The end of the WW2, saw Russia and America emerging as the two strongest allied nations. However, even before the closing stages of the war, competition between these two nations was brewing, fueled by ambitions on both sides for world domination and the opposing ideals of communism and capitalism. On one side, Stalin sought to spread his influence in Eastern Europe by setting up pro-Russian governments in these states while America, feared for their power and domination over the world and attempted to "contain" communism. These were the beginnings of the Cold War, and this essay will explain the origins of it and will attempt to reach a conclusion of which nation- Russia or America- was to blame for the outbreak of this war that lasted for nearly five decades. .
It can be argued that Stalin's political incursions into Eastern Europe caused unnecessary conflict between Russia and the West. By 1948, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Albania and Yugoslavia all had Communist governments. The setting up of pro-communistic regimes in this region appeared to the West to be a direct outlash against them, because all the allies had agreed in Potsdam to allow democratic elections of governments in East Europe. This was further reiterated by the Berlin Blockade in the same year, when Stalin blockaded the German city of Berlin for 11 months in response to the allies plans to unify their occupation zones in Germany and establish the country, Western Germany. The allies felt threatened by the "iron curtain that seemed to have descended upon the continent" and the tensions between the West and Russia was escalated because of Stalin's aggressions and his supposed aims of isolating the west. They believed with this blockading and the setting up of anti-western governments in Eastern Europe that Stalin had plans of expansion, which threatened their monopoly over the world and felt that they needed to retaliate.