Causes of the Cold War

Shortly following the Potsdam Conference stalin began to tyrannize in eastern Europe and by 1946 Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany and Albania all had communist governments, who were all loyal to Stalin. This was known as Salami tactics. The Salami tactics were developed during the period of 1946-47 and was the idea that the communists were taking over Europe “slice by slice”.

In March 1946 Winston Churchill gave the Fulton Speech, which described Stalin’s actions throughout Eastern Europe as an Iron curtain that had “descended over Europe.” As Stalin gradually gained control over more and more countries, there was a border between the Capitialistic West and the Communistic East. He also says “ The Communist parties have raised to power far beyond their number and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control” which is a blatant statement to the Soviets, saying that they are trying to achieve world domination. Stalin believed in order to achieve the protection of the Soviet Union, he had to gain poland and other terriories bordering East Germany. “The following circumsstances should not be forgotten. The Germans made their invaision of the USSR through Finland, Poland and Romania.” Stalin is trying to prove that the protection of the soviet union depends on ‘buffer zone’ he has created, by using these countries. Stalin considered Churchill’s speech a declaration of war.

By 1946, the only Non-communist countries were Greece and Czechoslovakia. Greece was being supported by British soldiers, as the Greeks were fighting a civil war against the Communists and in February 1947, the British could no longer afford to keep their soldiers based in Greece and told President Truman that they were going to leave. President Truman decided to step in and the USA paid for the British support to continue in Greece.

In March 1947, The USA’s foreign policy of ‘Isolationism’ had changed to ‘Containment’. The USA would help any free nation resist Communist aggression , this lead to the new American policy, which then lead to the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was aimed at Soviet expansion in Europe, which in turn, developed into the Containment Policy. The Containment Policy was created to ‘contain’ the expansion of Communism throughout the world.                             

U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, decided that the U.S.S.R. would not help Europe recover from World War II and in June 1947, he proposed economic aid to all European countries. This became known as the Marshall Plan, which began in 1948.  

Meanwhile, in September 1947, the U.S.S.R. and eight other European Communist parties set up the Cominform, which was the newer version of the Communist International. Czechoslovakia and Poland wanted to take part in the Marshall Plan, but, the Stalin would not let them accept the aid. Instead Cominform was initiated. Every Communist Party in Europe joined Cominform, it allowed Stalin to gain control of the Communists in Europe. Cominform was an information agency organized in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. Its members were the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia.

Following  the initiation of Cominform, was the take over of Czechoslovakia. In the initial stages of the Marshall Plan the United States Congress did not want to fund the Marshall Aid Plan, but when Czechoslovakia was conquered by the Communists, it was was an alarm to them, as they were trying to ‘Contain” Communism.

Many Russian Historians blamed the Cold war on Winston Churchill and President Truman. They believed that Truman and Churchill wanted to “Destroy” the U.S.S.R, which was just protecting itself from attack. In turn, many weatern writers blamed the Soviets for the Cold War, and said that Stalin was “Trying to build up the Soviet empire”. As time went on, many western historians began to blame the USA for the Cold War. They said “Truman had not understood how much Russia had suffered in the Second World War”. Present day belief is that both sides were equally responsible for the Cold War. The historian Isaac Deutscher, Stalin (1969) says, “It is useless to try to discover who made the first move to break the alliance. It is impossible to trace the first broken promise.”