Assess the role of the wartime conferences at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, and the collapse of Allied cooperation in 1945 to 1947, in the origins of the Cold War

What this dot point is asking

SEAB wants you to assess how the wartime summits at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, and the rapid collapse of Allied cooperation between 1945 and 1947, contributed to the origins of the Cold War. The central task is judgement: you must decide whether the breakdown of the Grand Alliance caused the conflict, or merely revealed deeper ideological and security divisions that the war against Germany had temporarily masked. A strong answer never just narrates the conferences; it uses them as evidence in an argument about causation.

The answer

The Grand Alliance as a marriage of convenience

The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were allied from 1941 only because they shared a single overriding aim: the defeat of Nazi Germany. Their political systems and long-term goals were opposed. The alliance was, in the common phrase, a marriage of convenience that was always likely to end once the common enemy was gone. Recognising this is the foundation of a good answer, because it explains why cooperation could collapse so quickly in 1945.

Tehran (1943): the first cracks

At the Tehran Conference (November to December 1943) the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin) agreed the broad strategy for finishing the war, including a Western second front in France in 1944. The seeds of later disputes were already visible. Stalin pressed for a westward shift of Poland's borders and for recognition of Soviet security needs in Eastern Europe. The conference settled grand strategy but postponed the hard political questions about the postwar order.

Yalta (February 1945): agreement in form, division in substance

The Yalta Conference produced apparent agreement that masked real division. The Big Three agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones, to establish the United Nations, and to issue the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which promised free elections in the countries freed from Nazi rule. On Poland they agreed only an ambiguous formula: the Soviet-backed Lublin government would be broadened with other democratic leaders, and free elections would follow.

The problem was that each side read the agreements differently. The West understood the Declaration on Liberated Europe as a binding promise of genuine democracy. Stalin understood "friendly" governments on his western border as non-negotiable security, given that Germany had invaded Russia through Eastern Europe twice in thirty years. The same words carried opposite meanings.

Potsdam (July to August 1945): cooperation gives way to suspicion

By the Potsdam Conference the conditions had changed decisively. Roosevelt had died in April 1945 and was replaced by the more suspicious Truman; Churchill was replaced mid-conference by Attlee after losing the British election; and Germany had surrendered, removing the shared enemy. The United States had also successfully tested the atomic bomb, which Truman mentioned to Stalin during the conference.

Disagreements that had been postponed now hardened. The powers clashed over reparations from Germany, settling on an awkward arrangement by which each occupier drew reparations chiefly from its own zone. They clashed over the Polish government, which remained dominated by communists despite the Yalta promise. Potsdam managed the immediate occupation but resolved none of the underlying conflict, and the goodwill of the war was gone.

From breakdown to confrontation, 1945 to 1947

After Potsdam the relationship deteriorated rapidly. Soviet-backed governments consolidated power across Eastern Europe, contrary to the Western reading of Yalta. In February 1946 the American diplomat George Kennan sent his Long Telegram from Moscow, arguing that the Soviet Union was expansionist and must be contained. In March 1946 Churchill, by then out of office, declared in his speech at Fulton, Missouri that an "iron curtain" had descended across the continent. By 1947 the breakdown was complete, and the Truman Doctrine formalised the shift from cooperation to containment.

The historiographical debate

The conferences sit at the centre of the debate over who was responsible for the Cold War. The orthodox interpretation, dominant in the West in the 1950s, holds that Soviet expansionism and Stalin's breach of the Yalta promises caused the conflict. The revisionist interpretation, prominent from the 1960s, argues that aggressive American policy, including atomic diplomacy and the demand for an open economic order, provoked legitimate Soviet security fears. The post-revisionist interpretation, associated with John Lewis Gaddis, treats the Cold War as the product of mutual misperception and a security dilemma in which each side's defensive moves looked aggressive to the other. The conferences provide evidence for all three readings, which is exactly why "how far" questions about them reward balance.

Examples in context

Example 1. The Polish question as the test case. Poland is the clearest single illustration of why the alliance broke down. Yalta promised a broadened government and free elections; in practice the Soviet-backed Lublin government consolidated control and the eventual 1947 elections were manipulated. The gap between the Yalta promise and the Polish outcome became the West's primary evidence of Soviet bad faith, while for Stalin a friendly Poland was a non-negotiable security buffer after the German invasions of 1914 and 1941.

Example 2. The Long Telegram and the iron curtain. The intellectual turn from cooperation to confrontation is captured in two documents of 1946. George Kennan's Long Telegram (February 1946) supplied the analysis that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and must be contained, and Churchill's Fulton speech (March 1946) supplied the public image of an iron curtain dividing Europe. Together they show how quickly the wartime partnership was reinterpreted as a strategic threat.

Try this

Q1. Explain why the Grand Alliance is often described as a "marriage of convenience." [4 marks]

• Cue. The three powers shared only the aim of defeating Germany; their political systems and postwar goals were opposed, so the alliance was likely to dissolve once the common enemy was gone.

Q2. To what extent did the Yalta and Potsdam conferences differ in their outcomes? [12 marks]

• Cue. Yalta produced ambiguous agreement (the Declaration on Liberated Europe, a Polish formula); Potsdam, after Roosevelt's death and the German surrender, produced open disagreement over reparations and Poland. Judge that Potsdam marked the real breakdown.

Q3. "The Cold War was caused by the breakdown of the Grand Alliance rather than by ideology." How far do you agree? [20 marks]

• Cue. Argue that the breakdown was the trigger but ideology and the security dilemma were the underlying causes; weigh orthodox against revisionist and post-revisionist readings before judging.