To what extent had a Cold War began by July 1945?

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To what extent had a Cold War began by July 1945?

The most turbulent period in diplomatic history, when the world edged on the brink of annihilation, the Cold War was one unlike any other. According to Sewell, ‘the Cold War was a bundle of contradictions....an agglomeration of circumstances that will not easily be repeated’; yet rather than an agglomeration of circumstances, Cold War tensions festered in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, and any possibility of countering these was proved unattainable due to the actions of individuals involved. It was, in the opinion of Gaddis, ‘the first time personalities shaped the course of Russian-American relations’. Existing tension between democratic America and Tsarist Russia heightened after the 1917 Russian Revolution, where a symbolic basis for the conflict between Communism and Capitalism was first rendered, but in practice ideological motivations did not cause the Cold War. Diplomatic relations improved throughout the thirties, crucially showing an ability for the Soviet Union and USA to co-exist without active conflict and even without animosity. Yet in the build-up to WWII and in the events that followed, mutual suspicion and a lack of communication combined with the effects of Stalin’s conduct in Poland, namely the Katyn Massacre and Warsaw Uprising, countered any goodwill created through the wartime alliance. This continued through the ensuing peace talks, and with the negotiation team drastically changing thanks to the death of Roosevelt and the voting out of Churchill, and with the unconstructive and uncompromising attitude of American replacement Truman, conflict between the two countries that had emerged as world superpowers had not begun in any active form, but, by July 1945, was inevitable.

Yet although this conflict was indeed unavoidable by July 1945, it was not always a matter of historical inevitability. During the nineteenth century, the USA and USSR had little interaction but did share very amicable relations, with the USA sympathising with Russia in the Crimean war, and Russia selling Alaska to the Americans. Even into the twentieth century, although USA disliked the feudalistic nature of Tsarism, the two countries continued their ‘mutually acknowledged tradition of non-interference in each other’s affairs’ according to Gaddis. Therefore, an understanding of this tradition and employment of tactful diplomacy ensured that any potential conflict was not to materialise. This potential was certainly intensified with the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution bringing Communism to the world, and US involvement in the Russian civil war did create a symbolic justification for conflict, but the events of 1917-18 were not the creation of an ideological struggle that could never end in anything but war as historians such as Andre Fontaine suggest. For ideological motivation was not strong enough either to sustain US efforts in the Russian civil war as they withdrew relatively quickly, or to start a cold war. For then, in 1917, when Soviet foreign policy aims were plainly expansionist and yet the Communist government was not yet stable, was the time to fight over ideological differences, rather than thirty years later where Stalin did not even entertain the notion of a Communist World Revolution. And although a mutual suspicion was developing, after Russia was excluded from WWI peace talks and the west felt momentarily threatened by temporary communist success in Germany and Hungary, the USA ‘saw no obvious challenge to the balance of power and thus no threat to its own security’, according to Gaddis, and Russia and America returned to their non-obtrusive tradition. Therefore, although the development of Communism certainly did nothing to ease tension between USA and USSR, neither did it prompt a cold war, which was a long way from beginning during the 1920s.

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Relations continued in this distant fashion, and as the US reverted to its policy of isolationism and self-preservation, and officially recognised the Soviet State in 1933 after it was clear Bolshevism neither would be defeated nor would it spread. Tensions began to ease slightly, and far from an emerging cold war ‘a special relationship with the USSR appeared to be in reach’ according to McCauley. With this, there was no ideological crusade, no need to spread their respective political systems; both countries were existing, and to a relative extent cooperating, without active conflict. This was to change with the Kirov ...

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