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The United States hoped to shape the postwar world by opening up the world's markets to capitalist trade - a rebuilt capitalist Europe that could again serve as a hub in world affairs. The Atlantic Charter was publicized regarding this with principles such as "people have right to choose own government" - this was given about as much credence by the West as by the East however. Franklin Roosevelt had never forgotten the excitement with which he had greeted the principles of Wilsonian idealism during World War I, and he saw his mission in the 1940s as bringing lasting peace and genuine democracy to the world. According to this view, it was important to not to repeat the punitive measures of the Treaty of Versailles that had produced hardship and resentment in pre-war Germany.
But this vision was equally a vision of national self-interest. World War II resulted in enormous destruction of infrastructure and populations throughout Eurasia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, with almost no country left unscathed. The only major industrial power in the world to emerge intact—and even greatly strengthened from an economic perspective—was the United States, which moved swiftly to consolidate its position. As the world's greatest industrial power, and as the only world power unravaged by the war, the United States stood to gain more than any other country from opening the entire world to unfettered trade. The United States would have a global market for its exports, and it would have unrestricted access to vital raw materials. Determined to avoid another economic catastrophe like that of the 1930s, Roosevelt saw the creation of the postwar order as a way to ensure continuing US prosperity.
Truman could advance these principles with an economic powerhouse that produced 50 percent of the world's industrial goods and military power that rested on a monopoly of the new atom bomb. These aims were at the center of what the Soviet Union strove to avoid as the breakdown of the wartime alliance went forward. It also required new international agencies: the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which were created to ensure an open, capitalist, international economy. The Soviet Union opted not to take part.
The withdrawal of the United States to advance a different vision of the postwar world conflicted with Soviet interests, which motivated their determination to shape postwar Europe. The Soviet Union had, since 1924, placed higher priority on its own security and socialist development than on Trotsky's vision of world revolution. Accordingly, Stalin had been willing before the war to engage non-communist governments that recognized Soviet control of the former Tsarist empire and offered assurances of non-aggression. Germany's betrayal of its non-aggression promise convinced Stalin that he could no longer rely on non-communist governments.
After the war, Stalin sought to secure the Soviet Union's western border by installing subservient communist-dominated regimes in bordering countries such as Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. This decision was a response to a 150-year history of repeated Western assaults on Russia, including World War I and Napoleon's 1812 invasion. Stalin considered it essential to destroy Germany's capacity for another war, which conflicted with the US desire to rebuild Germany as the economic center of a stable Europe. Winston Churchill accused Stalin of cordoning off a new Russian empire with an " Iron Curtain." The dispute over Germany escalated after Truman refused to give the Soviet Union reparations from West Germany's industrial plants; Stalin responded by splitting off the Soviet sector of Germany as a Communist state.
Russia's historic lack of direct, year-round maritime access, a perennial concern of Russian foreign policy well before the Bolshevik Revolution, was also a focus for Russia where interests diverged between East and West. Stalin pressed the Turks for improved access out of the Black Sea through Turkey's Dardanelles Strait , which would allow Soviet passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Churchill had earlier recognized Stalin's claims, but now the British and Americans forced the Soviet Union to pull back.
There were other signs of caution on Stalin's part. The Soviet Union eventually withdrew from Northern Iran, at Anglo-American behest; Stalin did observe his 1944 agreement with Churchill and did not aid the communists in the struggle against a weak and authoritarian government in Greece that was supported by Britain; in Finland he accepted a friendly, noncommunist government; and Russian troops were withdrawn from Czechoslovakia by the end of 1945.
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