By: Sanjuktha Pendyala
Summarize end of war events from Yalta Conference to the Marshall Plan.
- Postwar Settlements
- Differences of opinion over postwar settlements arose during the wartime conferences held at Yalta and Potsdam
- Each Allied power to occupy and control territories liberated by its armed forces
- During these conferences, Stalin and his soldiers were in Berlin and planning out stuff
- Stalin agreed to support United States against Japan
- Churchill and Roosevelt tried to convince Stalin to allow in democracy in Poland, but instead installed a communist government
- Stalin's plans prevailed; Poland and east Europe became communist allies
- President Truman took hard line at Potsdam and widened differences
- Postwar Territorial Division
- Soviets took east Germany, while United States, Britain, and France took West Germany
- Berlin also divided four ways; by 1950 division seemed permanent
- Churchill spoke of an "iron curtain" across Europe, separating east and west
- Similar division in Korea: Soviets occupied north and United States the south
- The Truman Doctrine (1947)
- Perception of world divided between so-called free and enslaved peoples
- In response to crises in Greece and Turkey
- It was an interventionist foreign policy, dedicated to "containment" of communism, which meant preventing any further expansion of Soviet influence
- The U.S. sent vast sums of money to Greece and Turkey and the world was polarized into two armed camps, each led by a superpower that provided economic and military aid to nations within its spheres of influence
- The Marshall Plan (1948)
- Idea to rebuild European economies and strengthen capitalism
- Named after the U.S. secretary of state, George C. Marshall
- The Soviet Union established the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) for its satellite nations
- Offered increased trade within the Soviet Union and eastern Europe.