We can now start to compare the two conflicting ideas of Lenin’s concept of World Revolution and Wilson’s liberalism. The origins of the Cold War lay in hostility generated between these two competing views. Even though the Cold War may have origins that lay as far back as 1918 it cannot be argued that this is when it truly began.
The Cold War did not develop after the end of WW1 because neither the US, nor the USSR took on a world role. The reasons for this were different for each country. The USA after 1918 had the capability to play a dominant role in world affairs. It was an economic power that suffered little after the War. Yet despite the capability of the US to take on a world role, there was no will from the US and its citizens to do so. Wilson lost a firm grip on the US and they slipped back into the policy of isolationism, and kept it detached from any European affairs.
Bolshevik Russia was devastated after WW1 and was in no position to play a world role. In the 1920’s the Bolshevik Government was more concerned with ensuring its own survival than spreading World Revolution. Stalin then concentrated on the rapid industrialisation of Russia. These domestic policies gave the soviet the potential to play a leading world role ion the future. The USSR also distanced itself from European affairs and was only drawn back into the world arena along wit the US, with the start of WW2.
It was the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan that led to the re-emergence of tensions between East and West. The USA and the USSR were both in positions of power and could play more objective world roles. A key short-term cause was the creation of a power vacuum after WW1. Much of Europe was economically devastated, in desperate need of re-construction. The super-power rivalry between the USA and USSR led to each being determined not to let the other fill this vacuum completely. Historian John Lewis Gaddis stated “they were unlikely to fill this vacuum ‘without bumping up against each others interests’”.
The different roles of individual’s personalities have to be assessed when looking at causes of the Cold War. Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were three dominant personalities who exercised considerable power within their own countries. Churchill played an important role during the war and was able to get Stalin’s agreement to recognise spheres of influence by the ‘percentages deal’, this limited Stalin’s actions after the war. Roosevelt played a different role. Roosevelt formed a relationship with Stalin that came under attack after the war. Historians such as D. Donnelly have highlighted Roosevelt’s failure to stand firm against Stalin at Yalta as a crucial mistake that allowed Stalin to play on the Gullibility of the West. The death of Roosevelt, replaced by Truman, revisionists have seen the more hard line anti-communist character as a key factor in the development of the Cold War. Truman’s iron fist approach caused a rift between the two superpowers. Most members of the US and British Governments saw Stalin as untrustworthy. Therefore a meaningful agreement with Stalin was impossible. Stalin’s domestic policies became one where violence was respected appeared to transfer to foreign policy. Therefore the development of the Cold War can be seen as the result of Stalin’s personality operating within the particular and unique circumstances in Europe after WW2.
When assessing the question of who should be held accountable for the causes of the Cold War, a key character that has to be analysed is Stalin. Orthodox views In the West blames Soviet aggressive expansion, which comes from communist ideology. They suggest that it was inevitable that both ideologies and systems of Communism and Capitalism would not be able to co-exist. At the Yalta conference of February 1945 Stalin had demanded parts of Eastern Poland be given to the USSR and it was clear that Stalin was also trying to establish a communist government in Poland. The Wet feared that this would give the USSR permanent control over Polish institutions.
Between 1945 and 1948 communist regimes were established throughout Eastern Europe. In each country a ‘popular government’ was formed. The Red Army retained a presence of much of Eastern Europe during and after this process. Although the Soviet Union had extended its ‘sphere of influence’ in Eastern Europe, the position of Berlin remained a problem. Arrangements at Yalta meant that both Germany and its Capital Berlin were divided into Zones of occupation until a permanent settlement could be agreed. When the USSR cut off all road, rail and canal links to West Berlin, the West saw this as an attempt to starve the west out of the city to a prelude on West Germany. The Berlin blockade of 1948-9 was thus seen as another example of Stalin’s expansionist foreign policy. After 1949 the focus of the Cold War turned to the Far East, where the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and the invasion of South Korea by the communist North, seemed to provide further evidence of the growth of Soviet power. Much of the West had the view that Stalin’s expansionist policy had secured the spread of communism.
Although the USA traditionally held the role of protector of the free world during the Cold War, some of its actions played a key role in the development of the War. Truman enforced a more ‘hard line’ approach in dealing with the USSR; worried that US policy had been to soft in the past. This harder approach was known as the ‘Iron fist’. This change in approach to the USSR was an important factor in the development of the Cold War.
Historians of the Cold War have long debated the role of economic pressures on the US government. Writers from the political left have been keen to emphasise the power of big business and the military industrial sector in pushing the Us government towards Cold War as a way of protecting the economic interests of capitalism at a time of crisis. This was a view constructed by writer T. J. McCormick (1989)
One could then say that both political and economic pressures were steering Truman’s foreign policy away from direction taken by Roosevelt. Truman’s actions were aimed at limiting soviet power and influence. Yet Truman’s actions were unnecessarily provocative. His failure to tell Stalin about his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima just a few days after the two leaders had met at Potsdam was viewed with suspicion by the USSR. In response to communist threat in Greece, the Truman doctrine pledged support to those facing communist aggression. The Marshall plan of the same year represented the economic arm of the USA’s attack on the spread of communism in a War-torn Europe. To the Soviet Government this was little more than ‘Capitalist interference’. Even the Berlin blockade was presented by the USSR as a response to the provocative policy of the West in introducing a new currency in Berlin, and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty (otherwise known as NATO). Revisionist’s then argue that Soviet foreign policy was by defensive considerations in response to US actions.
After extensive analysis it is clear that the causes of the Cold War are complex but they can be broken down and evaluated. I believe it was a mixture of factors including a conflict of two superpowers ideologies, the personalities of characters playing leading world roles, and the creation of a ‘power vacuum’ in Europe after World War Two. All contributed to what is now known as the ‘Cold War’. Therefore I have to favour the Post-revisionist theories on this topic as they see the situation as so immensely complex that no generalisation about who to blame will suffice. Therefore avoid blaming either side and look at the topic more objectively. I have found that it is hard to apparition blame to either side as there was clearly a series of events with the faults of both the East and West. The final question of ‘when did the Cold War start?’ has also caused much debate. I believe the origins of the Cold War does lay as far back as the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 but never truly developed until after WW2 in 1945.
