This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 172 (talk | contribs) at 02:20, 27 March 2006 (+series box). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 02:20, 27 March 2006 by 172 (talk | contribs) (+series box)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)| Part of a series on |
| History of the Cold War |
|---|
.svg){kind=small}  |
| Origins |
| Periods |
| Related topics |
The Origins of the Cold War are widely regarded to lie most directly within the immediate post-World War II relations between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union in the years 1945 - 1947, leading to the developed Cold War that endured until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Events preceding the Second World War and extending as far back as the Bolshevik Revolution of late 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War are also considered by many historians as underlying the more extended origins of the Cold War.
Tsarist Russia and the West
A few scholars have traced the origins of the East-West conflict well before the Bolshevik Revolution. World System theorists have argued that Russia was late to be absorbed by the capitalist world-system, and only in its periphery or semi-periphery upon the Bolshevik Revolution, leaving it ripe for a radical break with capitalism. Some scholars even argue that East and West are fundamentally different civilizations. Among scholars in the latter camp, many have argued that Eastern Orthodox Slavs are heir to the Byzantine tradition. Others point out aspects of the Slavic cultural heritage, Asiatic influence, and a fundamentally different political culture shaped by rule of the tsar.
Others have argued that geographical causes would lead to intractable conflict. They see the states of the North Atlantic and East Asia as being fundamentally maritime powers based on trade and openness, while the states of Central Eurasia, most notably Russia, were land-based powers based on large armies and centralized control.
Imperial rivalry between the United Kingdom and Tsarist Russia would foreshadow the East-West tensions of the Cold War. Throughout the 19th century, improving Russia's maritime access was a perennial aim of the tsars' foreign policy; impeding it was a perennial obsession of the UK's. Despite Russia's vast size, most of its ten thousand miles of seacoast was frozen over most of the year or controlled by other powers, particularly in the Baltic and Black Seas. The British had been determined since the Crimean War in the 1850s to slow Russian expansion at the expense of Ottoman Turkey, the "sick man of Europe." After the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, the prospects of seizing a portion of the Ottoman seacoast on the Mediterranean, whereby it could threaten the strategic waterway, were all the more mortifying to the British. The close proximity of the Tsar's territorially expanding empire in Central Asia to India also terrified South Asia's British imperial overlords, triggering a series of quixotic British adventures in Afghanistan. Fears over Russia, however, subsided following Russia's stunning defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Some historians have noted that the British long exaggerated the strength of the relatively backward sprawling empire, which in hindsight was probably concerned with trade and securing its frontiers, not threatening Western interests. Some historians have even noted the parallels to the post-World War II period, when, again, the West exaggerated Russian "expansionism" in Eastern Europe, which, like the territorial growth of imperial Russia, was probably motivated by securing vulnerable frontiers.
Strategic rivalry between the United States and Russia—both huge, sprawling nations—goes back to the 1890s when, after a century of friendship, Americans and Russians became rivals over the development of Manchuria. Tsarist Russia, unable to compete industrially, sought to close off and colonize parts of East Asia, while Americans demanded open competition for markets.
Many believe the Cold War was an inevitable conflict between the two continent-sized states, each with huge reserves of manpower and natural resources who were destined to compete for world preeminence.
Bolshevik Revolution
Main article: Bolshevik RevolutionIn 1917 after a coup of the revolutionary democratic government by the Bolsheviks in Russia the rivalry gained an intensely ideological component. The United States did not even establish relations with the new Soviet government until 1933. The western allies never forgot that the Soviet government negotiated a separate peace with Germany in the First World War in 1918, leaving the Western Allies to fight the Central Powers alone. Lasting Russian mistrust stemmed from the landing of western troops in Soviet Russia in 1918, who became involved, directly and indirectly, in assisting the anti-Bolshevik Whites in the civil war. This helped solidify lasting suspicions among Soviet leadership of the capitalist world.
The West saw the Soviet system as a threat. In Europe, and to a lesser degree in the United States, there were strong socialist and communist movements that threatened the status quo. The atheistic nature of Soviet communism also concerned many. Up until the mid-1930s, both the United Kingdom and the United States believed the Soviet Union to be a much greater threat than Nazi Germany and focused most of their intelligence efforts against it. Stalin suspected that the policy of appeasement was primarily directed at pushing Germany towards the east and into a conflict with the USSR, as a way of exhausting both powers. The exclusion of Soviet negotiators from the Munich Agreement only increased Stalin's suspicion. The USSR sought to evade the Nazi threat by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an act which shocked Western countries.
The wartime alliance
When Hitler broke his alliance with Stalin and attacked the Soviet Union, the Soviets and the Western Allies quickly put their past tensions behind them and cooperated. Most notably, the United States shipped vast quantities of Lend Lease materiel to the Soviets, keeping their war effort alive. Britain and the USSR signed a formal alliance, but the US did not join in. Everything was handled on the personal level by Roosevelt and his top aides. On one hand, before the war the Soviets had stunned the world by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany, and then participated in the dividing up of Eastern Europe. On the other, the Soviets were annoyed at having to the bear the brunt of the Axis alliance since 1941, despite calls for the Allies to open a second front in Europe, which did not occur until June 1944. In the meantime, the Russians suffered heavy casualties, with as many as twenty million dead. The allies responded by saying that they had opened a second front in Italy during 1943 and could not invade France immediately.
Throughout the war, mutual distrust was always present. The United States and the United Kingdom did not tell Stalin about breakthroughs such as Ultra, the decoding of German cyphers. Stalin suspected that the West would stand by and watch Germany defeat the USSR right up to the Invasion of Normandy. However, a mutual interest in the need to defeat a still powerful Germany was enough to keep a functioning alliance. This changed when Franklin D. Roosevelt died with victory in sight. His vice president Harry Truman, an amateur in foreign affairs, was "not up on all details" as he himself admitted. His failure to inform Stalin of the decision to drop the atomic bomb, which was scheduled right after the Potsdam Conference, was seen as a deep personal insult. The Soviets had gained knowledge of these U.S programs through elaborate Soviet spy rings that had continued to operate during the wartime alliance.
Allied conferences
A number of wartime and immediate post-war conferences between the "Big Three" contributed directly to the start of the Cold War.
The Cairo Conference of 22-26 November, 1943, held in Cairo, capital of Egypt, addressed the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia. The meeting was attended by President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China.
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between 28 November and 1 December 1943 that took place in Tehran, Iran. It was the first war conference among the three world powers in which Stalin was present. The chief discussion was centered on the opening of a second front in Western Europe. At the same time a separate protocol pledged the three countries to recognize Iran's independence. Most importantly the conference was organized to plan the final strategy for the war against Nazi Germany and its allies.
The Yalta Conference was the wartime meeting from February 4 to 11, 1945 between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. The delegations were headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, respectively.
The Potsdam Conference was a conference held at Cecilienhof in Potsdam, Germany (near Berlin), from 17 July to 2 August 1945. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the largest and most powerful of the victorious Allies that defeated the Axis Powers in World War II. The heads of government of these three nations—Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman, respectively. Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—as well as Clement Attlee, who replaced Churchill after the Labour Party's defeat of the Conservatives in the 1945 general election—had gathered to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on 8 May (V-E Day). The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of war.
Further reading
- Gaddis, John Lewis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, Columbia University Press, 1972. ISBN 0231083025 (pbk) ISBN 0231032897 (hbk)
- Yergin, Daniel, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State, Houghton Mifflin, 1977. ISBN 0395246709