Spain (and Portugal) wanted to find a sea route to Asia because Portugal did not share trade routes with Asia and Europe (no Meditteranean Ports), Spain wanted to Spread Christianity, and both countries wanted to find more trade.
The Soviets refused to allow free elections in Eastern European nations.
When Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, leaders of the World War II Allied nations, met at Yalta in 1945, there was a big push for Stalin to allow free elections to take place in the nations of Europe after the war. At that time Stalin agreed, but there was a strong feeling by the other leaders that he might renege on that promise. The Soviets never did allow those free elections to occur. Later, Winston Churchill wrote, ""Our hopeful assumptions were soon to be falsified." Stalin and the Soviets felt they needed the Eastern European nations as satellites to protect their own interests.
