The Role Played by the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences in the Origin of the Cold War

History home essay 02/10-08

The Role Played by the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences in the Origin of the Cold War.

How, and to what extent, did the conferences at Yalta and Potsdam (1945) contribute to the origin of the Cold War?

During the end of the Second World War there were several conferences where the allies tried to decide how to solve the problems that would come up after the war had ended. Here the allies discussed important issues like the German and Polish question, the UN, and, what to do with Eastern Europe after the fall of Hitler. As suspected the allies differed terribly in some matters and tension grew. Two of these conferences were the ones at Yalta and Potsdam (February and July-August 1945).

The Yalta conference is often regarded as a success and the allies managed to cooperate together relatively well despite their ideological differences. They decided to divide Germany into four zones of occupation but that this division would be ´temporary´ and Germany would be run as one country. Stalin also got what he wanted territorially from Poland and in return he agreed to ´free elections´. All of the countries also agreed to join the UN, but, we can however see a small frustration growing with Stalin. Stalin demanded 16 seats in the UN, one for each Soviet republic – but he only got three in the end. Apart from this the conference was a success with only a few disputes but most of them were solved in a peaceful manner.

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Potsdam can however not be regarded the same success as Yalta. Many of the agreements made at Yalta were again discussed and this time they were not able to reach a decision. They allies could not reach an agreement on how to control Germany and the different occupation zones was now a permanent solution. In Poland the Americans wanted an entirely new government since they felt that there had not been a ´free and democratic´ vote. The Americans did also not want to see Eastern Europe become a Soviet sphere of influence, but without threatening to push the Red Army back with ground forces there was practically little that the United States could do. The first atomic bomb was also used by the US without informing Russia about it. With the creation of the UN, Stalin used his power of veto to block any initiatives that he perceived to be against Soviet interests. It is thus quite clear that this conference created great tension between the different countries.

The Yalta conference is often seen as a success and many agreements were made, nevertheless, you could already at notice a gap between the allies and their ideologies since they could not reach a complete agreement on what to do with Germany. They did however come to some sort of agreement but they did not go the whole way. This gap just got bigger and bigger and at Potsdam where they finally decided that the division should be permanent. Truman also replaced President Roosevelt after the conference at Yalta and he is known to be more harsh and anti-communistic. The inexperienced Atlee then also replaced Churchill as the Prime Minister of England. Churchill was the only one who knew how to handle Stalin in a good way and when he left problems in communication arose. The US did after the wary elections in Eastern Europe no longer trust Soviet that they had ´free and democratic elections´ and thus the suspicion increased. By not telling Soviet about how to get and use the atomic bomb Stalin got very frustrated and he consequently stopped trusting the USA. Stalin thus became more scared and wanted security to protect himself from the West and therefore he first demanded 16 seats in the UN to get more power but when his request got denied he instead used his power of veto to vote against everything that interfered with Soviet aims. However it was not only these two conferences that contributed to the outbreak of the cold war; the different ideologies and mutual distrust and suspicion also played a great role. It can however be said that it was during these conferences that the differences were revealed. Without the differences in ideologies and interests there would not have been as many disputes and problems not being solved, and the tension leading to the cold war would not have been created. One can therefore say that the conferences only made the already existing problems surface, and made the tension visible.

In conclusion, the two conferences did serve as an outlet for the already existing problems due to ideological differences of the US, Great Britain and Soviet. The tension rose due to disagreements among the allies and the inability to reach decisions for important issues. The cold war would thus not have started if there had not been underlying frustration between the allies, such as differences in ideology, and the conferences only made the suspicion and distrust rise since the countries were unable to reach decisions in the discussions.