In the late 50's and 60's, specifically in the setting of Vietnam, the 'revisionists' effectively blamed US 'Dollar Imperialism' as well as more broadly Western Capitalism for the Cold War. There are many valid arguments for this point. For instance one of the most important moves made by the USA in the post-war chess game was to create and implement two divisive policies; the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine was created on the 12th of March 1947. It followed George Kennan’s ‘long telegram’ of 1946 which advocated a policy of containment against ‘Soviet influence’ and communism. $300 million was given to Greece (the country at threat from a Communist takeover) in economic and military aid. Marshall Aid then quickly followed this for many other European countries. This move by the USA was actually later criticised by George Kennan as it defined the US foreign policy purely in ideological terms, intervening directly to entrench capitalism in Europe. This policy was the beginning of ‘containment’ by the United States government where they spent the next thirty years trying to ‘contain’ communism by invading several of the countries that adopted it. This policy went on to create 'hot' wars such as the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 but perhaps more famously the Vietnam war where so many Americans died, where one and a half million Vietnamese died, and where the US efforts failed to stop, and even helped to spread, Communism or the ‘red tide’.
Historically the Soviets also had good reason to distrust the 'West' (and Japan). The Russian Revolution, as famous Russian poet Boris Pasternak described, implemented “general upheaval and reorganization of the whole of society” (Doctor Zhivago, 1957) This shock event was so revolutionary that the West had at this point the perfect opportunity to cooperate with Russia, wiping away the long standing antagonism created by conflicts such as the Crimean War (1853 to 1856). Instead however Britain and France engaged in a campaign against the fledgling state and the rest of the Western allies fought the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. This not only made it clear to the Bolsheviks that the capitalist countries were determined to destroy their society from the off-set but also stood as a point of contention and hypocrisy when the United States and Western Europe criticised the USSR for intervening in the conflicts of its neighbours.
Perhaps the most important dimension of the Cold War was the arms race. According to Revisionists this was triggered by the United States in 1945 when it dropped the A bomb on Hiroshima. Harry Elmer Barnes wrote in a publication submitted to the National Review in 1958 (Hiroshima: Assault on a Beaten Foe) that “the major reason for dropping the (Atomic) bomb was a saber-rattling gesture to the Russians against whom we were already preparing the Cold War.” For the Revisionists the US decision to drop the A bomb epitomises their quest to be 'one step ahead' of the USSR and to assert their authority on the USSR, and therefore that as the main aggressors in the Cold War the USA was mainly responsible for it. The USSR was however also guilty of 'one-one-upmanship'. It created and tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949 largely through its spies in the Manhattan Project. It also massively increased tensions in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Placing Nuclear Weapons in the 'Uncle Sam's backyard' was incredibly provocative and so in this case Russia was clearly guilty of practising the same kind of 'imperialism' that it accused the United States of. However it is also interesting to note that this crisis was only resolved when Kennedy promised to remove Missiles from Turkey. This act of compromise to avert a nuclear holocaust was in many ways a turning point in the way and it illustrates the point that, with the practise of pragmatic politics, both nations could have avoided the same tensions that characterised the Cold War period.
Of the two key conferences held between the 'big three'; Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, Potsdam was the most important in explaining the break-down from alliance into Cold War. Potsdam saw almost the complete breakdown in communications between the two ‘sides’ because of two major events. Firstly Stalin’s complete occupation of Eastern Europe and refusal to let proper democracy take hold in Poland. This perceived 'aggressiveness' on the part of Stalin was an extremely important factor in the genesis of the Cold War but was something that surprised Britain and America. Both countries, and particularly the anti-Communist Truman, had not understood or even chosen to ignore the determining factor in USSR foreign policy which was not to export Communism to as many states as possible but to make Russia safe against her enemies. As the American scholar Louis Halle described it, “even today, the prime driving force in Russia has been fear.… The Russians as we know them today have experienced ten centuries of constant, mortal fear.” The allies believed that by squashing democray in Eastern Europe the USSR had betrayed the 'Bill of Rights', this however summarises the arrogance and failure to understand on the part of the West. As the Revisionist Historian William Appleman Williams put it, “By attempting to force upon Russia this Anglo-American world order without regard to her minimum security needs, American leaders forced an essentially conservative Soviet Union into acting unilaterally in her own defense." (American-Russian Relations, 1781-1947, 1952).
The decline into tension and bad relations was not to be blamed on any one power but actually the result of mistakes and actions by both sides, claim the 'post-revisionists'. These actions built up a series of events that spiralled into the cold war, out of any one state's control. There are several events that back this theory up. For instance, instead of sticking to mono-causal explanations of the diplomatic conflict, Historians can compare sources from both the USSR and the West. Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech for example described the USSR as a nation with “expansive and proselytizing” tendencies (Penguin book of twentieth-century speeches, pp.233). This was seen as deeply provocative in moving Western citizens against the USSR in the same way that Stalin's 1946 speech was seen as provocative in its attack on capitalist principles. One Historical quote which exemplifies this viewpoint can be found in Fleming's book ' The Cold War and its Origins, 1917-1960', “Stalin was now convinced that the West was an organised block...Soviet policy was now to develop Eastern Europe as an integrated block... The Western Powers interpreted this to mean that Moscow was planning a general offensive”. This quotes illustrates how, through the paranoia of each leadership but also the lack of communication and negotiation, the Cold War quickly escalated. However this viewpoint does ignore that both sides had motivations in 'ignoring' the other, and that therefore ultimately the cause of the cold war was not 'out of control' diplomacy but rather created by the motivations of one side or the other. The USSR would always 'ignore' American calls for democracy in Eastern Europe as it felt the need to create a secure sphere of influence, and the USA would always ignore many more pragmatic policy routes in order to fulfil its economic aims in Europe and Asia. These motivations formed the basis for each nations decisions in the 1940's.
In conclusion then Cold War was mostly the fault of the West and in particular the United States. There was a genuine and real lack of 'Realpolitik' in US foreign policy, as reflected in the way in which Truman treated the Russian foreign minister Molotov and the Russian administration in general. Ian Grey summarises the arrogance and unhelpful position of the USA with the following quote: “Harry Truman made his decision to lay down the law to an ally which had contributed more in blood and agony to the common cause than we had – and about Poland, an area through which the Soviet Union had been invaded three times since 1914...” (The First Fifty Years, 1967). The USA was focused on increasing its economic stature by exporting its own form of free trade capitalism to countries all around the world and by 'containing' its economic opponents, namely communism. This mindset 'enabled' the US administration to ignore the Soviet's fear and resulting need for Eastern European security and caused them to intervene right across the world (both economically with Marshall Aid and militarily with the Truman Doctrine and the Vietnam War), causing the Cold War.
Bibliography
- Schlesinger. A. 'Origins of the Cold War', October 1967.
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Romagnolo, David. 'Speech delivered by Stalin to voters', Foreign Languages Publising House, 1950.
- Stalin, Joseph. 'Either we do it – or they crush us', The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches, pp. 112, ed. Brian MacArthur, Penguin Books, 1999.
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Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago, 1957.
- Williams, William. 'American-Russian relations, 1781-1947', 1952.
- Churchill, Winston. 'The 'iron' curtain', The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches, pp. 233, ed. Brian MacArthur, Penguin Books, 1999.
- D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and its Origins, 1917-1960(Allen and Unwin, 1961) vol. 1, pp.268-269.
- Grey, Ian. 'The First Fifty Years', Hodder and Stoughton 1967, pp. 417.
