In order the evaluate the origin of the Cold War, one must evaluate the following: 1) The role of conflicting ideologies 2) Events during WWI and WWII 3) Yalta & Potsdam Conferences (1945) 3) Events between 1945-1949 However, a specific question about the significance of the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (1945) would require students to provide substantial detail and analysis about these two conferences. YALTA CONFERENCE 1. The United Nations (Collective Security) Despite the problems encountered by the League of Nations in arbitrating conflict and ensuring international peace and security prior to World War II, the major Allied powers agreed during the war to establish a new global organization to help manage international affairs. Facts: The Big Three agreed that a conference would be held at San Francisco on April 25, 1945 to establish the formal organization of the United Nations. The Big Three agreed on the American formula for selecting the countries to be invited to attend the San Francisco Conference: “all the allied Nations that had declared war on the Axis by March 1, 1945.” The Security Council would consist of 11 members. Each member of the Security Council would have one vote. The Permanent members of the Security Council would consist of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China. The affirmative votes of all the Permanent Members of the Security Council would be necessary for all decisions on all matters. Therefore the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China gained veto power. Analysis: Some historians have argued that the Yalta Conference was responsible for creating a United Nations that would be ineffective during the Cold War. These historians argue that the Soviets should not have gained veto power. In the early days of the United Nations, the Soviet Union minister for foreign affairs, Molotov, said no so many times that he was known as “Mr. Veto”. In fact, the Soviet Union was responsible for nearly half of all vetoes ever cast—79 vetoes were used in the first 10 years. Molotov regularly rejected bids for new membership because of the U.S.’s refusal to admit the Soviet republics. Other historians disagree and point out that The United Nations was sometimes utilized as an effective tool by the United States during the Cold War. Example: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson gave a presentation at an emergency session of the Security Council on October 25, 1962. He forcefully asked the Soviet representative, Valerian Zorin, if his country was installing missiles in Cuba, punctuated with the famous demand “Don’t wait for the translation, answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’!” Following Zorin’s refusal to answer the abrupt question, Stevenson retorted, “I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over.” In a diplomatic coup, Stevenson then showed photographs that proved the existence of missiles in Cuba, just after the Soviet ambassador had implied they did not exist…This effective speech turned world opinion in favor of the U.S. Stalin consented to follow the American formula for selecting the countries to be invited to attend the San Francisco Conference: all the allied Nations that had declared war on the Axis by March 1, 1945…. This extended date allowed a number of Latin-American Nations and Turkey to participate in the U.N. The leadership of these countries tended to have closer relationships with the U.S. during the Cold War. 2. Declaration on Liberated Europe. Facts: The Declaration is full of statements that the three great powers will jointly assist the people in the liberated and Axis satellite countries to create democratic institutions of their own choice. The Big Tree agreed jointly to assist in holding the earliest possible free elections for that purpose. 3. Germany and Poland Facts: Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation (US, USSR, France, Britain) and that German territorial gains would be confiscated. Roosevelt agreed that “an Allied reparation commission” should take the suggestion of the Soviet Government as an initial basis for discussion. The Soviets suggested that the total sum of reparations that the Germans should pay should be 20 billion dollars and that 50 percent (10 billion) should go to the USSR. The Big three agreed that German capital, goods and labor could be used as a source of reparations. Stalin agreed to allow for free and fair elections to take place in Poland after the Soviet-administered provisional government could reorganize the country. Stalin secretly agreed to support the American War effort in the Pacific after the defeat of Germany Analysis: Some historians have argued that Roosevelt did not understand the threat posed by the USSR and adopted a policy of “appeasement” towards Stalin. These historians believe that Stalin was emboldened to dominate Eastern Europe after the Yalta Conference. “It should not have been difficult to foresee how the pledges of ‘free elections’ would work out, with Soviet-trained communists in charge of the police, the Red Army in occupation of the country and no safeguards for honest voting…The effect of this abandonment of Poland was certain to be profound throughout Eastern Europe. Poland had the strongest legal and moral claim to American and British support. Polish resistance to Hitler’s aggression had been the original cause of WWII.” “There was no reason to bribe Stalin to continue a war in Europe or to start a war in Asia so clearly prompted by his own sense of interest…Suppose the United States and Great Britain had committed themselves to a firm, uncompromising declaration that they would not tolerate WWII as a means of territorial gains by the USSR. Behind such a declaration would have stood the mightiest concentration of sea and air power the world had ever seen, a highly mechanized army and an American war economy capable of almost unlimited further achievement. On the other side would have been a Soviet Union devastated by invasion and bled white in manpower, dependent in the final drive to victory on American trucks, field telephones, canned food and other lend-lease supplies…For at the time of Yalta the power relation was less favorable to the Soviet Union…In 1945, Stalin would not have dared to face the US forces in the battle field and would have given up on the idea of occupying Eastern Europe….” Other historians have argued that Roosevelt did NOT adopt a policy of appeasement towards Stalin. “Threatening the USSR at Yalta with war might have been dangerous not only to world peace but also to the winning of the war. The speed with which Germany would crumble with Eisenhower’s offensive in the spring was not anticipated. Furthermore, faulty intelligence conveyed the impression that Japan still possessed large forces in Manchuria (China) and made Russian cooperation strategically very important. Roosevelt was eager to bring the Russians into the Pacific war. The operations at Iwo Jima and Okinawa were yet to get under way. An invasion of Japan was being planned for November, 1945. And the potential, almost certain, loss of American lives weighed heavily on President Roosevelt’s mind. Military sources anticipated the probability of one million casualties in the invasion of Japan; and the Japanese war was generally expected to end probably no earlier than 1947. Above all, neither President Roosevelt nor anybody else at Yalta knew that the atomic bomb was going to be successful. It was not until several months after Roosevelt’s death that our atomic experiments culminated successfully in the test in the desert of New Mexico. President Roosevelt may be criticized for not being psychic enough to foretell that the Japanese war was going to end in six months, but he cannot fairly be criticized for surrender or appeasement, for inept bargaining, or for any lack of good sense or good faith.” “Yalta, with the Declaration on Liberated Europe is a direct answer to unfounded charges that the President agreed at Yalta directly or indirectly to some kind of sphere of influence or some form of arrangement which would give the Soviet Union control in Eastern Europe…. No agreement could have been drawn in a language less susceptible of any implication of spheres of influence. FDR laid the foundations for a long period of peace and good will at Yalta. The failure in this area is not due to anything which happened at Yalta. The principles and formula there agreed upon were indisputable. What has happened is due to the Soviet refusal to carry out the agreement made at Yalta; in fact it has been a square rejection of Yalta.” Potsdam Conference, 1945 After the surrender of Germany, the principal Allies in World War II (the United States, the USSR, and Great Britain) wanted to clarify and implement agreements previously reached at the Yalta Conference. The USSR’s greatest asset in the Potsdam Conference was the presence of the Red Army in Central and Eastern Europe. In eastern and central Europe the U.S. had no armies But Western armies had taken considerably more of Germany than the USSR. Facts: The territorial agreements with regard to Poland were confirmed at Potsdam A four-power Allied Control Council for matters regarding the whole of Germany was created (Britain, US, USSR, France) The councils’ goal was to integrate the administration of the four zones of occupation. The desire for a harsh punishment of Germany by the USSR undermined the Allied Control Council’s ability to maintain a unified administration of Germany. The council never functioned effectively and broke up in 1948. The future of Germany was left unresolved: its territory, unity, government and German war reparations were left unresolved. Analysis The Potsdam Conference lacked the warm atmosphere of the Yalta Conference, as Truman took a much firmer stance against communism than Roosevelt had. Truman personally did not like Stalin. He was also president of a country armed with a new and fearsome weapon - the atomic bomb. Stalin was told at Potsdam about a new weapon America now possessed. However, very little information was given to him. When the atomic bombs were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it became clear to Stalin that the USSR was years behind America in terms of modern weaponry. Though the Red Army was huge in terms of manpower and its tanks were some of the most modern in the world, this new weapon made all this conventional power of less value. By the end of 1945, the seeds of the Cold War had been well and truly sown. Both sides were no longer linked by a common enemy. One side had massive conventional forces in control of Eastern Europe, while the other had an unknown number of atomic bombs which could be used against Moscow - as Stalin knew. Truman continued Roosevelt’s requests for Soviet support in Japan, perhaps to draw Soviet troops out of Europe while American troops left for the Pacific. However, the Soviets made many new demands for territories of the former Axis powers. This conference left a tense atmosphere in Europe and showed the beginnings of the Cold War.