relations between Stalin Truman and Attlee

truman

• like Roosevelt, Truman wanted post war world based on national self determination, an open world trading system based on international economic cooperation and world economic reconstruction through the creation of the imf and the world bank

• this would minimise the possibility of the USA returning to conditions experienced during the great depression

• it would fulfil the USAs ideological imperatives and it would ensure the USAs geostrategic interests by limiting the expansion of the territorial influence of others ,particularly the Ussr

the great depression

• after 1929, most of the world faced an economic crisis that for most countries began with the wall street crash in the USA

• after the USA faced its crisis in confidence, it requested that foreign firms and governments repay their loans immediately ,causing other countries to plunge into an even deeper crisis

• some countries ,such as Italy and the soviet union were the exceptions

• they were somewhat protected by their economic policy of autarky (these are essentially closed economies that do not participate in international trade)

Truman’s approach

• Truman quickly came to regard confrontation rather than cooperation as the basis for relations with Stalin

• he hoped that the USAs possession of nuclear technology would be the key to ensuring stalins cooperation over the composition of provisional governments in eastern Europe

• he feared the growth of soviet power in eastern Europe , the removal of anti-communists leaders and the rise of pro-communist provisional governments

• the us ambassador to Moscow warned Truman of the effects of soviet expansionism ,describing it as ‘a barbarian invasion of Europe’ but thought that there was still potential for agreement

• Truman became increasingly convinced that the Ussr was not receptive to diplomatic solutions and some form of force may be necessary to ensure soviet compliance with us wishes

• he believed that this approach was the only one that Stalin would understand

Stalin

• by Potsdam, Stalin was convinced that the USA and its allies were potential rivals for dominance in Europe

• this reinforced his obsession with soviet security ,which necessitated the red army’s continued presence in eastern Europe and the intensification of the programme of installing pro- communist regimes in these liberated states

• the times for cooperation from Stalin had now passed

• what was agreed on Germany was acceptable to Stalin but he had a clear and unspoken alternative agenda for the rest of Europe

• Stalin needed to ensure that the eastern European states formed the basis of the ussr’s long-term security system

• that required these states having comparable political and economic systems to those of the Ussr

• strength came through unity and a common identity

• Stalin soon came to see the USA as having an anti-Soviet agenda

source: taken from stalins note to Molotov in September 1945

• first, to direct our attention from the far east ,where the us assumed the role of tomorrows friend of japan

• second, to revive from the Ussr a formal acceptance of the united states playing the same role in European affairs as the Ussr ,so that the united states may hereafter, in league with Britain ,take the future of Europe into its own hands

• third; to devalue the treaties of alliance that the Ussr has already reached with European states

• fourth- to pull the rug out from under any future treaties of alliance between the ussr and Romania and Finland

Attlee

• events since Yalta had confirmed to Britain that Stalin was expansionist in Europe

• for Britain, Germanys geostrategic significance in Europe was supreme

• it was vital that the USA act as the prime defender of the western zones of Germany against any soviet threat

• British foreign policy from this point, became clearly focused on an anti-communist soviet stance

• atlee supported the terms of the potsdam agreement but he was also conscious that they weakened germany at least in the short term

• a further concern was that potsdam oferred no long term plan for the future of germany

• this became particulalry urgent in the context of stalins absolute failure to implement his agreements on poland and the decleration on libertaed europe made at yalta