The USA was also at fault, for the reason that they discovered that atom bomb first. This escalated the cold war, and made the USSR feel very insecure. The development of such weapons, could be seen as the USA was trying to antagonise the USSR, or put them down.
The USSR could have been at fault, because of the way that they reacted to the USA's boosting of western Germany's economy. The USA did act in an inappropriate way, or in a way which could have been considered a threat, to Stalin, and the USSR. Stalin decided that capitalism was, "showing off", too much in western Berlin. This could make the people in Eastern Berlin/Germany, see capitalism as the better political system, (which is the people's right), so he decided to form the Berlin "Blockade". He did this, because he saw it as his duty, to defend communism against capitalism. The "Berlin Blockade", was a barrier on all roads/canals into East Germany. This meant, that the USA could not transport any goods to the people in Berlin. This was clearly the first aggressive act in the cold war. Therefore to begin with, the USSR was clearly the aggressor.
The USSR was also to blame, in that once it had developed the atomic bomb, it then proceeded to develop, the Hydrogen bomb. At that point in time, the USSR was in the "lead" of the "arms race". The truth, is that both countries had the power to obliterate the other, many time over.
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Both the USA and the USSR were to blame.
Both countries were to blame for the Cold War, because both countries did antagonistic things, that they knew would upset the other country, and yet they still did them.
The USA, could have been slightly more subtle, in its rearrangement of the west German economy. The way they handled redevelopment of western Germany, could have been taken as a personal insult by Stalin and so received the response that it did.
Stalin, although he may have been offended/worried about the effect that capitalism would have on Eastern Germany, over reacted in a catastrophic manner. He was in no way correct, in blockading Berlin, as this was deliberately annoying the USA.
Both countries were to blame for the Cold War, but in varying degrees. The USA, was only acting in a way, in which it could best help the people of West Berlin, even if they were a little thoughtless. The USSR on the other hand, deliberately put the USA in a hard position, so that it could claim moral high-ground, in any resulting conflict.
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No-one was to blame the Cold War was inevitable.
Through out history men have been fighting each other, because it is in our nature. We've also always developed new and better ways of killing people in larger quantities with less effort. As technology improved and inventions developed we created guns, bombs, artillery and planes. We never really needed to think about the implications and effects what we were doing might have. So it was inevitable that the killing tools would continue to get more powerful until it reached a stage where two countries could annihilate each other. It wasn't until this point that we really had to worry about what out opponents might do in retaliation, but once we did arrive there then we were always going to suddenly stop killing each other, and realise that we would all die if we used these big bombs. Still neither side would back down. Effectively the Cold War was the stalemate that we would always reach sooner or later.
