Who Was More Responsible for the Cold War? Essay

Engerman claims that… which, to some extent, is similar to J.L Gaddis’ core argument - it was the differing ideas of security and with that the building of two very different empires that caused the Cold War- , as both are post-revisionist. However J. L Gaddis reveals a strong anti-communist rhetoric throughout due to his political affiliations…

Issues of national security rose for both the USSR and the USA during the Second World War that led to a crucial pursuit for security: the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941 resulting in 23 million Soviet casualties and the 1941 invasion of Pearl Harbour, which Gaddis cites as “the defining even for the American Empire.” He argues that the West “sought to form a security that would reject violence or the threat of it,” and so sought to spread their influence across Europe to stabilise the war-torn countries and build enough strength for them to resist the forceful USSR; their idea of security was that is was a “collective good.” The Marshall Plan injected $13 billion into the European economy, which can be seen as an example of this. Stalin’s security, on the other hand, was “a zero-sum game, in which achieving security for one meant depriving everyone else of it.” He equated security with territory; acquiring satellite states with the identical regime and social system to Russia created a Communist buffer against any future attacks. Forcible Soviet takeovers of Eastern European countries such as Poland in 1945, Romania and Bulgaria in 1946, and Czechoslovakia in 1947 provided Stalin with this required buffer, whilst, according to Gaddis, robbing their citizens of safety. The stark contrast between the desires of the USA compared to the USSR “made conflict unavoidable.” Gaddis goes further and argues that the “American sphere of influence would arise there largely by consent, but that its Soviet counterpart could sustain itself only by coercion,” showing that, although the foundation of his argument comes from a post-revisionist viewpoint – highlighting the differences between the two countries’ beliefs –, ultimately he seems to take an orthodox approach, portraying Stalin’s views on security in a negative and unforgivable light without considering any potential flaws within U.S policy. His anti-communist undertone is not surprising as his political affiliations – as the official biographer of George F. Kennan and a close friend of George W. Bush – lean him firmly to the right.

COMPARE TO ENGERMAN “the defeat of Nazism contributed to the decline of racial nationalism and imperialist expansion” “the Soviets were more often ‘invited’ and the Americans more ‘imposing’ in the third world”

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Accentuating his more orthodox stance, Gaddis claims that Stalin himself was a key contributor to Cold War tensions, writing that “it took one man in particular, responding predictably to his own authoritarian, paranoid, and narcissistic predisposition,” to lock hostilities into place. He argues that Stalin’s distrust and suspicion of Western leaders and his fusion of ideology and imperialism made a significant difference to the run of tensions, raising the question: “would there have been a Cold War without Stalin?” His paranoid action of bugging the rooms of Churchill and Roosevelt at the Tehren Conference in 1943 shows that his level of distrust was comparable to nothing of his Western counterparts, showing that he was more responsible for causing tensions than the leaders of the West. In 1945 both the U.S and British leadership changed – Truman replaced Roosevelt whilst Atlee replaced Churchill – which could be argued to have had little effect on post-war relations – supporting Gaddis’ point. However, historian Leffler maintains that Truman’s aggressive stance towards Stalin damaged cooperation and led to deteriorating relations, which is a more convincing view considering his arrogant nature at Potsdam due to his knowledge of America’s nuclear power. Gaddis fails to assess Truman’s flaws, due to his anti-Soviet views and political affiliations, which discredits his argument somewhat. Gaddis continues to examine Stalin’s characteristics, stating that “he had one demand: absolute subordination,” a mandate that would certainly decrease cooperation between him and the West. His imperialistic tendencies coupled with Marxist expansionism meant that the spread of Communism – achieved by coercive salami tactics in Eastern Europe – was in fact the spread of his own personal power. This was a concern for the West as it did not comply with their desire for democratic security, creating tension. Having said that, Gaddis does argue that Stalin was “certainly prepared to stop in the face of resistance from the west,” illustrating that although Stalin’s actions were aggressive, the West ultimately had the power to stop him. Stalin “quickly backed down” in Iran and Turkey once faced with Western opposition, as he did with the Berlin Blockade in 1949 and the Korean War in the 1950s – which slightly discredits Gaddis’ original argument. Engerman expands on this, quoting George Kennan as he described Soviet leaders as “opportunistic, ready to exploit weakness but not to overpower strong resistance.”

Honing in on Stalin’s aggressive character, Gaddis makes a point of Soviet action in Poland and how it severely damaged post-war relations with the West, contributing to Cold War tensions. “The brutality and cynicism” with which Stalin handled the matters in Poland “did more than anything else to exhaust the goodwill the Soviet war effort had accumulated in the West, to raise doubts about future cooperation in London and Washington, and to create deep and abiding fears throughout the rest of Europe.” Subsequent to the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which split Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany, Stalin authorised the murder of 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Massacre.

This earned him “enduring hostility of the Poles,” which, as allies to Poland, made the West hostile towards Russia. Stalin’s refusal to help Polish resistance to the Nazis in Warsaw, 1944, despite the request from the West, also riled anger towards the USSR and marked the first indicator to the allies that the Grand Alliance was perhaps just a ‘marriage of convenience.’ Gaddis points out that “rather than admit responsibility” for his past actions in Poland, “Stalin chose to break off relations with the London Poles” and created a puppet Communist government in Lublin. This aggressive, undemocratic action went against the promises Stalin made at the Yalta conference, causing the Western leaders to lose their trust in him, rendering cooperation unlikely. Furthermore, Gaddis argues that these actions worried the Allies about how the USSR would treat countries in the future and showed them the extreme way in which Stalin was prepared to act in order to achieve his aims of security, which cast the first doubt that a post-war alliance between the two powers could occur. Throughout the late-1940s Stalin verified this worry by carrying out the Sovietisation of Eastern Europe. Figes (+E EUROPE) Gaddis does, however, note that the people of these countries may have preferred “autarchy within a Soviet bloc…to exposure once again to international capitalism,” upon recalling the Great Depression on the 1930s. He acknowledges the rise in left-wing parties taking control across Europe and presents the idea that Stalin “may have even anticipated an enthusiastic response” when taking over. This challenges the argument that Stalin’s actions in Eastern Europe were aggressive as he may have believed that the imposition of the Soviet model was widely desired.