The cold war started by distrust between the Soviet Union and the western democracies as early as the Russian revolution. The Soviet Union assumed that it was the perfect thing for Soviet Union to stop trusting the west. In 1919 the former WWII allies of Britain, France and the United states joined the white Russians to fight off the Bolsheviks following the revolution. Although this intervention failed and the Red army of the Bolsheviks secured the power of the new soviet state, the young USSR government never quite trusted the western democracies after that. The western democracies did not invite the Soviet Union to participate in the World War 1 peace talk or the league of Nations. The west did not aid the republicans fighting the fascists in the Spanish civil war. The west did not invite the soviets to the Munich conference which decided the fate of czechoslovakia in the years leading up to world war 11, even though the Soviet Union had a security pact with czechoslavakia. The west on its part, never trusted the Soviet Union. The avowed purpose of the international party to secure world wide communist revolution. There was a great fear of socialism in Europe and America. The soviet negotiated an agreement with Hltler and annexed eastern Poland. By the end of the war Britain and America distrusted the soviet motives in estern Europe. This mutual distrust was barely suppressed during WWII when for practical reasons the western allies and Soviet Union became uneasy allies for having joined and were fighting the common Hiltler’s Germany. the physical structure of the cold war was put into place at the end of WWII. Winston ChurchHill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin agreed in February of 1945 at Yalta to divide Germany into four occupation Zones. It was agreed that the Soviet Union would have the greatest influence in eastern Europe, where Soviet troops were concentrated. They already occupied Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and parts of Czchoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and it would have been difficult to come to an agreement which involved removing these troops. Roosevelt agreed because he had little choice. Finally, it was agreed that independent governments would be established in these lands, and that elections would be free, but the governments would friendly to the Soviet Union. This is the beginning of what Winston Churchill would later call the “IRON CURTAIN” which divided Europe for 45 years.

 When the allies met again at Potsdam in July of 1945, relations were more strained. Roosevelt had been replaced by Truman, who was not inclined to humor Stalin once he found out that there had been a successful test of atomic bomb. America no longer desperatly needed Soviet help in the war agains Japan. America had halted aid to the Soviet Union because of concerns over Russian behavior in the East. At Potsdam the leaders clarified and implemented the Yalta agreements. Between 1945 -1948 Soviets under Stalin consolidated their power in Eastern Europe. Poland, East Germany, Czchoslavakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary became part of the Soviet Bloc or Satellite system. Within the communist parties of these countries there were puges to remove national communist. One in four were removed. Yugoslavia under Tito was an exception to Soviet control. It practiced national communism and was able to remain independent largely due to western economic aid. In 1947, the Soviet Union nearly spreaded communism all over the European countries and in that same year, the United States of America tried to stop them. The United States first attempt to stop them was by the declaration of the Truman Doctrine. President Truman before Congress said: I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I belive that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes. Truman showed how serious he was. He made a request to the congress to give military and economic aid in the amount of $400,000 to Greece to assist that country to fight against communism and the congress accepted. Truman also sent American economic advisers to countries whose political stability was threatened by communism. After WWII, Europe was definitely devastated. Then in that same year of 1947 George C. Marshal realized such damages and felt so sorry for them. This in addition made him make a commencement address in Harvard University concerning European recovery: “Europe’s requirements are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character. A speech such as this made by George C. Marshal made it clear to the world that the cities of Europe were in ruins following the devastation of war and that there will no political stability or assured peace without the return to the normal economic conditions. The United States congress put the plan into legislation in 1948. During the four years of the program, the aggregate gross national product and the industrial production rose more than 80 percents more that the countries that participated. This was Stalin. He threw the ball up and this stands for “can he block it as he heard and was reaching for Marshal Plan’s goal. The announcement of the Truman Doctrine, a policy aimed at stopping communism and the marshal plan of providing economic aid to European countries, both east and west by the United States of America in 1947 caused Stalin further doubt about the western Allie’s intentions. It was in this atmosphere that the Berlin crisis arose. The Berlin Blockade: Berlin was located completely within the stream side of Germany which was occupied by the Russians. Britain and the United States unified the western zones of Berlin in 1948, and announced a new currency there. Stain responded on June 24 by attempting to force the western allies out of Berlin altogether. He cut off rail and road access to the western side of the city. Between June 1948 and May 1949, the western Allies mounted a massive airlift to keep the western sectors supplied with the 5000 tons per day of food and fuel that the city needed a massive undertaking. This broke the blockade. On May 12, 1949 Stalin lifted the blockade and the cold war was underway. In May 1949 the federal Republic of Germany was created. In September the Soviet supported Republic of Germany was established in the East. This resolved the issue of Berlin for the moment. The establishment of NATO and the Warsaw pact which are military organizations in the same year gave teeth to this formal division. Europe was now two armed camps divided by an Iron Curtain.               
Mikhail Gorbechev was the new leader of Soviet Union after the death of Stalin. He was a different kind of Soviet leader. He recognized that the Soviet Union could not remain politically and economically isolated and that the Soviet system had to be changed if it was to survive. The key pieces of Gorbachev’s plan for the survival of the Union were a series of reforms: Glasnost(openness)- greater freedom of expression, perestroika(restructuring) – decentralization of the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms, the renunciation of the Brezhnev of Doctrine and the pursuit of arms control agreements, reform of the KGB, and the reform of the communist party.  He believed that his reforms were necessary and used his leadership and power to attempt to implement them. The policy of glasnost made it possible for people to more freely criticize the government’s policies. When people realized it was safe to speak out, the calls for change became more insistent. The gradual market reforms and decentralization of the economy were too slow and failed keep to peace with the crisis and his people’s demands. The Soviet Union was suffering a deterioration of economic and social conditions and fall in the GNP. The Brezhnev Doctrine allowed armed intervention where socialism was “threatened by counter – revolutionary forces,” primarily in Eastern Europe. The renunciation of the Brezhnev Doctrine released the Eastern European states from Soviet domination and lifted the “IRON CURTAIN”. The communist rulers of these states could not survive without the support of the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and communism collapsed in Eastern Europe. This improve relations with the west and progress was made in Arms control talks but this only angered the hard-line conservatives and further weakened Gorbachev’s position.  His attempts to reform the Communist party were a failure. Change was too slow to keep pace with events and he was continually hampered by his need to give hard-liners in order to retain power. As communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, reform of communism within the Soviet Union became unlikely. With the iron grip of the centralized Soviet state relaxed and the growing failure of the state to adequately feed and clothe its people, nationalism in the republics surged and separatist movements threatened the very existence of the Soviet Union. The now weak Soviet Union was unable to prevent the separation of the republics and even the republic of Russia turned away, choosing Boris Yeltsin as its leader. Gorbachev found that there was no Soviet Union to be the leader of, and retire into private life. The cold was over making the United States of America, the winner of the cold war.