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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.
Thus Soviet leaders are driven by necessities of their own past and
present position to put forward dogma which pictures the outside
world as evil, hostile, and menacing, but as bearing within itself
germs of creeping disease and destined to be wracked with growing
internal convulsions until it is given final coup de grace by rising
power of socialism and yield to a better world. This thesis provides
justification for that increase of military and police power in Russia
state, for that fluid and constant pressure to extend limits of Russia
police power which together the natural and instinctive urges of
Russian rulers. (George F. Kennan, The Long Telegram of 22
February 1946.)1
2.
b) The Revisionist View: The Preservation of the Capitalist
System was a bigger issue than the spread of Communism.
(The New-Left) – Our Fault (The United Sates is to Blame)
3.
Orthodoxy – The Soviet Union is
responsible: Soviet Insecurity drove them
to confront the United States. There was
nothing the US could have done. The
Ideological perspective here is that
Communism is a danger/aggressive.
Revisionism – The United States is
responsible: United States needs to have
markets and resources to feed its economy.
The Soviet Union impeded these goals and
therefore had to be confronted. Economic
Issues drive US policy. The Ideological
perspective here is that Capitalism is the
danger/aggressor.
Post-Revisionism – There is truth in both
arguments. The Soviet Union under Stalin
was paranoid and difficult to deal with.
The United States was driven in large part
by the fear of another depression. Other
issues played a serious role in the origins
of the Cold War: Domestic Policy,
Security, Allies, and perceptions. The
Ideological perspective here is that all
post-revisionist do not agree. Ideology
still drives their views regarding the
degree of responsibility each side has.
Seen in historical perspective, therefore, what we are accustomed to
call the Cold War-meaning the confrontation between the United
States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China,
between 1943 and 1971-is in reality only the most recent phase of a
more general conflict between the established system of western
capitalism and its internal and external opponents. The broader
view not only makes it possible to understand more clearly why
American foreign policy has been criticized by conservatives as
well as radicals but also provides a fuller grasp of the long struggle
by China (and other nations) against being reconstructed as a part of
the western system. It should also deepen our determination to
break free of the assumptions, beliefs, and habits that have carried us so close to the abyss of thermonuclear war. 2
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
1
Martin McCauley, The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1949. 1995. Page 131.
William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. 1988. Page 10.
3 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
2
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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 useful-and 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
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
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.
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.
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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
(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.
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.
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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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 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 put himself into the best
bargaining position for a diplomatic showdown later. 13
Franklin Roosevelt
(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 Soviet-American 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 must have been
subtle or illegitimate. Domestic political interests are not "supposed" to sway or bias foreign policy decisions yet they do.14
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.
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.
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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
Winston Churchill
(2) Danger to the World Order – Economic Collapse, The
Depression again & Separate Peace
ii) Winston Churchill
(1) World View - Balance of Power
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
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 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
15
Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
17 Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 395.
16
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Joseph Stalin
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
(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
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 Big Three at Tehran
The Big Three at Yalta
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,
18
Vladislav Zubok & Constantine Pleshakov, Page 14.
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.
19
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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
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 enactments,
including American participation in the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World
Bank. Paradoxically, then, Roosevelt’s carefully
The Big Three at Potsdam
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 associate, that Stalin at
The Origins of Conflict
the time of the conference in Dumbaton Oaks in
1. Roosevelt's approach to the Grand Alliance
September 1944 "had been definitely oriented toward a
2. The Clash of Systems / Post-War Visions
long postwar cooperation with the West, particularly the
22
3. The Death of Roosevelt April 12, 1945 &
United States."
The Change in Leadership
4.
Adherence to Agreements
3) The Origins of Conflict (A Geopolitical or Ideological
5.
The Atomic Bomb
Struggle?)
6.
Stalin’s Paranoia
a) Roosevelt's approach to the Grand Alliance - The
7. The War and its effect (especially Russia)
unwillingness to negotiate any part of a post-war
8. Britain and the fear of Isolation
settlement
9. The Ideological Confrontation
i) The War Effort
ii) Self-Determination
iii) The fear of a separate peace
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.
21 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.
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b) The Clash of Systems / Post-War Visions
i) The Soviet Vision
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
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;
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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each side felt 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 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
The Hiroshima Bomb
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
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
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.
29 Sherwin, Page 967-968.
30 Zubok & Pleshakov, Page 44-46.
31 Sherwin, Page 967.
27
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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 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.
George Frost Kennan
"We are thus up against the fact," Kennan continued, "that suspicion in
one degree or another is an integral part of [the] 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)
32
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1996. 1997. Page 17.
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.
33
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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 Germany. Until the enunciation of the Truman
Doctrine, however, the president lacked a clear rationale by which to
Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech
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 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
Truman Doctrine Speech
Communist danger.35
3) The Declaration of Cold War
a) Stalin's Party Address, February 9, 1946
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
The Division of Germany
35
Pollard, Page 279.
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of a century. Second, as Vandenberg knew, Congress was giving the President great powers to wage this Cold War
as he saw fit. 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
George C. Marshall
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.
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
The Division of Europe
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
ii) Economic vs. Military Containment
iii) Criticism of the Truman Doctrine 37 (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)
36
LaFeber, Page 57-58.
Kissinger, Diplomacy. Page 463-464.
38 Kissinger, Diplomacy. 445.
37
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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
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
39
The Berlin Airlift
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.
40 Pollard, Page 280.
41 Pollard, Page 281
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IB Topics in 20th Century History
Cold War 1945-1960
Chronology
February 1945
The Yalta Conference
1 November 1952 US Thermonuclear Bomb
July- August 1945 The Potsdam Conference
1953-1960
China’s “Great Leap Forward”
6 August 1945
The Atomic Bombing of
Hiroshima
January 1953
Eisenhower becomes President
5 March 1953
Stalin Dies
9 February 1946
Stalin’s Election Speech
16-17 July 1953
The East German Uprising
22 February 1946
Kennan’s “Long Telegram”
26 June 1953
The Arrest of Beria
5 March 1946
Churchill’s “Iron Curtain”
Speech
8 August 1953
Soviet Thermonuclear Bomb
12 March 1947
Truman Doctrine
Spring 1954
The Fall of Dien Bien Phu
5 June 1947
The Marshall Plan
21 July 1954
The Geneva Conference (The
Partition of Vietnam)
July 1947
Kennan “The Sources of Soviet
Conduct”
8 September 1954 Founding of SEATO
February 1948
Communist Coup in
Czechoslovakia
May 1955
FRG joins NATO
May 1948
The Founding of Israel
14 May 1955
Warsaw Pact
June 1948
London Conference on Germany
July 1955
The Geneva Summit
(Eisenhower & Khrushchev)
24 June 1948May 1949
Berlin Blockade/Airlift
14 February 1956
Khrushchev’s Peaceful
Coexistence Speech
4 April 1949
(NATO)
The Treaty of Washington
25 February 1956
Khrushchev's Speech to 20th
Party Congress (Crimes of
Stalin)
May 1949
(FRG)
Federal Republic of Germany
19 July 1956
Withdraw of Support for the
Aswan High Dam
29 August 1949
Soviet Atomic Bomb
26 July 1956
1 October 1949
Mao Zedong proclaims the
Peoples Republic of China (PRC)
Egyptian Nationalization of the
Suez Canal
Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty
October 1956November 1956
The Hungarian Uprising
14 February 1950
7 April 1950
NSC-68
November 1956
Eisenhower Re-Elected President
25 July 195027 July 1953
Korean War
5 January 1957
Eisenhower Doctrine
4 October 1957
Sputnick is launched
22 July 1952
Nasser seizes the Egyptian
Government
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
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pres.
Sec. of State
Cordell Hull
Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.
Sec. of War
Henry L. Stimson
1933–April 45
The Russians
Joseph Stalin
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
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
1924-1953
Nikitia Khrushchev
Others
W. Averell Harriman –
Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Roosevelt Administration
1953-64
Andrei Gromyko,
1943-45
Soviet ambassador to the US
George Kennan –
US Embassy’s charge d’affaires,
Roosevelt Administration
Commissar For Foreign Affairs
Harry Hopkins – Close Roosevelt Advisor
Ivan Maisky
1939-43
Soviet ambassador to England / Assistant People's
Maxim M. Litvinov
Deputy Foreign Minster and Chairman of the
Commission on Post-war order
General Leslie Groves –
Director of the Manhattan Project
Walter Lippman - Journalist "Anti-Truman Doctrine"
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The British
The Historians
Winston Churchill, Prime Minister 1939-1945
Foreign Minister
Anthony Eden
The Orthodox
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:
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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