The blame for the Cold War cannot be placed on one person -- it developed as a series of chain reactions as a struggle for power. It can be argued that the Cold War was inevitable, and therefore no one's fault, due to the differences in the capitalist and communist ideologies. It was only the need for protection that had caused the two countries to sink their differences temporarily during the Second World War. Yet many of the tensions that existed in the Cold War can be attributed to Stalin's policy of Soviet expansion. Stalin's foreign policies contributed an enormous amount to the tensions of the Cold War.
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
How far do you agree with the view that the developments of the cold war in the year 1945-8 owed more to soviet expansionism than to USAs economic interests? The developments of the conflict within the cold war (1945-48) are something of intense debate for many years. Historians such as Wolfson and Laver (S7) accredit the influence that Russian expansionism contributed to the conflict between the USA and the Soviet Union. In contrast this prospective is contrasted by Terry Morris and Derek Murphy’s prospective (S8) which places emphasis on how US economic interests were seen as a threat to the USSR and thus contributed to East-West tensions. Source 9 written by Michael Lynch adopts both prospective of USSR expansionism and also US economic interests, however Lynch also emphasises misjudgement and misperceptions which contribute to the conflict conceived at Cold War.
Russia’s main national interest after setting up other communist republics was to further spread communism. They went about setting up organisations such as Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) and Comecon (Council for Economic Mutual Assistance) to provide economic and military assistance to soviet satellite states. The Warsaw pact was set up in 1955 to provide a combined military force of soviet satellite states. As Eastern Europe unified as communists, Eastern Europe united with the fear of communism. The fear of the spread of communism to Western Europe caused Western European countries to join forces to stop the spread.
In his work, Fleming explained that if the Soviets wanted to attack the united states of America they had done it because they had all the necessary equipment but at that period the nation was more interested in its inner politics than conquering the world. Seeing the Soviet Union as its biggest threat and being afraid of the “Domino” effect, the American government decided to take actions by supporting the rebels in Latin America and countries that were gaining their independence in a hope that these societies will adopt the capitalist ideology. The decisions that the USA made where not always elaborated and in some cases they did more harm than good. Isolating the U.S.S.R from the world politics was
This, however, was seen by the Soviet Union as a form of economic expansion through which the Americans were bringing Eastern European states into their own sphere of influence, and was a direct challenge to their authority. It is possible to argue that the Americans were indeed trying to help struggling states with their growth and that the aims were purely altruistic in nature. However, it must be noted that the Marshall Plan did have strings attached, forcing the countries that it provided aid for to open their markets for American goods and not advancing it to countries who did not do
How far do you agree with the view that the cold war spread to Asia in the years 1949-1953 because of Stalin’s desire to spread the influence of the USSR? Just as source P and source R argue, Stalin did play a role in furthering the spread of communism in Asia which in turn caused tensions to rise and the cold war spreading. However to simply assign blame to Stalin’s desire to spread the influence of the USSR is a very limited view which does not take into account Stalin’s reluctance to be involved in many Asian affairs. Indeed as source Q states, the USA’s foreign policies had contributed a great deal to the array of misconception that caused cold war situations to escalate. Sources O and R on the other hand show that superpower involvement was inevitable and which power struck first was a mystery but what is certain is as sources P, R and Q state, which is that Kim Il Sung’s drive for an invasion of south Korea and the pressure that came from the newly formed communist china caused an unavoidable mounting of tensions which caused the cold war to spread to Asia.
Despite this, the Marshall Aid was a success and it bolstered the armies of Europe significantly, which put Stalin in a more vulnerable position. The Truman Doctrine was the American policy in 1947 of providing economic and military aid to European Countries, primarily Greece and Turkey, because they were threatened by communism. It was the start of the containment policy to stop Soviet expansion; it was a major step in beginning the Cold War. The policy stated that countries would have a choice between Communism and Democracy. The USA sent troops and funds to countries who were accepting on the doctrine and also those who were threatened by communism.
Truman in the late 1940s, started to introduce doctrines that moved for the “containment” of communist expansion and influence in Europe. There was also the fear of an internal communist threat that spurred the creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The HUAC held public investigations and tried to uncover communist toleration and subversion. One notorious investigation was against Alger Hiss, who was accused of passing classified documents to the Soviet Union in 1937 and 1938. In 1950 the McCarran Internal Security Act passed and required communist organizations to publish their records, and register with the government.
The Cold War had essentially started as a split between USA and the USSR due to ideological and strategic differences between the two countries. During the course of the Cold War, the official US foreign policy was of containment of communism. This policy fuelled by the fear of communism in USA was designed to prevent further expansion of communism. The policy emerged at a time when Eastern Europe was under the military, and increasing political, control of the Soviet Union, and when Western European countries appeared to be wobbling from their democracies because of socialist agitation and collapsing economies. Containment was a foreign policy introduced at the start of the Cold War by the United States, aimed at stopping the spread of Communism and keeping it 'contained' and isolated within its current borders, otherwise the 'domino effect' would occur, where if one nation became Communist, the surrounding ones would follow.