-The Truman Doctrine
- The Potsdam Conference
Both the Truman Doctrine and Potsdam Conference were rhetorical confrontations between communism and capitalism. The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy and the Potsdam conference was hostile meeting between the leaders of Britain, USA, and Russia. I think that the Truman Doctrine was the more important reason for the development of the Cold War.
The Potsdam conference was held in July 1945 and was the second allied conference after the defeat of Germany. Roosevelt had died and had been replaced by Truman, who was aggressively anti-communist and Churchill had lost the 1945 election, Stalin being the only leader remaining the same. Harry Truman, the president of USA was much more suspicious of Stalin than his predecessor, Roosevelt. So, at Potsdam, the tensions below the surface at Yalta – about Eastern Europe and reparations - came out into open disagreement as Truman and Atlee had different ideologies to the previous leaders. America had recently developed the atomic bomb and wanted to impose authority over the USSR, but Truman did not inform Stalin about this, leading Stalin to become furious as he had believed he had been tricked. Britain and France were also not happy with the amount of reparation – they believed that a prosperous Germany was less likely to want another war than a weak one. Stalin had replaced the mixed communist and non-communist Polish government so that it was entirely communist. Truman was most angered by the fact that Stalin had replaced the mixed communist and non-communist Polish government so that it was entirely communist. As a result, this meeting was effectively where the problems started because Truman saw this act as posing a threat to capitalism towards the western side and the development of the atomic bomb angered Stalin as USA was effectively the superpower.