The Big 3 Research Paper

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The United States (US) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were close allies during World War Two (WWII). American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, along with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, all met at a conference in Yalta. There, “The Big Three” discussed what our world would look like after WWII. The Yalta Conference was the final act of the US and Soviet friendship. Three major factors contributed to the dismembering of strong relations between the US and the USSR: (1) The Manhattan Project; (2) Stalin’s behavior at the Potsdam Conference; and, (3) George Kennan’s Containment Policy. These three factors caused the US and the USSR to embark on a path towards the Cold War.…show more content…
FDR had passed away, leaving the presidency to Vice President Harry S. Truman. In England, Clement Attlee was elected as Churchill’s successor. The Big Three was pulled apart. A conference in Potsdam England was held between Truman, Attlee, and the only remaining member of The Big Three, Joseph Stalin. Stalin took the fact that he was the only remaining member of The Big Three to his head. Stalin’s attempts to control the conference, along with Truman’s position of being generally more anti-Soviet than FDR, led to a more active deterioration of relations between the US and…show more content…
Many common Americans at this time actually supported Stalin. Stalin was viewed by the American people as the man who really defeated the Nazi’s. Communists were known for valiantly fighting fascism during WWII. George Kennan, American Ambassador to the USSR during WWII, fought to reveal the evils of Stalin and Soviet Communism to the American people. Kennan believed that Capitalism and Communism could not exist in the same world. His solution was to divide the world up in to two spheres of influence. The United States would not attempt to breach the Soviet sphere of influence on the condition that the Soviets would not breach the US’s sphere of influence. Kennan believed that the Soviets would take anything they could but if they overstepped their bounds, the US could simply confront them with force. Kennan urged Truman to be firm because he believed that the Soviets were too exhausted from WWII so they would not risk another armed confrontation. This policy that George Kennan creates becomes known as “Containment”. Stalin takes notice of the growing anti-Soviet attitude in the Capitalist West. Stalin responds to anti-Soviet attitudes by broadcasting anti-Capitalist rhetoric. In a speech that Stalin makes to the Russian people, he refers to the recent world war as “the inevitable result of the development of world economic forces on the
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