<P> Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan . He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet controlled nations on his Western border, and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states combined with a weakened Germany under Soviet control . Fearing American political, cultural and economic penetration, Stalin eventually forbade Soviet Eastern bloc countries of the newly formed Cominform from accepting Marshall Plan aid . In Czechoslovakia, that required a Soviet - backed Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, the brutality of which shocked Western powers more than any event so far and set in a motion a brief scare that war would occur and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Marshall Plan in the United States Congress . In September, 1947 the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov declared that the Truman Doctrine "intended for accordance of the American help to all reactionary regimes, that actively oppose to democratic people, bears an undisguised aggressive character ." </P> <P> In Greece, during a civil war involving the communist - led partisan movement ELAS - EAM, British Special Forces terminated arms supplies to the ELA - ELAM, pro-monarchist armed forces were strengthened . On the political front, Americans, with British encouragement, attempted to dismantle ELAS - EAM socialist structures in the countryside, and an anti-communist swing gradually occurred . </P> <P> Western Allies conducted meetings in Italy in March 1945 with German representatives to forestall a takeover by Italian communist resistance forces in northern Italy and to hinder the potential there for post-war influence of the civilian communist party . The affair caused a major rift between Stalin and Churchill, and in a letter to Roosevelt on 3 April Stalin complained that the secret negotiations did not serve to "preserve and promote trust between our countries ." </P> <P> After the war ended, Malaya was plunged into a state of emergency as British and Commonwealth forces fought a protracted counter-insurgency war against their former communist - led MPAJA ally, who had fought the Japanese and now demanded independence from Britain . Elsewhere in the Far East, Britain transported Japanese troops to Indonesia, and also to Vietnam, to fight against former communist anti-Japanese resistance groups . In British Hong Kong, which had surrendered to Japan in December 1941, civil unrest occurred after Britain rapidly re-established rule at the end of the war . In China, US forces helped Japanese troops to be employed in the Chinese Civil War . </P>

What are the remote causes of the cold war