1938 has also been argued as a possible date for the beginning of the Cold War. This is due to the Munich Conference. The US was not directly involved in this, but it did involve the Capitalist West. Great Britain, France, and Italy give the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Fascist Germany. Starlin was furious with this action due to Sudetenland being very close to Russia, he saw this as the West ‘building up’ Germany to actually go ahead and attack Russia!
1939 has also been described as a key date to describe the origins of the Cold War. Hitler (Germany) and Starlin (Russia) signed a ‘Non-Aggression Pact’ and divided Poland between then. The West was very bitter about this and for the first time Starlin’s dictatorship was criticized. Eventually in 1940/41, Hitler breaks the agreement and invades Russia. Russia sides with the West to form the “Grand -Alliance”. But the West never forgot the agreement that the Starlin had made with Hitler in 1939, and feared that he may try to make a separate peace with Germany.
Russia was under immense pressure from trying to break down the Nazis, and so Starlin, quite rightly wanted a second front in Western Europe to relieve the pressure. But this was refused, and the Alliance continued the fight from the air across North Africa. Later on, they invaded Italy and Starlin did not want this. Also in 1943 Starlin bugged the US Headquarters in Teheran, as he did not have much faith in the West. So at this time there is; disagreement and suspicion. Not very good ingredients for a coalition!
Some claim that 1945 was when the Cold War started. This is because the Grand Alliance falls apart, and most importantly the US drops the Atomic bombs over Japan. This really makes the temperature rise between the US and Russia, as the US did not include Russia in its plans of bombing Japan. Even though some of the top scientist told the US that must allow Russia into the plans, in order to prevent an nuclear arms race after the war. Some claim that the bomb was not even meant to finish the Second World War, but the first move in the Cold War. At this stage the polarity in the world could be described as ‘unipolarity’, meaning that there was one out right Great Power in the world.
Historians believe that the Cold War began in 1947. This is when the US creates The Truman Doctrine & Containment (TD), and The Marshall Plan (MP). TD, was the US’s first steps into actually ‘containing’ Communism, stopping the development of Communism, due to the loss of Greece to the far left. MP was designed for the US to fund European states to rebuild their economies. This was offered to all European states including Russia. Russia refused.
Most politicians believe that the war began in 1949. During this time the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) had been devised due to the brinkmanship of the Berlin Blockade. (Where Starlin had ordered a full blockade of all land-based access routes into Berlin). So now the crisis had escalated to the point of maximum confrontation. Before this time the US had been the only state to have weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Hence, the world international system being unipolar. But by 1949 Russia had created their own WMD, and so the world was now ‘bipolarity’ and there was a sense of a stalemate between these two Great Powers of the world.
So when did the Cold War begin? Personally I do not believe that there is specific time or date that could be pinpointed as start. But, the war was the consequence of the many different disagreements that East and West had endured over the years. So these many factors contributed and finally created the war.
David Jacobs When did the Cold War begin?