Class Notes

While Russia was our ally during WWII, things turned sour quickly after the war ended. The first major issue was Poland. Russia had liberated Poland from the Nazis but now instead of allowing free elections as Truman insisted, the Russians decided to keep Poland under their control. While this was clearly an act of aggression, from the Russian point of view they believed they were justified because twice in the last 20 years they had been invaded through Poland to the cost of almost 30,000 lives. They wanted to make sure it never happened again.