Jeffrey Scott Johnson

            Who is to blame for the cold war?  Some would place the blame with the United States.  Others will place the blame with both countries.  Some would even say that both countries are to blame for the Cold War.  Harriman and Schlesinger blame the Cold War on the Soviet Union.  Bernstein and Mee blame the Cold War on the United States or primarily on the United States.

            First, Soviet desires for a communists world.   “It was agreed that the people in these countries were to decide on their own governments through free elections.  But Stalin didn’t permit it” (Harriman, p. 32).  Harriman is talking about what Stalin agreed to do at Yalta.  Harriman suggests that he broke this agreement in Poland because he was told that the Communists would not win the election.  The Army of the Soviet Union was not seen as a liberating force but as that of a new invasion (Harriman, p. 32).  “I think it is fair to say that in these discussions about new matters, Stalin listened, smoked his pipe, and walked up and down the room.  Then, when he had heard enough, he said, ‘This is what we are going to do.’  If anyone left the room with a shrug of his shoulders, he might find himself on the way to Siberia the next afternoon” (Harriman, p. 32).  In this country, the advisors of the president know that the worst thing that can happen for advise was that of losing their job.  In the Soviet Union, they might lose their lives.  This means that the advisors in the Soviet Union might not be able to see alternatives.  “Stalin once told me, ‘Communism breeds in the cesspools of capitalists.’  In this sense, Europe looked as if it were going to be in a mire” (Harriman, p. 32).  This is why Harriman wanted to send aid to the war torn areas of Europe.  If people are doing well then they are less likely to find the Communists appealing (Harriman, p. 32-33).  “At one meeting, I explained that our objectives and the Kremlin objectives were irreconcilable; they wanted to communize the world, and we wanted a free world.  But I added that we would have to find ways to compose our differences if we were to live on this small planet” (Harriman, p. 33).

            Second, what are the events that cause Harriman to concluded, “our objectives and the Kremlin objectives were irreconcilable” (Harriman, p. 33)?  Harriman meets Stalin in Potsdam, East Germany in the month of July in 1945 (Harriman, p. 33).  Potsdam is just outside the city limits of Berlin.  “I went up to him and said that it must be very gratifying for him to be in Berlin, after all the struggle and the tragedy.  He hesitated a moment and then replied, ‘Czar Alexander got to Paris.’  It didn’t need much of a clairvoyant to guess what was in his mind.  I don’t think there is any doubt that, with the strong Communist Parties both in Italy and in France, he would have extended his domination to the Atlantic, if we had not acted to frustrate it” (Harriman, p. 33).  Harriman states that Greece and Turkey were in danger when the United States gave them aid.  Czechoslovakia became a communist state in 1948.  The Soviet Union also cut off West Berlin from receiving goods also in 1948.  The United States offered the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe aid.  The Soviet Union would not accept the aid offered through the Marshall Plan (Harriman, p. 34).  “We had the strongest military force in being at the end of the war, but after the Japanese surrendered, it was dissipated.  The Russians didn’t do that.  They strengthened their forces.  They developed new weapons. … Much to the surprise of most people at the time, the Soviets exploded their first nuclear device in September 1949” (Harriman, p. 34).

            Third, conflict between the two views of the world order.  “One theme indispensable to an understanding of the Cold War is the contrast between two clashing views of world order: the ‘universalist’ view, by which all nations shared a common interest in all the affairs of the world, and the ‘sphere-of-influence’ view, by which each great power would be assured by the other great powers of an acknowledged predominance in its own area of special interest.  The universalist view assumed that national security would be guaranteed by an international organization.  The sphere-of-interest view assumed that national security would be guaranteed by the balance of power” (Schlesinger, p. 40).  According to Schlesinger, the Americans held the “universalists” view.  The Soviet Union held the “sphere-of-influence” view (Schlesinger, pp. 40-42).  “…[T]he Russians were determined to protect their frontiers, and especially their border to the west, crossed so often and so bloodily in the dark course of their history.  These western frontiers lacked natural means of defense—no great oceans, rugged mountains, steaming swamps or impenetrable jungles” (Schlesinger, p. 42).  According to Schlesinger, the Soviet Union sent radio broadcast to resist the Nazis.  Then the Soviets would not help them in their fight against the Nazis (Schlesinger, p. 42).  “It appeared a calculated Soviet decision to let the Nazis slaughter the anti-Soviet Polish underground; and, indeed, the result was to destroy any substantial alternative to a Soviet solution in Poland” (Schlesinger, p. 42).  Poland and Bulgaria are two examples of the different views of the world order.  Schlesinger states that Bulgaria was not at war with the Soviet Union so they were trying to surrender to the British or Americans.  The Soviet Union saw this as a challenge to there “sphere-of-influence.”  Therefore, the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria.  The Soviet Union took over the negotiations (Schlesinger, p. 43).  Schlesinger than states that Stalin had an agreement with Churchill that he could have a “sphere-of-influence” in Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.  Roosevelt later agreed with this (Schlesinger, pp. 43-44).

            Fourth, the United States demands for new elections.  Schlesinger notes that the United States was demanding free elections in Eastern Europe.  The Soviet Union felt that that free elections in Poland and Romania would produce government that were hostile to the Soviet Union (Schlesinger, p. 46).  “The Russians thus may well have estimated the Western pressures as calculated to encourage their enemies in Eastern Europe and to defeat their own minimum objective of a protective glacis” (Schlesinger, p. 46).  Schlesinger states that Stalin agreed to the free election because he still saw the Nazis as a threat.  Stalin also thought that the agreement with Churchill was valid (Schlesinger, pp. 46-47).  “As the Nazi threat declined, so too did the need for cooperation” (Schlesinger, p. 47).  The situation begins to decline in the early part 1945.  “[The Soviet Union] were ignoring the Declaration on Liberated Europe, ignoring the Atlantic Charter, self-determination, human freedom and everything else the Americans considered essential for a stable peace” (Schlesinger, p. 47).

            Fifth, the paranoia of Stalin and the conflict between communism and capitalism as factors leading to the Cold War.  Schlesinger notes that Stalin was a dictator.  He had killed many people because of his fear (Schlesinger, pp. 48-50).  “`As long as capitalism and socialism exists,’ Lenin wrote, ‘We cannot live in peace: in the end, one or the other will triumph—a funeral dirge will be sung either over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism.’  Stalin and his associates, whatever Roosevelt or Truman did or failed to do, were bound to regard the United States as the enemy, not because of this deed or that, but because of the primordial fact that America was the leading capitalist power and thus, by Leninist syllogism, unappeasably hostile, driven by the logic of its system to oppose, encircle and destroy Soviet Russia” (Schlesinger, pp. 48-49).  Schlesinger states that our only hope was to influence Stalin.  This hope had died along with Roosevelt.  Schlesinger even states that Stalin was mad.  He even killed fellow communists so there was little hope of us influencing Stalin (Schlesinger, p. 49).

            Sixth, the reversal of American policies contributed to the Cold War.  “By overextending policy and power and refusing to accept Soviet interests, American policy-makers contributed to the Cold War. … Though it cannot be proved that the United States could have achieved a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union in these years, there is evidence that Russian policies were reasonably cautious and conservative, and that there was at least a basis for accommodation.  But this possibility slowly slipped away as President Harry S Truman reversed Roosevelt’s tactics of accommodation” (Bernstein, p. 51).  Bernstein states that the Truman administration saw force as the only solution.  Both sides did not trust each other.  The western allies did not attack Germany as soon as the Russians wanted.  The Western allies did not tell the Soviet Union about the atomic bomb (Bernstein, pp.51-52).  “[Roosevelt] operated often as a mediator between the British and Russians, and delayed many decisions that might have disrupted the wartime alliance” (Bernstein, p. 52).  Bernstein states that Stalin wanted the powers to discuss what would happen to territories once controlled by the Nazis.  The western allies did not do this in Italy so Stalin would not allow the western allies into the decision on Eastern Europe (Bernstein, p. 53).  Bernstein states that the Soviet Union wanted a weak German so that it could feel safe from invasion.  The Allies agreed to have a weak Germany in 1944.  Roosevelt changed his mind.  He would not agree to a weak Germany at Yalta (Bernstein, pp. 54-55).  “As an earlier self-proclaimed foe of Russian communism, Truman mistrusted Russia.  (‘If we see that Germany is winning the war,’ advised Senator Truman after the German attack upon Russia in 1941, ‘we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and in that way kill as many as possible’)” (Bernstein, p. 55).  Bernstein states that Harriman wanted to take a tougher approach so that the Soviet Union would not think we were weak (Bernstein, p. 56).  “`If the Russians did not wish to join us they could go to hell’” (Bernstein, p. 57).  This shows that Truman was not going to follow Roosevelt’s policies. 

Seventh, Truman changed the United States’ tone with the Soviet Union.  “Brushing aside the diplomat’s contention that the Anglo-American interpretation of the Yalta agreement was wrong, the President accused the Russians of breaking agreements and scolded the Russian Foreign Minister.  When Molotov replied, ‘I have never been talked to like this in my life,’ Truman warned him, ‘Carry out your agreement and you won’t get talked to like that’” (Bernstein, p. 57).  Bernstein notes that Roosevelt had agreed to not allow the country of Argentina to have membership to the United Nations.  Truman reversed this policy and now wanted to allow Argentina into the United Nations.  Truman would not allow Poland into the United Nations.  This upset the Soviet Union.  Then the United States ended the lend-lease.  The United States then told a representative of the Soviet Union that we were not ending the lend-lease (Bernstein, p. 57).  Bernstein states that the Soviet Union received little from reparations from Germany.  The Soviet Union also received no economic aid from the United States (Bernstein, p. 59).  “On the eve of the conference the President had confided to an adviser, ‘If it explodes, as I think it will, I’ll certainly have a hammer on those boys [the Russians]’” (Bernstein, p. 60).  He is talking about the atomic bomb.  Bernstein notes that on July 16 Truman was told that the bomb test was successful (Bernstein, p. 60).  “`[Truman] told the Russians just where they got off and generally bossed the whole meeting’” (Bernstein, p. 60).  Churchill is saying that Truman did what he told his advisor he was going to do.  Proclaiming that American policy was ‘based firmly on fundamental principles of righteousness and justice,’ [Truman] promised that the United States ‘shall not give our approval to any compromise with evil.’  In a veiled assault on Soviet actions in Eastern Europe, he declared, ‘We shall refuse to recognize any government imposed on any nation by the force of any foreign power’” (Bernstein, pp. 62-63). 

Eighth, what is the role of Churchill’s speech on the United States’ policy of containment?   Bernstein notes that Churchill gave a speech in Fulton, Missouri.  This is where Churchill used the words “iron curtain.”  Churchill was taking about the Soviet Union and there satellite countries (Bernstein, p. 63).  “Churchill, with Truman’s approval, called for an Anglo-American alliance to create ‘conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all [these] countries’” (Bernstein, p. 63).  This probably would upset the Soviet Union.  “This was, as James Warburg later wrote, the early ‘idea of the containment doctrine…[and] the first public expression of the idea of a ‘policy of liberation,’ which Dulles would later promulgate.  Truman’s presence on the platform at Fulton implied that Churchill’s statement had official American endorsement … Under Anglo-American power the world could be transformed, order maintain, and Anglo-American principles extended.  Stalin characterized Churchill’s message as, ‘Something in the nature of an ultimatum: ‘Accept our rule voluntary, and then all will be well: otherwise war is inevitable.’” (Bernstein, p. 63-64).

Ninth, all countries are to blame for the Cold War.  However, the United States is more responsible for the Cold War.  “In fact, Churchill kept 700,000 captured German troops in military readiness, prepared to be turned against the Russians” (Mee, p. 65).  Mee states that the Soviet troops had seen the success of capitalism in the West.  “Stalin needed the Cold War, not to venture out into the world again after an exhausting war, but to discipline his restless people at home” (Mee, p. 66).  Mee states that Churchill wanted the United States and Soviet Union to fight.  He wanted them to fight so that the United Kingdom could setup an economic union in which the British would be the main player (Mee, p. 66).  Mee states that the United States wanted the freedom of Democracy in Poland (Mee, p. 67).  The British entered the Second World War for Poland but now does not care about that country (Mee, p. 68).  “However that may be, its use must have been chilling to Stalin, doubly chilling if Stalin realized that the United States had used the bomb even when it was not militarily necessary.  Indeed, according to Secretary of State James Byrnes, that was the real reason why the bomb was used after all—‘to make Russia,’ as he said, ‘more manageable in Europe’” (Mee, p. 69).  Mee states that Truman told Stalin about the nuclear bomb on July 24, 1945.  The Soviet Union increased the speed of their atomic research program (Mee, p. 70).  “Stimson had long thought that America should be tough with the Soviet Union, but he now believed that toughness was turning into harshness and harshness into provocativeness” (Mee, pp. 70-71).  Mee notes that people who thought like Stimson did not last long with the Truman Administration (Mee, p. 71).  “`As a matter of fact, Mr. Churchill now takes the stand of the warmongers, and in this Mr. Churchill is not alone.  He has friends not only in Britain but in the United States of America as well’” (Mee, p. 71).  This is a reaction to Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri (Mee, p. 71).  “The first of Sichel’s notes said that Britain could no longer support Greece; the second said Britain could no longer underwrite the Turkish Army, ‘What the two notes reported,’ Halle observed, ‘was the final end of the Pax Britannica’” (Mee, p. 72).  Mee notes that Truman wanted to take the place of the United Kingdom in these two countries (Mee, p. 72).  “All this might be true, Vandenberg said; but, if the President wishes to sell his program to the American people, he would have to ‘scare hell out of the country.’  It was at that moment that the Cold War began in earnest for the United States” (Mee, p. 72).

            Tenth, I think that all sides were to blame.  “Moreover, the restoration of capitalism to countries freed at frightful cost by the Red Army no doubt struck the Russians as the betrayal of the principles for which they were fighting” (Schlesinger, p. 46).  As stated earlier, Stalin was mad (Schlesinger, p.49).  “Leninism and totalitarianism created a structure of thought and behavior which made postwar collaboration between Russia and America—in any normal sense of civilized intercourse between national states—inherently impossible” (Schlesinger, p. 50).  Stalin did not want the Communist to revolt in Greece so that he could live up to his agreement with Churchill (Schlesinger, p. 44).  “In short, short, the Russian hope for major Western assistance in postwar reconstruction foundered on three events which the Kremlin could well have interpreted respectively as deliberate sabotage (the loan request), blackmail (lend-lease cancellation) and pro-Germanism (reparations)” (Schlesinger, p. 48).  Bernstein notes that Churchill was the first to speak on a policy of containment.  Truman was at the speech so the Soviet Union thought that our government had approved of this statement (Bernstein, p. 63-64).  All sides could of been more accommodating to the other sides fears and beliefs.  “Russia had refused to move from the areas that her armies occupied, and the United States had been vigorous in her efforts, but without offering economic assistance to gain concessions” (Bernstein, p. 59).  I disagree with Hegel for the war did not have to happen.  The leaders were not willing to understand the needs and motivations of the other sides (Schlesinger, p. 50).  The sides did not have to go to war after another side provoked them (Mee, p. 72).