Giovanni Sale, SJ / Issue 2006 / 19 May 2020
Once the Second World War ended in Europe with victory for the Allies, the crisis in relations between the new superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union, who had fought together to defeat Nazism – began as early as April 1945. The reason was the establishment of a communist government in Poland, which led the Americans to accuse the USSR of violating the joint commitments made shortly before in Yalta, where “The Big Three” – the heads of the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom – had divided the world into areas of influence.
The crisis became more acute and dangerous for the global strategic equilibrium in the spring of 1946 when the Soviet army, contrary to the agreements made, did not “demilitarize” by March the North-Iranian occupation zone, under the pretext of providing military aid to a group of guerrillas fighting against the central power. The British army withdrew from the other part in accordance with the established terms.
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