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IB - Topics in 20th Century History
The Origins of the Cold War
1941-49
There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing
toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans ... [E]ach seems called by some secret
design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destines of half the world.
Alexis de Toequeville, 1835
With the defeat of the Reich and pending the emergence of the Asiatic, the African, and perhaps the
South American nationalism, there remain in the world only two Great Powers capable of confronting
each other-the United States and Soviet Russia. The laws of both history and geography will compel
these two Powers to a trial of strength, either military or in the fields of economics and ideology. The
same laws make it inevitable that both Powers should become enemies of Europe. And it is equally
certain that both these Powers will sooner or later find it desirable to seek the support of the sole
surviving great nation in Europe, the German people.
Adolf Hitler, 1945
Six Big Ideas Regarding the
Origins of the Cold War:
Number #1
Domestic Issues drive Foreign Policy both in the United States
and in the Soviet Union.
Number #2
The United States has three distinct approaches to the Soviet
Union in the 1940s:
Roosevelt - Internationalism
Harriman & Deane - Carrot and Stick
Kennan - Containment
Number #3
Kennan's policy is "particularization." To win domestic
support, the policy becomes one of "Universalism." This
changes the nature of the struggle from geopolitical to
ideological.
Number #4
Nuclear weapons changed how international relations were
conducted. The nature of security changes from physical to
psychological.
Number #5
In seeking the their legitimate security needs, both the United
States and the Soviet Union made each other increasingly
insecure.
Number #6
The United States and the Soviet Union both created empires
in Europe, the USSR by force and the US by invitation.
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IB Topics in 20th Century History
World War II, The Atomic Bomb, and the Origins of the Cold War
The creation of the Grand Alliance, the Victory of the Grand Alliance, the Atomic Bomb
and the Coming of the Cold War were not inevitable or clearly foreseeable. Too often in
the study of history we assume that the players should have known or foreseen what was
to come. The reality is that the decade of the 40’s brought events, forces, and technology
that were unimaginable and unforeseeable. By the end of the decade, these forces had
transformed the world as no others ever had, and the totality of this transformation was
unimaginable to those who played roles in it.
1) Cold War Historiography
a) The Orthodox View: Soviet Expansion and
Paranoia drove them. – Their Fault (The Soviet
Union is to Blame)
Cold War Historiography
1. Orthodoxy – The Soviet Union
is responsible: Soviet Insecurity
drove them to confront the
Thus Soviet leaders are driven by necessities of their
United States. There was
own past and present position to put forward dogma
nothing the US could have
which pictures the outside world as evil, hostile, and
done. The Ideological
menacing, but as bearing within itself germs of creeping
perspective here is that
disease and destined to be wracked with growing
Communism is a
internal convulsions until it is given final coup de grace
danger/aggressive.
by rising power of socialism and yield to a better world.
2.
Revisionism – The United
This thesis provides justification for that increase of
States is responsible: United
military and police power in Russia state, for that fluid
States needs to have markets
and constant pressure to extend limits of Russia police
and resources to feed its
power which together the natural and instinctive urges
economy. The Soviet Union
of Russian rulers. (George F. Kennan, The Long
1
impeded these goals and
Telegram of 22 February 1946.)
therefore had to be confronted.
Economic Issues drive US
b) The Revisionist View: The Preservation of the
policy. The Ideological
Capitalist System was a bigger issue than the spread
perspective here is that
of Communism. (The New-Left) – Our Fault (The
Capitalism is the
United Sates is to Blame)
danger/aggressor.
3. Post-Revisionism – There is
Seen in historical perspective, therefore, what we are
truth in both arguments. The
accustomed to call the Cold War-meaning the
Soviet Union
under
confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s
Republic
ofStalin
China,was
paranoid
and
difficult
to deal
between 1943 and 1971-is in reality only the most recent phase of a more general conflict between
with.
The
United
States
was
the established system of western capitalism and its internal and external opponents. The broader
driven foreign
in large policy
part byhas
thebeen
fear
view not only makes it possible to understand more clearly why American
of
another
depression.
Other
criticized by conservatives as well as radicals but also provides a fuller grasp of the long struggle by
played
a serious
role in
China (and other nations) against being reconstructed as a part of theissues
western
system.
It should
also
the
origins
of
the
Cold
War:
deepen our determination to break free of the assumptions, beliefs, and habits that have carried us so
Domestic Policy, Security,
close to the abyss of thermonuclear war.2
Allies, and perceptions. The
Ideological perspective here is
that all post-revisionist do not
1 Martin McCauley, The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1949. 1995. Page 131.
agree. Ideology still drives
2 William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. 1988. Page 10.
their views regarding the
degree of responsibility each
-3side has.
Nevertheless, and allowing for these differences, there would appear to have been four interlocking propositions
upon which the New Left view rested:
1) That post war American foreign policy approximated the classical Leninist model of
Imperialism-…
2) That this internally motivated drive for empire left little room for accommodating the
legitimate security interests of the Soviet Union, thereby ensuring the breakdown of wartime
cooperation
3) That the United States imposed its empire on a mostly unwilling world, recruiting it into
military alliances, forcing it into positions of economic dependency, maintaining its imperial
authority against growing opposition by means that included bribery, intimidation, and covert
intervention.
4) That all of this took place against the will of the people of the United States, who were
tricked by cynical but skillful leaders into supporting this policy of imperialism through the
propagation of the myth that monolithic communism threatened the survival of the nation.3
c) Post-Revisionism (General) - Everybody’s Fault (A Question of the
amount of Responsibility)
One might well ask, at this stage just how postrevisionism differs from traditional accounts of the of the origins of the
Cold War written before New Left revisionism came into fashion. What is new, after all, about the view that American
officials worried more about the Soviet Union than about the fate of Capitalism in designing the policy of containment,
about the assertion that Soviet expansion was the primary cause of the of the Cold War, about the argument that
American allies welcomed the expansion of U.S. influences a counterweight to the Russians, about the charge that the
government responded to as well as manipulated public opinion? Were not all these
John Lewis Gaddis
things said years ago?
The answer is yes, but they were said more on the basis of political
conviction or personal experience than systematic archival research.
What the postrevisionists have done is to confirm, on the basis of
documents, several of the key arguments of the old orthodox position,
and that in itself is a significant development. But postrevisionism
should not be thought of as simply orthodoxy plus archives. On several
major points, revisionism has had a significant impact on
postrevisionist historiography. This coincidence of viewpoints between
revisionists and their successors needs to be emphasized, if only to
make the point that postrevisionism is something new, not merely a
return to old augments.
1) Postrevisionist accounts pay full attention to the use by the United States of economic
instruments to achieve political ends. …
2) Postrevisionism tends to stress the absence of an ideological blueprint for world revolution in
Stalin's mind: …
3) Postrevisionist analyses differ from their orthodox predecessors in confirming revisionist
assertions that the government, from time to time, did exaggerate external dangers for the
purpose of achieving certain internal goals. …
4) But the aspect of New Left historiography that postrevisionists are likely to find most usefuland the point upon which their work will depart most noticeably from orthodox accounts-is the
argument that there was in fact an American "empire."4
John Lewis Gaddis, “The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War.” Diplomatic History. (Summer 1983).
Page 172-173. John Lewis Gaddis is presently a Professor of History at Yale University and is one of the most prolific writers on the Cold
War. His view is generally that much of Cold War orthodoxy is correct but that not enough attention has been paid to the construction of
an American Empire after the Second World War.
4 Gaddis, “The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War.” Pages 180-181.
3
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d) Post-Revisionism (Specific Issues/Historians)
i) Melvyn Leffler – The Security Dilemma
Neither the Americans not the Soviets sought to harm the other in 1945. But each side, in
pursuit of its security interests, took steps to arouse the other’s apprehensions. Moreover, the
protests that each country’s actions evoked from the other fueled the cycle of distrust as neither
could comprehend the fears of the other, perceiving its own actions as defensive. Herein rests
the classic security dilemma. Postulating a state of international anarchy – and, given world
conditions in 1945, this was much more than a theoretical construct – the security dilemma
assumes that each country’s quest for security raises the anxieties of a prospective adversary,
provokes countermeasures, and results in less security for everyone.5
ii) Vladislav Zubok & Constantine Pleshakov – The Revolutionary-Imperial paradigm
… The result was a strange amalgam of ideological proselytism and geopolitical pragmatism that began to evolve in
Soviet Russia in the early 1920s. Marxism was a utopian teaching, but since it proclaimed that the goal of the
material transformation of the world was to be realized in a violent confrontation with its opponents, Communist
proselytes developed a whole set of highly effective political institutions. Utopian ideals gave way to ruthless and
cynical interpretation of the realpolitik tradition.
The combination of traditional Russian messianism and Marxist ideology produced something
larger (though more fragile) than its parts taken separately. The two phenomena became
completely blurred in the USSR by the 1920s and remained that way until the collapse of the
Soviet regime in 1991. Together they provide a theoretical explanation of Soviet foreign policy
behavior – the revolutionary-imperial paradigm.6
iii) Geir Lundestad – Empire by Invitation/Integration vs. Empire by Force
(1) The United States established an Empire in Europe by Invitation/Integration (contrasted
to its Asian/Latin American spheres of influence)
The Europeans in fact “invited” the Americans to play the overall role they did in Western
Europe after the Second World War. The Americans in turn basically trusted the Europeans.
Dulles thus believed it was almost certain that the United States and Western Europe would
stay close together for the very good reason that the Western European nations and the
United States “were part and parcel of Western civilization, with similar religions, culture,
and other fundamental affinities.” Or, in McGeorge Bundy’s words, in the end America’s
confidence in Europe rested “on deeper and more solid ground” since the European peoples
are “our cousins by history and culture, by language and religion. We are cousins too in our
current sense of human and social purpose.”
Again, in other parts of the American “empire” or sphere of influence, where the interests
of the United States and local governments did not coincide to the extent they did in Western
Europe, American rule could be more direct. When necessary, the United States was
certainly able to act much more imperially than it did in Western Europe.7
5
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford University
Press, 1992. Page 99. Melvyn Leffler is presently a Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His focus has primarily been the
Truman administration and its policy development.
6 Vladislav Zubok & Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev. 1996. Page 4. Zubok and
Pleshakov are two Russian scholars who have attempted to use the newly opened Soviet Archives to explain the Soviet side of the Cold
War.
7 Geir Lundestad, “Empire” by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945-97. Oxford University Press, 1998. Page
158.
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(2) The Soviet Union established an Empire in Europe by Force (contrasted to its
Asian/Latin American spheres of influence)
iv) John Lewis Gaddis (1972 version) – The Soviet Union had Greater Room to Maneuver
If one must assign responsibility for the Cold War, the most meaningful way to proceed is to
ask which side had greater opportunity to accommodate itself, at least in part, to the other’s
position, given the range of alternatives as they appeared at the time. Revisionists have argued
that American policy-makers possessed greater freedom of action, but their view ignores the
constraints imposed by domestic politics. Little is known even today about how Stalin defined
his options, but it does seem safe to say that the very nature of the Soviet system affords him a
larger selection of alternatives than were open to leaders of the United States. The Russian
dictator was immune from pressure of Congress, public opinion, or the press. Even ideology did
not restrict him: Stalin was the master of communist doctrine, not a prisoner of it, and could
modify or suspend Marxism-Leninism whenever it suited him to do so. This is not to say that
Stalin wanted a Cold War – he had every reason to avoid one. But his absolute powers did give
him more chances to surmount the internal restraints on his policy than were available to his
democratic counterparts in the West.8
v) Walter LaFeber – The Contradiction
American policymakers soon discovered an even greater problem. Their own policy was
contradictory. Neither Roosevelt nor his successor, Harry S. Truman, ever reconciled the
contradictions. That failure was a major cause of the Cold War. The contradiction contained an
economic and a political factor.9
e) Other Historiographic Issues
i) The End of the War and Germany
Germany was going to be divided at the end of World War II whatever else happened: invasion
on several fronts by several enemies ensured different treatment from that accorded the Japanese.
In a sense, Hitler himself - who collected enemies as avidly as he collected bad art - was the
architect of German disunity, as of so much else. Presumably, though, the occupying powers
could have reunited Germany quickly had they agreed on what its character was to be. There
were two reasons why they were unable to do this.
The first had to do with the lessons of the past. Would punishing the Germans more harshly
than after the first world war provide the best protection against a third? … Disarray within as
much as among the victors, therefore, could have delayed a German settlement, even if there had
been no Cold War.
But of course there was a Cold War, and it became the second and more significant reason
for Germany's division. What each superpower feared was that its wartime enemy might align
8
John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947. Columbia University Press, 1972. Pages 360-361.
This was Gaddis’ dissertation on the origins of the Cold War. He focused a great deal on the internal US issues, he did not have access to
all the evidence we do now.
9 Walter LaFebber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1996. 8th ed. McGraw-Hill, 1997. Page 8. First published in 1967, LaFeber’s
book is an example of how a revisionist can move to post-revisionism.
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itself with its Cold War adversary: if that were to happen, the resulting concentration of military,
industrial, and economic power could be to great to overcome.10
ii) The End of the War and Japan / The Bomb
… Instead they have been preoccupied with the historiographical controversy between "orthodox
historians," typified by Herbert Feis (1961), and "revisionists," lead by Gar Alperovitz and more
recently Martin Sherwin. The former contend that the bomb was necessary as a military means
to hasten the end of the war with Japan, while scholars of the latter - the "atomic diplomacy"
school - claim the bomb was meant as a political-diplomatic threat aimed against the Soviet
Union in the emerging Cold War. Bernstein advances a third interpretation, arguing that the
bomb, although primarily aimed at the speedy surrender of Japan, had a "bonus" effect of
intimidating the Soviet Union. In the heat generated by this debate, American historians have
neglected the Japanese side of the picture. Concentrating on the motives behind the use of the
bombs, they have slighted the effects of the bombs.
… The "orthodox" interpretation in Japan has reflected the American "revisionist" view.11
iii) Psychology
(1) Stalin
Stalin's behavior in power is indicative of the need of the paranoid to protect his fragile
narcissistic ego from external threats.12
Stalin's lethal combination of paranoia, communist ideology, and Russian imperialism
translated the nation of the Four Policemen impartially enforcing world peace on the basis of
universally shared values into either a Soviet opportunity or a capitalist trap. … On the basis
of either hypothesis, Stalin's course of action was clear; he would push Soviet power as far
westward as possible, either to collect spoils or to
Franklin Roosevelt
put himself into the best bargaining position for a
diplomatic showdown later.13
(2) Truman
Cognitive dissonance theory postulates that U.S.
policymakers adopted Cold War beliefs after being
forced by situational pressures to act contrary to
strongly held, consistent beliefs in favor of SovietAmerican cooperation, without adequate justification and in spite of their fear of negative
consequences. For attitude change to occur, however, U.S. policymakers must have felt their
decision to initiate the Cold War was voluntary. Otherwise, they could have reduced
dissonance merely by denting their personal responsibility, or by blaming others for their
actions. This means that the situational or social pressures responsible for their conformity
10
John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford University Press. 1997. Page 115. After the fall of the Soviet
Union and the opening of the Soviet Archives many of the long-standing questions regarding the Cold War were answerable. We Now
Know is Gaddis’ attempt to use these new findings to answer these questions.
11 Sadao Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender - A Reconsideration." Pacific Historical Review. 67:4,
November 1998. Page 480-481.
12 Raymond Birt, "Personality and Foreign Policy: The Case of Stalin." Political Psychology. 1993. Page 616.
13 Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy. 1994. Page 420.
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must have been subtle or illegitimate. Domestic political interests are not "supposed" to
sway or bias foreign policy decisions - yet they do.14
2) The Roots of the Cold War – World War II and the Diplomacy of the Grand Alliance
a) Three Visions of the World
Damage caused to the White House by Winston Churchill
i) Franklin Roosevelt –
President of the United
States
(1) World View - Collective
Security / Internationalism
(Economic Integration) The Four Policeman
(United States, Great
Britain, Soviet Union,
China)
Roosevelt envisioned a
postwar order in which the
three victors, along with
China, would act as a board of
directors of the world, enforcing peace against any potential miscreant, which he thought
would most likely be Germany-a vision that was come to be known as the “Four
Policeman.”15
(2) Danger to the World Order – Economic Collapse, The
Depression again & Separate Peace
ii) Winston Churchill
(1) World View - Balance of Power
Winston Churchill
Churchill wanted to reconstruct the traditional balance of
power in Europe. This meant rebuilding Great Britain,
France, and even defeated Germany so that, along with the
United States, these countries could counter balance the
Soviet colossus to the east.16
(2) Danger to the World Order – American Return to
Isolation, England Alone & Separate Peace
iii) Joseph Stalin
(1) World View – Power Politics
Joseph Stalin
Stalin’s approach reflected both his communist ideology
and traditional Russian foreign policy. He strove to cash
in on his country’s victory by extending Russian influence
14
Deborah Welch Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation. Princeton University Press. 1985. Page 32. Larson’s
argument is that we can come to a deeper understanding of the origins of the Cold War by understanding the psychological motivations of
the combatants.
15 Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
16 Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
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into Central Europe. And he intended to turn the countries he conquered by soviet armies
into buffer zones to protect Russia against future German aggression.17
(2) Danger to the World Order – Germany and Everything (he is paranoid)
(a) Stalin's Paranoia
(b) The Role of Intelligence
There were more "believers" among Western intellectuals and artistic elites than there
were actual card-carrying Communists. Many wrote enthusiastic stories about the "new
Soviet civilization." In that milieu Soviet Intelligence recruited its best spies. … In the
United States an illegal Soviet network in Washington consisted of informants working in
various government agencies of the Roosevelt administration. The Soviets acquired
important agents even in the OSS, precursor of the CIA.
Without these "friends" Stalin never would have obtained the secrets of the
Manhattan atomic project so quickly and efficiently. The lieutenant-general of military
intelligence (GRU), Mikail Milstein, who in 1942-46 had supervised the North American
intelligence network from Mexico to Canada, claimed that "in that period all our
intelligence activities … relied essentially on so-called liberal cadres, that is, the ones
who sympathized with the Soviet Union … Those people regarded the Soviet Union as
their second homeland and worked not for cash, but for the idea [ne za strakh a za
sovest]."18
(c) Soviet Rise to Power
Another factor was a new experience of the Allied relationship during the war: again, for the first time in
their history the Soviets through the great performance and sacrifices in the war were accepted as full
partners in the councils of the great powers, who seemed quite respectful of their interests, rights, and
newly gained status. No wonder that even Stalin and Molotov, not to speak of their more impressionable
diplomats, came to believe in Soviet parity with the West in terms of the legitimacy of their security
requirements and their acceptance by the West, especially since there seemed to be few direct conflicts of
interest aside from ideology. No wonder that they now felt entitled to their "fair share" of the war spoils in
terms of new territories, trusteeships, an expanded sphere of influence and some strong points in the areas
stretching beyond that sphere. 19
b) The Conferences
i) 1941 - Origins of the Grand Alliance
(1) The Atlantic Charter - 14 August 1941
(2) Arcadia - 22 December 1941 through 14
January 1942 (Washington) - The Combined
Command Structure
ii) 1942 - Russia: The Grand Alliance Complete
(1) Molotov - 20 May through 2 June 1942
(London and Washington) - The Second
Front
17
The Big Three at Tehran
Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
Vladislav Zubok & Constantine Pleshakov, Page 14.
19 Vladimir O. Pechatnov, "The Big Three after World War II: New Documents on Soviet Thinking about Post-War Relations with the
United States and Great Britain." Cold War International History Project: Working Paper#13. July 1995. Page 21. The Cold War
International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. was established in 1991 to
disseminate new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War as it emerges from previously inaccessible sources on “the
other side” of the post-World War II superpower rivalry.
18
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(2) Churchill & Roosevelt - 18 through 25 June 1942
(Washington) - The Second Front & The Atomic
Bomb
 Stalin's Paranoia
(3) Churchill & Stalin - 12 through 15 August
1942 (Moscow) - The Second Front and
Torch
 Stalin's Paranoia
 Churchill and the balance of Power
The Big Three at Yalta
iii) 1943 - The War
(1) Casablanca - 14 through 25 January 1943 Churchill & Roosevelt
(2) Cairo - 22 through 26 November 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill & Chiang Kai-shek
(3) Tehran - 28 November through 1
December 1943 - Roosevelt, Stalin &
Churchill
(4) Cairo - 3 through 6 December 1943 Roosevelt & Churchill
iv) 1944/45 - The War & The Peace
(1) Bretton Woods - 1 through 22 July 1944
The Bretton Woods agreements of July 1944, which established the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, had marked the first major attempt by the United States to
restructure the world economy. The concept of "economic security"-interdependence serving
U.S. security-was a driving force behind wartime planning. A State Department
memorandum of February 1944 on U.S. commercial policies, for instance, argued that,
without an agreement liberalizing trade, the postwar period would "witness a revival, in more
intense from, of internal economic warfare which characterized the twenties and thirties."
Freer trade served U.S. strategic objectives:…20
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Quebec - 11 through 19 September 1944 - Roosevelt & Churchill
Hyde Park - September 18, 1944 - The Atomic Bomb
Moscow - 9 through 20 October 1944 - Churchill & Stalin
Yalta - 4 through 11 February 1945 - Roosevelt, Stalin & Churchill
(a) The Nature of the Agreement - Poland, Liberated Europe, Germany, the Far East, and
the United
Nations. - The attempt to address
the security needs of the Soviet
Union, create a balance of power,
establish a workable international
system.
(b) Roosevelt’s Domestic Issues
20
Pollard, Robert A., "Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War: Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and American Rearmament,
1944-50." Diplomatic History. Summer 1985. Page 273. Pollard focuses on the development of the idea economic cooperation and
interdependence as a corner stone of the policies of Harry S. Truman. Pollard’s study is an example of how most revisionist historians try
to go beyond the general label of both the orthodox and revisionist historians.
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In his dealings with the Kremlin, however, Roosevelt felt it imperative to cloak his
concessions in the ambiguous language of the Declaration on Liberated Europe. In this
way he hoped to satisfy Stalin without disappointing domestic constituencies whose
support he still needed for many legislative
The Big Three at Potsdam
enactments, including American
participation in the United Nations, the
International Monetary Fund, and the
World Bank. Paradoxically, then,
Roosevelt’s carefully concealed
concessions were prompted by a desire to
cooperate with the Kremlin, by a
recognition of Soviet preponderance in
Eastern Europe, and by a desire to ensure
active American participation in world
affairs, which, if necessary, could take the
direction of the containment of Soviet
power.21
v) 1945 - The Post-War World (Roosevelt's Death - April 12, 1945) Potsdam - 17 July
through 2 August 1945 – Truman, Churchill (Atlee – Replaces Churchill during the
Summit) & Stalin
Going to Potsdam, Stalin had two ideas in mind: a new war should be prevented, and the
Soviet Union should get its rightful share of the spheres of influence, that is, the outer belt of
security. The United States and Great Britain had to pay for the enormous Soviet war effort.
Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet ambassador to Washington in 1943-1945, recalled, in
confidential conversations with a long-time
The Origins of Conflict
associate, that Stalin at the time of the
1. Roosevelt's approach to the
conference in Dumbaton Oaks in September
Grand Alliance
1944 "had been definitely oriented toward a
2. The Clash of Systems / Postlong postwar cooperation with the West,
War Visions
particularly the United States."22
3. The Death of Roosevelt April
3) The Origins of Conflict (A Geopolitical or
Ideological Struggle?)
a) Roosevelt's approach to the Grand Alliance The unwillingness to negotiate any part of a
post-war settlement
i) The War Effort
ii) Self-Determination
iii) The fear of a separate peace
b) The Clash of Systems / Post-War Visions
i) The Soviet Vision
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
12, 1945 & The Change in
Leadership
Adherence to Agreements
The Atomic Bomb
Stalin’s Paranoia
The War and its effect
(especially Russia)
Britain and the fear of Isolation
The Ideological Confrontation
The key issue then became the nature of such post-war cooperation on which again there are no serious
disagreements among Litvinov, Maisky and Gromyko: they all see it largely in terms of a great power concert based
Melvyn P. Leffler, “Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War.” International Security. 11:1, Summer
1986. Page 92.
22 Zubok & Pleshakov, Page 27.
21
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upon some kind of a division of the world into spheres of influence. This "three policemen" formula of cooperation
was thought able to provide for the three major strategic imperatives of the USSR: keeping Germany and Japan
down, keeping the Soviet Union in the big council of the world, and legitimizing the USSR's post-war borders and
sphere of influence.23
c)
ii) The US Vision
iii) The British Vision
The death of Roosevelt April 12, 1945 & The Change in Leadership
i) The Transition to Truman
ii) The Rise of James F. Byrnes
Roosevelt’s death catapulted Byrnes to the forefront of American
diplomacy. Since Truman depended on him for a correct
interpretation of Yalta, Byrnes’ mistaken understanding of the
provisions regarding Poland and the Declaration of Liberated Europe
initially contributed to the President’s erroneous impression that the
Soviets were violating the meaning of Yalta. 24
Byrnes, Bevins, & Vishinky
iii) The Result - The Significance of the April 23rd Meeting between
Truman and Molotov - From Cooperation to Carrot and Stick
Harriman had won. His view had become established US policy, to be
demonstrated on Poland: two interpretations of the word ‘democratic’
were no longer accepted in the interests of Allied cooperation, and the demand for ‘consultation’ among the three
Polish groups, of which the Lubin government was only one, with the insistence on a representative government as
the outcome, established a new litmus test to determine whether the United States would ‘collaborate’ and perhaps
even ‘co-operate’ with the Soviet Union in the future. Leahy was right in his comment at the White House advisers’
meeting on 23 April. There had been ‘two interpretations’ of the Yalta agreement. The Soviets had not intended to
set up á free government’, nor had the United States expected them to. Roosevelt at Yalta had left Eastern Europe
and Poland within the Soviet sphere of influence. But that was February. By 23 April, Allied co-operation in the
war was coming to an end; cold war was beginning. 25
d) Adherence to Agreements
In fact, after the capitulation of Germany, American officials assessed the risks and benefits of
compliance and concluded that they had little to gain from adherence to many wartime agreements.
… This orientation meant that, from the onset of the postwar era, American officials were
interpreting the wartime accords in ways that placed a higher priority on containing Soviet power
and projecting American influence than on perpetuating the wartime alliance.
The Soviets, too, had to weigh the benefits of compliance. … Given these parameters, Soviet
officials chose to define compliance in ways that maximized their authority in Eastern Europe,
circumscribed Western power in eastern Germany, and enhance the Kremlin's flexibility in China.
These decisions meant that Soviet Officials preferred to place higher priority on unilateral
safeguards of their security than on preserving a cooperative approach to postwar reconstruction.
As both Moscow and Washington were prone to see the costs of compliance greatly outweighing
the benefits, they began to take tentative steps to jettison or reinterpret key provisions of wartime
accords. Each such step magnified the suspicions of the potential adversary and encouraged
reciprocal actions. Before long, wartime cooperation was forgotten, the Cold War was under way,
and a new arms race was imminent. Neither side was innocent of responsibility; each side felt
23
Pechatnov, Page 17.
Leffler, “Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War.” Page 119.
25 Diane S. Clemens, “Averell Harriman, John Deane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the ‘Reversal of Co-operation’ with the Soviet Union in
April 1945.” The International History Review. May 1992. Page 306. A post-revisionist history of the change in policy that occurred
shortly after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. The culmination of this policy shift toward confrontation with the Soviet Union was meeting
between Truman and Molotov April 23, 1945.
24
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vulnerable, maneuvered to take advantage of opportunities, and manipulated or violated the
compromises, loopholes, and ambiguities of wartime agreements.26
e) The Atomic Bomb
The bomb as a merely probable weapon had seemed a weak reed on which to rely, but the bomb as a
colossal reality was very different (Henry L. Stimson, Sec. Of War, Roosevelt Admin.)27
i) The assumption of use
Had Roosevelt lived, such lurking political pressure might have powerfully confirmed his
intention to use the weapon on the enemy-an assumption he had already made. How else could
he have justified spending roughly
$2 billion, diverting scarce materials from other was enterprises that might have been more
useful, and bypassing Congress?28
ii) The Effect on Relations – The Opposite Effect
As Stimson had expected, as a colossal reality the bomb was very different. But had American
diplomacy been altered by it? Those who conducted diplomacy became more confident, more
certain that through the accomplishments of American science, technology, and industry the
"new world" could be made into one better than the old. But just how the atomic bomb would be
used to help accomplish this ideal remained
unclear. Three months and one day after
The Hiroshima Bomb
Hiroshima was bombed Bush wrote that the whole
matter of international relations on atomic energy
"is in a thoroughly chaotic condition." The
wartime relationship between atomic-energy
policy and diplomacy had been based upon the
simple assumption that the Soviet government
would surrender important geographical, political,
and ideological objectives in exchange for the
neutralization of the new weapon. As a result of
policies based on this assumption American
diplomacy and prestige suffered grievously: an
opportunity to gauge the Soviet Union's response
during the war to the international control of
Atomic energy was missed, and an atomic energy
policy for dealing with the Soviet government after
the war was ignored. Instead of promoting
American postwar aims, wartime atomic-energy
policies made them more difficult to achieve. …
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the culmination of the process, became symbols of a new American
barbarism, reinforcing charges, with dramatic evidence, that the policies of the United States
contributed to the origins of the cold war.29
26
Leffler, "Adherence to Agreements: Yalta and the Experiences of the Early Cold War." Page 120.
Martin J. Sherwin, "The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War: U.S. Atomic-Energy Policy and Diplomacy, 1941-45."
American Historical Review. October 1973. Page 945. A revisionist history of the Atomic Bomb and its effect on United States diplomacy
during the war.
28 Barton J. Bernstein, "The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered." Foreign Affairs. January/February 1995. (Page 139). Post-revisionist efforts
at explaining the Atomic bomb both in the context of World War II and the Cold War.
27
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Later, when Stalin learned through his excellent network of agents that Truman and Attlee
opposed any sharing of atomic secrets with the Soviet Union, he must have felt vindicated in his
worst fears. … "Anglo-Saxon alliance of atomic power" …
The Bomb destroyed Stalin's expectations of being second to none among the great powers and
of promoting Soviet state interests through partnership with Western powers.30
This is the greatest thing in history. (Harry S. Truman in response to the news of Hiroshima)31
f) Stalin’s Paranoia
g) The War and its effect (especially Russia)
But the bargaining room was limited. Stalin's doctrine and his determination that Russia would not
again be invaded from the west greatly narrowed his diplomatic options. So too did the tremendous
devastation of the war. Rapid rebuilding under communism required security, required access to
resources in Eastern and Central Europe, and continued tight control over the Russian people. The
experience of war was indelible. Russia viewed almost everything in their lives through their
"searing experience of World War II," as one psychologist has phrased it. The conflict had
destroyed 1700 towns and 70,000 villages and left 25 million homeless. Twenty million died;
600,000 starved to death at the siege of Leningrad.32
h) Britain and the fear of Isolation
i) The Ideological Confrontation
i) The Riga Axioms
ii) The Yalta Axioms
iii) The Long Telegram – George Kennan (22 February 1946)
(1) The True Nature of Russia
There could be, no permanent resolution of differences with such a government, which
relied on the fiction of external treats to maintain internal legitimacy. "Some of us here have
tried to conceive the measures our country would have to take if it really wished to pursue, at
all costs, [the] goal of disarming Soviet suspicions," Kennan
George Frost Kennan
noted in March.
We have come to [the] conclusion that nothing short of
complete disarmament, delivery of our air and naval
forces to Russia and resigning of [the] powers of
government to the American Communists would ever
dent this problem: and even then we believe - and this is
not facetious - that Moscow would smell a trap and
would continue to harbor [the] most baleful misgivings.
"We are thus up against the fact," Kennan continued, "that
suspicion in one degree or another is an integral part of [the]
29
Sherwin, Page 967-968.
Zubok & Pleshakov, Page 44-46.
31 Sherwin, Page 967.
32 Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1996. 1997. Page 17.
30
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Soviet system, and will not yield entirely to any form of rational persuasion or assurance. …
To this climate, and not to wishful preconceptions, we must adjust our diplomacy."33
(2) Kennan's Containment - Particularization (It's the Soviet Union stupid)
… Kennan told students at he National War College that there were "only five centers of
industrial and military power in the world which are important to us from a standpoint
of national security." These were the United States, Great Britain, Germany and
central Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan. Only in these locations "would [you] get the
requisite conditions of climate, and industrial strength, of population and of the tradition
which would enable people there to develop and launch the type of amphibious which would
have to be launched if our national security were seriously affected." Only one of these
power centers was at that time, in hostile hands; the primary interest of the United
States in world affairs, therefore, was to see to it that no others fell under such
control.34
2) Domestic and Economic Issues
a) The Problems of Russia
b) The Problems of Europe
i) American Domestic Policies
ii) The Emergence of Anti-Communism (The
Linkage of Economic Policy to Foreign Policy)
By early 1947 the Truman administration had made three major decisions concerning Europe: to
restrict Soviet and Eastern European access to American trade and capital, to restore Western
European productivity and commerce, and to reidustrialize
Churchill's Iron Curtain
Germany. Until the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine,
Speech
however, the president lacked a clear rationale by which to
mobilize the public and the congress behind a sustained
program of European reconstruction. White House officials
already had found, in the congressional debate on the British
loan of December 1945, that anticommunism was a far more
effective rallying cry than their rather prosaic arguments for
multilateralism. As Undersecretary of State Acheson noted,
the new Congress was especially unlikely to welcome another
Truman Doctrine Speech
foreign aid measure since it "was understood when the British
loan was made last year that not further requests for direct
loans to foreign governments would be asked of Congress."
Thus, in seeking approval for aid to Greece and Turkey from
the parsimonious Republican-controlled 80th Congress,
Acheson and other officials again emphasized the Communist
danger.35
3) The Declaration of Cold War
a) Stalin's Party Address, February 9, 1946
33
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. Oxford University
Press, 1982. Page 20.
34 Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. Page 30.
35 Pollard, Page 279.
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b) The Long Telegram, February 22, 1946
c) Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech, March 5, 1946
d) The Division of Germany, Byrnes - Stuttgart
September 6, 1946
e) Atomic Energy- Acheson-Lilienthal proposal /
Bernard Baruch
f) The Truman Doctrine, March 12, 1947
i) America Declares Cold War – LaFeber’s Thesis
The Truman Doctrine was milestone in American history for at least four reasons. First, it marked the
point at which Truman used the American fear of communism both at home and abroad to convince Americans they
must embark upon a Cold War foreign policy. This consensus would not break apart for a quarter of a century.
Second, as Vandenberg knew, Congress was giving the President great powers to wage this Cold War as he saw fit.
The Division of Germany
Truman's personal popularity began spiraling upward after his speech. Third, for the first time in the postwar era,
Americans massively intervened in another nation's civil war. Intervention was justified on the basis of
anticommunism. In the future, America would intervene in similar wars for supposedly the same reason and with
less happy results. Even Greek affairs went badly at first, so badly that in late 1947 Washington officials discussed
sending as many as two divisions of Americans to save the situation. That proved unnecessary, for when
Yugoslavia left the communist bloc in early 1948, Tito turned inward and stopped aiding the rebels. Deprived of aid
the Greek left wing quickly lost ground. But it had been close, Americans were nearly involved in a massive civil
war two decades before their Vietnam involvement. As it was, the success in Greece seemed to prove that
Americans could, if they wished, control such conflicts by defining the problem as "Communist" and helping the
conservatives remain in power.
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George C. Marshall
Finally, and perhaps most important, Truman used the doctrine
to justify a gigantic aid program to prevent the collapse of the European
and American economies. Later such programs were expanded
globally. The President's arguments about anticommunism were
confusing, for the Western economies would have been in grave
difficulties whether or not communism existed. The complicated
problems of reconstruction and U.S. dependence on world trade were
not well understood by Americans, but they easily comprehended
anticommunism. So Americans embarked upon the Cold War for the
good reasons given in the Truman Doctrine, which they understood, and
for real reasons which they did not understand. Thus,
as Truman and Acheson intended, the doctrine
became an ideological shield behind which the United
States marched to rebuild the Western political
economic system and counter the radical left. From
1947 on, therefore, any threat to that Western system
could be easily explained as communist-inspired, not
as a problem within the system itself. That was the
most lasting and tragic result of the Truman
Doctrine.36
The Division of Europe
ii) Economic vs. Military Containment
iii) Criticism of the Truman Doctrine37 (The
origins of Revisionism)
(1) Walter Lippmann (realist) –
Psychological and Geopolitical
Overextension
(2) Winston Churchill – Postponement of
Negotiations
(3) Henry Wallace – America did not
have the Moral Right
iv) Western Public Opinion - "The Source of
Soviet Conduct, " July 1947
4) The 1st Offensive of the Cold War / April 28,
1947 (George C. Marshall - The West had
past the point of no return in its policy toward
the Soviet Union38)
a) The Stalin Marshall Meeting April 15, 1947 (Moscow Council of Foreign Ministers Meeting)
Stalin's remarks gave the impression that he remained unswayed by Marshall's concern over the rapidly deteriorating
situation in Europe, and his diffident attitude toward the economic implications of the deadlock over Germany convinced
Marshall that Stalin was merely stalling, hoping that economic collapse in Western Europe would create conditions
favorable to the further expansion of Soviet influence in the region. As another member of the U.S. delegation, John
Foster Dulles, put it: "the Moscow conference was, to those who were there, like a streak of lightning that illuminated a
dark and stormy scene. We saw as never before the magnitude of the task of saving Europe for Western civilization."
John Foster Dulles, War or Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 105. Marshall shared this view, and he returned to
Washington from Moscow determined to take some action that could arrest Europe's precipitous economic decline, and
prevent a crisis that the USSR could exploit for political advantage. 39
36
LaFeber, Page 57-58.
Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 463-464.
38 Kissinger, Diplomacy. 445.
39 Scott D. Parish, "New Evidence on the Soviet Rejection of the Marshall Plan, 1947." Cold War International History Project: Working
Paper #9. March 1994. Page 8.
37
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b) Marshall Plan, June 5, 1947
The Marshall Plan originated from the belated realization in Washington, during the spring of 1947,
that Western Europe was nearing collapse. Policymakers feared sustained instability could render its
governments susceptible to Soviet influence, if not outright Communist takeovers. If economic
conditions continued to deteriorate, those Western European countries at the very least might pursue
protectionist, beggar-thy-neighbor policies, in turn reducing imports from the United States and
weakening further the already fragile structure of world trade and finance.40
i) The War Scare of March 1948 (Czechoslovakia)
The economic security argument made it easier to convince Republicans and budget-minded
Democrats to spend vast sums for the Marshall Plan, but what finally catalyzed passage of the
ERP (European Recovery Plan) legislation was the war scare of March 1948, following the
Czech coup of February. Before a joint session of Congress on 17 march 1948, Truman
denounced the "pattern" of Soviet aggression and Communist subversion in Czechoslovakia,
Finland, Greece, and Italy. The President expressed support for the Brussels Pact, the forerunner
of NATO, and asked for congressional approval of the Marshall Plan, universal military training
(UMT), and selective service because "we have learned the importance of maintaining military
strength as a means of preventing war."41
c) NATO
i) The Cominform, 1947
ii) Czechoslovakia, February 1948
iii) The Treaty of Brussels, March 1948
iv) The Berlin Blockade, July 1948- May
1949
v) The Treaty of Washington (North
Atlantic Treaty) April 4, 1949
40
41
Pollard, Page 280.
Pollard, Page 281
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The Berlin Airlift
IB Topics in 20th Century History
Cold War 1945-1960
Chronology
February 1945 The Yalta Conference
14 February 1950 Sino-Soviet Friendship
Treaty
July- August 1945 The Potsdam Conference
6 August 1945 The Atomic Bombing of
Hiroshima
7 April 1950
NSC-68
25 July 195027 July 1953
Korean War
22 July 1952
Nasser seizes the Egyptian
Government
9 February 1946 Stalin’s Election Speech
22 February 1946 Kennan’s “Long
Telegram”
5 March 1946
Churchill’s “Iron Curtain”
Speech
1 November 1952 US Thermonuclear Bomb
1953-1960
China’s “Great Leap
Forward”
12 March 1947 Truman Doctrine
5 June 1947
The Marshall Plan
January 1953
Eisenhower becomes
President
July 1947
Kennan “The Sources of
Soviet Conduct”
5 March 1953
Stalin Dies
February 1948 Communist Coup in
Czechoslovakia
16-17 July 1953 The East German Uprising
26 June 1953
May 1948
The Arrest of Beria
The Founding of Israel
June 1948
London Conference on
Germany
24 June 1948May 1949
Berlin Blockade/Airlift
4 April 1949
(NATO)
The Treaty of Washington
May 1949
(FRG)
Federal Republic of Germany
8 August 1953 Soviet Thermonuclear
Bomb
Spring 1954
The Fall of Dien Bien Phu
21 July 1954
The Geneva Conference (The
Partition of Vietnam)
8 September 1954 Founding of SEATO
29 August 1949 Soviet Atomic Bomb
1 October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaims the
Peoples Republic of China
(PRC)
May 1955
FRG joins NATO
14 May 1955
Warsaw Pact
July 1955
The Geneva Summit
(Eisenhower &
Khrushchev)
14 February 1956 Khrushchev’s Peaceful
Coexistence Speech
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25 February 1956 Khrushchev's Speech to
20th Party Congress
(Crimes of Stalin)
19 July 1956
Withdraw of Support for
the Aswan High Dam
26 July 1956
Egyptian Nationalization of
the Suez Canal
October 1956- The Hungarian Uprising
November 1956
November 1956 Eisenhower Re-Elected
President
5 January 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine
4 October 1957 Sputnick is launched
July 1958
US Intervention in Lebanon
May 1960
The U-2 Incident
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The Cold War: The Early Years
Cast of Characters
The Americans
The Russians
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pres. 1933–April 45
Joseph Stalin 1924-1953
Sec. of State
Cordell Hull
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.
Sec. of War
Henry L. Stimson
1933–44
1944–45
Foreign Minister
V. M. Molotov
1940–45
Head of the NKVD
Lavretii Beria
Harry Truman, Pres.
1945–53
Sec. of State
Nikitia Khrushchev
1953-64
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. 1945
James F. Byrnes
1945-47
(Byrnes was FDR’s “assistant
president” for domestic affairs and
Director of the Office of
Demobilization and Reconversion
1945)
George C. Marshall
1947-49
Dean G. Acheson
1949-53
Others
W. Averell Harriman –
Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Andrei Gromyko,
Roosevelt Administration
Soviet ambassador to the US
George Kennan –
US Embassy’s charge d’affaires,
Roosevelt Administration
Commissar For Foreign Affairs
Harry Hopkins – Close Roosevelt Advisor
1943-45
Ivan Maisky 1939-43
Soviet ambassador to England / Assistant People's
Maxim M. Litvinov
General Leslie Groves –
Deputy Foreign Minster and Chairman of the
Director of the Manhattan Project
Commission on Post-war order
Walter Lippman - Journalist "Anti-Truman Doctrine"
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The British
The Historians
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister 1939-1945
The Orthodox
Foreign Minister
Anthony Eden
Arthur Schlesinger
George Kennan
William McNeill – America, Britain, & Russia:
Their Co-operation and Conflict 1941-1946
Clement Attlee, Prime Minister
Foreign Minister
Ernest Bevins
The Revisionists
William Appleman Williams - The Tragedy of
American Diplomacy
Gabriel Kolko – The Politics of War: The World
and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-45
Gar Alperowitz
Barton J. Bernstein
The Post-Revisionists
John Lewis Gaddis
Bruce Cumings
Melvyn Leffler
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IB Topics in 20th Century History
Log Requirements & Reading assignments
The Origins of the Cold War 1941-45
Required Reading:
Martin McCauley, Origins of the Cold War 1941-49
1. Setting the Scene (1 log)
2. Moscow’s View of the World, Conflicts during the War, 1945: The Turning-Point, Decisions which
led to divisions, The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, The Soviet Response (1 log)
3. Was it all Inevitable (1 log)
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1996
1. Introduction: The Burden of History (to 1941) – 1 log
2. Open Doors, Iron Curtains (1941-1945) – 1 log
3. Only Two Declarations of Cold War (1946) – 1 log
4. Two Halves of the Same Walnut (1947-1948) – 1 log
Possible Paper #1 Questions:
1.
Prescribe Subject 3 – The Cold War 1945 - 1964
Possible Paper #2 Questions:
Topic 1: Causes, practices and effects of war
1. How justified is the claim that ‘the United States had no choice but to use atomic bombs against
Japan?’
2. Discuss the immediate effects that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
1945 had on the progress of the Second World War.
Topic 5: The Cold War
1. ‘Ideological differences played little part in the origin of the Cold War.’ How far do you agree
with this judgement?
2. Why have historians found it difficult to reach agreement in assessing responsibility for the Cold
War?
3. Account for the divergent views of the main participants [Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin] at the
conferences of Teheran and Yalta and explain how these differences caused problems in Germany
and Eastern Europe up to 1950.
4. How did the following factors contribute to the breakdown of the wartime alliance and to the
beginning of the Cold War: (a) different post-war needs; (b) ideology; (c) record of distrust?
Log Requirements:
For each log entry you must complete all of the following that are applicable
1. Complete citation (author, title, publication information, & date of publication)
2. Type of writing / Audience for the writing
3. Major Thesis
4. Supporting information
5. Specific quotes that illuminate the author’s argument
6. Strengths and limitations of the source
7. Your response to the reading (how has the reading effected your understanding of the subject)
Rubric:
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A = All logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, No missing entries.
B+ = Most logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, few logs do not deal with all
issues, No missing entries.
B = Some logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, many logs do not deal with all
issues, No missing entries.
C+ = Missing entries, All logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner.
C = Missing entries, Most logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, few logs do not deal
with all issues.
D+ = Missing entries, Some logs deal with all applicable issues in a thoughtful manner, many logs do not
deal with all issues.
D = Majority of entries are missing.
F = No Log.
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