Origins of the Cold War

[davex]

Hello,

My name is Dave. I am a 4th year History student and am stuck for a topic for my paper on the Origins of the Cold war.

I have studied Stalin's relationship with Mao and am wondering how to tie this in to a strong thesis on the origins of the Cold War. Is this too broad? Can anyone offer some topic-ideas?

This forum is great and hope someone responds!

Dave

[scout1067]

You could maybe look at how both communist powers viewed the west with suspicion despite the massive amounts of aid given to both countries in WWII.  Admittedly this could be difficult given that most aid to china went to the communist?s nationalist enemies but it is at least something to look at.  Another angle is to look at the origins of the cold war form an ideological standpoint.  The western allies and communists were strange bedfellows at best as long as they had a common enemy but it was only natural that with Fascism and Japanese militarism out of the way they would begin to see each other as enemies given the gulf of their ideological divide.

[DonaldBaker]

Mao and Stalin parted ways pretty soon after the war because of their differing views of implementing communism.  The Cold War begins with the Berlin blockade and subsequent airlift.  Any essay on the origins of the Cold War must center on this event prominently before delving into other issues.  Berlin was the test of wills between the US and Russia. 

As for China (not technically part of the Cold War with Russia, but a separate Cold War), our support of Chiang Kai Shek and the Chinese Nationalists during the Truman administration became the source of Mao's distrust of us.  Then obviously Korea took it to another level.  If you want need any more help on this paper such as proofreading, you can join Writers of History and we'll give you a proofreading session.

[scout1067]

The roots of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union lay in the tensions arising from cooperation aginst the Nazis and the first real overt signs were at the Potsdam Conference when Stalin thought he could take advantage of Truman who he thought was weak.  The Berlin Airlift was not the beginning but a symptom and an attempt by the Russians to eliminate the destabilizing enclave of West Berlin.

[Wally]

The roots of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union lay in the tensions arising from cooperation aginst the Nazis and the first real overt signs were at the Potsdam Conference when Stalin thought he could take advamntage of Truman who he thought was weak.  The Berlin Airlift was not the beginning but a symptom and attempt by the Russians to eliminate the destabilizing enclave of West Berlin.

I agree.

[DonaldBaker]

Potsdam was definitely a factor and I should have mentioned it (though I associate it with World War II more than Cold War).   There were other events such as the installation of Mossadeq to power in Iran that bothered the Russians too.  We provoked the Russians as much as they did us.  What was at stake was the realignment of nations out of the chaos that was World War II.  The Cold War was a grand chess match played around the globe which was the best option (the other being open confrontation).

[scout1067]

We did not ally with the Soviets in WWII because we liked them, we definitely did not.  Roosevelt simply followed the policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".  Since the 1920's the US government had recognized that Communist (specifically Bolshevik) ideology was an existential threat to a representative government.

Don't forget that Patton, among othetrs, advocated taking the war to the Communists once Hitler was defeated.  He was dead serious too.  Although I think Patton had many faults I will credit him with recognizing the threat that the communists represented to the western allies.  The Soviets were at best allies of convenience in WWII, not choice.

[Vulture6]

I think it ran deeper than Potsdam.

The Soviets (more than just Stalin) had a deep suspicion of the West and their motives.  Stalin ignored warnings from various sources of the impending Barbarossa invasion largely because he feared that it was a Western (Churchillian) plot to goad the Soviet Union into launching a war against Germany.  Once German-Soviet hostilities were launched, up through late 1943 Stalin and a large part of the Soviet rank and file believed that they were largely alone in fighting the Nazis in Europe.  Allied actions in North Africa were seen largely as a diversion and that Soviet calls for the Western Allies to open a second front in Western / Northwestern Europe were largely going unheeded.  Put that in the mind of a paranoid megolomaniac like Stalin and the environment around him that he created, and it is easy to see how he could build the belief that the Soviet Union stood alone against the fascist Nazis.  True or not (and there is room for debate), Stalin and his Communist Party used the belief that "Russia Stands Alone" as a rallying cry.

There is some validity to the argument that part of Churchill's strategy to attack the "Soft Underbelly of Europe" was to allow the Nazis and the Soviets to bleed each other white on the Eastern Front -- expending the majority of their combat power against each other -- letting the Nazis break their back against the masses of Soviet soldiers -- before the cross-channel invasion took place.


Factoring all of this together and I think you could make a case that this engendered some pretty serious resentment amongst the Soviets against the Western Allies.  Soviet casualty figures in the immediate aftermath of the war ranged from 20 million to 60+ million (how much fact and how much Soviet propaganda?  In 1945-46 it was no doubt largely propaganda because I believe that the Soviets largely did not know the actual number) -- collective hardship and suffering was used to bond the Soviet people together, and much of the Soviet Union was held together in common opposition to the enemy of Nazi Germany.  Without a common, monolithic enemy to rally around, could Stalin hold the Soviet Union together?

Remember too, that much of the Soviet propaganda around the war was that it was a war of survival between two competing ideologies -- Soviet Communism vs. Fascist Nazism, and Soviet Communism won the day.  Now, with the war over, democracy also triumphed over Nazism and Fascism -- so, which system, which ideology was superior?  Perhaps the only way to decide that was to continue the war.


Just some food for thought to consider in guiding your research.

[davex]

wow thanks for the feedback. I'm going to begin my research and plan on centering my argument/thesis around some of the points discussed above.

This cite is great and I thank you for your feedback!!