Soviet Government

The Soviet Government emerges in the account as a difficult postwar partner: indispensable to cooperation among the victorious powers, yet increasingly at odds with the United States over political control in Eastern Europe. Its conduct in Poland became the immediate test of whether wartime agreements would be honored, and the dispute helped turn Harry S. Truman’s early diplomacy toward firmness without abandoning the possibility of cooperation.

Leadership and the Postwar Problem

The narrative presents Soviet policy through the actions of Stalin and his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, rather than through a detailed account of the government’s internal institutions. Its central problem is the tension between cooperation with the United States and Britain on one hand, and the extension of Soviet control over neighboring states on the other. Averell Harriman, recently returned from Moscow, described these as contradictory aims. He warned that some in Stalin’s circle interpreted American willingness to cooperate and provide assistance as weakness, encouraging the belief that the Soviet Government could act with little regard for American objections.

Harriman nevertheless judged that the Soviet Government would not risk a complete break with the United States. He believed that the Soviet Union would need American financial help after the war, giving Washington grounds to stand firm on vital issues without assuming that cooperation had become impossible. Truman responded that he was not afraid of the Russians and intended to be both firm and fair. He also believed that the Soviet Union needed the United States more than the reverse. The exchange established an early pattern: Soviet actions were treated as serious challenges, but negotiation remained a practical possibility.

Cooperation and the Poland Dispute

The first apparent diplomatic opening came over the San Francisco Conference. The Soviet Government had refused to send Molotov, but Stalin reversed course, describing the decision as a gesture in memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harriman had urged this step. Stalin made attendance conditional on a request from the new President, and Truman promptly made one. The gesture seemed to offer a first breakthrough, but Harriman cautioned that it resolved none of the underlying disagreements. British concern about Soviet policy remained acute.

Poland brought those disagreements into direct view. Soviet authorities were failing, in the American account, to keep agreements made at Yalta, while the Soviet Government supported its own Warsaw Provisional Government as Poland’s representative. The United States also reported that appeals to Stalin had produced little effect and that liberated prisoners were not being exchanged. These grievances formed the background to Truman’s first major discussion with Molotov. At an earlier, cordial meeting at Blair House, Truman had expressed admiration for the Soviet contribution to the war and promised to honor commitments made by Roosevelt. The warmer tone did not survive the detailed discussion of Poland.

Truman’s Challenge to Molotov

At the Oval Office meeting, Truman stated that the United States would not recognize a Polish government that failed to provide free elections. He also said that the United States would proceed with the United Nations despite disagreements on other matters. In making his case, he pointed to the importance of American public support and to Congress’s role in approving postwar economic assistance. American diplomacy therefore rested not only on presidential statements but also on the domestic political support needed to carry commitments into effect.

Molotov argued that Allied cooperation required the three governments to treat one another as equals and maintained that the Poles had worked against the Red Army. Truman cut off that explanation, saying that he was not interested in propaganda. He wanted Molotov to tell Stalin that the Soviet Government’s failure to meet its agreements was a matter of serious concern. Truman said he wanted friendship with Russia and that the United States would honor the Yalta agreements; he asked the Soviet Government to do the same. The exchange made the point of conflict precise: the American demand was not presented as a rejection of cooperation, but as a condition that cooperation required reciprocal performance.

Competing Interpretations and Consequences

The account also records a widening American apprehension about Soviet conduct in Eastern Europe. Harriman had urged the State Department to make clear that the Soviet Government could not expect American cooperation on terms set unilaterally by Moscow. In another report, he described Soviet policy and the governments being imposed on Eastern European peoples as aimed at establishing totalitarian rule, ending personal liberty and democracy as Americans understood them. These were Harriman’s assessments, not a neutral description of every Soviet decision; they show how rapidly the administration’s interpretation of Soviet intentions was hardening.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had also come to doubt Stalin’s reliability, but continued to seek cooperation. On the day of his death, Roosevelt asked Stalin to avoid further mistrust and treated disputes as misunderstandings that might be resolved, while also telling Winston Churchill that the United States must remain firm. Truman inherited both parts of that approach without having been prepared for the foreign-policy burden. He had not been briefed by Roosevelt on high-level plans and began without his own experienced advisers. Reading late into the night from the Map Room files, he tried to acquire the information he had not previously been given.

The Soviet Government’s early dealings with Truman thus became a test of continuity and authority. The decision to send Molotov showed that a diplomatic gesture was still possible; the dispute over Poland showed how little such a gesture settled. Truman’s response combined an insistence on free elections and adherence to agreements with an expressed desire for friendship. In the narrative, that combination marks the emergence of a more guarded relationship: cooperation remained an objective, but the United States would increasingly judge it by whether the Soviet Government honored its commitments.