5/20/2018 Why Were the Western Governments Suspicious of the
USSR in the Period 1945 to Feb...
http:///reader/full/why-were-the-western-governments-suspicious-of-the-ussr-in
Q. Why were the Western governments suspicious of the USSR in
the period
1945 to February 1948 (Communist take over of Czechoslovakia)?
(7)
Between 1945 and February 1948, the Western governments were
suspicious of the USSR. USSR was creating the buffer zone for
its territorialsecurity against the west.
The suspicion started to grow from the wartime conferences. At
the
Potsdam Conference, the tension grew between Truman and Stalin
through their
disagreements. Specially, the disagreements about the Soviet
sphere of influence
worsen the situation. Despite the disagreements, Stalin started
to build up the
Eastern Bloc for security, whereas US believed he was expending
his territories.
This shows that the wartime friendship between the Allies had
broken
down, and the suspicion and accusation increased. The US and
USSR leaderstalked in public about the threat of war between the
two countries and increased
their stock of weapons.
The increase in tension and suspicion led the West, Britain,
France and US
to decide to combine their zones in Germany in 1946 to form one
zone, which is
known as West Germany.
By the time USSR almost overtook the Eastern Europe including
Poland,
Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, etc., Truman felt that he should
stop Stalin
expanding his buffer zone. This led to the Truman Doctrine in
Greece that US
helped monarchists against the communists.
In 1948m Communists in Czechoslovakia banned other parties and
made
Czechoslovakia a Communist, one party state and purged
anti-Soviet leaders.
This included a pro-American Minister, Jan Masaryk, that he was
found dead
below his open window. Americans suspected hed been pushed by
the
Communists. The suspicion increased again.
To sum up, the main reason for the suspicion of US towards USSR
was the
creation of Eastern Bloc through forcing anti-Communists into
exile, which
meant for the west that Stalin was having actions against the
Declaration ofIndependence. The increase in suspicion towards USSR
caused Congress
accepting the Marshall Plan in US.
