As well as the Atom bombs, America had a new president in the form of Harry Truman. Truman aggravated the situation between America and the USSR because he had a more anti-communist view towards Stalin compared to the previous president Roosevelt, who had died from a heart attack in April. This meant that due to Stalin’s ideas of the spread of communism, Truman greatly distrusted Stalin, and now, instead of thinking Stalin as an ally, now thought of him as the opposition. Other disagreements at Potsdam also lead to the changes in relations such as the fact that Stalin wanted to cripple Germany by greatly fining the country in reparations to ensure that it would never be able to attack Russia in the future. Truman greatly disagreed as he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War. Truman was just overall unhappy about the Soviet policies in Eastern Europe and their intentions to spread communism. Therefore, this caused him to introduce a “get tough” attitude towards Stalin, meaning that the friendly relationship portrayed in the photos taken at the conference for the press from around the world was non-existent.
By the end of the Potsdam conference, the USA and the USSR now viewed each other with total suspicion. Each feared the other. Britain and France were badly weakened by the war and it was clear that the USA and USSR would dominate the world affairs in the near future. Winston Churchill summed up the situation in a speech in 1946, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”
This was known as the beginning of the Cold War. This was where the poor relations between the two countries were more public than ever. Here, we could see that the relations had changed because the USA feared that Russia wanted to spread communism across Europe, and then the world. Russia, then feared another invasion from the west and thought America wanted to dominate Europe and the world. In 1945, Russia was much weaker than the USA.
As far as the Americans were concerned, Stalin was planning to take over Europe. This was probably not true, nevertheless, Stalin was determined to hold onto Eastern Europe but had no plans for the rest of Europe. By remembering what America and Russia feared the other was planning was just as important as what they were actually planning meant that this iron curtain that Churchill had previously talked about was in fact true.
In 1947, Stalin set up Cominform which was the response to the USA’s Marshall Plan (it funded countries to encourage them to stay capitalist instead of aiding Stalin’s communist spread). It included communist parties all over Europe and was designed to make sure they all followed the same ideological line as Stalin. This showed that Stalin was also to blame for the weak relations between the two countries because he .
The Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949 was a major stepping stone in the road to the collision of Russia and America. Due to the causes of the blockade, it lead to an even stronger hatred between the two sides. The fact America wanted its zone of Germany along with Britain and France’s to recover economically from the war and eventually be unified into a new West Germany, opposed Stalin’s ideas of keeping Germany weak. He did not want a strong West Germany emerging that could threaten Russia and the communist bloc. In June 1948, the new currency of the Deutschmark was introduced into the western zones to help the economic recovery which was then introduced into the western sectors of Berlin. This annoyed Stalin even more and accused the West (America) of interfering in East Germany (Berlin was East Germany). This triggered the “hate, love” relation, causing Stalin to close the roads, railways and waterways that linked the western sectors of Berlin with West Germany in June 1948. Stalin was using some clever initiative because it would meant that if supplies could not be got to the people in Berlin, the French, English and especially the Americans would have to withdraw. Attempts to break the blockade could end in war (the Russians had far more troops on the ground). This lead America to the solution of airlifting supplies to Berlin which started in June over 318 days and put the ball back into Russia’s court; she would have to fire the first shot. This forced Stalin to lift the blockade in May 1949.
Due to the consequences of the Berlin Crisis, relations between America and Russia were worse than ever. NATO was formed which was a military alliance where if a member of the alliance was attacked, the others would help them. Made from Western countries such as America, Britain and Canada, it was more or less a military pact against Russia, influencing the poor relationship.
Clearly then, the most important reason why relations changed between the USA and the USSR in the years 1945-1949 was because of the fact that each side mistrusted each other. They suspected each other of ambitions of world control that neither had.