n wartime, the United States supplied both Britain and the Soviets through its
Lend-Lease Program.
[19] However, Stalin remained highly suspicious and believed that the British and the Americans had conspired to ensure the Soviets bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany. According to this view, the Western Allies had deliberately delayed opening a second anti-German front in order to step in at the last moment and shape the peace settlement. Thus, Soviet perceptions of the West left a strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers.
[20]
The Allies disagreed about how the European map should look, and how borders would be drawn, following the war.
[21] Each side held dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security.
[21] The western Allies desired a security system in which democratic governments were established as widely as possible, permitting countries to peacefully resolve differences through
international organizations.
[22]
Given the Russian historical experiences of frequent invasions
[23] and the immense
death toll (estimated at 27 million) and the destruction the Soviet Union sustained during World War II,
[24] the Soviet Union sought to increase security by dominating the internal affairs of countries that bordered it.
[21][25] During the war, Stalin had created special training centers for Communists from different countries so that they could set up secret police forces loyal to Moscow as soon as the Red Army took control. Soviet agents took control of the media, especially radio; they quickly harassed and then banned all independent civic institutions, from youth groups to schools, churches and rival political parties.
[26] Stalin also sought continued peace with Britain and the United States, hoping to focus on internal reconstruction and economic growth.
[27]
The Western Allies were divided in their vision of the new post-war world. Roosevelt's goals – military victory in both Europe and Asia, the achievement of global American economic supremacy over the
British Empire, and the creation of a world peace organization – were more global than Churchill's, which were mainly centered on securing control over the
Mediterranean, ensuring the survival of the British Empire, and the independence of Central and Eastern European countries as a
buffer between the Soviets and the United Kingdom.
[28]
In the American view, Stalin seemed a potential ally in accomplishing their goals, whereas in the British approach Stalin appeared as the greatest threat to the fulfillment of their agenda. With the Soviets already occupying most of Central and Eastern Europe, Stalin was at an advantage and the two western leaders vied for his favors. The differences between Roosevelt and Churchill led to several separate deals with the Soviets. In October 1944, Churchill traveled to Moscow and agreed to divide the
Balkans into respective spheres of influence, and at Yalta Roosevelt signed a separate deal with Stalin in regard of Asia and refused to support Churchill on the issues of Poland and the Reparations.
[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#cite_note-Plokhy-28
Further Allied negotiations concerning the post-war balance took place at the
Yalta Conference in February 1945, albeit this conference also failed to reach a firm consensus on the framework for a post-war settlement in Europe.
[29] In April 1945, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by
Harry S. Truman, who distrusted Stalin and turned for advice to an
elite group of foreign policy intellectuals. Both Churchill and Truman opposed, among other things, the Soviets' decision to prop up the
Lublin government, the Soviet-controlled rival to the
Polish government-in-exile in London, whose relations with the Soviets had been severed.
[30]
At the
Potsdam Conference, which started in late July after Germany's surrender, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.
[34] Moreover, the participants' mounting antipathy and bellicose language served to confirm their suspicions about each other's hostile intentions and entrench their positions.
[35] At this conference Truman informed Stalin that the United States possessed a powerful new weapon.
[36]
Stalin was aware that the Americans were working on the atomic bomb and, given that the Soviets' own rival program was in place, he reacted to the news calmly. The Soviet leader said he was pleased by the news and expressed the hope that the weapon would be used against Japan.
[36] One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the US
bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in
occupied Japan.
[37]