledges to hold free elections in Eastern Europe and Truman refused to honour promises to send reparations from the defeated Germany to help rebuild the Soviet Union. Stalin was spreading throughout Europe whilst USA was attempting to stop this spread. By early 1947 Truman had a new foreign policy in the making. In its early stages this policy was called the Truman Doctrine and was confined to economic aid to Greece and Turkey to help those governments resist Soviet influence. In its later stages it was called "containment" and was aimed at blocking Communist expansion anywhere in the world. On the other hand, In October 1947 the Soviet Union arranged a meeting in Poland for the Communist parties of nine countries: USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy. At this meeting the Cominform was founded, ostensibly as a house for information of common concern, but in reality as an instrument of Stalin's policy, particularly in Yugoslavia, where the Communist leader Tito was adopting independent policies. By 1948 communism prevailed in Czechoslovakia which then in reality turned in to a Soviet Satellite state.
The most significant event of the years just after WW2 was the Berlin Blockade. In June of 1948, Stalin ordered the blockade of West Berlin's roads and railways. There was no way of travelling by land into the city. The only access to West Berlin was through a 20-mile wide air corridor. The USA decided that it did not want to give up West Berlin. As a part of the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift moved enough goods into West Berlin over 320 days to entirely support the economy of the city. The 2.5 million citizens of West Berlin relied on the supplies given through the Berlin Airlift. Stalin backed down on May 1949 and West Berlin remained allied with the West until the unification of 1989. Divisions deepened in 1949 with the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A Soviet counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, followed this. NATO was a treaty whose intent was to solidify the allies to the West and separate the nations to the East. The Warsaw Pact was less significant, however, because its member nations were already puppet states of Russia and their alliance was assumed.
From 1944 to 1950, the beginning of the Korean War, we can see that there is a complete and utter European Dimension to the cold war. The war between USA and USSR was an indirect war which was fought politically and economically throughout Europe in those years. There was no actual military engagement from USA or USSR on soviet and American land. This determines the importance of the events which occurred in Europe in the 6 years after the war. There are a number of reasons for which the two superpowers did not confront themselves directly. First of all it is important to remember the implementation of the atomic bomb. There was a general fear for the atomic bomb after the Hiroshima attack and both sides were very careful because of this. The militarization of both countries was a key issue of the cold war and prevented direct conflict between the two.
The European Dimension to the cold war soon expanded to a global dimension with the Korean War in 1950. Only then did the USA deploy military action to what was supported by Stalin. Mao Tzedong, who became the Communist leader of China in 1949, wanted to push the control of Communism southward. By 1950 the siege of Berlin had ended and Stalin agreed to support China's desire to move south. North Korea was aided by China and Russia in its attack against South Korea which was aided by USA. The war ended without any real victory. North Korea eventually withdrew from the southern state. The war was a fight for containment by the USA even though the American government did not want to invade a Communist country for fear of retaliation by the Soviets or the Chinese.
In 1953, Stalin’s death marked a temporary thaw to the cold war and eventually the relaxation of political and economical controls led the eastern Europeans to demand for more freedom. The next year, Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s policies.
In addition, as was noted in the beginning of the essay, it is essential to categorize the war between USA and USSR as being mostly based on European grounds. It was a game of war played on a European board which then eventually converted into a global dimension. All of the events, which occurred in the years just after the Second World War, are of vital correlation to the cold war since the events themselves are actually the war itself.
