Christopher J. Buckley

This essay attempts to demonstrate that the Cold War was both partly an inevitable outcome of the ideological differences that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union, and partly as a direct result of American paranoia surrounding the secretive Soviet state, combined with the mutual fear and misconceptions that were harboured between the two nations. It will be argued that in the immediate aftermath of World War II the Cold War was not immediately inevitable. It will be demonstrated that evidence points to a strong desire on both the Soviet and American sides towards a mutually benefactory end-of-war agreement. However, Soviet belief that there could be no long-term harmony between communist and capitalist systems, combined with American fear that the Soviet’s wished only to use its friendly governments in Eastern Europe to spread Communism served only to create an eventual inevitability of ideological war.

The October Revolution which took place in Russia in 1917 was a turning point in twentieth-century history. It gave birth to a new type of state, a socialist state, whose attitude to the outside world was a combination of hope and fear – hope that the revolution would spread and fear that it could be overwhelmed by its stronger capitalist neighbours. This Soviet socialist state only appeared on the world stage when, during the Second World War, its role in the defeat of national socialist Germany was of implicit importance. During this period it came into its first close contact with its chief ideological opponent, the United States. The misconceptions the West held about the USSR can be viewed as a result of American politicians’ little or no grasp of Marxism-Leninism. Indeed, the experts were confined to the professional diplomats and some academics. After the war many Americans viewed the Soviet Union as just another power to with which an agreement mutually beneficiary to both sides could be reached. The collapse of Germany and Japan created a vacuum in Europe and the Far East, and so the vital question was: who would fill it? If the USSR did so, would this represent a real and present threat to American interests? During the war, President F.D. Roosevelt did not think so. However, others were of a starkly different opinion. The hopes had been high that the USA and the USSR could reach a mutually rewarding modus vivendi. Unfortunately, these hopes were never realised. What resulted was an acrimonious relationship known as the Cold War.

To many in Washington, the Soviet Union represented a ‘massive assault on the institutions and values of the free world, and in the absence of any relief from multiple pressures exerted by the USSR on world politics, they could assume only that the Kremlin harboured some sinister blueprint that aimed at world domination.’ This orthodox, or traditional interpretation, was formulated by George F. Kennan in his famous long telegram of 22 February 1946, and in his anonymous ‘Mr. X’ article entitled ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’ in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs. In his long telegram, Kennan wrote that ‘Soviet leaders were motivated by traditional Russian insecurities and Marxist-Leninist dogma.’ He addressed the Soviet Government’s perceived ability to employ the spectre of capitalist encirclement and foreign hostility to justify their totalitarian rule at home. Kennan believed that the Soviet leaders wanted to ‘expand everywhere and take advantage of every opportunity.’ Portraying Soviet fears as irrational and misrepresenting Stalin’s own rhetoric, Kennan believed that the United States could do nothing do mollify Stalin, instead urging his superiors in Washington to ‘overcome their ambivalence, identify the Kremlin as the enemy, and approach all issues from the perspective of competition with the Soviet Union’.

It is correct to say that by the end of 1948 the overwhelming majority of American and western European politicians had adopted Kennan’s critique. The orthodox school of thought believes that the wellsprings of the Cold War are to be found in Marxist-Leninism with its doctrine of class struggle leading to world revolution. McCauley (1983) cites examples of this as ‘the bitter struggle for survival within the Soviet leadership of 1918 and 1920 and in the Soviet leadership’s need to mobilise the population against a perceived external threat, thereby increasing its internal control.’ Orthodox historians view the policies of the Soviet Government towards capitalist states as ‘fundamentally hostile, merely tempered by co-operation when it was in their interests.’ They take it for granted that the Soviets always seek ways of undermining the authority of non-communist powers so as to expand the communist world. They believe that Leninism and totalitarianism had created a structure of thought and behaviour which made post-war collaboration inherently impossible. The Soviet dictatorship of 1945 simply could not have survived such a collaboration. The stark difference between American and Russia in 1945 was that some Americans fundamentally believed that, in the long run, a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union was possible, while the Soviets believed in no more than a short modus vivendi with the United States.

However, whilst I subscribe to elements of the orthodox theory, I harbour reservations – reservations with are evidenced around revisionist theory concerning the origins of the Cold War. Reservations, which are based around the concern as to whether Russia actually wanted another conflict so soon after a war which had seen Russia nearly brought to its knees by the invading German army and required years of rebuilding – both economically and structurally. Or whether had Roosevelt and Churchill continued to lead their respective countries, could peace have been secured, maybe not in the long term, but in the short term? At the end of World War II Stalin realised that the achievement of his goals – territorial gains, national reconstruction, and control over the revival of German and Japanese power – depended on co-operation with the Allies, especially with the United States.

Leffer (1994) believes that Stalin’s desire for co-operation with the West had to be balanced against his other goals. He would not compromise his basic territorial demands, that is, the restoration of the 1941 borders. Nor would he forsake a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. As Soviet troops marched through Eastern Europe in 1944-45, pushing back Nazi armies into Germany, Stalin insisted on created ‘friendly’ governments. When the Americans and British remonstrated against Soviet intervention in Romania and bitterly protested the Kremlin’s creation of a Communist government in Poland, Stalin argued that he simply had no choice. Germany armies had marched through Poland into Russia twice in his own lifetime. Before the war, Poland, Romania, and Finland had refused to accede to the Kremlin’s security requirements. During the war, Hungary and Romania fought alongside Nazi Germany and Bulgaria had actively co-operated with Hitler’s generals. Soviet security requirements required a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. It would serve as a buffer zone against future invasions, a means to facilitate and control the evolution of German power and act as a source of raw materials and reparations for reconstruction.

Leffer (1994) believes that as a result of evidence emanating from, the then recently opened, archives in Moscow and from the archives of Eastern Europe, ‘Stalin’s approach to international affairs at the end of the war was relatively cautious’ . He desired a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and control of German and Japanese power, but at the same time he wished to sustain the wartime alliance upon which Soviet security and reconstruction depended. To the combined dismay of Communists in France, Italy, Spain and Greece, Stalin actively discouraged revolutionary action in 1944 and 1945. In contrast, President Truman believed that the threat from communism was very real. Early in 1947, President Truman proposed aiding Greece and Turkey so that they could combat Communists. He said, ‘I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people’s who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures’. This came to be termed the ‘Truman Doctrine’.

Stalin was acutely aware that communist seizures of power would provoke the British and the Americans. To the extent that he communicated with Communists abroad, insisting that they ‘behave prudently, co-operate with democratic groups, and form coalition or ‘new type’ governments.’ The safeguarding of his periphery was critical to Stalin. Peace was desirable in the short run, because his Country had been devastated; however, it was Stalin’s belief that war was likely in the long run, so the Soviet Union needed to be prepared to every eventuality. Tellingly, Marxism-Leninism states that conflict between the ‘socialist and capitalist worlds is inevitable and that eventual victory will go to socialism. Hence capitalism is a transient phenomenon; it is moribund, but there is no objective way of predicting the date of its eventual demise’. The element in ideology which is the most useful to policy makers is the dialect. This states that ‘change is a permanent feature in the social, as in natural sciences, being the inevitable product of conflict, and that neither change nor conflict can be held up for an indefinite period or on a world scale’. ‘Compromise, an attempt to find a solution which satisfies both sides is hence a meaningless concept since those powers which cease to advance inevitably decline’. Hence, the inference drawn by Soviet policy-makers was to always seize and maintain the initiative and ensure, whenever possible, that the adversary is so enmeshed in reacting to Soviet moves that he has little energy to launch counter-initiatives.

The action taken by Stalin to not actively encourage communist movements abroad and for them to engage in coalition was squarely aimed at allying American fears of revolutionary uprising in Europe. This fear had been cemented by Kennan’s ‘long telegram’ which had placed overwhelming emphasis on the role of ideology in Soviet Foreign policy formation. Kennan also overestimated Moscow’s ability to dominate and manipulate foreign communist parties, as well as the influence of these parties in countries lacking a Red Army presence. McCauley believes that it was this ‘weight he afforded ideology in his analysis of Soviet intentions’ that ‘led him to accord an inflexibility and single-mindedness to Moscow’s purposes which did not, in fact, exist.’

Marxist belief that ‘history moves from one phase to the next punctuated by violent revolution’ only served to heighten American fear over the activities of Communists in Europe. In February 1948, a Communist coup in Prague, Czechoslovakia, overthrew the last government in which Communists and non-Communists worked together. After this coup, a Gallup poll reported that 77 percent of Americans were convinced that the Soviet Union was seeking to be the ‘ruling power of the world’. However, as discussed previously, Stalin had not actively sought the ascension of these communist governments. There is a significant case to be made that Stalin had only installed ‘friendly’ governments to act as periphery barriers, not to deliberately provoke American aggression.

Inside the Soviet Union there was a renewed emphasis on ideological purification. The meaning for this was slightly ambiguous. In his famous election speech of February 1946, Stalin stated that the war had arisen as ‘the inevitable result of the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of monopoly capitalism’. To many this sounded like the resurrection of ideological cant, being widely interpreted in the West as a challenge. Stalin sought to quickly correct this impression. In carefully orchestrated meetings with Western reporters, he reaffirmed his desire for peaceful co-existence. Stalin emphasised that he was not hinting at a war between Communists and Capitalists themselves, especially the British and Americans. Although it is true that Stalin hoped to take advantage of these rivalries, he also wanted to co-operate with his wartime allies. However, how he was to accomplish both at the same time he did not know.

Stalin may well have believed that in the long term conflict with the West was inevitable. He still retained vivid memories of Western intervention in behalf of the Whites during the Civil War; he believed the capitalist democracies had encouraged the Nazi’s to attack Bolshevik Russia in the mid- and late 1930s; he was embittered by the delay in the second front; he was infuriated by Western denunciations of his efforts to establish ‘friendly’ governments on his periphery; he was equally exasperated by their attempts to limit the post-war flow of reparations from Germany to Russia; and he was equally agitated by thought that the Americans would use their atomic monopoly to extract concessions to endanger Soviet security.

Poignantly, Stalin, aided by his belief in Marxism-Leninism, had foreseen the inevitability of conflict. It is now argued that Roosevelt had not. With the death of Roosevelt – the one person Stalin might have been able to work towards peace with – America, under the leadership of Truman, bared round on a course destined for inevitable conflict.

As a veteran of the Wilson administration, Roosevelt knew that the United States could never again afford to repeat the errors made in the aftermath of the previous administration. In July 1941 Roosevelt had sent his associate Harry Hopkins to see Josef Stalin. On the agenda was American aid for the Soviet war effort. Both powers thus decided to tip the balance against Germany, which was seen as the greater evil. This was to have momentous consequences. Once the Third Reich had been swept away a power vacuum would be created in eastern and south-eastern Europe, and much depended on who filled it. However, little thought was devoted to this problem in London and Washington in 1941. The primary goal of the British and Americans was to win the war, all other questions were of secondary importance. Roosevelt possessed an infinitely complex mind. He was clearly aware that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship and that the differences between Soviet and American culture, ideology and economic systems were immense. Roosevelt made a distinction between the dictatorship of the Soviet Union and National Socialism (Nazism). He believed that the latter was more concerned with expansionism that the former, implying that if the Soviet Union’s legitimate security needs were met it might be possible to steer Moscow away from supporting Communist movements abroad. Indeed, it was Roosevelt’s hope that so long as there was no sense of threat emanating from Soviet strategic capabilities, America could overcome its ideological divide and work towards striking up a working relationship with the Kremlin.

Roosevelt believed that the end of the war would, most likely, find the Soviet Union economically weak and confronted with the enormous task of rebuilding their shattered country. McCauley (1983) believes that ‘in this situation, if it were possible to overcome Soviet suspiciousness about Western capitalist intentions, Soviet energies could be deflected from expanding communist influence through the Communist International (Comintern) to concentrating on the reconstruction of the homeland’. During the war, Roosevelt was renowned for his desire to get along with ‘Uncle Joe’. Some contemporaries and some scholars have derided Roosevelt for his alleged naivety, but actually he was shrewd and pragmatic. Roosevelt clearly realised that at the end of the war the Soviet Union would have a commanding presence on the European and Asian continents. If victory over the Axis was to usher in a period of peace and stability, Roosevelt believed, Soviet-American amity would need to be a vital component of that post-war order. He, thus, saw no point in the United States and Great Britain fighting the Soviets. Roosevelt clearly felt that the Soviet Union and the United States had been forced into a shotgun marriage during the war but as he had informed Cardinal Spellman in 1943, he had genuinely hoped that there would come a ‘real and lasting partnership’. Europeans would simply have to endure ‘Russian domination, in the hope that in ten or twenty years’ they would be capable of living ‘well with the Russians’. Hence, he did not see the Soviet Union as a threat to US security or even practising a policy which was antagonistic to US interests. The world was large enough to accommodate both, and Roosevelt set out personally to reach an agreement with Stalin.

Had Roosevelt lived, he surely would have continued to try and maintain his balancing act. Roosevelt passed away in April 1945, just as the European war was ending. Vice-President Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency. He was untutored in foreign policy and military affairs and wad notably dependant on the top echelon of officials in the departments of State, War and Navy. Notably, Leffer (1994) states that ‘Truman was not eager for a confrontation with the Russians. Like Stalin, Churchill and Bevin, he wanted co-operation’. Peace, Truman wrote in his diary, ‘depended on the whole hearted support of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States’. Truman and his advisors wanted to get along with the Soviet Union, however it was to be on their terms, not Stalin’s.

On the face of it there were many reasons why the United States and the Soviet Union should have been eager to co-operate after the war. The Soviet Union needed American capital and goods, and this in turn would ease the problem of over-production which would face the American economy at the end of hostilities. Neither power wanted to become embroiled in future wars, so there was considerable American understanding, especially from Roosevelt, for the Soviet determination not to tolerate anti-Soviet regimes in eastern and south-eastern Europe.

McCauley (1983) believes there to be specific fundamental reasons for the emergence of the Cold War. In 1945 it was American policy which changed, not Soviet. The United States tried to resolve the conflicts which arose in its own interests, on the whole. This caused the Soviet Union to concentrate on consolidating its position in eastern and south-eastern Europe, but Moscow sought until the autumn of 1947 to reach agreement with the United States. The Soviets feared the march of capitalism which in turn would almost certainly have been accompanied by American imperialism. Hence, they bolted the door because they could not compete on equal terms.

Notably, the ideological differences between the American and Soviets had to surface sooner or later. Anti-Communism resonated deeply in the American psyche. Since World War I Bolshevik ideology had been repugnant to the American people. Now that that ideology was linked to the second most powerful nation on the globe, the threat seemed harrowing indeed. However, this did not directly preordain that this should lead to a division of the world into blocs and that each side should feel threatened by the other. What was inevitable, however, was the economic expansion of the United States. What was inevitable was that the export of American capital and goods would be accompanied by American imperialism. Once American troops had pulled out of western and southern Europe, and assuming that Washington did not fear that the area would fall under communist control, there would be no reason for the United States to dominate this region. Indeed, the prospects for a socialist Europe – more social democratic than communist – were in fact quite high in 1945 and 1946.

Unhelpfully, Ambassador Molotov’s personality contributed to the continued mistrust between the former allies. His minatory stutter and stonewalling tactics infuriated many. He was most successful in holding onto Soviet gains but utterly failed to charm the Americans into trusting the Soviet Union.

In conclusion, the Cold War was not inevitable; yet it became an reality due to the innate needs of the Soviet Union and the United States. The USSR placed security ahead of all other considerations and this was not sufficiently appreciated in the United States. America genuinely wanted Soviet co-operation after the war, but only on its own terms. Mutual interests were sufficiently strong for a possible relationship to develop. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Stalin had it within his power in 1945 to make the decisive move which would have cut the ground from under the feet of the ‘Riga’ men in the USA and introduced a new era in Soviet-American relations. However, this move would have been seen as temporary by Moscow. Dialectic taught the Soviet that there could be no long-term harmony between communist and capitalist systems – however, it surely would have avoided the excesses of the Cold War.

Ultimately, the Soviet Union paid dearly for Stalin’s personal failure to grasp the opportunity that was offered: a huge Soviet defence burden; the imposition and maintenance in eastern and south-eastern Europe of Soviet backed regimes which alienated the populations there; the division of the world into armed camps and continued international hostility.