A shadow has fallen upon the scene so recently lit by Allied victory.

Winston Churchills
1946 declaration shows that after World War 2 ended, relations between the
superpowers changed from uneasy partnership to mutual hostility. This essay argues
that this was due to various events that precipitated the Cold War including the Yalta
and Potsdam Conferences, the atomic bomb, the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Aid,
the Czechoslovak coup dtat, the Berlin Blockade, and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. It also considers the Berlin Blockade the most significant event to escalate
the tension between the USA and the USSR by 1949.

Firstly, the wartime conferences deepened the Soviet-American rift. The conflict
between their ideologies was shown by differences over Poland at the February 1945
Yalta Conference. While Roosevelt wished to support the Poles in London, Stalin
advocated supporting the Communist-led Lublin Committee in Poland. Thus the US
distrust of communist governments conflicted with Stalins desire to support like-
minded regimes outside of the USSR. The friction increased at the Potsdam Conference
in July 1945, especially since the end of the war eliminated the superpowers need to
cooperate. Orthodox historians also claim that Trumans failure to divulge the
significance of the atomic bomb outraged Stalin when the bomb was deployed over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, I agree with the revisionist view that Stalin did,
indeed, know about the bomb because Soviet sources suggest that acting on information
about the bomb from his espionage forces, Stalin ordered his scientists to develop a
nuclear weapon to rival that of the USA. Hence Stalins prior knowledge of the bomb
provoked one of the defining features of the Cold War: the arms race. The wartime
conferences thus damaged US-USSR relations.

Historian David Holloway further argues that the dropping of the atomic bomb caused
Stalin to toughen his foreign policy regarding the USA. This can be supported by Stalins
distrustful attitude in his remark to his Deputy Chairman Molotov: They are killing the
Japanese and intimidating us. This indicates his suspicion that the atomic bomb was
intended to intimidate the USSR rather than the Japanese. He further demonstrated his
hostility in his February 1946 speech accusing the US of atomic imperialism. Thus the
atomic bomb damaged the USSRs relations with the USA by lowering the chances of it
reverting to its wartime US-friendly foreign policies.

The Truman Doctrine of March 12th, 1947, also deepened the Cold War because it
demonstrated the change in US policy from isolationism to active containment of
Communism. In response to Britains financial inability to assist the Greek government
against Communist guerrillas, Truman declared to his Congress that it was the duty of
the US to support free peoples against outside pressures. He then sent Greece US aid
and military advisors. This aroused Soviet suspicion because it was perceived as an
attempt to make democracy prevail over communism. LaFeber calls the doctrine
Americas ideological shield and this is demonstrated by the fact that from 1947
onwards, any threats to the Western politico-economic system were explained by US
politicians as Communist-inspired. The doctrine further developed the Cold War by
inspiring what compelled the USSR to question US economic intentions: the Marshall
Plan.

The Marshall Plan, a four-year $17 billion aid program to assist European states,
weakened relations between the superpowers by demonstrating the US opposition to
communism. Revisionist historians such as Richard Freeland argue that the Plan was an
extension of the Truman Doctrine, because it had the same objective of forging
economic buffers to contain communism. This is supported by the Plans proviso that to
qualify for economic aid, a country would have to allow the US to investigate its
financial records. This was so clearly unacceptable to the USSR that it suggests the US
intended to exclude the Soviets, and discourage communism by restoring the European
economy. This further heightened resentment between the superpowers because the
USSR perceived this as dollar imperialism - that is, they considered the Marshall Plan
to be an American attempt at economic domination. In response, they established the
Council of Mutual Economic Assistance in 1949, linking Eastern European economies to
Moscow. Thus the Marshall Plan widened the scope of the conflict between the
superpowers as not simply an arms race, but a battle for economic control over Europe.

The Czechoslovak coup dtat of 1948 also contributed to the deteriorating relations
between the superpowers on ideological grounds. Stalin responded to Czechoslovakias
interest in receiving aid from the Marshall Plan by forcing non-communist government
members to resign. He also pressurized President Benes to sanction a Czech Communist
Party-led government, and assassinated independent Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk.
The Soviet use of force to consolidate their power in their satellite state was condemned
by the USA on moral grounds: Truman called it a shock for a civilized world. Thus the
loss of the last enduring democracy in Eastern Europe showed the clear divide between
communist and capitalist ideologies on either side of the Iron Curtain. It also catalyzed
the approval of the Marshall Plan by the US Congress.

However, the crisis that most eroded friendly relations between the superpowers
between 1945 and 1949 was the Berlin Blockade. Traditional historical views, such as
those of George Kennan and Louis Halle, consider this to be the first major escalation of
US-USSR tension. This can be supported by the fact that it was the first crisis of the Cold
War and held real possibility of military conflict, making it more significant than other
events. The clash was due to the Allies 1948 introduction of the new currency
Deutschmark within Bizonia, the US and Britains joint zone of Berlin occupation.
Russian textbooks branding this a propaganda move to make the Cold War worse show
that the Soviets interpreted this as an act to undermine their German influence. Thus,
out of the fear that the new currency would damage the economy of East Germany,
Stalin blocked rails, waterways and roads between West Berlin and West Germany.
Although the US Airlift prevented mass starvation among the Berliners and Stalin ended
the blockade in May 1949, the crisis negatively impacted relations between the
superpowers. This was because the failure of the blockade meant the division of
Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany, led by the West, and the Soviet-led
German Democratic Republic. This division showed the disappearance of any spirit of
unity and cooperation between the USA and the USSR, and the division of Europe
politically and economically.

The Berlin Blockade also heightened the friction between the superpowers because it
convinced the USA that the USSR was an aggressive threat. This led to the formation of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. By signing a mutual defense treaty with
Canada, Norway, Denmark and other American allies, the US established a major
military presence in Europe. This confirmed Soviet fears of potential armed conflict,
leading to another delineation of Europe along Cold War lines when the USSR formed
the 1955 Warsaw Pact with Eastern European countries in response. Hence the
Blockade, by triggering NATO and indirectly the Warsaw Pact, had long-term
consequences for the deterioration of the US-USSR relations.

Thus the Berlin Blockade was the most significant event in escalating American-Soviet
tension. Friction certainly developed through the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, the
atomic bomb, the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Aid, the Czechoslovak coup dtat and
NATO. However, it was the failure of the blockade that led, in American diplomat
George Kennans words, an irrevocable congealment of the division of Europe into two
military zones: a Soviet zone and a US zone. It thus consolidated the change in
superpower relations from wartime partnership to mutual suspicion and distrust.