Who or what is to blame for the start of the cold war?

Authors Avatar

Kongpob Muangsiri

ID.4306640428

America and the Cold War

Aj. Amir

Who or what is to blame for the start of the cold war?

The fuel that kept the cold war burning for centuries was that the enemy acted just as their models predicted. The American distrust, and to some extent paranoia, of any system of government different than their own and the Soviet perception, and in some instances reality, of Western intervention set the stage for the Cold War. “The Soviet Union and the United States waged the Cold War in the belief that confrontation was unavoidable, that it was imposed by history. Soviet leaders were convinced that Communism would ultimately triumph in the world and that the Soviet Union was the vanguard Socialist-Communist State. They were also convinced that the Western imperialist powers were historically bound to pursue a hostile course against them. For their part, American and other Western leaders assumed that the Soviet Union was determined to enhance its power and to pursue expansionist policies by all expedient means to achieve a Soviet-led Communist world. Each side thought that it was compelled by the very existence of the other to engage in zero-sum competition, and each saw the unfolding history of the Cold War as confirming its views.” The actions taken on all sides since the beginning of the 19th century continually reinforced that their beliefs were correct. But more importantly, it reinforced that the courses of action taken in response to those beliefs were correct. So the Cold War began not with a military battle, but with distrust and content of differing governments.

In April 1945, Russian forces that had been triumphant at Stalingrad had pushed the German forces back into Germany and American and British forces that had been victorious in their invasion of Normandy did the same; they met at the Elbe River in central Germany (Westad: 1993). Europe was separated into two independent halves, one Russian occupied and the other American; from this division, the Cold War emerged. “When a power vacuum separates great powers, as one did the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, they are unlikely to fill it without bumping up against and bruising each other” (Ransom: 1964). This ‘bumping’ and ‘bruising’ caused the tensions and hostilities that surfaced in the years following WWII. There are three doctrines examining the origins of the Cold War: Orthodox, the belief that “the intransigence of Leninist ideology, the sinister dynamics of a totalitarian society, and the madness of Stalin” (Morris: 1973) caused the Cold War; Revisionist, the idea that “American policy offered the Russians no real choice…either acquiesce to American proposals or be confronted with American power or hostility” (Maddox:1988) and thus, America caused the war; and the Post-Revisionist view, a combination of the two, citing both American and Soviet Russian policy as causes. The fact that both the Orthodox and Revisionist views have convincing evidence is confirmation that the Post-Revisionist viewpoint is the correct assessment of ‘blame.’ Beyond the evidence that the other two viewpoints provide in support of the Post-Revisionist outlook, there were deep-seated fundamental differences such as the dissimilar attitudes, aims and ideologies that Moscow and Washington subscribed to.

One of the fundamental differences between the attitudes of Washington and Moscow originates from the happenings in each nation during and before WWII. “The basic factor in producing this national sense of insecurity has been geographical. Throughout its history Russia has been without natural frontiers to serve for its defense” (Spanier&Hook: 1995). The Soviet outlook was one of paranoia and insecurity because Soviets had been massacred from their western border several times in their history. In Asian and European historian Elizabeth Seeger’s chronicle The Pageant of Russian History, there are numerous examples of Russians being devastated by attacks from their western border such as the Napoleonic attack of 1812 and the especially brutal attack by Germany during WWII. These humiliating attacks left a permanent impression on Russian mentality that can be observed through their national sentiment. Because of this mindset, Stalin sought to secure a friendly and neutralized western border and the Soviet occupation of half of Europe after WWII presented itself as the perfect time to act on these aspirations. “’The war is not as in the past,’ Stalin himself explained to the Yugoslav communist Milovian Djilas in 1945, ‘whosoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system….It cannot be otherwise’” (Morris: 1973). As demonstrated by this quotation, Stalin planned to install friendly satellite governments in all Soviet subjugated nations, which, as he knew, threatened the western powers’ presence and authority. Therefore it could be said that the Soviet plan caused the Cold War, which would defend the Orthodox view. The United States, conversely, had an attitude of greatness and an outlook of omnipresence. This outlook differed from the Soviet attitude mainly because the United States stood apart from Europe and its problems, had never been attacked on its native soil and because: When WWII was done there rested spirits of most Americans the belief that they had saved China, rescued the beleaguered European democracies and enabled the Russians to withstand, and presently conquer, the German invaders. They expected appreciation and cooperation in the service of their ideals which the war had deemed to have proved were best. (Kileberger: 1987) These two bipolar positions sharply differed and therefore anxieties arose when the Soviet Union was forced, by Washington’s overconfident actions, to be defensive. ”The cultural gap between American and Soviet leaders contributed to the emerging Cold War. American negotiators acted as if the mere recitation of their legal and moral rights ought to produce the results they desired” (Westad: 1993). These points support the Revisionist view. Both in diplomatic historian Herbert Feis’ From Trust to Terror: The Onset of the Cold War 1945-1950 and Hungarian professor of history John Lukacs’ A History of the Cold War, there is ample evidence that these divergent attitudes exhibited by each country prevented the other from establishing what they perceived as a secure position in Europe. In short, they forced the other country to be on the defensive and thus, they lashed out at each other. These tantrums can be seen in Europe, the Middle East and other places. There is plenty of sound support for both the Revisionist and Orthodox views and therefore, because of this evidence, the Post-Revisionist standpoint is the historically correct assessment of ‘blame.’ Each country, not just one or the other, caused the tensions that arose from the differing attitudes.

Join now!

Another fundamental difference between the Soviet Union and the United States was the bipolar aims of each nation. Because of these differing attitudes, both the Soviet Union and the United States had several objectives to achieve after the Central Powers were neutralized during WWII and when the two agendas conflicted, tensions arose: The collapse of Nazi Germany and the need to fill the resulting power vacuum led to the disintegration of the wartime partnership [between the United States and the Soviet Union]. The purposes of the allies were simply too divergent. Churchill sought to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating ...

This is a preview of the whole essay