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The Cold War is an umbrella term used by historians and modern political theorists to denote the period of time in the mid-to-late twentieth century characterised by rising tensions between the opposing political and social ideologies of the East and West, and where, despite a notable absence of open warfare on the part of either side on a global scale as in the world wars, international relations were in constant flux. There is much debate as to when exactly the Cold War began, but most historians agree that it began after the Second World War ended in August 1945. The beginnings of the Cold War lay in the breaking down of the Grand Alliance in the aftermath of their victory over the Axis powers in WWII. This military and political alliance formed between the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union against Germany, Japan and Italy was a fragile bond between vastly different nations, which, despite its name, was plagued by deep-seated mistrust, hatred, and enmity between its members, particularly against the Soviet Union.
Orthodox schools of historical thought associated with U.S. State Departments have come to the consensus that the Cold War was started entirely on account of the Soviet Union’s expansionism and inherent policy to extend the sphere of influence of communism; historians associated with this perspective include Herbert Feis and Thomas A. Bailey. The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences of 1945, in which Stalin bargained with Churchill and Truman, indicate that the ‘sphere of influence’ exerted by the Soviet Union on Europe was a particular source of contention, and as such may have led to the breakdown of relations between the leaders. The ‘crusade’ of communism onto the continent of Europe, taking over nations such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, and coming close to overtaking Greece as well, were of particular alarm to Americans who saw this as a real-life example of President Truman’s proposed ‘Domino Theory’, in which states would fall, one by one, to the ideas of communism much like dominos bordering each other would. Historians such as Herbert Feis went as far as to call the Soviet expansionism an example of modern-day imperialism at that time, and blamed Stalin himself as a key causative factor of the breaking up of the Grand Alliance. Historians such as Simon Sebag Montefiore, who have heavily researched Stalin, do not attest to such claims, although they do concede that Stalin’s paranoia and unpredictable nature as a leader may have contributed to distrust between Western democratic politicians and Soviet political leaders. As such, ideological differences may be stated to have been the main cause behind the Cold War.
On the other hand, revisionist historians claim that the Cold War began not as a result of any ideological differences between communism and democracy, but rather, as a result of the economic interests and political designs of leaders on both sides. Decidedly more anti-American in their views, such historians include William Appleman Williams, who claimed that the basis of American foreign policy since the 1890s was to open new markets for American goods, and saw rebuilding the shattered remnants of post-war Europe as a means to establish themselves as the key economic force in the region. Evidencing such claims is the Marshall Plan of 1948, named after US diplomat George Marshall, which promised US$1B in aid to Europe to ‘rebuild’ their economy, conveniently, on the American dollar. A more aggressive version of this narrative was deployed by the USSR at the time, with Stalin pushing the idea that the policy was a form of American “economic imperialism” designed to interfere with the domestic affairs of other states and create an anti-Soviet bloc; this led to Stalin successfully pressuring the USSR’s Eastern European allies to reject the aid. Revisionist scholars suggest that the Marshall Plan’s dollar diplomacy negated the equivalent effect of the Soviet sphere of influence, which also had inherently economic ideas in mind. The expansion of the Soviet Union into Asia and the Middle East - in particular Korea, China, and Iran - was not only ideological, but had significant economic repercussions as well, not in the form of direct markets, as in America’s policies to West Europe, but rather, in terms of the manpower, resources, and manufacturing industries such countries had the potential for. Given the Soviet Union under Stalin was a manufacturing-heavy economy, historians have considered the impact of this promise of factors of production on Soviet doctrines and its breakdown of relations with the West, whose own economic designs were antithetical to Soviet interests.
Post-revisionist historians such as John Lewis Gaddis approached the beginnings of the Cold War with what many considered a more ‘moderate’ perspective, finding a balance between the blame of the East and the West in breaking down their relations and thus shattering the Grand Alliance. Post-revisionists took into account events such as the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 as the result of economic designs over a broken Germany, as well as the differences in the level of economy and area granted to either side (the Soviet zone of Germany, East Germany, was only 40% the size of West Germany, which contained the American, British and French zones). Finnish historian Jussi Hanhimäki attributes credit to the views of post-revisionists because, despite taking both economic and political motives into account, they tend to lean more towards economic designs over ideological crusades. From a practical perspective as well, and accounting for the global economy, geography, and political alliances after the breakup of the Grand Alliance, the fall of satellite states to either Eastern spheres of influence or the Western economic dollar diplomacy was a measure to ensure that neither side gained a land advantage over the other, and that both had strategic depth in case tensions boiled over into total war.
Overall, these perspectives provide valuable historical insight into the beginnings of a significant period of modern history, which had innumerable impacts on international relations, both at the time, and lasting into the future.
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