In 1939 at the start of the Second World War, the US and the Soviet Union (including Russia) weren't affiliated with each other. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the Soviet Union conquered Eastern Europe, meeting the Germans in central Poland. The Western powers of France and the UK declared war on Germany.
Germany next attacked the Soviet Union, making the USSR the allies of France and the UK. As the war wore on, eventually Germany's ally, Japan, attacked the United States. Now that the United States was in the war, the UK, France, the USA, and the Soviet Union were effectively allied against Germany and Japan. The war in Europe drew to a close as the US, France, and the UK invaded Germany from the West, and the Soviet Union invaded Germany from the East. The meeting point of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies was Berlin.
After the end of the war, the world was effectively divided into two: the territories owned by the capitalist democracies of the Western powers (France, the UK, and the USA), and the communist Soviet Union, which had retained the territory which it had conquered when invading Germany. The alliance between the Western powers and the Soviet Union dissolved over disputes of how to divide up the territory that each had conquered in Germany. Another obstacle was Western protestations regarding the treatment of the conquered Eastern European territories.
The collapse of the alliance led to the start of the Cold War in 1945.
https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/origins-cold-war-1945-1949
During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting together against Germany, Japan, and Italy. However, by the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as chief rivals. Each country had a different political and economic system. The United States had a democratic form of government and a capitalist economy based on market forces and the freedom of individuals to make decisions. The Soviet Union had a communist political and economic system. The government had a lot of control over the economic and political system. There was little freedom of choice for the individual, both economically and politically.
When World War II ended, each side wanted to see its political and economic system in place throughout the world. In the areas that the Soviet Union controlled, the communist system was implemented. We were supporting countries that had more freedom of choice politically and economically. When the Soviet Union tried to spread communism in Europe and in Asia, we tried to prevent that from happening. We opposed the attempts of the Soviet Union to spread communism into Western Europe and into South Korea. This led to the start of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/what-was-the-cold-war/
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