Unit 13-1: Building A New World

Chapter 13-1
Building a New World
How did the conferences at Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta attempt to shape the postwar world?
Before the war ended, President Roosevelt had wanted to ensure that war would never again engulf the world. He believed that a new international political organization could prevent another world war.
Creating the United Nations
In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., delegates from 39 countries met to discuss the new organization, which was to be called the United Nations (UN). The delegates at the conference agreed that the UN would have a General Assembly, in which every member nation in the world would have one vote. The UN would also have a Security Council with 11 members. Five countries would
be permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. These five permanent members would each have veto power.
On April 25, 1945, representatives from 50 countries came to San Francisco to officially organize the United Nations and design its charter. The General Assembly was given the power to vote on resolutions and to choose the non-permanent members of the Security Council. The Security Council was responsible for international peace and security. It could ask its members to use military force to uphold a UN resolution.
The Yalta Conference
In February 1945, with the war in Europe nearly over, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta—a Soviet resort on the Black Sea—to plan the postwar world. Several agreements reached at Yalta later played an important role in causing the Cold War.
A key issue discussed at Yalta was Poland. Shortly after the Germans had invaded Poland in 1939, the Polish government fled to Britain. In 1944, however, Soviet troops drove back the Germans and entered Poland. As they liberated Poland from German control, the Soviets encouraged Polish Communists to set up a new government. As a result, two governments claimed the right to govern Poland: one Communist and one non-Communist. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill both argued that the Poles should be free to choose their own government.
Stalin, however, quickly pointed out that every time invaders had entered Russia from the west, they had come through Poland. Eventually, the three leaders compromised. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to recognize the Polish government set up by the Soviets. Stalin agreed it would include members of the prewar Polish government, and free elections would be held as soon as possible.
The Declaration of Liberated Europe
After reaching a compromise on Poland, the three leaders agreed to issue the Declaration of Liberated Europe. The declaration echoed the Atlantic Charter, asserting “the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live.” The Allies promised that the people of Europe would be allowed “to create democratic institutions of their own choice” and to create temporary governments that represented “all democratic elements.” They pledged “the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people.”
Dividing Germany
The conference then focused on Germany. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to divide Germany into four zones. Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France would each control one zone. The same four countries would also divide the German capital city of Berlin into four zones, even though it was in the Soviet zone.
Although pleased with the decision to divide Germany, Stalin also demanded that Germany pay heavy reparations for the war damages it had caused. An agreement was reached that Germany could pay war reparations with trade goods and products, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. The Allies would remove industrial machinery, railroad cars, and other equipment from Germany as reparations. Later arguments about reparations greatly increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Rising Tensions
The Yalta decisions shaped the expectations of the United States. Two weeks after Yalta, the Soviets pressured the king of Romania into appointing a Communist government. The United States accused the Soviets of violating the Declaration of Liberated Europe. Soon afterward, the Soviets refused to allow more than three non-Communist Poles to serve in the 18-member Polish government. There was also no indication that they intended to hold free elections in Poland as promised. On April 1, President Roosevelt informed the Soviets that their actions in Poland were not acceptable.
Yalta marked a turning point in Soviet-American relations. President Roosevelt had hoped that an Allied victory and the creation of the United Nations would lead to a more peaceful world. Instead, as the war came to an end, the United States and the Soviet Union became increasingly hostile toward each other. The Cold War, an era of confrontation and competition between the nations, lasted from about 1946 to about 1990.
Soviet Concerns
As the war ended, Soviet leaders became concerned about security. They wanted to keep Germany weak and make sure that the countries between Germany and the Soviet Union were under Soviet control. Soviet leaders also believed that communism was a superior economic system that would eventually replace capitalism. They believed that the Soviet Union should encourage communism in other nations. They accepted Lenin’s theory that capitalist countries would eventually try to destroy communism. This made them suspicious of capitalist nations.

American Economic Issues
While Soviet leaders focused on securing their borders, American leaders focused on economic problems. They believed that the Great Depression became so severe because nations reduced trade. They also believed that when nations stop trading, they are forced into war to get resources. By 1945, Roosevelt and his advisers were convinced that economic growth through world trade was the key to peace. They also thought that the free enterprise system, with private property rights and limited government intervention in the economy, was the best route to prosperity.
UN Responses to the War
In response to the atrocities of World War II, the United Nations held a General Assembly in December 1946. They passed a resolution that made genocide punishable internationally. The text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide became the first UN human rights treaty. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt chaired a UN Commission on Human Rights in 1948. The international commission drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promoted the inherent dignity of every human being and was a commitment to end discrimination.
Truman Takes Control
Why did the Potsdam Conference further increase tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union?
Eleven days after confronting the Soviets on Poland, President Roosevelt died and Harry S. Truman became president. Truman was strongly anti- Communist. He believed World War II had begun because Britain had tried to appease Hitler. He did not intend to make that mistake with Stalin. “We must stand up to the Russians,” he told Secretary of State Edward Stettinius the day he took office.
Ten days later, Truman did exactly that at a meeting with Soviet foreign minister Molotov. Truman immediately brought up Poland and demanded that Stalin hold free elections as he had promised at Yalta. Molotov took the unexpectedly strong message back to Stalin. The meeting marked an important shift in Soviet-American relations and set the stage for further confrontations.
The Potsdam Conference
In July 1945, with the war against Japan still raging, Truman finally met Stalin at Potsdam, near Berlin. Both men had come to Potsdam to work out a deal on Germany. Truman was now convinced that industry was critical to Germany’s survival. Unless its economy was allowed to revive, the rest of Europe would never recover, and the German people might turn to communism out of desperation.
Stalin and his advisers were convinced they needed reparations from Germany. The war had devastated the Soviet economy. Soviet troops had begun stripping their zone in Germany of its machinery and equipment for use back home, but Stalin wanted Germany to pay much more.
At the conference, Truman took a firm stand against heavy reparations. He insisted that Germany’s industry had to be allowed to recover. Truman suggested the Soviets take reparations from their zone, while the Allies allowed industry to revive in the other zones. Stalin opposed this idea since the Soviet zone was mostly agricultural. It could not provide all the reparations the Soviets wanted.
To get the Soviets to accept the agreement, Truman offered Stalin a small amount of industrial equipment from the other zones, but required the Soviets to pay for part of it with food shipments. He also offered to accept the new German-Polish border the Soviets had established.
Stalin did not like the proposal. At Potsdam, Truman learned of the successful U.S. atomic bomb tests. He hinted to Stalin that the United States had a new, powerful weapon. Stalin suspected Truman of trying to bully him into a deal. He thought the Americans wanted to limit reparations to keep the Soviets weak.
Despite his suspicions, Stalin had to accept the terms. American and British troops controlled Germany’s industrial heartland, and there was no way for the Soviets to get any reparations without cooperating. The Potsdam Conference marked yet another increase in tensions.

The Iron Curtain Descends
Although Truman had won the argument over reparations, he had less success on other issues at Potsdam.
The Soviets refused to make stronger commitments to uphold the Declaration of Liberated Europe.
The presence of the Soviet army in Eastern Europe ensured that pro-Soviet Communist governments would eventually be established in the nations of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The Communist countries of Eastern Europe came to be called satellite nations because they were controlled by the Soviets, as satellites are tied by gravity to the planets they orbit. Although not under direct Soviet control, these nations had to remain Communist and friendly to the Soviet Union. They also had to follow policies that the Soviets approved.
After watching the Communist takeover in Eastern Europe, the former British prime minister Winston Churchill coined a phrase to describe what had happened. On March 5, 1946, in a speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill referred to an “iron curtain” falling across Eastern Europe. The press picked up the term, and for the next 43 years, it described the Communist nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. With the Iron Curtain separating Eastern Europe from the West, the World War II era had come to an end. The Cold War was about to
begin.