The Cold War

2 Pages 609 Words

The Start of the Cold War

The Cold War was a long drawn out conflict that began in 1947 between the Soviet Union and the United States. The struggle between the two powers had the many parts of the world in disarray. The western nations felt it necessary that the liberated states of Eastern Europe should be re-established with a democracy and a capitalist economy. They believed that these systems were more civilized and less violent than the nationalism of the preceding generations. Russia, under autocratic leader Joseph Stalin, felt that it had a right to the Eastern European nations it had occupied in World War II. After being invaded by Germany in two consecutive wars, the USSR felt it imperative that buffer states be created to protect the borders of the fatherland. With Communist regimes in place, the nations of Eastern Europe could be controlled by Russia and, by their location, protect it. Conflict between the two opposing victors of World War II was inevitable. Joseph Stalin, Winston S. Churchill and President Harry S. Truman were huge contributors to the Cold war. In the Following the discussion of Stalin’s reply to Churchill, Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, Stalin’s and the Truman Doctrine will reflect the thoughts of the three gentlemen.
Britain Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) delivered his Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, this speech was notable as the beginning of the Cold War. Churchill called the “Iron Curtain” a separation of the European continent into competing political, military, and economic blocs and the area controlled by the Soviet Union. In his speech he speaks that war should not come to pass but it was near due to the tensions flaring between the two. Churchill also expressed that the Russians simply “desire the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.” All in all Churchill feels that there is no need ...