Origins of the Cold War

ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

In the middle of 20th century, mankind suffered one of the biggest tragedies in its history. The Second World War brought devastation all over the world with almost every country in the world participating in it. Toward its end everybody hoped that this would never happen again and that the political firmament in the following years would be more stable than any time in history. The leaders of the Great Powers met at Yalta, in February, 1945 to achieve peace. But the agreements from this meeting not only failed to provide the expected outcome but also started a controversy between the two greatest powers in the postwar world – USA and the Soviet Union. Both the victorious countries subscribed to different ideologies and had different conceptions on how to impose them. The Cold War was a consequence of a clash between these different ideologies. This paper tries to compare and contrast two articles on the Cold War that give two different perspectives on the events that happened. One is Arthur Schlesinger’s “The Origins of the Cold War”, and the other is Christopher Lasch’s article “The Cold War, Revisited and Revisioned”. These articles represent the same historical events interpreting them through two opposite perspectives – the orthodox American view that states that the Cold War was the “brave and essential response of free men to communist aggression” (Schlesinger, p.477) in Eastern Europe and the revisionist perspective that states that the USA abandoned the policy of collaboration and undertook a course of aggression to expel Russian influence from Eastern Europe. This paper will provide evidence that the Cold War did not result from a Soviet attempt of expansion in Europe. It was just the only possible result from the clash of interests between the two greatest powers after World War II – USA and the Soviet Union – the first one aggressively trying to promote capitalism throughout Europe, and the second one aiming at security after the most disastrous war in world’s history. To begin with I should say that the two articles share the idea that the Cold War was the expected result of the big difference in the structures and ideologies of the two big powers after World War II. They both agree that the Cold War was the inevitable outcome of the clash between American capitalism and Russian communism. In his article, Schlesinger builds his thesis around the belief that the Soviet Union, guided by the principles of Marxist-Leninism, viewed capitalism as inherently antagonistic to Soviet interests. Thus the US progressive efforts to promote capitalism in Eastern European countries made the conflict between the two great powers unavoidable. Schlesinger sees American actions during this period as an attempt to counteract the Russian expansion throughout Europe. On the contrary, Lasch’s article provides different reasons for the conflict. He argues that the Cold War’s main cause was not the attempt of the USA to prevent Soviet expansion in Western Europe, but the US effort to show technological and economical superiority and “force the Soviet Union out of Eastern Europe” (Lasch, p.493). The clash between the two great powers came from the controversial foreign policies these nations adopted. The US followed the universalist view that all nations share a common interest in all affairs of the world, while the Soviet Union supported the idea of “spheres-of-influence”, which stated that each great power should be given predominance within its own area of interest. (Schlesinger, p.479) As Schlesinger argues, “each side felt compelled to adopt policies which the other could not but regard as a threat to the principles of the peace… Each side believed that future international stability depended on the success of its own conception of world order” (Schlesinger, p.481). These facts make it seem that the Cold War was simply unavoidable. At the Yalta meeting at the end of the war, the leaders of the great powers all agreed that the Soviet Union will have a controlling influence in Eastern Europe after the war as long as Western Europe remains under their US and British influence. (Walker, p.11) Coming out of a terrible war that was won at the cost of 27 million Russian lives, Stalin’s primary goal was to obtain control over the territories in the periphery of the Soviet Union through friendly governments in the neighboring countries. These satellite states would serve as a “buffer zone” in the case of a new attack. The Soviet Union aimed for security and not for Marxist predominance in the world. This contradicts Schlesinger’s argument that Soviet diplomacy during the cold war was driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology or “the sinister dynamics of totalitarian society”. Another fact that supports the revisionist idea that the Soviet Union sought security rather than expansion is that Russia had always wanted the Eastern European territories since they were vital for her survival. Russian tzars desired these territories a long time before communism emerged. (Schlesinger, p.477) Stalin was more concerned with how to recover Soviet’s economy and military power after the war than to seek communist expansion right after it. As Lasch points out, “Russia’s weakness dictated, for the moment at least, a policy of postwar cooperation with the West” (Lasch, p.488). Other facts that support the idea that the Soviet Union was not willing to cause conflicts with the USA are the Iranian crisis and the political situations in France and Italy. Right after the war Stalin had some interest in Iran but he withdrew quickly from these territories as he saw the potential of a conflict with the other great powers. Lasch also mentions that Stalin knew that the communist parties in France and Italy had chances to win elections but did not take any actions since these countries were in the sphere of Western influence. This would probably not have happened if the Soviet Union had aspirations to influence the whole of Europe. That again supports Lasch’s arguments that the Soviet Union did not seek expansion in Europe at that time. On the contrary, the USA changed their foreign policy as soon as they possessed the atomic weapon. Breaking down Yalta’s agreements, the USA claimed interest in Eastern European countries that were initially put in the sphere of Soviet influence. This put pressure on the Soviet Union and exacerbated the conflict between the two nations.
Lasch suggests that the USA was inherently predisposed to expel the USSR from Europe. US interest in Eastern European countries was to set up capitalist economies. Lasch describes their policy of the “open door” as “a commercial, political, and cultural expansion, which seeks to extend American influence into every corner of the earth” (Lasch, 488). Americans believed that American capitalism required ever-expanding foreign markets in order to survive, which would eventually lead to American imperialism. This was one of the reasons the US felt threatened by an eventual Russian expansion in Europe. The USA saw Russian’s influence in Eastern Europe as the first step towards a larger communist expansion in Western Europe that may put US economic stability in danger. However, Stalin’s actions did not indicate an aspiration to expansion. Soviet Union leaders viewed the position of their country as “one of weakness, not offensive strength”. (Lasch, p.489) So it seems more likely that the reason for the Cold War was not a potential communist expansion but the irrationality of the USA. By implementing the Marshall Plan, the US recovered Western Europe in order to help democracy grow there. Thus they created a large economic market for western businesses. But as Lasch correctly points out in his article, the possession of atomic weapon “added to the American sense of omnipotence” (Lasch, p.490). Truman wanted a unified Europe, “since the agricultural southeast and the industrial northwest depended on each other” (Lasch, p.492). All this proves that Schlesinger’s argument that the US main goal was to prevent Russian aggression in Western Europe is not valid. The US was in fact seeking foreign markets in order to maintain its economic superiority. Another interesting argument that both articles interpret in different ways is the fact that there was unquestionably a failure of communication between America and the Soviet Union. As Schlesinger includes in his article “the Russians might have conceivably misread our signals” (Lasch, p.493). But his arguments seem tenuous because he blames the Russians for the conflict entirely – “Leninism and totalitarianism created a structure of thought and behavior which made postwar collaboration between Russia and America impossible” (Schlesinger, p.482). He further continues that “the Cold War could have been avoided only if the Soviet Union had not been possessed by convictions both of the infallibility of the communist world” (Schlesinger, p.482). Lasch refutes Schlesinger’s arguments arguing that there is very little evidence that connects Marxist-Leninist ideologies with the actual course of Soviet diplomacy during the Cold War. Furthermore, Lasch argues that the Russians “could well have interpreted the American refusal of a loan to the Soviet Union, combined with cancellation of lend-lease, as deliberate sabotage”. (Lasch, p.493) Actually Soviet Union’s main goal was security along its western borders, while the USA were trying to expand the sphere of capitalist influence through its technological superiority. Schlesinger summarizes the situation best as “the west was resuming its old course of capitalist encirclement; that it was purposefully laying the foundation for anti-Soviet regimes in the area defined by the blood of centuries as crucial to Russian survival.” (Schlesinger, p.481). While the Soviet Union was seeking collaboration with the West, the US was trying to expel Russian influence from Eastern Europe, which again proves that it was not communist expansion that caused the Cold War. What caused further escalation of the conflict was the signing of the McMahon Act by president Truman. This prohibited the sharing of US nuclear technology with any other country and secure US power in diplomatic negotiations. The response was immediate – Stalin personally ordered acceleration of the work on Soviet atomic weapon project. The result of all this was further exacerbation in the relations between the two nations. As Lasch concludes “the American strategy had achieved no noteworthy success”. (Lasch, p.493) Schlesinger reaches almost the same conclusion stating that US policy “left Moscow no alternative but to take measures in defense of its own borders”. (Schlesinger, p.477) Both articles agree that the only possible outcome in this case was the Cold War. However, despite reaching the same conclusion, the two articles are quite different. Schlesinger’s arguments seem tenuous in the end blaming communist ideology for the Cold War. On the contrary, Lasch’s revisionist arguments seem strong and persuasive. Critical toward specific Russian issues, the article reveals points in American foreign policy that were responsible for the embitterment of the relations between the two nations leading straight toward the Cold War. It directly accuses “Western leaders’ implacable hostility to communism” that “prevented them from seeing facts, a proper understanding of which might have prevented the Cold War”. (Lasch, p.488)

WORKS CITED:

Schlesinger, Arthur. “The Origins of the Cold War”

Lasch, Christopher. “The Cold War, Revisited and Re-Visioned”

Walker, Martin. “The Cold War: A History”. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1995

Cited: Schlesinger, Arthur. “The Origins of the Cold War” Lasch, Christopher. “The Cold War, Revisited and Re-Visioned” Walker, Martin. “The Cold War: A History”. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1995