The Grand Alliance Breaks Down

From Yalta to the Iron Curtain

On 11 February 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin signed the Yalta agreement in a palace on the Black Sea. Germany would be divided into four zones, the liberated countries of Europe would hold free elections, the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan, and a United Nations would keep the peace. Roosevelt went home and told Congress it was the end of the system of spheres of influence. Churchill told his cabinet that Stalin, he was sure, meant to keep his word. Five months later, at Potsdam from 17 July 1945, everything had changed. Roosevelt was dead and Harry Truman, a month into the job, had just been told that an atomic bomb had worked in the New Mexico desert the day before. Churchill lost the election halfway through and was replaced by Attlee. The Red Army held Poland, and the free elections promised at Yalta had not happened. The three powers agreed how to divide Germany and could agree on almost nothing else. Within a year George Kennan had told Washington in an 8,000-word telegram that the Soviet Union could not be reasoned with, Nikolai Novikov had told Moscow the same about the United States, and Churchill had said at Fulton that an iron curtain had descended across Europe. The exam asks why the alliance broke down: what the conferences decided, what ideology made impossible, what the bomb and the telegrams changed, and how the satellite states were made. This module gives you the dated evidence and the three question shapes.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with the moment it mattered, because a bare definition earns nothing in an 8-mark answer.

The breakdown, in order

Put these six events in the order they happened.

• Tehran: the Big Three agree a second front in France and, in principle, that Poland will move west
• Yalta: Germany is to be split into four zones and the liberated states promised free elections
• The first atomic bomb is tested in New Mexico the day before the Potsdam conference opens
• Potsdam: Truman, Stalin and Attlee settle the Oder-Neisse line and reparations by zone, and agree on little else
• The Long Telegram is sent from Moscow and Churchill speaks of an iron curtain at Fulton
• The communist coup in Czechoslovakia completes the ring of satellite states

Why did the Grand Alliance break down?

Three powers that had fought Hitler together for four years were enemies within two years of his death. Which explanation best accounts for it?

• The alliance had been made by a common enemy and had no other basis: a one-party communist state that had lost 27 million people and wanted a buffer of obedient neighbours could not share Europe with two capitalist democracies that had promised free elections; the men changed, with the conciliatory Roosevelt replaced in April 1945 by Truman, who was tougher and now had the bomb; the promises of Yalta on Poland were broken within months, which taught the West that Stalin could not be trusted; and the Long and Novikov telegrams of 1946 turned suspicion into doctrine on both sides.
• Stalin had always planned to conquer the world and the West only realised in 1945.
• Truman started the Cold War by dropping the bomb to frighten Stalin.
• Churchill caused the breakdown with his Fulton speech.

Yalta and Potsdam: what changed in five months

The consequences and narrative questions both reward the contrast between the two conferences. Put them side by side and the breakdown is visible on the page.

Ideology as a cause

Five statements about 1945 and 1946. Tap the TWO that give evidence of ideological difference as a cause of the breakdown, as opposed to events or personalities.

• For Truman a free election meant several parties and a secret ballot, whereas for Stalin a government was free if it was friendly to the Soviet Union, and each read the Declaration on Liberated Europe in his own sense.
• Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945 and was replaced by Truman, who had been vice-president for 82 days and had never met Stalin.
• Kennan wrote in February 1946 that Soviet policy flowed from a belief that capitalism and communism could not coexist and that conflict with the West was inevitable, while Novikov wrote in September that American capitalism was preparing for world domination.
• The Trinity test succeeded at Alamogordo on 16 July 1945, and Truman received the news at Potsdam the next day.
• Churchill lost the British general election and left Potsdam on 25 July; Attlee took his seat at the table on the 28th.

The bomb and the telegrams

Select the THREE statements that are true of the impact of the atomic bomb and the two telegrams on US-Soviet relations.

• The bomb gave Truman confidence at Potsdam and removed the American need for Soviet help against Japan, but it was not shared with Stalin, who had known of it from spies since 1942 and ordered a crash Soviet programme that produced a bomb in August 1949.
• The Long Telegram of 22 February 1946 convinced Washington that the Soviet Union could not be negotiated with and must be contained, and within a year that idea had become the Truman Doctrine.
• The Novikov Telegram of September 1946 told Stalin that the United States was seeking world supremacy, that its bases and its bomb were aimed at the Soviet Union, and that war was possible, which confirmed the Soviet decision to tighten control of Eastern Europe.
• Truman offered to share the bomb with the Soviet Union at Potsdam.
• Both telegrams were published at the time and read by the public.
• The telegrams led to a summit that stopped the Cold War.

Who was to blame, and why the question is a trap

The importance question on this bullet asks what Yalta, or Potsdam, or the telegrams, or the satellites meant for relations between the superpowers. Students often turn it into a blame question. The strong answer explains what each side did and why it made sense from where that side stood. From Moscow. The Soviet Union had been invaded through Poland in 1914 and 1941 and had lost around 27 million people; Stalin wanted governments on his border that would never let it happen again, and he believed Yalta had given him them. Free elections in Poland would have produced an anti-Soviet government, so he did not hold them. The bomb, kept secret and then used without consultation, proved to him that the Americans meant to dictate. From Washington. The United States had fought to end the rule of dictators and believed Stalin had signed a promise of free elections; the rigged governments of 1945 to 1948 proved that promise worthless. Kennan explained why: a state built on the idea that capitalism was the enemy could not be a partner. This meant that by 1947 each side had good reasons, by its own lights, to treat the other as a threat, and a judgement that shows both sets of reasons, dated, and then says which side moved first on which question, reaches the top level.

In the shoes of the Big Three

Four decisions between February 1945 and February 1946. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice led to.

• February 1945, Yalta. You are Roosevelt. The Red Army holds Poland and you need Stalin for the war against Japan and for the United Nations. What do you accept on Poland?
• Spring 1945. You are Stalin. You signed the Declaration on Liberated Europe. A free election in Poland would return a government hostile to you. What do you do?
• 24 July 1945, Potsdam. You are Truman. The bomb has worked and Stalin, across the table, is refusing free elections in Poland. What do you tell him about the bomb?
• February 1946. You are Kennan, deputy head of the embassy in Moscow. Washington has cabled asking why the Soviets are refusing to join the World Bank. What do you send back?

From cause to consequence

Because Germany had come through Poland twice in thirty years at a cost of around _____ million Soviet lives, Moscow was determined to have obedient governments on its border. Because Roosevelt needed Stalin for Japan and the United Nations, he accepted a promise of free elections at _____ that he could not enforce. Because Roosevelt died in April 1945, the West came to Potsdam under _____, who had the bomb and less patience. Because the elections promised for Poland were never freely held, Washington concluded that Soviet promises were worthless. And because Kennan explained in the _____ of February 1946 that the Soviet system could not be a partner, the American answer became _____.

Reparations at Yalta

At Yalta the three powers discussed German reparations of 20 billion dollars as a basis, with half of the total going to the Soviet Union. How many billion dollars would the Soviet Union have received?

The 8-mark consequences question

Question 1 might read: Explain two consequences of the Potsdam conference. Each consequence is marked as a consequence plus supporting detail, for 4 marks. Which answer scores all four marks for ONE consequence?

• One consequence was the hardening of Soviet control over Poland and Eastern Europe. Truman had refused at Potsdam to accept the communist-dominated governments the Red Army was installing, and Stalin had refused the free elections promised at Yalta, so with no agreement the Soviet Union simply kept what it held: the Polish election of January 1947 was rigged, and by the coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 every state the Red Army had entered was a one-party satellite.
• One consequence was that the two sides did not trust each other any more and the Cold War started.
• One consequence was that Roosevelt had died and Truman was much tougher with Stalin.
• On 17 July the conference opened, on 24 July Truman told Stalin about the bomb, and on 28 July Attlee replaced Churchill.

A narrative paragraph, marked

Question 2: Write a narrative account analysing the key events in the breakdown of the Grand Alliance in the years 1945 to 1946. You may use: the Yalta conference; the Long Telegram. The breakdown began at Yalta from 4 to 11 February 1945, where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed to divide Germany into four zones and signed the Declaration on Liberated Europe promising free elections, because the West still needed the Red Army against Germany and Japan and had no way to enforce anything in Poland. This led to the first breach within weeks, since Stalin arrested the leaders of the Polish underground in March and added only a token number of London Poles to his Lublin government, which meant that when Roosevelt died on 12 April his successor Truman inherited a promise already being broken. As a result Potsdam, from 17 July, was a different meeting: the bomb had been tested on 16 July, Germany was beaten, and Truman and Stalin could agree on the Oder-Neisse line and reparations by zone but not on Poland. The turning point came with Hiroshima on 6 August, because the bomb was used without consulting the Soviet Union, and from then on Stalin treated the alliance as finished. What earned the marks: events in sequence with dates; each event linked to the next by because, this led to and as a result, so that the account analyses rather than lists; and the turning point named. One more paragraph, from the Long Telegram of February 1946 through Fulton to the Novikov Telegram in September, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the narrative account

Write a narrative account analysing the key events in the breakdown of the Grand Alliance in the years 1945 to 1946. You may use the following in your answer: the Yalta conference; the Long Telegram. You must also use information of your own.

• The span: from Yalta in February 1945 to the Novikov Telegram in September 1946
• Detail that counts: a name, a number or a place
• Events of your own: the death of Roosevelt, the bomb, Potsdam, Fulton or the satellite governments

The importance question

Question 3 might read: Explain the importance of the Yalta conference for relations between the superpowers. Which answer best explains the importance, rather than describing the conference?

• Yalta was important because it produced the promise on which the alliance was tested and failed: the Declaration on Liberated Europe committed Stalin to free elections he had no intention of holding, so that when Poland went communist in 1945 to 1947 the West could point to a signed agreement and conclude that Soviet promises were worthless, while Stalin could point to the same paper and say the West had accepted his sphere. This meant that the conference which was meant to fix the peace became the reason each side believed the other had broken it.
• Yalta was important because it divided Germany into four zones, promised free elections and set up the United Nations.
• Yalta was important because the three leaders got on well and it was the high point of the alliance.
• Yalta was important because it created the United Nations, which has kept the peace ever since.