Yalta, the three agreed to allow Russia control of East Germany, but this was largely because Churchill and Roosevelt believed in Stalin’s promise to allow free elections. However, Stalin saw any imperialist or capitalist state as being the enemy of Russia and he did not allow free elections in Eastern Bloc countries. Instead, he mandated they should all install Communist governments and undermine democracy at all costs. When Roosevelt died, Harry Truman refused to honor the U.S. promise to send reparations from Germany to help rebuild the war-torn Soviet Union. As broken promises piled up, Churchill warned that “an iron curtain was descending through the middle of Europe” (Cold War 1).
Two phenomena would further escalate the cold war between the superpowers. One was the Korean War which was actually the first “proxy war” of the cold war. During the time Stalin was breaking promises made at Yalta, the Red Chinese had won control of China. Korea was divided between North and South demarcations, with Soviets backing the communist forces in the north and the U.S. supporting the democratic government in the south. However, other than an altruistic intention to support either side, the cold war grew as Soviet forces tried to spread communism to the south and American forces tried to bolster democratic forces in the south to offset their efforts. The Red Chinese were struggling with revolution themselves and they were determined to win against American forces. They, too, took a dim view to democratic, imperialist forces which is how they and the Soviet Union viewed American military intervention in Korea. In a cable to Stalin, China’s Chairman Mao wrote, “If we allow the US to occupy all of Korea, Korean revolutionary power will suffer a fundamental defeat, and the American invaders will run more r
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