The world that changed after 1945

In his book book "Lend Lease: Weapon for Victory" E. Stettinius conceived the following grounds of the after-war world and the peaceful U. S policy in it: "When we were not the United Nations and everyone was by himself, all we had were the misfortunes and defeats. Having become the United Nations, we’ve intercepted the enemy’s initiative and now we are winning. It doesn’t matter, how many months of struggle are ahead — until we’re together the day is undoubtedly ours.

What will we be capable of since we reach this victory — that depends from whether we’d be able to conclude peace the same way we’ve fought against the aggression, remaining to be the United Nations. For the last 30 months, since 11th of March, 1941 we’ve received plenty of evidences that our unity can work the miracles. We’ve avoided the catastrophe, which could’ve postponed the liberation for centuries and we’ve gained a great opportunity to achieve the better future for the humanity. We’d only be able to use this opportunity if we stay united.

One might ask why the matter of the possibility of our future cooperation is being raised at all. If we won thanks to our unity, it would be a terrible mockery if we’d suffer a defeat during the peace time, having failed to keep our unity! Then all our losses, all the sacrifices made by those who lived and fought for the victory, would be really in vain.

But if we’ve learned how to fight back-to-back, we still might learn how to cooperate after the war. Of course we’ll face difficulties, contradictions and conflicts of interests. But there’s really nothing new or incredibly awful in it. Such matters can be solved to the mutual benefit. I think that those Americans who doubt that — and that is very odd in my opinion — do not have the faith in our ability to use our power wisely and for the common good in the international relations.

What are we to be afraid of? Rivalry with the Great Britain? We’ll hope that it would be a fair competition — competition in fight for prosperity of our own and all the other countries. After the victory in this war our country can hardly be afraid of any competition. We would have the tremendous material resources and the industrial power at our disposal as the country that didn’t suffer from the enemy attacks, country whose citizens can make business with people all over the world, country that know a lot about the life of other nations thanks to the millions of our compatriots living abroad. The English fear of competition can be understandable as they’ve suffered heavy economic and military losses. However, Englishmen are great businessmen as well and they would find the strength to restore their economy and we are interested in them to succeed at that. Great economic prospects are opening up before everyone who lives in a free and prospering world.

"Are we afraid of the communism in Russia? Why on earth do we have to be afraid of it? Do we have so little faith in our form of leadership and don’t we understand how much good did the free entrepreneurship, regulated for the sake of democracy, brought to our country? We have been working on our experiment for more than 150 years already — and we will keep walking our way, so the Soviets are free to work at their own experiment. We don’t have a single reason to be afraid of Russia. We’d just benefit from the friendship and the mutually profitable cooperation with it".

Are we afraid of the revival of China? Of course, not. China has been the most peaceful of all the great nations for the last 2000 years. New China can be considered to be the moral leader of the United Nations in the sense of understanding of what should we do for the sake of establishing the international cooperation.

After concluding the peace, Americans would have nothing to be afraid of, except, probably, the lack of faith in themselves and their own country. If we’re ready to continue our wartime cooperation even during the peace time, the rest of the world will be glad to cooperate with us for the sake of the common benefit.

All the United Nations have subscribed to the goals, proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration of the United Nations that can be briefly formulated as the freedom of speech, religious freedom, and freedom from poverty and fear. We cannot reach these goals at once — the path that leads to them is long and thorny, but they are still as much worthy and real as the goals of our Declaration of Independence. We cannot reach the strong and lasting peace without reaching them. History of humanity gives us the evidence that peace and prosperity are incompatible with the tyranny, poverty and fear".
The article I link here goes further and offers possible scenarios of USSR development after the victory in the Second World war.
http://www.win.ru/en/Mysteries-of-History/3331.phtml