The Russians were also made an enemy of by Kennan’s Long Telegram coupled with Churchill’ Iron Curtain speech. The telegram stated that the Russians are ‘aggressive expansionists.’ Not only does this follow on from my previous point that the USA vilified the Soviets but also the Russians expanded gradually, this disproves a large chunk of the telegram as it cannot be aggressive expansionism if the Russians were expanding gradually and through elections often. However there is evidence that shows although the Soviet expansion was gradual, it wasn’t always done ‘properly’ like was agreed at Yalta and Potsdam, it was often the case in these satellite states that the elections that had been agreed to take place to determine the countries futures, were often rigged and would therefore put the communists in power.
However, in relation to the telegram, what Kennan said, there is evidence behind it that also help disprove the statement. The Soviet ideology, communism is a major factor in itself due to a key element of it being that it should be international. The manifesto states that communism and revolution should be spread across the world so you can see the reason behind Kennan’s opinion. Although the ideology states the communism should be international Stalin had already gone against this himself, through socialism in one country policy to make Russia strong.
The Berlin Blockade is also a massive point in this debate as it shows the Russians ruthless tactics which were frowned upon by the Western allies, couples with this is the events in the latter stages of World War 2 regarding the Warsaw uprising where the Russians let the Nazis deal with the trouble makers so they could then only have to deal with the Nazis then have Poland to themselves. The blockade was the first crisis of the cold war and the Soviets were ruthless with it, if they had to divide Berlin they wouldn’t help the Western side at all, they cut all supply links to help increase their influence in Eastern Germany, this was very unpopular and hence why the Berlin Airlift came into play.
To conclude the statement is partially correct and there is evidence to support that, the most important being the fear factor, due to the Russians being invaded twice before with horrific consequences so this made them want buffer zones to be safe from invasion again, because it seemed as Germany was returning to full strength again through help of the allies then later being accepted into NATO.