Who Was Responsible for Starting the Cold War?
Two scholars debate this question.
Written by: (Claim A) John E. Moser, Ashland University; (Claim B) Stephen Tootle, College of the Sequoias
Suggested sequencing.
- Use this point-counterpoint with The Berlin Airlift Narrative and the Winston Churchill, “Sinews of Peace,” March 1946 Primary Source to have students analyze the start of the Cold War and tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies.
Issue on the Table
Was one superpower primarily responsible for starting the Cold War, or did both the United States and the Soviet Union contribute to its rise?
Instructions
Read the two arguments in response to the question posed, paying close attention to the supporting evidence and reasoning used for each. Then, complete the comparison questions that follow. Note that the arguments in this essay are not the personal views of the scholars but are illustrative of larger historical debates.
During the Cold War, Americans were convinced the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to their country and the rest of the planet and that, as the leader of the free world, the United States had a responsibility to resist Soviet expansionism . But might a different approach to foreign affairs by the United States in the years immediately after World War II have prevented the Cold War altogether?
Consider that the Soviet Union in 1945, although victorious in Europe, emerged from the war economically and demographically exhausted, and having lost a staggering 20 million soldiers and civilians (approximately 10 percent of its population). The Soviet Union had suffered far more than the United States or Great Britain, because German forces had occupied large sections of the country and waged a racial war of annihilation against its people. And although the United States had made critical material contributions to the war, it was the Soviets who did the bulk of the fighting against Nazi Germany. At no point after mid-1941 did British or U.S. forces face more than 25 percent of the fighting strength of the German Wehrmacht , whereas the Red Army fought millions of Germans in the East. The British and Americans did not even attempt to open a second front in France until 1944 (despite Joseph Stalin’s constant requests for such action during the previous two years), by which time German forces had already been driven from Soviet soil.
Stalin was a brutal dictator, but his foreign policy goals were understandable. Hitler’s invasion in 1941 had sparked the second major war against Germany in 20 years, and Russian leadership had legitimate security concerns. Moreover, he believed, not unreasonably, that as a Communist nation, the Soviet Union could not trust the capitalist world in the long term. The best way to protect the Soviet Union was to ensure that the countries along its western borders were friendly. Indeed, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had recognized this fact at the Tehran and Yalta conferences. What they did not appreciate was, given the extent of anti-Russian sentiment in eastern Europe, no freely elected, democratic government from Poland to Romania could be counted on to be friendly. Nor was there any real history of democracy in those countries. In fact, Hungary and Romania had been Nazi allies during the war. The Red Army already occupied Eastern Europe, and the Russians imposed pro-Soviet governments there to establish a buffer zone against future attacks.
The United States chose to respond to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe with outright hostility. When Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov traveled to the United States in April 1945, the new president, Harry Truman, subjected him to an undiplomatic tongue lashing. After the end of the war, U.S. policy became downright militant. Although Truman withdrew most U.S. troops from Europe after 1945, the administration made massive expenditures on naval and air forces, stepped up testing and production of atomic bombs, and established a network of air bases in the United States and abroad with long-range bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs. “Containment” of Soviet communism—that is, preventing it from spreading beyond its current borders—became the administration’s guiding strategy. In 1947, the president put forward his famous “Truman Doctrine,” in which he asked Congress to spend $400 million on economic aid to Greece and Turkey, and committed the United States “to support free peoples” around the world who were “resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Two years later, the United States joined Great Britain, France, Canada, and a number of other nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance aimed at the defense of Western Europe.
Truman’s approach to the Soviet Union was not without its critics at home. Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, who had served as Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president from 1941 to 1945, begged the president to consider how it would “look to us if Russia had the atomic bomb and we did not, if Russia had 10,000-mile bombers and air bases within a thousand miles of our coastlines, and we did not?” Wallace called on Truman to appreciate the Soviet Union’s fear of being invaded again and “to agree to reasonable Russian guarantees of security.” Eventually, Wallace’s outspoken criticism of Truman’s “get tough” approach cost him his job, but he continued to speak out. The Truman Doctrine, he warned, would ultimately lead to war. “There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia’s expansionist path,” he said in a March 1947 speech. “There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of a contest which may widen until it becomes a world war.” Similar arguments could be heard coming from Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, one of the most conservative men in the Senate. When asked why he voted against ratification of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Taft replied, “How would we feel if Russia undertook to arm a country on our border, Mexico, for instance?”
Such views were very much in the minority, however. Most Americans, by the late 1940s, had come to regard the Soviet Union as a serious menace to world peace, and containment became the prevailing U.S. strategy for nearly 50 years. We will never know whether a more conciliatory policy on the part of the United States would have produced a different outcome.
With the opening of American archives in the 1970s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, scholars now have access to all the documents describing the intentions and assumptions of decision-makers in both countries in the years after World War II. Supposed mysteries have been solved. Old questions have been answered. The documentary evidence is in. The United States and the Soviet Union both contributed to the rise of the Cold War. They were ideological nation-states with incompatible and mutually exclusive ideologies. The founding purpose of the Soviet Union was global domination, and it actively sought the destruction of the United States and its allies. If the United States wanted to continue as a nation-state that protected the rights enshrined in its founding documents, it needed to wage an active opposition to the Soviet Union.
As an ideological nation-state, the United States has always, by its very existence, found itself at odds with nations, states, tribes, or groups of people with conflicting ideas. Those conflicts would typically become important or violent once an entity threatened the interests of the United States. By 1945, communism had been around for a century, and violent, radical, Marxist communists had been in control of the Soviet Union for decades. But even though the United States and the free world needed the help of the Soviet Union to destroy Nazi Germany in World War II, the conclusion of that war put the Soviet Union in a position to directly threaten the United States and its allies.
The Communist Soviet Union had suffered tremendous losses in World War II, perhaps around 27 million deaths, but found itself with significant global influence at its conclusion. Its leader, Joseph Stalin, was one of the most ruthless dictators in human history and a dedicated Marxist communist. How many tens of millions died at his hand depends on how one categorizes his victims, but the most common estimates range between 20 million and 25 million.
At the same time, the United States, under the leadership of President Harry Truman, undertook the task of trying to guide the nations of the world toward a set of ideas that would make another such war less likely. Stalin and the Soviets wanted to expand communism into Europe and around the world; Truman, his nation, and the free world wanted to preserve freedom where it existed and spread it where it did not. World War II had merely revealed that the ideals of two former allies directly conflicted with one another. And the conflict became global as Stalin and the Soviets moved to expand their ideology, insecurity, and violence on the world stage.
Even before Stalin took power, the Soviets had recruited spies and taken over leftist movements in the United States. Their espionage efforts paid tremendous dividends. Within the State Department, Alger Hiss, Julian Wadleigh, Laurence Duggan, and Noel Field were all Communist spies. Within the Treasury Department alone there were at least nine spies, including Harry Dexter White, the assistant secretary of the treasury. The Soviets stole military secrets, including the suspension system for American tanks, the atomic bomb, the D-Day invasion plans, defense readiness plans, and the locations of atomic bomb stockpiles. Spies were also able to give the Soviets critical information that led (perhaps) to the Berlin blockade and the invasion of Korea.
After World War II, Stalin believed the Soviet Union was the vehicle for spreading communism throughout the world. Stalin stated his purposes plainly in 1945 that “whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system. . . It cannot be otherwise.” The Soviets forced Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany into replicas of the Soviet Union under the complete control of the Soviet Union. The Soviets forced constitutions, economic plans, and police states on the nations of Eastern Europe. Political freedom vanished, and Communists executed dissenters.
Stalin’s daily attitude toward the United States was unpredictable. On some days, he feared war; on others, he reaffirmed his ideological commitment to the idea that war was inevitable. The people around him were relieved after his death that his erratic and impulsive risk taking and paranoia had not led to a general war with the United States. Stalin believed security only came from the elimination of challengers. Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov described why Stalin waged the Cold War: “Stalin looked at it this way: World War I has wrested one country from capitalist slavery; World War II has created a socialist system; and the third will finish off imperialism forever.” In almost any other scenario, one could dismiss such rhetoric, but in the Soviet Union, dismissing Stalin’s rhetoric carried a probable death sentence.
If the United States, along with other countries the Soviets considered to be “imperialistic,” did not wish to be “finished off” by the Soviet Union, they would need to resist Communist aggression. The United States and its Western democratic allies came to believe that history had taught some hard lessons by the end of World War II. They forged collective security arrangements on the basis of a relatively new idea that the success of an ally was not a threat to the United States. The United States was clear and unapologetic in this worldview, which directly contradicted that of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War was not a war. It was a global military, diplomatic, intellectual, social, and cultural contest. Both sides considered success essential to survival, and in that regard, both were right.
Historical Reasoning Questions
Use Handout A: Point-Counterpoint Graphic Organizer to answer historical reasoning questions about this point-counterpoint.
Primary Sources (Claim A)
“Crimea (Yalta) Conference, 1945.” Pages 1005-1022 https://www.loc.gov/item/lltreaties-ustbv003/
“Potsdam Declaration: Potsdam Conference.” July 26, 1945. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/potsdam-declaration/
Truman, Harry. “Truman Doctrine, 1947.” https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=81#
Primary Sources (Claim B)
Kennan, George. “The Long Telegram.” February 1946. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-long-telegram/
Marshall, George C. “The Marshall Plan Speech.” https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/marshall-plan-speech/
Suggested Resources (Claim A)
Kolko, Joyce, and Gabriel Kolko. The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945–1954 . New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2002 . New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009.
Suggested Resources (Claim B)
Andrew, Christopher. For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush . New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB . New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The World was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World . New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Conquest, Robert. Reflections on a Ravaged Century . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Courtois, Stephanie, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History . New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War . New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Hamby, Alonzo L. Liberalism and Its Challengers: From F.D.R. to Bush . New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr. Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York: Penguin Press, 2005
McCauley, Martin. Russia, America and the Cold War: 1949–1991. London: Pearson Education, 1998.
McMahon, Robert J. The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
McMeekin, Sean. The Russian Revolution: A New History . New York: Basic Books, 2017.
McNeal, Robert H. Stalin: Man and Ruler . New York: New York University Press, 1988.
Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. p. 634
Weinstein, Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev. The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America—The Stalin Era . New York: Random House, 1999.
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Cold War History
By: History.com Editors
Updated: June 26, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension marked by competition and confrontation between communist nations led by the Soviet Union and Western democracies including the United States. During World War II , the United States and the Soviets fought together as allies against Nazi Germany . However, U.S./Soviet relations were never truly friendly: Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and Russian leader Joseph Stalin ’s tyrannical rule. The Soviets resented Americans’ refusal to give them a leading role in the international community, as well as America’s delayed entry into World War II, in which millions of Russians died.
These grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity that never developed into open warfare (thus the term “cold war”). Soviet expansionism into Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as U.S. officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and strident approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable.
Containment
By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a strategy called “containment.” In his famous “Long Telegram,” the diplomat George Kennan (1904-2005) explained the policy: The Soviet Union, he wrote, was “a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi [agreement between parties that disagree].” As a result, America’s only choice was the “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
“It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.” This way of thinking would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades.
Did you know? The term 'cold war' first appeared in a 1945 essay by the English writer George Orwell called 'You and the Atomic Bomb.'
The Cold War: The Atomic Age
The containment strategy also provided the rationale for an unprecedented arms buildup in the United States. In 1950, a National Security Council Report known as NSC–68 had echoed Truman’s recommendation that the country use military force to contain communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring. To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase in defense spending.
In particular, American officials encouraged the development of atomic weapons like the ones that had ended World War II. Thus began a deadly “ arms race .” In 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or “superbomb.” Stalin followed suit.
As a result, the stakes of the Cold War were perilously high. The first H-bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, showed just how fearsome the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed radioactive waste into the atmosphere.
The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards. They practiced attack drills in schools and other public places. The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified moviegoers with depictions of nuclear devastation and mutant creatures. In these and other ways, the Cold War was a constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
HISTORY Vault: Nuclear Terror
Now more than ever, terrorist groups are obtaining nuclear weapons. With increasing cases of theft and re-sale at dozens of Russian sites, it's becoming more and more likely for terrorists to succeed.
The Cold War and the Space Race
Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveling companion”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans.
In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.
In 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and what came to be known as the Space Race was underway. That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.
That May, after Alan Shepard become the first American man in space, President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) made the bold public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission , became the first man to set foot on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.
U.S. astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.
The Cold War and the Red Scare
Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ) brought the Cold War home in another way. The committee began a series of hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.
In Hollywood , HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these “blacklisted” writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade. HUAC also accused State Department workers of engaging in subversive activities. Soon, other anticommunist politicians, most notably Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), expanded this probe to include anyone who worked in the federal government.
Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and “loyalty oaths” became commonplace.
The Cold War Abroad
The fight against subversion at home mirrored a growing concern with the Soviet threat abroad. In June 1950, the first military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world and deemed that nonintervention was not an option. Truman sent the American military into Korea, but the Korean War dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.
In 1955, the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made West Germany a member of NATO and permitted it to remilitarize. The Soviets responded with the Warsaw Pact , a mutual defense organization between the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria that set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union.
Other international disputes followed. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy faced a number of troubling situations in his own hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial “Third World.”
Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam , where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the region, and by the early 1960s it seemed clear to American leaders that if they were to successfully “contain” communist expansionism there, they would have to intervene more actively on Diem’s behalf. However, what was intended to be a brief military action spiraled into a 10-year conflict .
The End of the Cold War and Effects
Almost as soon as he took office, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) began to implement a new approach to international relations. Instead of viewing the world as a hostile, “bi-polar” place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.
At the same time, he adopted a policy of “détente”—”relaxation”—toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.
Despite Nixon’s efforts, the Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywhere. As a result, he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the world. This policy, particularly as it was applied in the developing world in places like Grenada and El Salvador, was known as the Reagan Doctrine .
Even as Reagan fought communism in Central America, however, the Soviet Union was disintegrating. In response to severe economic problems and growing political ferment in the USSR, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) took office in 1985 and introduced two policies that redefined Russia’s relationship to the rest of the world: “glasnost,” or political openness, and “ perestroika ,” or economic reform.
Soviet influence in Eastern Europe waned. In 1989, every other communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one. In November of that year, the Berlin Wall –the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.
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Cold War summary
Learn about the cause of the cold war between the u.s. and the soviet union and its impact.
Cold War , Open yet restricted rivalry and hostility that developed after World War II between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The U.S. and Britain, alarmed by the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, feared the expansion of Soviet power and communism in Western Europe and elsewhere. The Soviets were determined to maintain control of Eastern Europe, in part to safeguard against a possible renewed threat from Germany. The Cold War (the term was first used by Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947) was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. It was at its peak in 1948–53 with the Berlin blockade and airlift, the formation of NATO , the victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war, and the Korean War . Another intense stage occurred in 1958–62 with the Cuban missile crisis, which resulted in a weapons buildup by both sides. A period of détente in the 1970s was followed by renewed hostility. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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Who Was to Blame for the Cold War?
- ❖ The Marshall Plan , the Truman Doctrine , the policy of containment and the creation of NATO were seen as aggressive moves.
- ❖ President Truman was openly anti-communist, which caused greater tension. His relationship with Stalin was much worse than that of Roosevelt , his predecessor.
- ❖ The USA didn't inform the Soviets about their work on developing the atom bomb. The Soviets found out through their spies and felt betrayed.
- ❖ Stalin was not consulted over the formation of Trizonia or the adoption of the Deutschmark, despite agreement that decisions over Germany would be made jointly.
- ❖ Stalin saw the USA's refusal to leave West Berlin as a threat.
- ❖ Both sides participated in the nuclear arms race.
- ❖ Stalin went against some of the promises he made at Yalta, such as occupying Poland and refusing to allow eastern European countries to have free elections.
- ❖ Instead of free elections in eastern Europe, Stalin ensured communist puppet governments - which he could control - gained power. This happened in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and East Germany. This was seen as a threat to capitalism.
- ❖ The Red Army's occupation of eastern Europe was seen as a threat, and an attempt to control the whole of Europe.
- ❖ Comecon , Cominform and the Warsaw Pact were seen as aggressive moves.
- ❖ The Berlin Blockade was an extremely aggressive act.
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Essay on the Cold War: it’s Origin, Causes and Phases
After the Second World War, the USA and USSR became two Super Powers. One nation tried to reduce the power of other. Indirectly the competition between the Super Powers led to the Cold War.
Then America took the leadership of all the Capitalist Countries.
Soviet Russia took the leadership of all the Communist Countries. As a result of which both stood as rivals to each other.
Definition of the Cold War:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In the graphic language of Hartman, “Cold War is a state of tension between countries in which each side adopts policies designed to strengthen it and weaken the other by falling short by actual war”.
Image Source: i.ytimg.com/vi/y9HjvHZfCUI/maxresdefault.jpg
Infact, Cold War is a kind of verbal war which is fought through newspapers, magazines, radio and other propaganda methods. It is a propaganda to which a great power resorts against the other power. It is a sort of diplomatic war.
Origin of Cold War:
There is no unanimity amongst scholars regarding the origin of the Cold War In 1941 when Hitler invaded Russia, Roosevelt the President of USA sent armaments to Russia. It is only because the relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin was very good. But after the defeat of Germany, when Stalin wanted to implement Communist ideology in Poland, Hungery, Bulgaria and Rumania, at that time England and America suspected Stalin.
Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England in his ‘Fulton Speech’ on 5 March 1946 said that Soviet Russia was covered by an Iron Curtain. It led Stalin to think deeply. As a result of which suspicion became wider between Soviet Russia and western countries and thus the Cold War took birth.
Causes of the Cold War:
Various causes are responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War. At first, the difference between Soviet Russia and USA led to the Cold War. The United States of America could not tolerate the Communist ideology of Soviet Russia. On the other hand, Russia could not accept the dominance of United States of America upon the other European Countries.
Secondly, the Race of Armament between the two super powers served another cause for the Cold War. After the Second World War, Soviet Russia had increased its military strength which was a threat to the Western Countries. So America started to manufacture the Atom bomb, Hydrogen bomb and other deadly weapons. The other European Countries also participated in this race. So, the whole world was divided into two power blocs and paved the way for the Cold War.
Thirdly, the Ideological Difference was another cause for the Cold War. When Soviet Russia spread Communism, at that time America propagated Capitalism. This propaganda ultimately accelerated the Cold War.
Fourthly, Russian Declaration made another cause for the Cold War. Soviet Russia highlighted Communism in mass-media and encouraged the labour revolution. On the other hand, America helped the Capitalists against the Communism. So it helped to the growth of Cold War.
Fifthly, the Nuclear Programme of America was responsible for another cause for the Cold War. After the bombardment of America on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Soviet Russia got afraid for her existence. So, it also followed the same path to combat America. This led to the growth of Cold War.
Lastly, the Enforcement of Veto by Soviet Russia against the western countries made them to hate Russia. When the western countries put forth any view in the Security Council of the UNO, Soviet Russia immediately opposed it through veto. So western countries became annoyed in Soviet Russia which gave birth to the Cold War.
Various Phases of the Cold War:
The Cold War did not occur in a day. It passed through several phases.
First Phase (1946-1949 ):
In this phase America and Soviet Russia disbelieved each other. America always tried to control the Red Regime in Russia. Without any hesitation Soviet Russia established Communism by destroying democracy in the Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungery, Yugoslavia and other Eastern European Countries.
In order to reduce Russia’s hegemony, America helped Greece and Turkey by following Truman Doctrine which came into force on 12 March 1947. According to Marshall Plan which was declared on 5 June, 1947 America gave financial assistance to Western European Countries.
In this phase, non withdrawal of army from Iran by Soviet Russia, Berlin blaockade etc. made the cold was more furious. After the formation of NATO in 1949, the Cold War took a halt.
Second Phase (1949-1953 ):
In this phase a treaty was signed between Australia, New Zeland and America in September, 1957 which was known as ANZUS. America also signed a treaty with Japan on 8 September, 1951. At that time by taking armaments from Russia and army from China, North Korea declared war against South Korea.
Then with the help of UNO, America sent military aid to South Korea. However, both North Korea and South Korea signed peace treaty in 1953 and ended the war. In order to reduce the impact of Soviet Communism, America spent a huge amount of dollar in propaganda against Communism. On the other hand, Soviet Russia tried to be equal with America by testing atom bomb.
Third Phase (1953-1957):
Now United States of America formed SEATO in 1954 in order to reduce Soviet Russia’s influence. In 1955 America formed MEDO in Middle East. Within a short span of time, America gave military assistance to 43 countries and formed 3300 military bases around Soviet Russia. At that time, the Vietnamese War started on 1955.
To reduce the American Power, Russia signed WARSAW PACT in 1955. Russia also signed a defence pact with 12 Countries. Germany was divided into Federal Republic of Germany which was under the American control where as German Democratic Republic was under Soviet Russia. In 1957 Soviet Russia included Sphutnick in her defence programme.
In 1953 Stalin died and Khrushchev became the President of Russia. In 1956 an agreement was signed between America and Russia regarding the Suez Crisis. America agreed not to help her allies like England and France. In fact West Asia was saved from a great danger.
Fourth Phase (1957-1962):
In 1959 the Russian President Khrushchev went on a historical tour to America. Both the countries were annoyed for U-2 accident and for Berlin Crisis. In 13 August 1961, Soviet Russia made a Berlin Wall of 25 Kilometres in order to check the immigration from eastern Berlin to Western Berlin. In 1962, Cuba’s Missile Crisis contributed a lot to the cold war.
This incident created an atmosphere of conversation between American President Kenedy and Russian President Khrushchev. America assured Russia that she would not attack Cuba and Russia also withdrew missile station from Cuba.
Fifth Phase (1962-1969 ):
The Fifth Phase which began from 1962 also marked a mutual suspicion between USA and USSR. There was a worldwide concern demanding ban on nuclear weapons. In this period Hot Line was established between the White House and Kremlin. This compelled both the parties to refrain from nuclear war. Inspite of that the Vietnam problem and the Problem in Germany kept Cold War between USA and USSR in fact.
Sixth Phase (1969-1978 ):
This phase commencing from 1969 was marked by DETENTE between USA and USSR- the American President Nixon and Russian President Brezhnev played a vital role for putting an end to the Cold War. The SALT of 1972, the summit Conference on Security’ of 1975 in Helsinki and Belgrade Conference of 1978 brought America and Russia closer.
In 1971, American Foreign Secretary Henry Kissinger paid a secret visit to China to explore the possibilities of reapproachment with China. The American move to convert Diego Garcia into a military base was primarily designed to check the Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean. During the Bangladesh crisis of 1971 and the Egypt-Israel War of 1973 the two super powers extended support to the opposite sides.
Last Phase (1979-1987 ):
In this phase certain changes were noticed in the Cold War. That is why historians call this phase as New Cold War. In 1979, the American President Carter and Russian President Brezhnev signed SALT II. But in 1979 the prospects of mitigating Cold War were marred by sudden development in Afghanistan.
Vietnam (1975), Angola (1976), Ethiopia (1972) and Afghanistan (1979) issues brought success to Russia which was unbearable for America. American President Carter’s Human Rights and Open Diplomacy were criticised by Russia. The SALT II was not ratified by the US Senate. In 1980 America boycotted the Olympic held at Moscow.
In 1983, Russia withdrew from a talk on missile with America. In 1984 Russia boycotted the Olympic game held at Los-Angeles. The Star War of the American President Ronald Regan annoyed Russia. In this way the ‘New Cold War’ between America and Russia continued till 1987.
Result of the Cold War:
The Cold War had far-reaching implications in the international affairs. At first, it gave rise to a fear psychosis which resulted in a mad race for the manufacture of more sophisticated armaments. Various alliances like NATO, SEATO, WARSAW PACT, CENTO, ANZUS etc. were formed only to increase world tension.
Secondly, Cold War rendered the UNO ineffective because both super powers tried to oppose the actions proposed by the opponent. The Korean Crisis, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War etc. were the bright examples in this direction.
Thirdly, due to the Cold War, a Third World was created. A large number of nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America decided to keep away from the military alliances of the two super powers. They liked to remain neutral. So, Non-Alignments Movement became the direct outcome of the Cold War.
Fourthly, Cold War was designed against mankind. The unnecessary expenditure in the armament production created a barrier against the progress of the world and adversely affected a country and prevented improvement in the living standards of the people.
Fifthly, the principle ‘Whole World as a Family’, was shattered on the rock of frustration due to the Cold War. It divided the world into two groups which was not a healthy sign for mankind.
Sixthly, The Cold War created an atmosphere of disbelief among the countries. They questioned among themselves how unsafe were they under Russia or America.
Finally, The Cold War disturbed the World Peace. The alliances and counter-alliances created a disturbing atmosphere. It was a curse for the world. Though Russia and America, being super powers, came forward to solve the international crisis, yet they could not be able to establish a perpetual peace in the world.
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Who was more responsible for the Cold War?
Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: Cold War , communism
The Cold War was an undeclared and nonviolent War between the USA and the USSR. There are different points of view to the date of the beginning of the Cold War by the historian. They argue that it started in July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference. Others argue that the dropping of the atomic bomb in August 1945 was the actual start of the Cold War. To open up, we are going to observe how the USA was more responsible, to follow we are going to argue on how the USSR was more responsible for the Cold War. Finally we are going to see how the two sides are both equally to blame.
Firstly, we are going to observe the Orthodox or traditional point of view. For the Orthodox, Stalin and the Ideology of Marxism-Leninism were responsible for the Cold War. Marxism-Leninism is a communist ideology that is based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin. It seeks to purge anything considered like Bourgeois or religious from their society. They wanted to spread Communism everywhere in the entire world. They used aggressive force to “liberate” the Eastern Europe from Capitalist, but the truth was that they wanted to have control over those countries. Stalin made it pretty clear that he did not tolerate any rivals and wanted to dominate the world and for that to happen he used the influence of the Communism.
Stalin broke all his promises that he made in the Yalta conference, he did not let the Eastern Europe country have free election and took over as a dictator. He also imposed a brutal political control and executed every political opponent in the Eastern’ countries. These States should have been independent but they were soon referred as Soviet “satellites”. Stalin was taking advantage of the military situation in Europe after the Second World War. It is interesting to see that even some Russian now declare that Stalin was more responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War. Stalin was viewed as an exhibiting “expansionist tendencies”. In conclusion For the Orthodox or Traditional point of view Stalin and the ideology of Marxism-Leninism were more to blame for the outbreak of the Cold War.
The Essay on Marxism View On Bram Stokers Dracula
Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is a mystifying horror story that occurred sometime in the late nineteenth century, where a young English lawyer takes an excursion to Count Dracula located in Transylvania, in hopes of finalizing a real estate transfer. The novel portrays a gross representation of Anti-Christian values and beliefs, through one of its characters. Dracula one of the main characters in ...
Secondly we are going to discuss how the USA was more responsible. The Revisionist view emerged mainly from American in the late sixties. The Americans were much stronger than the URRS, not only they experienced an economic expansion thanks to Europe that borrowed Billion of dollars to rebuild themselves, but they also had new armaments, the nuclear bomb. Stalin was well aware of his weakness compare to the USA and took control of Eastern Europe to as a defensive move to protect his country, Stalin’s policy was claimed to be only defensive. The URRS wanted to build a “buffer zone” to protect them from the Capitalism that Americans were reinforcing in Western Europe. The Americans benefit from their superiority and sent the Truman Doctrine so they could stop the Communism from spreading into Western Europe.
But The Revisionist view would argue that it was not their place to come and to interfere into Europe’s business. They tried to impose their ideals on other people, other culture; they wanted the world to have the same values as them for the market so they could do international business with Europe later on. It was true Europe needed help, they were in great misery, but the USA should not have imposed their ideal, even if they had the military force to do so. They also used the Marshall Plan to control Europe’s countries by economic dependence. They could later on remind them the debt they owed them. In conclusion the Revisionist view is the opposite of the Orthodox’, it is a movement that came later on and that took their idea on the opposite to prove that the USA was more to blame for the beginning of the Cold War.
Finally, we will ponder on the Post-revisionist view that claims that it was not one side that was more responsible than the other. The Post-revisionist appeared on the late seventies, thanks to the access of new archives on the Cold War. They based their ideas on the fact that both sides were equally responsible. They claim that Cold War was influenced by mutual misunderstood from each side and overreaction due to fear of another War. USA did not understand the USSR’s need for safety. They also did not understand how much they suffered and were scandalized by their “open-door policy”. On the other hand Soviets did not see how their decisions affected the European and American opinion in the West.
The Essay on Although it began in Europe the spread of the cold war
Although it began in Europe the spread of the cold war to other regions was a much more dangerous development. To what extent do you agree with this judgment?Although the struggle of power between communist and capitalist countries started with the disagreement of Germany; it increased to Europe and extended towards other parts of the world throughout the decades of 1950 and 1960. With both ...
Moreover the two countries had the nuclear weapon which created a lot of fear in both sides and even for other countries that were not involved in those tensions. People were scared of Hiroshima or Nagasaki’s cataclysm and they were petrified to think it could happen again anywhere in the world. The development of nuclear weapons was less security from both sides. This is called the security dilemma. Defensive measures by one power were often seen as offensive by the other power. In conclusion the Post-revisionist view is that they are equally responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War.
In conclusion we can see that the third point of view might be the wisest interpretation. They see both sides and they accept that they have both did some wrongs and rights but they both wanted to help and raise their country. But it is true that usually historians are explaining how Stalin is more responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War. However, even today we still don’t have every information about what happen so we can only judge on what we know which might not be the entire truth.
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The Origins of the Cold War - A Review Essay
Following the logic of earlier scholarly debates on which side is to be blamed for the Cold War it appears that in fact both or neither: it was the inevitable consequence of the fact that two superpowers emerged after the conflagration of WWII. The ideology confrontation mattered much less vis-a-vis this immense global power shift.
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Jonathan Morales
Bibliography of New Cold War History
Aigul Kazhenova , Tsotne Tchanturia , Marijn Mulder , Ahmet Ömer Yüce , Sergei Zakharov , Mirkamran Huseynli , Pınar Eldemir , Angela Aiello , Rastko Lompar
This bibliography attempts to present the publications on the history of the Cold War published after 1989, the beginning of the „archival revolution” in the former Soviet bloc countries. While this first edition is still far from complete, it collects a huge number of books, articles and book chapters on the topic and it is the most extensive such bibliography so far, almost 600 pages in length. An enlarged and updated edition will be completed in 2018.
Tsotne Tchanturia , Vajda Barnabás , Gökay Çınar , Barnabás Vajda , Lenka Thérová , Simon Szilvási , Irem Osmanoglu , Rastko Lompar , Aigul Kazhenova , Pınar Eldemir , Natalija Dimić Lompar , Sára Büki
This bibliography attemts to present the publications on the history of the Cold War published after 1989, the beginning of the „archival revolution” in the former Soviet bloc countries. While this first edition is still far from complete, it collects a huge number of books, articles and book chapters on the topic and it is the most extensive such bibliography so far, almost 600 pages in length. An enlarged and updated edition will be completed in 2018. So, if you are a Cold War history scholar in any country and would like us to incude all of your publications on the Cold War (published after 1989) in the second edition, we will gladly do that. Please, send us a list of your works in which books and articles/book chapters are separated and follow the format of our bibliography. The titles of non-English language entries should be translated into English in square brackets. Please, send the list to: [email protected] The Cold War History Research Center owes special thanks to the Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (formerly: on NATO and the Warsaw Pact) in Zurich–Washington D.C. for their permission to use the Selective Bibliography on the Cold War Alliances, compiled by Anna Locher and Cristian Nünlist, available at: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/publications/bibliography/index.html
The Bibliography of New Cold War History (second enlarged edition)
Tsotne Tchanturia , Aigul Kazhenova , Khatia Kardava
This bibliography attempts to present the publications on the history of the Cold War published after 1989, the beginning of the „archival revolution” in the former Soviet bloc countries.
Soshum: Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
Adewunmi J Falode , Moses Yakubu
The Cold War that occurred between 1945 and 1991 was both an international political and historical event. As a political event, the Cold War laid bare the fissures, animosities, mistrusts, misconceptions and the high-stake brinksmanship that has been part of the international political system since the birth of the modern nation-state in 1648. As a historical event, the Cold War and its end marked an important epoch in human social, economic and political development. The beginning of the Cold War marked the introduction of a new form of social and political experiment in human relations with the international arena as its laboratory. Its end signaled the end of a potent social and political force that is still shaping the course of political relationship among states in the 21 st century. The historiography of the Cold War has been shrouded in controversy. Different factors have been given for the origins of the conflict. This work is a historical and structural analysis of the historiography of the Cold War. The work analyzes the competing views of the historiography of the Cold War and create an all-encompassing and holistic historiography called the Structuralist School.
Jonathan Murphy
fabio capano
In Rosella Mamoli Zorzi e Simone Francescato (eds.), American Phantasmagoria. Modes of representation in US culture
Duccio Basosi
The first section shows that the presence of ghosts in the foreign policy decision making processes of both the United States and the Soviet Union has been detected mainly in relatively recent works. The second, third and fourth sections are dedicated to distinguishing between three different kinds of apparitions—ghosts of the past, specters of the future, and phantasmagorias, respectively. The concluding section attempts some reflections on the possible meanings of such interest of Cold War historiography for spectral figures, particularly in connection with the ongoing debates about the “very notion of Cold War.”
Eliza Gheorghe
Geoffrey Roberts
Review of Jonathan Haslam's Russia's Cold War, published in International Affairs
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The United States chose to respond to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe with outright hostility. When Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov traveled to the United States in April 1945, the new president, Harry Truman, subjected him to an undiplomatic tongue lashing. After the end of the war, U.S. policy became downright militant.
The Cold War came to a close gradually. The unity in the communist bloc was unraveling throughout the 1960s and '70s as a split occurred between China and the Soviet Union.Meanwhile, Japan and certain Western countries were becoming more economically independent. Increasingly complex international relationships developed as a result, and smaller countries became more resistant to superpower ...
Who Was Responsible for The Cold War. The Cold War, a period of geopolitical tension and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, dominated the second half of the 20th century. It was a conflict characterized by the absence of direct military confrontation but marked by intense political, economic, and ideological ...
According to Schlesinger, the Soviet Union was ultimately responsible for the development of the Cold War due to its aggressive nature, this traditional interpretation was generally accepted until the 1960s when more sophisticated research was conducted to determine the reasons for the Cold War.
The term 'cold war' first appeared in a 1945 essay by the English writer George Orwell called 'You and the Atomic Bomb.' ... the permanent camp during construction in 1959.Read more: When the ...
The Cold War (the term was first used by Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947) was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. It was at its peak in 1948-53 with the Berlin blockade and airlift, the formation of NATO, the victory of the communists in the Chinese civil ...
the Cold War because of the limited nuclear arsenal in the early days of the Cold War. Although the decision behind dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still fraught in ethical issues, atomic warfare after the immediate end of the Second World War was very minimal. In
Some historians argue the USA was mainly responsible for the start of the Cold War for 6 key reasons: The Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the policy of containment and the creation of NATO were seen as aggressive moves. President Truman was openly anti-communist, which caused greater tension. His relationship with Stalin was much worse than ...
After the Second World War, the USA and USSR became two Super Powers. One nation tried to reduce the power of other. Indirectly the competition between the Super Powers led to the Cold War. Then America took the leadership of all the Capitalist Countries. Soviet Russia took the leadership of all the Communist Countries. As a result of which both stood as rivals to each other. Definition of the ...
The Cold War was an undeclared and nonviolent War between the USA and the USSR. There are different points of view to the date of the beginning of the Cold War by the historian. They argue that it started in July 1945, at the Potsdam Conference. Others argue that the dropping of the atomic bomb in August 1945 was the actual start of the Cold War.
The Bibliography of New Cold War History (second enlarged edition) 2018 •. Tsotne Tchanturia, Aigul Kazhenova, Khatia Kardava. This bibliography attempts to present the publications on the history of the Cold War published after 1989, the beginning of the „archival revolution" in the former Soviet bloc countries. Download Free PDF.
Who Was Responsible For The Cold War?? ~Revisionist historians tend to regard the outbreak of the "Cold War" as a result of American hostility or, at least , diplomatic incompetence, while the more traditional view lays the responsibility squarely at the feet of the Soviet Union. Assess the validity of each view.
The Cold War will defy any single master narrative. This point is worth stressing in light of John Lewis Gaddis's new synthesis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. This volume is likely to set the parameters for a whole new generation of scholarship. No historian is better known for his work on the Cold War.
The Soviet Union were thought to be at fault for starting the cold war by many historians at the time of the cold war. The reason for this is because the Soviet Union were known to be infiltrating liberated countries and forcing communism upon them which aggravated the western powers. In the February 1945, the Yalta conference was held between the leaders of the Soviet Union, Britain and America.
The Korean War was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and People's Republic of China (PRC), with air support from the Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 it was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious ...
The Cold War (1947-1953) is the period within the Cold War from the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953. The Cold War emerged in Europe a few years after the successful US-USSR-UK coalition won World War II in Europe, and extended to 1989-91. Some conflicts between the West and the USSR appeared earlier.
The Cold War dominated a rather long time period: between 1945, or the end of the World War II, and 1990, the collapse of the USSR. This period involved the relationships between two superpowers: the United States and the USSR. The Cold War began in Eastern Europe and Germany, according to the researchers of the Institute of Contemporary ...
Essay Sample: Introduction: The Cold War, a prolonged geopolitical tension that engulfed the world between the late 1940s and early 1990s, was primarily characterized ... Who Was Responsible for the Cold War? Categories: History. Download paper. Download. Essay, Pages 4 (769 words) Views. Save to my list. Remove from my list. Introduction: The ...
At the end of World War II, English writer George Orwell used cold war, as a general term, in his essay "You and the Atomic Bomb", published 19 October 1945 in the British newspaper Tribune.Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare, Orwell looked at James Burnham's predictions of a polarized world, writing: . Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many ...
Factors which contributed to the outbreak of the Cold War. John D Clare offers B-A-R-E: (Blame, Aims, resentment of History and a series of Events) Mutual suspicion. ("The claim that the breakdown of superpower relations between 1945 and 1950 was the result of mutual fear and suspicion has been greatly exaggerated.".
The Yalta Conference, along with the Potsdam Conference, was an important event for the end stages of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.The Yalta Conference occurred from February 4th to the 11th in 1945 and was a wartime meeting of the Allied leaders, including: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The meeting took place near Yalta, which is now a city in ...
The next paragraph would explain why the USSR could be blamed for the Cold War. You could use the Berlin Blockade as an example of Stalin's aggressive actions towards the USA. Continue to use a clear PEE structure as shown above. You would then need to write a conclusion explaining who was more to blame for the start of the Cold War.
Who Was Responsible For The Cold War Essay. "The Cold War was an ideological contest between the western democracies especially the United States and the Communist countries that emerged after the Second World War" (Tindall 972). The United States and the Soviet Union had differences over issues such as human rights, individual liberties ...
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