How far do you agree with the view that the development of the cold war in the period 1945-50 was a result of Stalins foreign policy?

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Francesc Gaya Mesquida How far do you agree with the view that the development of the cold war in the period 1945-50 was a result of Stalin’s foreign policy? The Cold War began in a series of events from the conferences of the Big Three in 1943-45 to the complex events of the post-war era, in which both sides contributed. In any case, the Cold War began because the U.S. would not allow the Soviets a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and because the Soviets took a series of aggressive actions to expand their areas of control and influence all over the World.What the USA did not understand that made USSR’s policy so aggressive and seem so tough is that the Soviet foreign policy was marked by the heavy losses, not only military but also in population, which the USSR had during the Second World War. Whole cities were destroyed to rubble and thousands of acres of cultivating land were converted to waste. So the USSR desired to make their borders secure by creating their own sphere of influence with friendly governments, yes it was a way of spreading communism, but it was firstly a security measure.The USA as expressed by George Kennan in his “long telegram”: “and they [USSR] have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival powers, never in compacts and compromises with it” so we can see how exaggerated was the US view of the soviet will of protection. The US was also starting a bad era, the change of president after the fructuous Yalta conference, in which Truman succeeded the deceased Roosevelt, marked a very heavy change in US foreign policy. Truman was heavily anti-communist and adopted a
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new “iron fist” attitude to the USSR. Truman was never very friendly with the USSR; he even spoke to them the “language of a Missouri mule driver” which did not make the soviet foreign minister Molotov very happy at all. Relations with the two countries were reaching a new low, and it was made worse by the series of strange soviet actions in Eastern Europe.During the years 1945-47 the Soviet Red Army was stationed in large parts of Eastern Europe. Given the political and military vacuum that existed after the Nazi defeat, the Red Army was placed to exert influence ...

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