The Cold War and How it Shaped the World INTERNATIONAL HISTORY Sample Essay

Question: Who was more to blame for the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe: Stalin or Truman? (A-Levels, November 2010) Although undoubtedly both Stalin and Truman played important roles in the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe after 1945, it is clear that one of the two is more to blame: we can place greater blame for this on Joseph Stalin than on Harry Truman. No doubt Truman does share some of the blame, mainly due to his aggressive anti-Communist containment policy in Europe, which certainly did provoke Stalin and the Soviet Union. However, we must note that the Soviet Union expanded directly, forcefully, and aggressively into Eastern Europe, imposing Communism upon an unwilling and resistant region. Furthermore, one of the key events in the origin of the Cold War in Europe was the Berlin Blockade, which by any reasonable assessment was entirely Stalin’s initiative and for which Stalin was more or less completely to blame. Finally, Stalin had much greater power and authority within his country than Truman did, and was in a position of absolute and unquestionable supremacy; if either man had the power or ability to change the direction of events or to stop the Cold War from happening, it was Stalin. Therefore, although Truman does share some of the blame, Stalin was more to blame for the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe. Truman’s containment policy certainly did contribute to the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe. By funding anti-Communist movements in Greece and Turkey in March 1947 with a generous $400 million, he directly challenged the Soviet Union’s perceived authority in Eastern Europe (especially sensitive as Turkey is geographically well within what the Soviet Union considered its sphere of influence and, but for the Black Sea, lies right at the Soviet border). His Marshall Plan of June 1947 provided an astonishing $13 billion to aid in the reconstruction of western Europe, but this only drove western and eastern Europe further apart as it linked recipient nations to the United States economically; the Soviet Union perceived this as a challenge to its socialist order, evidenced by its refusal to participate in the plan. Finally, Truman’s formation in April 1949 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) served as a direct, unmistakable challenge to the Soviet Union; it was a military alliance directed primarily against the Soviet Union and its allies, backed up by the threat of nuclear weaponry (which at the time the Soviet Union did not have). Thus Truman does share some blame for the origins and development of the Cold War. Immediately after World War II, the Soviet Union began to expand into eastern Europe. This expansion was done forcefully, by a combination of military and diplomatic means, and in nearly every case went against the expressed wishes of the people there. Stalin attempted to force Communism upon Iran in 1946, contradicting agreements for Soviet withdrawal from Iran that he himself had made with Britain and the United States; although he ultimately withdrew, this greatly worsened relations between Moscow and London and Washington. He subsequently, and harshly, imposed Communism and Soviet control upon one-third of Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania. The imposition of Communism upon Poland was particularly contentious, as it was done by means of an obviously fraudulent rigged election in January 1947: so blatantly did the Soviet Union violate that election, on Stalin’s orders, that it was felt proof of the Soviet Union’s hostile intentions by the United States, made all the worse because Stalin had earlier promised to allow free and fair elections in Poland (the violation of this promise was held as evidence of Stalin’s untrustworthiness, and this further worsened relations between Moscow and Washington). In every case the imposition of Communism upon eastern Europe was done either with direct military force (as in East Germany) or the threat of military force. Because of this, a great share of the blame for the origins and development of the Cold War can be placed upon Stalin.

Peter Kellett 1

The Cold War and How it Shaped the World INTERNATIONAL HISTORY Sample Essay

The eleven-month Berlin Blockade beginning in June 1948 was one of the key events in the origins of the Cold War in Europe, occurring when the Soviet Union initiated a blockade of Allied West Berlin in an attempt to starve and destroy it. Its importance lay in the great emphasis both the Allies and the Soviet Union placed on Germany and its capital Berlin; both had been divided into Allied and Soviet sectors pending eventual reunification. The Blockade was initiated by the Soviet Union, on Stalin’s orders, on what can be regarded as a very flimsy excuse: the introduction of a new currency in West Berlin. To save the city, the Allies countered the Blockade with the Berlin Airlift, flying in essential supplies from West Germany. It was important because it represented the first direct confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, one of only a very few in the entire Cold War. It also set the stage for greatly worsened relations between the superpowers, and for a general mistrust of Stalin that carried over into American foreign policy. The whole blockade was a Soviet initiative: it was Stalin’s idea, it was generally regarded as unprovoked Soviet aggression, it was a Soviet attempt to rollback and destroy an Allied country, and the Allies reacted and responded to the threat of the blockade with an airlift. This puts the blame for this key event, and the Cold War, squarely on its instigator Stalin’s shoulders. Within the Kremlin in Moscow, Stalin had attained absolute and unquestioned power for himself well before 1945. Constant purges of political opposition, paranoid execution of perceived challenges to his authority, and the terrified quiescence of the Communist Party since the 1930’s had removed all possible opposition to Stalin, leaving him in a position of absolute dictatorship over the Soviet Union. Truman, in contrast, had relatively less authority in Washington, being bound to Congress (which was under Republican control) and limited in his authority by the Constitution. Though Truman did enact aggressive policy, he was far more limited in his ability to act decisively and in an authoritarian manner than Stalin was. Stalin had unlimited authority to change, influence, or even stop the Cold War from occurring; in fact, it was many of his decisions that brought about the Cold War in the first place. He did not do so. On the contrary, his actions in Iran, Germany, and Poland greatly worsened the already poor relations with Washington. His betrayal of the promises he himself made to Roosevelt and Churchill was seen as a “stab in the back” by politicians in London and Washington. Certainly he could have acted differently, but he chose not to, and instead chose a confrontational stance against his former allies. His vision of security as a zero-sum game, meaning that for the Soviet Union to have it other nations must be deprived of it, and his aggressive expansion into eastern Europe condemned the superpowers to a prolonged and largely irreconcilable Cold War. Though he had the authority to create a different outcome, he instead chose confrontation, and is therefore largely to blame for the origins and development of the Cold War. In conclusion, most of the key events and circumstances pertaining to the origins and development of the Cold War point to Stalin as an aggressor, and the Soviet Union as the instigator of hostility between the superpowers. The Soviet expansion into eastern Europe by forceful and fraudulent means was a direct threat to the Allied states of western Europe, to which Truman responded with his own string of defensive initiatives in the subsequent years. Stalin initiated the Berlin Blockade, without reasonable provocation and entirely on his own initiative, and this contributed greatly to the development of the Cold War. Finally, Stalin was the only leader to have the absolute authority within his own country to affect or stop the development of the conflict, whereas Truman was pressured by elements within Washington to act that were beyond his complete control. Although Truman did enact aggressive policy against the Soviet Union, and did attempt to contain the Soviet expansion by force, the greater share of blame for the origins and development of the Cold War in Europe therefore must rest with Joseph Stalin.

Peter Kellett 2