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Unlock This CourseTo understand Stalin in 1945, start with fear. At Yalta he told Roosevelt and Churchill that Poland was a matter of security for the USSR, because Germany had attacked through Poland twice in thirty years: in the First World War and again in 1941. Remember, about 27 million Soviet people had died in the war that had just ended. Stalin was determined that this would never happen again.
His answer was a buffer zone. He wanted the countries between Germany and the USSR to have governments that were friendly to Moscow. Any future invader would then have to fight through these countries before reaching Soviet soil. Stalin also meant to keep the land the USSR had taken in 1939-40, including eastern Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The problem lay in the word 'friendly'. Most Poles feared and disliked the USSR, so Stalin knew that a freely elected Polish government would probably be anti-Soviet. For Stalin, security came before free elections. He did not trust the West either. In his eyes, capitalist countries had been hostile to the USSR since 1917, and they would be again once Germany was beaten.
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Stalin did not need permission to build his buffer zone, because his army was already there. As it pushed the Germans back in 1944-45, the Red Army moved into Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and then into eastern Germany. When Germany surrendered in May 1945, Soviet troops stood across most of Eastern Europe, and in most of these countries they stayed.
Stalin was open about what this meant. In April 1945 he told a visiting Yugoslav Communist, Milovan Djilas: 'whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system'.
Poland showed what he had in mind. In March 1945, sixteen leaders of the non-Communist Polish resistance were invited to talks with Soviet officers. They were arrested, flown to Moscow and put on trial there in June. By the Potsdam Conference in July, the elections promised at Yalta had still not been held.
The Red Army had freed these countries from Nazi rule at a terrible cost. The USSR had earned the right to make its borders safe. A Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe was defence, not attack. The West ran its own affairs in Italy and Japan, so why should the USSR not do the same in Poland?
The Red Army had freed these countries only to occupy them. Stalin was breaking the promises in the Declaration on Liberated Europe and denying self-determination to millions of people. It looked like the first step in spreading Communism across Europe, just as Western leaders had long feared.
This is the heart of the problem. What Stalin called security, the West called expansion. Each side judged the other by its own fears.
You already know that Harry Truman became president when Roosevelt died in April 1945. The change mattered because the two men had very different attitudes to Stalin.
Roosevelt had worked with Stalin since 1941 and had met him twice. He believed that patience and personal contact could keep the alliance going after the war. He also needed Soviet help to defeat Japan. So he was willing to compromise and to leave hard questions, such as Poland, in vague words.
Truman had been vice-president for less than three months and Roosevelt had told him very little. He was more openly anti-Communist and trusted Stalin far less. Advisers such as Averell Harriman, the US ambassador in Moscow, urged him to take a firm line. Truman saw agreements as promises that must be kept to the letter.
Truman showed his 'get tough' attitude straight away.
Stalin would not give way. He now faced a US president he did not know, who spoke more sharply than Roosevelt and who had a weapon the USSR lacked. This made Stalin even more determined to hold on to Eastern Europe. In turn, his grip there made Truman more sure that Stalin could not be trusted. Each leader's attitude hardened the other's.
Don't write that Stalin simply wanted to conquer Europe: explain his fear of invasion and his wish for a buffer zone. Don't write that Truman started the quarrel on his own either, because the dispute over Poland began at Yalta under Roosevelt. And don't describe Communist governments taking power across Eastern Europe as if it had all happened by 1945. In 1945 the key fact is the Red Army's occupation. The takeovers that followed are covered in the lesson Soviet Expansion and the Iron Curtain Speech.
'The main reason for the growing tension between the USA and the Soviet Union in 1945 was the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer.
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own. [16 marks]
I partly agree. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was the issue the two sides argued about most in 1945, but it only caused so much tension because of the distrust that already existed between them.
The occupation was a major reason for tension. By May 1945 the Red Army had moved into Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and it stayed there. Stalin wanted a buffer zone of friendly states because Germany had attacked through Poland twice in thirty years. However, at Yalta he had promised free elections in the Declaration on Liberated Europe. When sixteen non-Communist Polish leaders were arrested in March 1945 and no elections were held, the USA believed Stalin was breaking his word and spreading Communism by force.
The attitude of Truman also increased tension. Roosevelt had been willing to compromise with Stalin, but Truman took a 'get tough' line. On 23 April 1945 he bluntly told Molotov to carry out the Yalta agreement on Poland, and on 11 May he suddenly cut back Lend-Lease supplies. At Potsdam he demanded free elections, with new confidence from the atomic bomb test. Stalin saw this as pressure and bullying, which made him tighten his grip on Eastern Europe. However, Truman was reacting to what Stalin was already doing in Poland, so his attitude was partly a result of the occupation.
A third reason was the long-term rivalry between Communism and Capitalism. The two sides had distrusted each other since 1917, and the Grand Alliance held together only because both were fighting Germany. Once Germany surrendered in May 1945, that common enemy was gone. This explains why each side assumed the worst: the USA saw the Red Army's presence as expansion, while Stalin saw American demands for elections as a threat to Soviet security.
Overall, the Soviet occupation was the main reason for the growing tension in 1945 in the sense that it was the trigger: it was the dispute that Truman's tough line was a response to. But a trigger needs something to set off. Without the deeper rivalry between two opposed systems, a buffer zone might have been accepted as a fair reward for an ally. So the occupation mattered most in 1945 itself, but only because long-term distrust made each side read it in the worst way.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three reasons, one of them not in the bullets, shows how they link together, and reaches a judgement using a clear test (which reason triggered the tension, and which made it possible).
An answer that uses only the two bullets cannot reach the top level, so always plan a third reason of your own before you start. Here, long-term rivalry, the end of the common enemy or the atomic bomb would all work. Then make your conclusion do more than repeat your points: say which reason mattered most and why.