The Nazi-Soviet pact was responsible for the outbreak of war because France and Britain had decided to finally intervene. Since Hitler had taken Czechoslovakia as a cause of Britain’s policy of appeasement, this frightened USSR and Stalin felt that the only way to keep the USSR safe was by signing the Nazi- Soviet pact. The Nazi-Soviet pact gave Hitler confidence in invading Poland and was a way to avoid war on two fronts. Britain and France on the other hand felt it was time to react and as soon as Germany’s army entered Poland they themselves prepared their own military defenses causing the Second World War. The pact was the final cause of war as Hitler could now invade Poland without any interference from Stalin.
Why it was difficult for Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin to reach satisfactory agreements at the Yalta Conference (6) There were several areas of dispute at the Yalta conference. The main one was Poland. Stalin wanted to keep the parts of Poland that he had won in the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939. He also wanted Poland expanded westwards by giving it pars of Germany. That would make Germany weaker and put a buffer zone between Germany and the Soviet Union, Germany had invaded the Soviet Union twice in 30 years and Stalin wanted to ensure that it would not happen again.
Stalin and the US created a brief alliance because they were both concerned with stopping Hitler. When the war ended, the U.S., Britain, France, and Russia each controlled a portion of Germany. Soviet Russia did not want to allow their portion to be unified into a post-War Germany for fear that the Germans would again be an aggressive and powerful invader. In 1948 the Soviets blockaded East Berlin and the Germans in the West side of the city were starved of food. The Allies (us) started a massive airlift to feed the trapped Germans so they would not starve.
Much of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was linked to the end of World War II and the negotiations for settlement that followed. During the war, the Soviets believed that Britain and the United States had intentionally delayed a second front against Germany. They suspected that their so-called “allies” had decided to let the Soviets bear most of the burden of the war, but intervened towards the end to influence peace settlements. These misconceptions left feelings of tension and hostility between the two superpowers. Both the Soviet Union and the United States had very different ideas of how to establish postwar security.
An example of this was the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936. Britain and France allowed him to do this and the British released a statement saying Hitler was simply, ‘marching into his back yard.’ This policy taught Hitler that aggression paid off. More importantly, Appeasement scared Stalin. Stalin was the dictator in the U.S.S.R. His army were not advanced enough to stand a chance against even a small German army and he feared Britain and France would not help the Soviets if the Germans invaded them. This therefore led to him signing the Nazi-Soviet pact.
The world was left in a bipolar power struggle between the two main superpowers, America and the Soviet Union. Stalin, then the leader of the SU wanted to spread communism in order to strengthen the Unions hold on satellite states in Eastern Europe. The US were afraid of the threat of communism, fearful it would spread and cut all ties with their onetime allies. The Soviet Union hardened its attitude towards the West when NATO was formed in 1949 to battle the USSR. One of the major causes of tension was the Berlin blockade which caused an accelerated involvement of the US in Europe.
1. Explain the origins of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were uneasy allies; their collaboration was really the result of a mutual fear that the Nazis would gain control over Europe, not based on any ideological commonality. Because of this, after the war was over and the restructuring of Europe began, a power struggle developed between the Soviet Union (who wanted Germany to be Communist) and the United States and Britain (who wanted democratic rule.) However, you shouldn't make the assumption that devotion to ideology was all that was behind Cold War animosity; countries tend to be more complaint trading partners with countries that share their political systems and both Stalin and the Cold War Era presidents in the US knew this.
The Nazi Soviet Pact states that the Soviets and Germany would not fight with each other in the event of an outbreak of war in Europe. Russia was then guaranteed a part of Poland. After the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Hitler’s next target was Poland. However, he feared a two-front war with Britain and France in the West and Soviet Union in the east. Negotiation thus took place between Germany and Russia.
France protested because they thought that having German influence on both sides would be too much if conflict would have occured. William the King of Prussia withdrew Leopold but the French still did not let this situation rest at hand. The French influence group led by Empress Eugénie wanted war with Prussia. So they sent a French ambassador to seek William I and ask him to sign papers
The Bolsheviks wanted originally, world wide revolution but the countries in the West were cautious of Communism and therefore the Bolsheviks felt that survival of the regime was more important, they hoped that the West would collapse. Lenin knew that Russia and Communism was being targeted by the West therefore he appointed Chicherin as Commissar for Foreign Affairs in 1918 in order to build better relations with other countries. They stated a commitment to open diplomacy so that no secret treaties were signed like they were in the old Tsarist regime. Russia withdrew from the First World War with the signing of the Treaty of Breast-Litovsk with Germany which although took the pressure of the war away from Lenin, Russia lost a large deal of land in Finland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. These were not regained when the treaty was annulled in 1919 after Germany’s eventual defeat.