title: Unit 14:: A Divided Postwar World
abstract: Cracks in the Grand Alliance that defeated the Axis powers during World War II were evident early on in the uneasy collaboration between the Soviet Union and its democratic partners. They became more pronounced in 1945 at the Yalta (February) and Potsdam (July–August) conferences, where conflicting interests produced rival postwar blocs in Europe separated by what former British prime minister Winston Churchill described in 1946 as an “iron curtain.”