Explains the United States' and the USSR's political and economic concerns at the end of World War II

The United States and USSR's political concerns couldn't have been more different. Before the war America was going through the depression without any logical way out. The war increased the economy tremendously and the loss of life was nothing in comparison to the 25 million in Russia. America's big concerns were a post war slump and the role of the government which was in question again since they were afraid of falling back into a depression. It was inevitable that the post war government molded itself after the wartime government. America was now a superpower, and it now felt it had a moral right to adjudicate world affairs. America set out to secure a safe homeland for the Jewish nation and to foster and secure democratic governments throughout the world. In contrast the Russian people suffered tremendously. Twenty five million Russians where homeless, six million buildings destroyed and 30 percent of its capital gone, the Soviet Union was in ruin.

Chinese Stamp, 1950. Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong ...

Yalta summit in February 1945 with (from left to r...

English: From left to right: Joseph Stalin, Frankl...

Russia was ill prepared before the war because Stalin had decimated his military leadership and was psychologically near collapse. At the end of the war USSR's primary concern was to break America's monopoly on the bomb. Stalin felt that Russia wasn't as secure as the United Sates because even though it was three times as large it only had 10 thousand miles of coast, which made it more vulnerable to attack. With cities in ruin Stalin set out to rebuild, but concentrated on transport and heavy industry first starving villages of manpower. His efforts still concentrated mainly on defense. At the same time Stalin still reined in communist parties in France and Italy, and was ordering them to eschew a revolution. His goal was still the same, even though his country had not yet recovered from