It was only when Hitler implemented operation Barbarossa when the two sides became allied. Stalin didn’t refer to this as an alliance but as an ‘anti-nazi coalition’. This showed the west he had no desire to be allied with them, but was merely due to necessity. The western allies created the alliance on the same grounds as the British were “backs against the wall” and would “have dealt with the devil himself”. More so Churchill was privately disgusted with Stalin’s policies.
Events throughout the war increased mistrust between the powers. The delay of the D Day landings gave Stalin reason to believe that the west were waiting for Russia to fall, before they would step in to stop Hitler. In his mind Stalin saw the west simply allying with him to stop Hitler then to attack Russia and the delaying was on purpose to weaken Russia before the attack would commence. The reality was the west was not prepared for the landings but delaying this meant Stalin trusted the west even less. The Katyn massacre of polish officers in 1943 was said to be by the Nazis, but some westerners believed that it was carried out by Russian troops due to the ‘bullet in the head’ execution method. This made the west fearful about Stalin’s plans for a liberated Eastern Europe. They believed that removing possible rulers of Poland after the war that Stalin was going to seize Poland for himself, imposing communist rule. The Warsaw Uprising backed up these ideas in 1944, where Russian troops were ordered by Stalin to prevent helping the Poles from defeating the Germans in Warsaw. This act, combined with the Katyn Massacre made the west very suspicious of Stalin’s policies in regards to Eastern Europe.
Lend lease was also key to the suspicion shared. Throughout the war the USA had leant money and goods to the USSR to keep up their war effort. But before the war had ended it was mysteriously stopped. This backed up Russian ideas that the west was trying to ‘starve’ the Russian war effort, allowing them to be defeated. But in actual fact it was an accident. but nonetheless this event made the USSR even keener to secure defence in Eastern Europe, as mentioned above.
The Yalta conference in February 1945 the big three of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to discuss ending the war and how to rebuild Europe. At this conference the suspicions and mistrust shared between them started to show, as issues like Poland were very important to both agenda. The west saw the USSR trying to rule Poland through communism to spread communist ideals. Whilst from a Russian point of view it was merely a defence buffer zone to prevent a third invasion of Russia. They saw the western persistence of democracy in Eastern Europe an attempt to contain and destroy communism. This paranoid and fearful behaviour caused both powers to create a strong defence by using a strong attack. Germany was a key issue at both conferences. At Yalta it had been agreed that it should be sectioned into 4 areas, one for each of the allies. But as Berlin was in the eastern zone this was to also be separated. Stalin protested that the Ruhr industrialist zone should be the same; this was rejected adding to his feeling of suspicion. He saw the rejection of a share of the most prosperous part of Germany was another attempt to cease Russian recovery.
When the war ended the ‘alliance’ went to shreds. As mentioned above it was more an alliance of necessity allowing, for the most part differences to be pushed under the carpet. At the Potsdam conference following the end of the war their feelings were really shown. By this point they didn’t need each other so ‘the gloves came off’ so to speak. But by July 1945 America had developed the Atom Bomb, a weapon that they thought would give them the edge due to their feelings of a tough attitude towards the USSR. But this action of developing a weapon of mass destruction secretly only confirmed the mistrust of Stalin. Developing this weapon was supposed to prevent further aggravation by showing the USSR that the USA was in control. But the opposite occurred as the USSR, feeling threatened answered the A bomb with their own. This continual process of trying to outdo one another made the situation even worse, as the danger of the new weapons increased so did the fear of each other.
The subject of reparations was another key dilemma between the two powers. In Yalta it had been agreed that the reparations were to be extracted from the sector each power occupied. But the reparations had to be recorded through the reparations committee. The USSR decided not to do this and liquidated the assets of the eastern sector of Germany along the ‘liberated’ eastern Europe. The west saw this as not only defiance to what they agreed in but also the USSR creating communist conditions in their sector, when a democracy had been agreed upon. This added to the lengthening list of suspicion of the powers.
The defeat of Japan was very key to the start of the cold war. In Yalta the powers had agreed that the USSR would fight alongside the USA to defeat Japan. But through the using of the Atomic Bomb not only did America discard the offer of support by the Russians but show that they were in charge. This ‘cowboy’ attitude was very threatening to the Russians making the necessity to arm with nuclear weapons even more urgent. The suspicion felt by the west towards the USSR was made clear by the actions of two men. At the beginning of 1946 Winston Churchill delivered a speech to the American government telling of his fear, and the fear the USA should possess of the spread of communism. He wanted America to take action against this spread of communism to contain it. Stalin say this as threatening behaviour and referred to Churchill as a ‘war monger’. But this idea of containment was backed up by Kennan’s long telegram, which once more talked of containing the communist threat.
The culmination of the long history of mistrust and the kick start of the Atom bomb and beginnings of the policy of containment led to the cold war taking place by 1946.
