The Origins of the Cold War

Cold War aims

The Cold War was the most important political and diplomatic issue of the early postwar period. It grew
out of longstanding disagreements between the Soviet Union and the United States that developed after
the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Soviet Communist Party under V.I. Lenin considered itself the
spearhead of an international movement that would replace the existing political orders in the West, and
indeed throughout the world. In 1918 American troops participated in the Allied intervention in Russia
on behalf of anti-Bolshevik forces. American diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union did not come
until 1933. Even then, suspicions persisted. During World War II, however, the two countries found
themselves allied and downplayed their differences to counter the Nazi threat.

At the war’s end, antagonisms surfaced again. The United States hoped to share with other countries its
conception of liberty, equality, and democracy. It sought also to learn from the perceived mistakes of the
post-WWI era, when American political disengagement and economic protectionism were thought to
have contributed to the rise of dictatorships in Europe and elsewhere. Faced again with a postwar world
of civil wars and disintegrating empires, the nation hoped to provide the stability to make peaceful
reconstruction possible. Recalling the specter of the Great Depression (1929-1940), America now
advocated open trade for two reasons: to create markets for American agricultural and industrial
products, and to ensure the ability of Western European nations to export as a means of rebuilding their
economies. Reduced trade barriers, American policy makers believed, would promote economic growth
at home and abroad, bolstering U.S. friends and allies in the process.

The Soviet Union had its own agenda. The Russian historical tradition of centralized, autocratic
government contrasted with the American emphasis on democracy. Marxist-Leninist ideology had been
downplayed during the war but still guided Soviet policy. Devastated by the struggle in which 20 million
Soviet citizens had died, the Soviet Union was intent on rebuilding and on protecting itself from another
such terrible conflict. The Soviets were particularly concerned about another invasion of their territory
from the west. Having repelled Hitler’s thrust, they were determined to preclude another such attack.
They demanded “defensible” borders and “friendly” regimes in Eastern Europe and seemingly equated
both with the spread of Communism, regardless of the wishes of native populations. However, the
United States had declared that one of its war aims was the restoration of independence and self-
government to Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Harry Truman’s leadership

The nation’s new chief executive, Harry S Truman, succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as president before
the end of the war. An unpretentious man who had previously served as Democratic senator from
Missouri, then as vice president, Truman initially felt ill-prepared to govern. Roosevelt had not discussed
complex postwar issues with him, and he had little experience in international affairs. “I’m not big
enough for this job,” he told a former colleague.

Still, Truman responded quickly to new challenges. Sometimes impulsive on small matters, he proved
willing to make hard and carefully considered decisions on large ones. A small sign on his White House
desk declared, “The Buck Stops Here.” His judgments about how to respond to the Soviet Union
ultimately determined the shape of the early Cold War.

Origins of the Cold War

The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the postwar world created suspicion and
distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first – and most difficult – test case was
Poland, the eastern half of which had been invaded and occupied by the USSR in 1939. Moscow
demanded a government subject to Soviet influence; Washington wanted a more independent,
representative government following the Western model. The Yalta Conference of February 1945 had
produced an agreement on Eastern Europe open to different interpretations. It included a promise of
“free and unfettered” elections.

Meeting with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov less than two weeks after becoming
president, Truman stood firm on Polish self-determination, lecturing the Soviet diplomat about the need
to implement the Yalta accords. When Molotov protested, “I have never been talked to like that in my
life,” Truman retorted, “Carry out your agreements and you won’t get talked to like that.” Relations
deteriorated from that point onward.

During the closing months of World War II, Soviet military forces occupied all of Central and Eastern
Europe. Moscow used its military power to support the efforts of the Communist parties in Eastern
Europe and crush the democratic parties. Communists took over one nation after another. The process
concluded with a shocking coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948.

Public statements defined the beginning of the Cold War. In 1946 Stalin declared that international peace
was impossible “under the present capitalist development of the world economy.” Former British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill delivered a dramatic speech in Fulton, Missouri, with Truman sitting on the
platform. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic," Churchill said, "an iron curtain has
descended across the Continent.” Britain and the United States, he declared, had to work together to
counter the Soviet threat.

Containment
Containment of the Soviet Union became American policy in the postwar years. George Kennan, a top
official at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, defined the new approach in the Long Telegram he sent to the
State Department in 1946. He extended his analysis in an article under the signature “X” in the
prestigious journal Foreign Affairs. Pointing to Russia’s traditional sense of insecurity, Kennan argued that
the Soviet Union would not soften its stance under any circumstances. Moscow, he wrote, was
“committed fanatically to the belief that with the United States there can be no permanent modus
vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted.”
Moscow’s pressure to expand its power had to be stopped through “firm and vigilant containment of
Russian expansive tendencies. …”

The first significant application of the containment doctrine came in the Middle East and eastern
Mediterranean. In early 1946, the United States demanded, and obtained, a full Soviet withdrawal from
Iran, the northern half of which it had occupied during the war. That summer, the United States
pointedly supported Turkey against Soviet demands for control of the Turkish straits between the Black
Sea and the Mediterranean. In early 1947, American policy crystallized when Britain told the United
States that it could no longer afford to support the government of Greece against a strong Communist
insurgency.

In a strongly worded speech to Congress, Truman declared, “I believe that it must be the policy of the
United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures.” Journalists quickly dubbed this statement the “Truman Doctrine.” The president
asked Congress to provide $400 million for economic and military aid, mostly to Greece but also to
Turkey. After an emotional debate that resembled the one between interventionists and isolationists
before World War II, the money was appropriated. Critics from the left later charged that to whip up
American support for the policy of containment, Truman overstated the Soviet threat to the United
States. In turn, his statements inspired a wave of hysterical anti-Communism throughout the country.
Perhaps so. Others, however, would counter that this argument ignores the backlash that likely would
have occurred if Greece, Turkey, and other countries had fallen within the Soviet orbit with no
opposition from the United States.

Containment also called for extensive economic aid to assist the recovery of war-torn Western Europe.
With many of the region’s nations economically and politically unstable, the United States feared that
local Communist parties, directed by Moscow, would capitalize on their wartime record of resistance to
the Nazis and come to power. “The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate,” declared Secretary of
State George C. Marshall. In mid-1947 Marshall asked troubled European nations to draw up a program
“directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.”

The Soviets participated in the first planning meeting, then departed rather than share economic data
and submit to Western controls on the expenditure of the aid. The remaining 16 nations hammered out
a request that finally came to $17,000 million for a four?year period. In early 1948 Congress voted to
fund the “Marshall Plan,” which helped underwrite the economic resurgence of Western Europe. It is
generally regarded as one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives in U.S. history.

Postwar Germany was a special problem. It had been divided into U.S., Soviet, British, and French zones
of occupation, with the former German capital of Berlin (itself divided into four zones), near the center
of the Soviet zone. When the Western powers announced their intention to create a consolidated federal
state from their zones, Stalin responded. On June 24, 1948, Soviet forces blockaded Berlin, cutting off all
road and rail access from the West.

American leaders feared that losing Berlin would be a prelude to losing Germany and subsequently all of
Europe. Therefore, in a successful demonstration of Western resolve known as the Berlin Airlift, Allied air
forces took to the sky, flying supplies into Berlin. U.S., French, and British planes delivered nearly
2,250,000 tons of goods, including food and coal. Stalin lifted the blockade after 231 days and 277,264
flights.

By then, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and especially the Czech coup, had alarmed the Western
Europeans. The result, initiated by the Europeans, was a military alliance to complement economic
efforts at containment. The Norwegian historian Geir Lundestad has called it “empire by invitation.” In
1949 the United States and 11 other countries established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
An attack against one was to be considered an attack against all, to be met by appropriate force. NATO
was the first peacetime “entangling alliance” with powers outside the Western hemisphere in American
history.

The next year, the United States defined its defense aims clearly. The National Security Council (NSC) –
the forum where the President, Cabinet officers, and other executive branch members consider national
security and foreign affairs issues – undertook a full-fledged review of American foreign and defense
policy. The resulting document, known as NSC-68, signaled a new direction in American security policy.
Based on the assumption that “the Soviet Union was engaged in a fanatical effort to seize control of all
governments wherever possible,” the document committed America to assist allied nations anywhere in
the world that seemed threatened by Soviet aggression. After the start of the Korean War, a reluctant
Truman approved the document. The United States proceeded to increase defense spending
dramatically.