Historical Background: World War II and Tensions in the Wartime Alliance

Abstract

This chapter introduces the roots of antagonism between the Soviet Union and the Western powers, outlining its development throughout the interwar years, before examining relations within the Grand Alliance during the Second World War with emphasis on the wartime conferences: Teheran, ‘Tolstoy’, Yalta and Potsdam. Despite entrenched differences, notably over the second front issue and the future settlement of Europe, a working relationship did develop between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin and the subsequent breakdown of the alliance was not preordained. These areas form a central tenet in the initial generation of Cold War historiographical debate between the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist schools, a discourse largely directed at understanding the superpower relationship and explaining the division of Europe into Eastern and Western blocs.