To what extent was the advent of the Cold War an outcome of Stalin(TM)s foreign policy from 1939-1949?

The end of World War II in 1945 brought along the predicted end of collaboration between Russia and the West and a rather doomed vision of postwar war as the signs of confrontation had become patent in the three conferences between the powers in Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam.

The Teheran conference in November 1943 saw Stalin’s triumph over Churchill in his plan to drive Germany out of France. What was more to the plan, at least so the British side believed, was its success in securing the future benefit of Russia in the Balkans, hence the old dream of Russian diplomacy of bringing the Balkans under the Soviet control was coming true. The West’s fear of Stalin ambition of a global communist expansion was further confirmed as in 1945, Stalin annexed the Baltic States and pushed Poland’s borders westwards and refused to withdraw the Red army from Eastern Europe until pro-Soviet governments were appointed rather than selected in the regional nations.

By the second wartime conference, the situation was different as victory was almost certain for the Allies. It was here that Stalin’s insistence upon pro-Soviet governments in Eastern Europe strongly contradicted the United Nation Declaration, which Roosevelt was preoccupied to preserve. Stalin’s political priority was the remained Red Army’s occupation in Eastern Europe and an estimated cost of $20 billion dollars of post-war reconstruction. His demands obviously raised difficulties in reaching agreements among the powers.

However, the main source of disagreement was Stalin’s attitudes to the issue of Eastern Europe’s freedom, in particular Poland, which led to a sense of bitterness in East-West relationships in the Potsdam conference in July. In Yalta Stalin had agreed to grant Poland’s independence by promising free election, however, as the West soon realized, Stalin’s idea of “free election” was far from the democratic sense. Ever since 1939, Stalin had been trying to impose Communist government in Poland and by that ignoring the West’s proposal of placing members of the London Poles in the government.

In July 1943, Stalin authorized Maisky to state that Russia would favour the incorporation of East Prussia and Danzig in Poland and he claimed that the German provinces were the compensation for the Poles. By this incorporation, Poland was exposed to the danger of German revenge in the future; hence Poland would be more likely to be dependent on Russia’s protection.

Stalin’s policy in Poland was considered by the West to be more than merely to create a “buffer zone” to protect Russia from future Western attack but a deliberate attempt to turn Poland into a zone of Russian influence and his policy was violating Poland’s independence and was a breach of Yalta commitments to free elections. It was obvious that Stalin would not hesitate to pursue a policy that violated the principle of any agreement that is hoped to settle the East-West relation.

Incidents such as the Warsaw Rising in 1944, during which Russia halted its advance against the Germans and watched the Poles being crushed which was described by the West as “the demonstration of callousness”, further confirmed this Western belief.

If the Nazi-Soviet Pact and Stalin’s demand of the Western recognition of Soviet’s sphere of interest in Eastern Europe only raised suspicion and anticipation in East-West relation, Russia’s insistence on absolute control over Poland angered the West and set it on alert for Stalin’s ambition. In a sense, to secure Russia against future Western attack, Stalin was actually provoking the West to go into confrontation by challenging their political influence in Eastern Europe.

Poland was not the only spot of East-West collision but the Bulgarian crisis in 1944 also saw Stalin’s deliberate attempt to challenge the West’s right in its so-claimed sphere of influence. As soon as Bulgaria surrendered to the West, Moscow declared war on her, took over the negotiations and denied its Western allies any role in the Bulgarian control commission. 

Four years after the Bulgarian crisis, the world saw another violent communist usurpation in Czechoslovakia where the Communist, who were expected to do badly in the election, staged a coup d’état and took over the government. This incident added up to the guilty feeling of the West as nothing had been done to prevent Hitler from taking Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939. Hence it intensified the Western resentment of Stalin’s policies in Eastern Europe. Similar process was taking place in other Eastern European countries such as East Germany and Romania. By 1948, the governments of these countries were in the hand of communist parties that had strong links with Stalin’s Soviet Union.

In contrast to Stalin’s latent ambition, the Western leaders pursued a policy of appeasement towards Russia by recognizing its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. By 1944, the spheres were agreed on: the Soviet Union would have 90% influences in Romania, 75% in Bulgaria, while Britain would have 90% influence in Greece and they would go 50-50 in Hungary and Yugoslavia. However, there is no limit to Stalin’s sense of “securing Russia”, as Maxim Litvinov, the former Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, told a Western journalist that “Concessions would not pacify Stalin. If the West conceded all Stalin’s demands, he would soon come back with another list of demands.” This view was shared by the West in such influential documents as the Riga Axiom in which Daniel Yergin identified the Soviet Union as a hostile, expansionist power and in the Long Telegram of February 1946 by George Kennan. He again in May 1944 reflected the suspicion that Stalin’s policies caused among the Western public opinion: “If it initially successful, will it know where to stop? Will it not be inexorably carried forward…in a struggle to attain complete mastery of the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific?” 

Such policy of appeasement was once again demonstrated in the event of the Berlin blockade in 1948-1949. The event signifies Stalin’s unhesitation to use military measures in his attempt to eliminate the capitalist elements in the Soviet’s sphere of influence.

Much as the West would resent Stalin’s policies for being expansionist and dictatorial, the question is that if the Russians were “the only culprits in the conflict”, as the writers Zubok and Pleshakov put it? When John Lewis Gaddis, put the responsibility for the advent of the Cold War on the Soviet shoulders, could he himself not have overlooked many of Western acts that preceded Stalin’s most aggressive policies of expansion.

Having stated the record of Stalin’s aggressive policies during the period of 1939-1949, we must not forget that any political decision is a product of interacting internal and external impacts. Stalin’s policies were not the exception. Evidence gained during the course of the Second World War revealed that the Soviet leader did not actively seek to antagonise the West. In fact, it is evident that Stalin was driven by the Western policies to deliver his aggressive policies.  

It obviously should not be forgotten that the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 was essentially preceded by the policy of Appeasement in which Britain agreed to concede Czechoslovakian territory to Hitler. The Munich Conference of 1938 played a crucial role in determining the nature of the East-West relation in the years to come as it was here that the fate of an Eastern European country on the border of Russia was belittled by the Western allies. Even if the West sought for an alliance with Russia later on, the fact that it had taken the Nazi’s breach of Appeasement’s agreements by invading Czechoslovakia to make the British realise the potential benefits that they might get out of an alliance with the Soviet Union failed to gain Stalin’s trust.

Five days earlier to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Stalin delivered a bitter speech to the 18th Party Congress in Moscow in which he expressed his fury towards  appeasement. The Soviet leader regarded this act of the West not only to be a demonstration of impuissance in facing the Nazis but also an implication that the security of Eastern Europe and hence Russia was not the on the West’s political check-list. More importantly, Stalin talked of a “war” that was waged by “aggressor states who in every way infringe upon the interests of the non-aggressor states, primarily Britain, France and the USA, while the later draw back and retreat and, making concession after concession to the aggressors.” In Stalin’s viewpoint, it was justified that the Soviet Union had to secure herself against the German invasion of Russia which was foreseeable now that Hitler’s territorial demands in a country that lies on the border of the USSR was faced with little Western opposition.

Stalin, therefore, was pushed into an alliance with Hitler by the West. The fact that the Munich conference was held without Stalin being consulted at all made it almost impossible for the Soviet Union to trust the West in any future political situation.

During the course of WWII, Russia did not prove an effective ally as she could not even defend herself against the German aggression. In fact, it is not the case that Russia intentionally did little to fight against Hitler because Russia was in no position of sufficient military or economic power to match that of the German armies. Optimism of a future victory was not detectable in Kremlin for another 3 years after the German invasion of Russia. The battles between the Red Army and the Nazis during these years, or as the American Lieutenant General Pownall put it as “a case of dog eat dog” (which indicates the West’s very negative view of their ally), proved that the Red Army, though superior in man-power, could not match the military tactics and effective weapons of the German Army. By June 1941, the German had developed their Blitzkrieg tactics to a level of excellence and their leadership theory of Auftragstaktik made their commanding system much more flexible and effective. On the other hand, the Red Army soldiers were men of heterogeneous origins, military skills and experience, if they had any at all. Most of the Red soldiers did not have any knowledge of most common weapons and their commanders were ineffective and disorientated. Therefore, it was vital for Russia’s future that the USA and Britain would assist the Red Army with weapons, materials and most importantly, with the Second Front being launched to relieve the pressure on Russia.

The question of the Second Front and military aid for the Soviet Union was the key to the East-West mutual suspicion and tension, which was to lay the first stone on the road to the advent of the Cold War in the future. Stalin’s request of military aid from his Western Allies was to be repeated many times during the following years of the German invasion of Russia, but it was not granted until June 1944.

As far as Stalin was concerned, the three priorities in the Soviet-West relationship were: The immediate launching of the Second Front; the continuation in supplies of goods and military equipments; if these two principles are not granted, then the third one, the confirmation of the legitimacy of their pre-1941 borders, is absolutely vital for the future of the Soviet Union.

For the first two principles, the Soviet was let down by the West. In September 1941, an agreement was signed by the Western Allies which stated that they would supply the Soviet Union monthly with 500 tanks, 400 aeroplanes and other raw materials. However, this promise was poorly kept. The West’s Arctic Convoys proved inefficient in transporting the materials to the Soviets. Every defeat or victory of the Soviet during these bitter years was symbolic of their “virtual abandonment” by the Western Allies. “It was obvious to us that the burden of the war was carried on the shoulders of the Soviet Union”, says Grigory Obozny, a member of the NKVD during the war. He was not overestimating the struggle that the Soviet was facing. At the end of 1942, while the Red Army was fighting against 240 enemy divisions in the East, the Western Allies were facing a total of 15 German and Italian divisions.

In May 1942, Roosevelt, in fear that the Soviets might extricate themselves from the war, promised the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov on his visit to the White House that they are “preparing a Second Front” and that they “expect the formation of a Second Front this year.”. Britain, however, was not in favour of this decision of Roosevelt, and the Second Front, of course, did not appear until 2 years later.

As Churchill wrote to Stalin about the West’s failure in supplying the Soviet Union and the delay of the Second Front in July 1942, Stalin was particularly, and understandably, antagonised by the bad news. Given the Soviet’s harrow fighting against the mighty German forces; it is reasonable that Stalin was furious as he felt that he had been “betrayed”. The bitterness of the situation was indicated in his reply to the British Prime Minister: “First, the British government refused to continue the sending of war materials to the Soviet Union via the northern route. Second, the British postpones this matter (launching the Second Front) until 1943…in wartime no important undertaking could be made without risk or losses. In any case, I never expected that the British government could stop despatch of war materials to us just at the very moment when the Soviet Union…requires these materials more than ever…”. In his reply, Stalin expressed his view that the West was not committed allies as they would easily back down before “risk and losses”. He also emphasized the urgency of a second front. As this matter was further postponed by the West, the Soviet leader felt that trusting the West would put the Soviet Union at the risk of extinction.

Stalin’s scepticism was, in many ways, justified. Feeling betrayed by the Western Allies and endangered by the Germans, it was an urgent question of national security that the countries within the Soviet sphere remained under Soviet’s control. This principle was also rejected by the West due to the fact that it would be a breach of the Atlantic Charter. The Charter, however, was only discussed and agreed on between Roosevelt and Churchill who failed to understand the Soviet’s need for national security.

In fact, much as the Atlantic Charter condemns the oppression that was to be imposed by the Soviet Union on the free people of free Eastern European nations, it was unjustified to think that the West’s involvement in Eastern European political affairs was legitimate.

Firstly, the Western involvement in the Eastern European political affairs was not merely to liberate its people and nations from the dictatorial Communist regime imposed on them by the Soviet Union. By the end of WWII, Britain and the Soviet Union were virtually bankrupt, but the USA’s GNP had more than doubled and it became the economically leading power. Due to this fact, it is necessary to emphasize the economic factor in the USA’s motive for opposing the potential Communist global spread.

There was a certain suspicion that the commitment to open-door economics was an attempt to open up British Empire and Europe to American economic penetration. Robert Boothby, the Conservative MP stated that the USA’s aim was to “open the markets of the world for the benefit of the United States of America”. This view was  supported by the liberal conditions attached to Lend-Lease payments and the setting up of the World Bank and the IMF at Bretton Woods in 1944, which aimed at bringing benefits to the US trade. Such economic principle was alien to the Soviet system of government.

If the Soviet was keen to preserve its own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, the USA saw that both systems cannot co-exist. Much as the USA would accuse Stalin for territorial and political expansion, America was trying to expand its global market, even though it would undermine the Soviet system. Through out the years of 1939-1949, the underlying aim of the USA resisting acts against the Soviet was to protect its own economic interest. With the USA’s economic capacity, it is easy to put on the mask of the defender of freedom and independence against the evil communism by such appealing economic measures as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Given Russia’s shattering economic conditions, it is understandable that repressive actions in Eastern Europe had to be taken to defend communism against the threat of a Western democracy takeover.

The Western preoccupation of preventing global Communist spread resulted in its Containment policy, which basically opposed to any Russian opportunity to seize territory such as the Soviet claim to the Black Sea Straits which was referred to as, “an open bid to obtain control over Turkey” by Truman. However, the straits were the main gateway for the Soviet trade and taking control of the straits had long been the policy that the Tsars pursued, rather than formed by Stalin’s expansionist idea.

The West, by its coercive policies towards the Soviet, compelled the Stalin to implement policies that essentially aimed at the Soviet’s national security against any future military, economic or political intrusion of the West. Therefore, suspicion and mistrust in the East-West relation was essentially given rise to by the West’s policies during the years of 1939-1949. The East-West tension was very much caused by the West’s presumption of a Communist monolith that hardly had the opportunity to exist. The advent of the Cold War, therefore, was not caused by Stalin’s policies during the years of 1939-1949. Due to various events such as Britain’s Appeasement, the delay of the Second Front and the aggressive Western economic policies during these years, Stalin’s policies mainly aimed at defending the Soviet Union’s existence and ideology against the West’s attempt to eliminate it. His policies, if anything, were used by the West as a tool to bring about a conflict with the Soviet Union, or with communism, which poses a threat to the economic interests of the capitalist world.

Bibliography

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World count: 3,997 words

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