The Russian Revolution occurred in 1917. This was the introduction of Communism to the USSR. You may expect a war to start at this time, because the USA may have felt threatened and paranoid about the introduction of Communism. However the Cold War did not begin in 1917, and there are a number of long and medium term reasons for this.
The first long term reason is that the Russian Revolution occurred in the middle of World War One. Conflict with the USSR was avoided because the American president Franklin D Roosevelt said he had had enough of war, and didn’t want to see any more of it. In a speech he said ‘ I have seen war, I have seen blood running from the wounded’, ‘ I hate war, I have spent un-numbered hours planning how war may be kept from this nation.’ It was clear that the USA had enough to worry about at this time, without having to worry about the introduction of Communism in the USSR.
After World War One, in which thousands of American troops had died, there was the boom in the USA. They were still paranoid that Communists were planning an attack on the USA, and anybody suspected of being a communist or an anarchist was either sentenced to imprisonment or the electric chair. Other than this, they were happy, and the last thing the USA wanted was another war. They cut off trades with other countries, and lived off their own produce. Businesses were booming and share prices were rising. America went ‘Wall Street crazy’, and everyone began buying shares. The country was rich, and it seemed that little could go wrong. But on October 24th 1929, several large companies went bankrupt, and share prices plummeted to rock bottom. There was mass unemployment. This was known as the ‘bust’, which led to a huge depression in the USA.
Then in 1939, World War Two began. This was the medium term reason for why conflict didn’t happen until 1948. Hitler was leader of the Nazi party in Germany. They were a fascist party, and a far worse enemy to the USA than Communism. The USA and the USSR were allies in the war, as they had a common enemy, and Stalin, the Soviet leader in Russia was even known as ‘good old uncle Joe’ in the USA at this time. Being paranoid about Communism was at the back of the Americans minds.
However, even before the war finished in 1945, tension had begun to build between the USA and the USSR. There are many short-term reasons that built up the tension between the two countries, leading up to the Cold war. As it was clear that Hitler was going to be beaten, Communism had become a great threat again. Once the power had gone there was a vacuum, leaving room for Communism to spread. In February 1945, the three leaders met to settle their differences at Yalta. This was known as the Yalta agreement. They agreed that countries that had been freed of Nazi rule should be allowed to set up their own democratic governments. They agreed that Germany would be divided into zones, and each of the allies would occupy one. They set up a United Nations Organisation to promote world peace. Tension built between the USA and the USSR as it soon became clear that Stalin did not agree for the idea of democracy in eastern European countries. It was obvious what the aims of the Soviet Union were. They had already moved further into Europe, and they wanted to make sure that all governments that had been freed from Nazi rule would be loyal to the Soviet Union. Truman, the American president who took over from Roosevelt when he died, had heard reports that the Soviet Union were trying to set up a Soviet government in Poland, instead of letting them have free elections. Truman protested, and tension mounted between the two countries.
By the time Germany surrendered in 1945, the Soviet Union had taken over most of Eastern Europe, and had almost reached the centre of Germany. The Allied leaders met again at Potsdam to discuss the future for Germany. This was known as the Potsdam agreement. Although they agreed on some matters, they did not agree on the promise they had made at Yalta to allow Eastern European countries to have free elections.
Tension continued to build after Potsdam, when the USA test-exploded the world’s first atomic bomb, which he soon used to destroy the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman had not told Stalin much about the bomb, although he already knew about it from Soviet spies. Stalin declared war on Japan, though his help was no longer needed now that the USA had the world’s most powerful weapon. The war ended in Japan with the USA firmly in control of Japan and the Far East.
Days after the war had ended, the British Prime Minister, Churchill wrote to Truman telling him about the ‘iron curtain’ that the Soviets had created across Europe. Behind it were several countries that had been forced to turn communist. The only country which had not been taken over was Greece, where there had been a civil war going on since 1944. Britain gave money and weapons to the Royalists, to stop the Communists from winning the war. Eventually, they could not afford to pay any more, so Truman stepped in. He said that Communism must be ‘contained’, and gave Greece 400 million dollars, with which they went on to win the war in 1949. Truman’s theory became known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’. The US Secretary of State, George Marshall carried this on with ‘Marshall aid’. He gave money to many European countries to enable them to repair war damage and build up industry. He thought that this would stop countries from falling to Communism. Stalin was very much against the ‘Truman Doctrine’ and the ‘Marshall Plan’, and said they were America’s plans for world domination. He set up an organisation called ‘Cominform’ which was to organise communist activities in Europe, therefore making them stronger.
The Cold War began when Europe was divided between the communist countries in the East, and the non-communist countries in the West. At first this was a line on the map, but became an actual border of minefields, barbed wire and watchtowers, which very few people could cross. This happened because the Soviet Union and the Western Allies could not agree on how to run their zones. This became known as the ‘Berlin Blockade’, one of the highest tension points so far, and the starting point of the Cold War.