HIST 410N WEEK 4: THE COLD WAR: WHO SHOT FIRST? DISCUSSION

THE COLD WAR: WHO SHOT FIRST? The United States accused the Soviet Union of breaking all its wartime pledges and holding Eastern Europe hostage while trying to subvert governments in the west. The Soviet Union accused the US and its allies of trying surround and ultimately destroy it. War of words? Or was somebody telling the truth? And where do our ‘Isms’ fit in? In particular nationalism?

Hello Class,

Let’s examine the origins of the Cold War and the resulting anxiety.

We saw last week that the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in defeating Nazi Germany during World War II. World War II ended with the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, and then the Soviet Union raced to catch up with the United States in atomic weapons. How can we explain the fact that these two allies so quickly became rivals in the Cold War?

THE COLD WAR: WHO SHOT FIRST? SAMPLE

At the end of WWII, the US and Soviet Union were two entirely different governments aligned for the common goal of defeating Germany.  Post war, the US envisioned an international peace lead by themselves, the Soviet Union, Britain, and China that encouraged national self-determination.  Stalin had other ideas.  He valued security through communism and wished to obtain areas on the eastern and western borders of the Soviet Union.  His suspicions of the US power and military after the bombing of Japan were greatly increased by the end of the war.

With Hitler gone, all agreed that the Nazi military and political systems must go.  The Soviet Union claimed eastern Germany and began a plunder.  Britain, the US, and France united their zones and Germany was divided thereby effectively ending cooperation with the Soviet Union.  The Western Allies proposed democracy for western Germany while Stalin maintained a brutal domination of the eastern German people.

The US was returning to isolationism and it was Winston Churchill that brought about a change.  He introduced the term iron curtain that had split his country in two and on the other side lay communism.  He requested support from the US government to support Britain should conflict ever arise between them and the Soviet Union.  The now President Truman spoke to the people and stressed supporting those in which self-determination was threatened.   “The American public remained more attuned to issues of democracy and self-determination for oppressed peoples than to problems of global balance of power.”  (Textbook, p. 199).  His Truman Doctrine won support and emerged to be a fight for democracy and against communism.

Then along came the Marshall Plan which was the first time that the US would afford aid to reconstruction without anticipated repayment.  The rebuilding of Western Germany didn’t sit well with Stalin.  So, without waging war, he used the blockade to cut off utilities, rails and roads that originated in Berlin to the west.  What he didn’t count on was the air offensive available to Western Germany.  It was fast and efficient.  Within a year, Stalin removed the Blockade.

Along comes NATO, the alliance of North American and Western European leaders.  Each would back the other with any signs of outside aggression.  Lord Ismay said the purpose was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”  The US build up its arms, and with an unanticipated speed the Soviet Union made an introduction into nuclear bomb and missile races.  Suspicious of the Soviets, the US expanded its armed forces. “Allied countries near Soviet borders, the United States built air bases for its Strategic Air Command, whose bombers were in position to attack the Soviet Union.”  (Textbook, p. 204).

Soviet terror abruptly ceased in March 1953 with the death of Stalin from a cerebral hemorrhage.  His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, who planned a Leninism state.  “His vision of “communism in our generation” took the shape of a grandiose welfare state, offering its inhabitants free housing, schooling, transportation, and health care. To him, a communist society (the highest stage of history, according to Marx) meant egalitarian living conditions for all guaranteed by state programs in support of collective consumption.” (Textbook, 208-209).

THE COLD WAR: WHO SHOT FIRST? Reference

(07/2013). The World in the Twentieth Century, 7th Edition. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781323183472/