Segment One After years of fighting fascism, American, British and Soviet soldiers meet in Berlin in 1945. At the Potsdam Conference, the Big Three, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph

Segment One
After years of fighting fascism, American, British and Soviet soldiers meet in Berlin in 1945. At the Potsdam Conference, the Big Three, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet to settle on a postwar order. Many scholars believe that the Cold War that was to follow had its origins after WWI, in a clash of ideologies-Communist and Capitalist. During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1920, Great Britain and United States supported the "White" Russian army against the "Red" Bolsheviks. By 1921, the Bolsheviks had consolidated power in Russia, establishing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). After the Civil War, both the Soviet Union and the United States turn inwards. In the 1930's, the United States experiences a depression while the Soviet Union undergoes massive industrialization and agricultural collectivization.

1. What role did the United States and Great Britain play in the Russian Revolution? How did this participation affect the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the West?

2. Based on information from the video, describe U.S. and Soviet foreign policies during the 1920's and 1930's. What was happening in the two countries? Explain what is meant by "American politics shifted to the left."

Segment Two
Stalin enforces a 5-year economic plan. Privately owned fields become huge collective farms. Millions of peasants are murdered and Stalin's policies cause widespread famine in the country. Stalin puts several leading government officials through show trials, accusing them of espionage and conspiracy to undermine the Soviet government. The large majority of people in the West realize that Stalinism is equivalent to a massively repressive police state. But with the rise of Hitler and fascism in Europe, thousands in America stay loyal to Communism. In 1939, Stalin and Hitler sign a Non-Aggression Pact, giving Hitler free reign to take most of Western Europe without fear of Soviet invasion. The Soviets, too, strike east to take the Baltic States, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and Finland.

1. What impressions do you have about Josef Stalin as a leader?

2. What is collectivization? Who was the intended beneficiary? What happened as a result of Stalin's collectivization?

3. According to George Kennan, why did Stalin order the trials of leading government officials? What effect did these trials have on the Soviet public and the international community?

4. How do you account for Communism's popularity in the United States? (Consider the state of the U.S. economy in the 1930's.)

5. Based on eyewitness accounts, why did Stalin agree to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939? What were the ramifications of this pact for Poland and the Baltic States? How did this affect Western opinion? Why?

Segment Three

On June 22, 1941, Hitler invades the Soviet Union. The Red Army falls back in retreat. After the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States declares war on Japan. Days later, Hitler declares war on the United States. Russians and Americans unite as allies against a common enemy. During the war, Stalin plans for postwar Soviet boundaries. America supplies Russia with guns and trucks. Stalin wants a second front, an allied landing in Western Europe, to relieve the Soviet Union's suffering on the Eastern Front.

1. According to the video, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 was a "day that changed history." Using the information from the video, explain this statement. Consider the Nazi- Soviet Pact. Was Stalin's rationale accurate? How did the German invasion alter Western opinion toward the Soviet Union?

2. How do the Nazis attempt to split this new alliance? Why do you think Great Britain and the United States "chose to ignore this evidence of Stalin's methods?"

Segment Four
In 1943, with their alliance still intact, the Big Three prepare to meet at Teheran, in Iran. Stalin persuades Roosevelt to stay at the Soviet Embassy, which has been bugged. Stalin gains access to transcripts of all of Roosevelt's conversations. The allies agree that postwar Eastern Europe will be a Soviet zone of influence. Allied forces land in France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in the biggest seaborne invasion in history. With Poland under Soviet occupation, Churchill and Stalin discuss postwar influence over Europe.

1. What do the Big Three decide to do with postwar Poland, Eastern Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe?

2. How do you interpret the Red Army's actions in light of the struggle against the Germans?

3. What was Churchill's formula for "carving up Europe?" What do you think of this arrangement?

Segment Five
In February 1945, the Big Three meet in Yalta in the Crimea to decide how to govern a defeated Germany and how to settle the Polish question. By now, the Balkans and most of Poland are in Soviet hands; so too is much of Czechoslovakia and Hungary-"battlefield facts that diplomacy could not alter." Stalin promises that the Polish elections will be free and fair. Churchill and FDR take him at his word. Germany will be governed jointly by the victorious allies. Stalin secretly pledges to join the United States in the war against Japan.

1. Describe Stalin's preparation for the Yalta Conference. How do you interpret the interactions between the Big Three at this meeting? What were the objectives at Yalta?

2. What were the results of Yalta? Based on eyewitness accounts, how did each leader interpret the terms of the Declaration on Liberated Europe?

3. Describe the meeting of the Soviet and American troops at the Elbe River. How do eyewitness accounts and archive footage shed light on the relationship between the two countries in April 1945?

Segment Six
By April 1945, the Soviet Union has lost approximately 27 million people, nearly 40 times American and British losses put together. With Germany's surrender, the Soviet front line has cut Europe in two, from the Baltic to the Adriatic. The war in the Pacific drags on. The Big Three meet for the third allied summit in the German town of Potsdam. The allies cannot easily agree about a German peace treaty or on how to carry out agreements reached at Yalta. On August 2, 1945, the conference ends and the statesmen go home. Four days later, an American B-29 drops a nuclear bomb on the city and people of Hiroshima. A nuclear shadow is cast over each Cold War crisis to come.

1. By the end of WWII, where were Soviet troops? How might this affect the decisions made at Teheran and Yalta concerning postwar influence in Europe?

2. How do you explain Stalin's reaction to Truman's statements regarding a "powerful new weapon?"

3. How did leadership changes in the Big Three affect the relationship among the three countries?

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