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Stalin wanted to destroy Germany so that they loud never be a threat again, but Truman didn’t wanted to make the same mistake made in the Treaty of Versailles. Moreover, Stalin wanted Germany to pay compensations for all the death that Were left because Of the war, but Truman was convinced they shouldn’t repeat the same mistake. Furthermore, they disagreed over Soviet policy in eastern Europe, Stalin wanted to set up pro-Soviet governments and unite all the people so that no one would dare to attack them, Truman wasn’t happy at all with this. ) It was very unlikely that countries like the USA and the USSR had an alliance since they were totally efferent countries, the only thing that kept them together was the war. Both Stalin and Roosevelt had different beliefs and ideas, they had never trusted each other, and between the countries in general there had never been in a trustworthy relationship, after all the USSR was Communist and the USA was Anti-Communist and totally capitalist and democratic.
Even though this differences weren’t new, there was one change in the Americans beliefs, they didn’t wanted to make the same mistake as in the ass of their policy of isolation, they decided that they will take responsibilities for the world’s inflicts or it might result into a new war, so they decided that every Communist action would have an American reaction. 3) Some people say that the Truman Doctrine was more responsible for increasing the Cold War tension that the Berlin Blockade.
I partly agree with this statement. On the one hand, I think that the Truman Doctrine was definitely a great factor which increased the tension in the Cold War. Truman wanted to make sure that the Communism of eastern Europe wouldn’t spread and for this, he decided that he would send money, equipment and device to any country which was threatened by a Communist invasion. His aim was to stop or to limit Communism in there, that is why this policy is known as “containment’.
This created a lot of tension, since Truman basically said that any country which feared a Communism take over they would receive Americans help. This could also be seen as a way of Truman trying to make people think that Communism was evil and that being with him is better but they had to be against Communism. So there was always this tension that if Stalin tried any attempt of spreading Communism there was always the possibility that a war between the USSR and the USA would start.
On the other hand, the Berlin Blockade was also a tense conflict during the Cold War. Britain, France and American’s zones of Germany were united (western Germany) while the zone of the USSR was left by his own. Stalin thought that the western Germany was being too controlled by the USA so he thought that if he blockaded his zone from Berlin, cutting off all the supplies and communications to the other side of Berlin, the other would decide to leave their zones to him and stay with the western Germany.
This situation as very tense, since the US couldn’t send tanks because the USSR would seen it as an act of war, so Truman figured out that the only way into Berlin was by plane, so they decided to send planes with supplies. This moments were very tense because people was afraid that the soviets would shoot them down. Finally, nothing happened, they could keep sending their supplies till 1949 when Stalin decided to bring up communications again. All in all, don’t think that any of this two was more responsible than the other for increasing the tension, I think it was the mixture of things which produced higher tension.