all right we are going to talk about the cold war and how we move from wartime alliances to cold war adversaries to start us off we want to understand the ideological differences between the united states and the soviet union as we move into a cold war situation first the united states is a capitalist democratic republic while the soviet union is a communist one-party state the united states hoped in a post-war world to spread democratic ideals and self-determination free market principles of capitalism and collective security that would lead to overall global security while stalin and the soviet saw that security coming through the acquisition of territory um they wanted security from outside threats like germany that it invaded the soviet union twice and other western capitalists that the soviet union didn't trust and also to create a global movement of communism centered on moscow we're going to start with talking about this breakdown of the grand alliance now remember that the grand alliance was this alliance formed between britain the united states and the soviet union in 1941 as germany invaded the soviet union in june of 41 and japan attacked the united states in december of 1941 but this didn't mean the allies all liked each other uh there's always clouds of suspicion that happened throughout the war stalin for example demanding of the of their western allies and opening up the european second front in france um were central to these suspicions he felt that that the delay in having that operation um overlord the d-day invasion was done purposely to weaken the soviet union stalin was also left out of any discussion about the atomic bomb planning so we're going to run through a number of steps on how we get from uh the the conference or pardon me the the wartime allies to ultimately cold war conflict and we're going to start with our first step the wartime conferences i want you to remember we already talked about this in previous videos in world war ii but the three big conferences tehran yalta and potsdam tehran in november of 1943 stalin is still demanding that opening of a western front he's also making claims at territory he wants some polish territory as a buffer state between soviet union and germany um he wants uh to maintain the territories he captured in 39 and 40 like lithuania and latvia and estonia he wants also the the united states for for their part want the soviet union to join in a fight against the japanese which stalin will promise to do once the war in europe is over in february of 1945 joseph stalin is going to be meeting his allies in yalta in the soviet union here he's in a stronger position as he's occupying much of eastern europe it's agreed at yalta that germany is going to be disarmed and denotified and divided council and that's the us the united kingdom soviet union france and china potsdam the final of the conferences during the war and the last time the united states president and the soviet leader would meet for a decade harry truman is going to now be the american president after franklin roosevelt's passing and he's going to take a harder line against stalin he's very frustrated that promises of free elections in poland did not satisfy truman as a pro-soviet polish government known as the lublin polls took control of the polish nation the united states also no longer needed the soviet union to help with japan because harry truman will learn at potsdam of the de successful testing of the atomic bombs so after the war we've got a couple things going on uh the soviet union through a process known as salami tactics will work to create a soviet communist bloc in eastern europe salami tactics are where where each of the the right-wing political parties in these countries are going to be accused of being nazis and they'll they'll be they'll be banned from elections and now you have a new political right and their fascists as well and will ban them and then a new political right exists and will ban them and in the end you're only left with this this communist leftist party um the soviets supported uh soviet union-supported leadership of many eastern european communist parties that were returned to their eastern european homes in what is known as the baggage train and they could ensure stalin's future influence over those nations the soviet union initially refused to remove troops from iran after the war until the new united nations kind of called on the soviet union to back out of iran there's political instability in greece and turkey and southeastern europe and growing communist parties in france and italy that has those nations along with britain in the united states very nervous about the spread of global communism now in february of 1946 we're gonna have another step into this cold war um adversaries um with george f kennon's long telegram george f kennon was america's top kremlinologist working in moscow he was our expert on the soviet union and in february 46 he sends a telegram to the u.s state department in dc that will shape american foreign policy for decades to come in this long telegram he says that the soviet union will only understand the logic of force that the soviet union indeed wants to expand a stalinist ideology beyond their borders and that the soviet union was hostile to the west but not suicidal they wouldn't do something that would so push the americans to actually go to war with the soviet union this document would help shape the american policy of containment going forward not long after winston churchill is going to give a speech in um in missouri sitting or speaking right in front of the president of the united states harry truman this is known as the sinews of peace but more commonly called the iron curtain speech in it churchill is going to warn against the appeasement of the soviet union much like like churchill was warning against the appeasement of adolf hitler in the 1930s like kennan churchill says that the soviet union would only respond to acts of strength and so this was a push for the united states and the west to take a strong hand against soviet expansion joseph stalin was outraged at this comparison of him with adolf hitler who who the soviets gave up tens of millions of people uh trying to defeat and he would call this a racist call to war and he would increase his own anti-western propaganda in response we'll pick up the rest of these steps uh in our next video take care