FP5: Who was more to blame for the start of the Cold War- the USA or USSR?

USSR and Stalin

USA

USSR broke Yalta agreement

• didn’t carry out free elections

Truman was openly anti-Communist

• heightening the tension

Red Army remained in Europe

• used terror to set up Communism

Stalin saw US’s refusal to leave West Berlin as a threat

Cominform:

all satellite states follow USSR’s order

• puppet governments

Broke agreement to take joint decisions on Germany

• Bizonia/Trizonia

• Deutschmark

which isolated USSR

Berlin Blockade-

• an attempt to bring Berlin into the USSR

• highly aggressive

Marshall Plan

Truman Doctrine

containment- blatantly anti-USSR

NATO

• aggressive moves

Participated in nuclear arms race

Participated in nuclear arms race

• kept secret from USSR

Justification- USA

Justifications- USSR

Containment was a response to Soviet expansion

Stalin was rebuilding the USSR destroyed by WW2

USSR was interfering in other countries too- it wasn’t just the US

Many areas of Eastern Europe had been in the USSR until 1917

Marshall Plan was offered to all countries

Truman would never cooperate with Stalin and Communism

Stalin had broken the Yalta agreements- didn’t carry out free elections

USA’s policy + nuclear bomb showed they could not be trusted.