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When did the Cold War start? Was it the Truman Doctrin? The Atom bomb? Maybe Churchills Iron Curtain speech?
I personally would date it to the Potsdam Conference but I think CW has it that the Cold War did not start in earnest until the formation of the Warsaw Pact and the blockade of Berlin.
I think the roots of the Cold War were sown at the Potsdam Conference, and Winston Churchill drew the line between the capitalist, democratic West and the Marxist-Leninist Soviet Union in his “Iron Curtain” speech. The Cold War had already begun by the time of the Berlin Blockade, but it was nonetheless a momentous period in the Cold War because unlike Potsdam or Churchill's “Iron Curtain” speech, it was a direct physical confrontation that entailed casualties, but ultimately showed Stalin that the West would not just fall over if the Soviet Union tried to bully its way into expansionism.
If you follow that train of thought then the Cold War began before WWII ended. The antagonisms between Communism and the Capitalist West were there even during the fighting. Just look at the course and wranglings of the 3 power conferences and it is there to see, particularly in the negotiations at Yalta.
