For What Reasons, and to What Extent, Did the Potsdam Conference of July 1945 Contribute to the Development of the Cold War?

For what reasons, and to what extent, did the Potsdam Conference of July 1945 contribute to the development of the Cold War?

The name “Cold War” is the name given to a series of events such as numerous international affairs and major crises that occurred after World War Two until the USSR dissolved in 1991, these events include the Cuban Missile Crisis and the rise and fall of the Berlin wall. However, before the Cold War happened, conferences were held between leaders of Britain, USA and the USSR and many historians argued that this was how the Cold War started. The Potsdam Conference was one of the conferences that were held. When the Potsdam conference was held in 1945, Germany had already surrendered and President Roosevelt, who represented the USA as the president in the previous two conferences, passed away and was replaced by Truman, Churchill’s Party lost in the 1945 UK election and Clement Atlee replaced him. This change in leadership meant that the two nations had different ideologies and approaches to situations meaning it would easily have affected the course of the cold war. In this essay, I will look into how the Potsdam Conference contributed to the development of the cold war analyzing what happened in the Potsdam Conference and how it contributed to the development of the Cold War. On October 9th 1944, Stalin and Churchill met in Moscow formulated a scheme called “Percentages Agreement”, which is an agreement between the West and USSR about the amount of power each side would want to have in a number of countries after the defeat of Germany. However, Truman wasn’t happy about the agreement, as he was worried that the countries in Eastern Europe would be under Stalin’s “sphere of influence”, meaning that Eastern Europe would be slowly turned into a communist country. But even though Truman did not approve of the “percentages agreement”, there wasn’t much he could do, as the Red Army was already occupying the territories in Eastern Europe and without threat, it wasn’t possible to push the Red Army back to the Soviet Union, and if he forced the Red Army to retreat back to the Soviet Union by force, it would have caused another large-scale war to start, and Europe was too crippled for another war and thus Truman had to agree with the “Percentage Agreement. Although it was an unofficial agreement between the two leaders, the percentage agreement formed a basis on how the Potsdam conference was conducted. Truman was also unhappy with the agreements over Poland, he challenged the decision over the frontier, the territory which Germany lost after the end of World War Two; he also insisted that the Polish government needs to be “reorganized”, meaning that the USA wanted a new government, as they think that there wasn’t a “free and democratic” vote. From these two incidents, it has already shown that there is tension arising between USA influenced Western Europe and the Soviets, as Truman was unhappy about several agreements that were set for the two sides. During the Potsdam Conference, it was decided that Germany was to be split and divided into four parts and to be ruled by four countries: Britain, USA, USSR, and France. Berlin was also divided into four sectors, and governed by the four countries mentioned above. The Allies had agreed during the Yalta conference that they would disarm, demilitarize, de-Nazify and divide Germany, but at Potsdam they couldn’t find a way agree on doing this together, so the de-Nazification and demilitarization of Germany was to be performed in their own zones which they occupied. However, the German economy was to be run as a “whole”, meaning that the West and the USSR had to run the Germany economy together as a team, but they only the domestic industry and agriculture that had to be run as a “whole”. The split of Berlin and Germany was very significant and it led to a few change of events in the Cold war. In 1948, Stalin decided that he wanted to merge West Berlin (controlled by the USA, UK and France) with his share of Berlin and ordered a blockade of all the land routes between West Germany and West Berlin. Stalin’s rationale was that by setting up a blockade, supplies from the west would not enter West Berlin and that West Berlin would surrender to the East. Instead of surrendering, the West initiated the Berlin Airlift in which aircrafts carrying supplies would be flown into Berlin. Although Stalin eventually lifted the blockade, the West’s reaction showed Stalin that they were willing to resist against him and that relations between the two “sphere of influence” would be hostile from then on.

When Germany is split into two, the two sides have two different sets of ideologies and ideas on what they should do in Germany, and if they run the economy together, conflicts might arise because they have different views on how to run the economy. The conflict would lead to arguments and distrust, sabotaging the relationship the West and the USSR has. In 1945, the United Nations was established; it was officially created at the Treaty o San Francisco in 1945. There were five countries (called the “Big 5”) in the UN, which were the permanent members of the UN Security council; the “Big 5” was the USA, Britain, USSR, France and Nationalist China. The Soviet Union was the only Communist power in the five countries, which meant that there were a lot of initiatives and ideas in the USSR’s perspectives, was purposely going against their interest. When that happened, Stalin vetoed any plans or ideas that he thought were to be against Soviet interests. And because of Stalin’s action of him using the power of veto to give the USSR to block any initiatives that he thinks is not beneficial for the Soviet Union, the tension would increase in the relationship between the five countries, as Stalin wasn’t agreeing on anything the other countries suggested. Another significant event that happened in the Potsdam, which contributed a lot to the development of the Cold War, was that during the conference the Allies discussed and planned about how Japan would be treated when they surrendered, and the regions each side would occupy. However, America attacked and defeated Japan before the USSR placed their troops in Japan, argued by some historians, using the two atomic bombs they developed without telling the two other countries so that Japan surrendered before the USSR intervened. After the USA defeated Japan, they occupied the whole country, creating a capitalist country right beside the USSR. The usage of atomic bombs and occupying the whole of Japan created hostilities in the region; this action of the USA not only aided the development of the Cold War, but also the Korean War. During the Potsdam conference tension and conflicts arose between the countries, and there were also very significant events that happened during the conference, such as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although many events happened throughout the course of the Cold War were not directly linked to the conference, the Potsdam conference shaped the way the Cold War developed in the next decade. Bibliography
Rogers, K., & Thomas, J. (2007). History 20th century world the cold war. (1 ed., pp. 16-18). Pearson Education Limited.

Bibliography: Rogers, K., & Thomas, J. (2007). History 20th century world the cold war. (1 ed., pp. 16-18). Pearson Education Limited.