CAMBRIDGE A-LEVEL HISTORY

9389/3 TEACHING NOTES

DEBATES ON THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR
 There are four main paradigms advanced to explain the origins of the Cold War, namely
Orthodox/Traditionalist, Revisionist, Post Revisionist and Post-Post Revisionist views.
Candidates need to dwell much on these views to understand the Historians who
contributed to these debates.

ORTHODOX/TRADITIONALIST VIEW
 The traditionalist/orthodox view emerged after the 2nd World War. Traditionalists
defend the US policy of containment and blame the Soviet Union for the breakdown of
friendly relations thus leading to the onset of the Cold War. This orthodox rendition of
events portrayed the Soviet Union as relentlessly expansionist and ideological
motivated.
 Traditionalists claim that US officials wanted to get along with the Soviets, but slowly
came to realize that accommodation was impossible because of the Kremlin’s drive for
world domination. The Soviets were inevitably expansionist due to their suspicion of the
West and in accordance with their Marxist theory which advocated the need to spread
revolution throughout the world. Thus, Stalin violated the Yalta and Potsdam
agreements, occupied and imposed Soviet control in Eastern Europe and ‘plotted’ to
spread Communism throughout the world with Moscow at its centre. The United States
therefore had to act defensively from the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan to the
establishment of NATO.
 The Western orthodox view of the Cold War places sole responsibility of the Cold War
on the Soviet Union. This perspective became the adopted view of the American
government. Orthodox historians emphasize that the Soviet regime was unquestionably
expansionist and would take any measures necessary to increase Soviet influence.
According to this view, America simply reacted to Soviet expansionist. It was interpreted
to be the combination of Soviet ideology, expansionist tendencies and Stalin’s character
that ultimately led to the Cold War.
 Historically, Russia has been a target for invasion, from the Mongols to the Nazi invasion
of 1941. The USSR suffered terrible losses during the 2 nd World War which led some to
consider Stalin to be a ‘buffer zone’ due to the lack of natural borders surrounding the
nation. However, evidence exists that the USSR was not simply in search of a ‘buffer
zone’ for security, they wanted more, as seen through Stalin’s ‘Salami Tactics’ when
taking over Eastern Europe and Soviet involvement in Iran.

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  It is clear through treaties such as the Percentages Agreement with Churchill that Stalin
was a strong, advocate of the ‘sphere of influence’ strategy to maintain world order.
Britain, through Churchill, was open to this method whilst the US was strongly opposed.
The Cuban Missile Crisis arguably shows how a division of the world leads to
confrontations that are difficult to contain.
 Arthur Schlesinger, American historian, admits that the Cold War was a result of a chain
reaction as revisionists will argue, whereby each superpower adopted policies that were
perceived as a threat by the other and then both took defensive measures against those
policies. He describes it as ‘suspicion and counter suspicion, action and counter action.’
Schlesinger argues that the revisionists neglect key aspects on the Soviet regime and its
nature was ultimately responsible for the Cold War.
 Traditionalists argue that the first most evident component is the Soviet Union’s
ideology. Lenin himself argues that there is to be a class struggle, that only one ideology
can win, not both can survive ie Capitalism and Communism. As such, by definition, the
two superpowers are sworn enemies by ideology that encompasses their beliefs. It
made a meaningful dialogue between the two nations ideologically impossible.
 Orthodox historians emphasize the need for the US to contain the ever expansionist and
aggressive Communist Soviet Union, led by Stalin. In addition to Lenin’s ideology of
world revolution, the Soviet Union also showed signs of wanting to increase their sphere
of influence, after a series of invasions and attacks. Thus, the Soviet Union was
ultimately responsible for the development of the Cold War due to its aggressive nature.

KEY ORTHODOX HISTORIANS

1. GEORGE KENNAN
 Kennan characterized the Soviet Union as a paranoid and insecure power that
exaggerated the external threats to justify internal repression and countries
expansion. Soviet paranoid insecurity arose from the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
2.WILLIAM HARDY MCNEIL
 McNeil argues that Stalin was fundamentally responsible for the beginning of the
Cold War because he supported the spread of Communism throughout the world.
Mcneil adds that the Soviets were bent on spreading communism beyond Eastern
Europe.

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3.MARTIN F. HERZ
 Herz blames the Soviets in the tradition of the ‘Great Power’ argument. The Soviet’s
desire to plunder and establish a sphere of influence undermined the possibility of
co-operation among the two emerging superpowers. The clash by Soviet Union and
U.S.A over Poland in 1945 was a case in point. Soviet’s aggrandizement in Poland
and other Eastern European polities created a rift with the U.S.A who wanted these
areas to be independently governed.

REVISIONIST VIEW
 Revisionists emerged in the 1960’s during the era of the Vietnam war. Revisionists
argue that US policies were also expansionist and thus played an important part in
starting the Cold War. Revisionists have attempted to blame the United States for
the collapse of wartime co-operation. Revisionists believe that the American desire
to create a friendly capitalist system everywhere on the globe interfered with
legitimate Soviet national security concerns and with the sovereignty of non-aligned
states.
 Revisionists point to the long history of American economic expansionism and
argued that the ideological beliefs and economic interests significantly shaped US
policies. American insistence on available foreign foreign markets and access to raw
materials polarized the world against the US’s effort to guarantee its economic
dominance. America wanted security after the war. This was due to the dilemma
WWII had posed for them, that the U.S.A could not continue to serve as a model for
the rest of the world while remaining apart from the rest of the world.
 The Americans did seek global in the realm of ideas. Their Declaration of
Independence had after all, advanced the radical claim that all men are created
equal. The US would serve as an example, the rest of the world would have to
decide how and what circumstances to embrace it. American military might was
needed to restore the European balance of power. After entering the White House
in 1933, Roosevelt worked persistently to bring the US into a more active role in the
world politics.
 The Revisionist view flourished during the Vietnam War (1960-75) blames U.S.A for
the Cold War. William Appleman Williams explained the onset of the Cold War, in
terms of ‘dollar diplomacy.’ Revisionists see the motives behind US foreign policy as
inherently linked to the needs of capitalism. Thus containment of communism was
driven by the requirement to secure markets and free trade and penetrate Eastern
Europe. This followed on from the US’ traditional ‘open door’ policy of the late 19 th
century.

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  Revisionists historians Gabriel and Joyce Kolko view Soviet actions as even less
relevant to US foreign policy. They see American policy as determined by the nature
of its Capitalist system and by fears of recession. Similarly, Thomas Patterson wrote
that ‘Coercion characterized US reconstruction diplomacy.’
 Revisionists hold that Stalin himself was a programmatic leader and had the
Americans been more willing to understand the Soviets’ need for security and after
some compromises, Stalin would have also made concessions. The most radical
thesis from the Revisionists comes from the Cambridge political economist Gar
Alperovitz. This followed on from an idea put forward by British physicist, P.M.S
Blackett who wrote that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
was not important as the last military campaign of WWII, but rather as the
diplomatic move by the US in the Cold War. Alperovitz suggests that that Japan was
already defeated and that this ‘new’ weapon of awesome power was used to warn
and intimidate the Soviets.
 The Revisionists interpretation of understanding the Cold War places emphasis on
the mutual suspicion and reaction of both the US and the Soviet Union. Walter
Lefeber argues that the origins of the Cold War have their roots much earlier than
the setting of WWII. He analyses the policies and objectives of both the US and
Soviet governments and concludes that the US intentionally designed various
organizations so that the USSR would be excluded, in order to guarantee US control.
 There is no doubt that America was really the only country that came out of WWII a
victor. The majority of Europe was devastated by massive destruction economic
turmoil and outright exhaustion. Thus, revisionist interpretations typically imply that
disturbances in European politics in the early post war period were due to untimely
American initiatives.

REVISIONIST HISTORIANS
1. WILLIAM APPLEMAN WILLIAMS
 American leaders have historically interpreted the future prosperity of the US in
terms of the ‘open door’ ideology which is a global capitalist system. By failing to
formulate a settlement based on anything other than its grandiose design for the
‘open door,’ the US became the culprit in the Cold War because it transformed a
negotiable conflict into an insoluble one.
 Williams believes that the Americans were inflexible in their vision of the post war
world and that the Soviets were rather conciliatory. The pressure of the US placed
on the Soviets only served to make them more determined to protect themselves
from American control or intimidation.

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2.GAR ALPEROVITZ
 Alperovitz places the anus of the blame for the Cold War on the Americans and their use
of Atomic bomb. The use of the atomic bomb was a blatant attempt to bully the Soviet
Union. Alperovitz contends that Stalin was cautiously moderate during this period but
Truman’s decision to drop the bomb was a means to influence Soviet behavior.
3.NORMAN GRAEBNER
 Graebner considered the Cold War tragic because the hostile rhetoric used by American
leaders after the war convinced many in the mass public that the Soviet menace could
be removed. The US gave itself little chance of pursuing a successful foreign policy.
4.MELVYN P. LEFFLER
 Leffler argued that US officials had a clear definition of national security which was a
product of the lessons of WWII that were inherently in conflict with the strategic
imperatives of the Soviet Union. Leffler adds that the Cold War was the unfolding of the
security concerns of their adversaries thus triggering a spiral of distrust.

POST REVISIONIST VIEW

 Post revisionist views emerged in the 1970s stress that neither or both the US nor the
Soviets can be held responsible for the origins of the Cold War. Post revisionists
contends that misconception and miscalculation accounted for the beginnings of the
Cold War. The view stresses that discrete events, individual perceptions and
misperceptions and bureaucratic decision making was the reason for the rift.
 John Lewis Gaddis and Walter Lefeber both argued misperceptions played an important
part at the beginning of the Cold War. Both superpowers overestimate the strength and
threat of the other. Much of the growing tension of the 1940s was a result of a pattern
of ‘action and reaction.’ Both sides were ‘improvising rather than following a well
‘defined’ plan of action. Stalin’s search for security was not deterred initially by strong
lines being drawn while at the same time the West did not fully recognize the Soviet’s
motives.
 Gaddis argues that America and Soviet foreign policies after WWII intended to preserve
peace and security but led to increased hostility. Both America and the Soviet Union had
contradictory schemes for schemes for peace and this led to the Cold War. According to
Gaddis, the post war American empire was a response to the entreaties of governments
and people who felt threatened by the opportunistic expansion of the Soviet Union.
Stalin had no blueprint for world domination but his barbaric regime threatened his
neighbors throughout Eurasia.

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  Gaddis thus argues that the Cold War was caused by superpower rivalry. America
inaccurately assessed Stalin’s motives, desires and goals. Similarly, the Soviets
mistakenly perceived a change in American policy when the more abrasive rhetoric of
Truman succeeded the more conciliatory approach of Roosevelt. In the end, the Cold
War was an unavoidable tragedy of fate and human error.

POST- POST REVISIONIST VIEW

 The post- post revisionist view is very close to the traditionalist/orthodox view. The view
emerged after 1990 since the opening of the soviet archives and it attributes prime
responsibility to Stalin.
 A few post revisionist historians have examined the environment of the post-Cold War
years and the effects of the opening of the Soviet archives in relation to changing views
and approaches to studying the origins of the Cold War. After the archives were opened,
a large part of the 1990s was spent on uncovering the truth about what Fitzpatrick calls
‘victim narratives.’ These refer to the information that had been kept ‘top secret’ under
Soviet leadership, relating to the purges, repressions and the Gulag. This directly
corresponds with the question of why access to archives was restricted during the
Soviet era. ‘Archival revolution’ is a term used to describe the ‘qualitative leap’ in access
to Soviet archives.
 Stalin’s post war goals were security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology
in precisely that order. He sought to make sure that no internal challenges could ever
again endanger his personal rule and that no external threats would ever again place his
country at risk. Narcissism, paranoia and absolute power came together in Stalin. Stalin
was within the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement, enormously
feared and also widely worshipped.
 Stalin believed the Soviet Union should get most of the war expenditures as well as
territories it had lost to Germany during WWII. Stalin also wanted territories she didn’t
receive out of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, portions of Finland, Poland, Romania and all the
Baltic states. Stalin’s understanding of his wartime allies and their post war objectives
was based more on wishful thinking than on an accurate assessment of priorities as
seen from Washington and London. It was here that Marxist-Leninist ideology
influenced Stalin because his illusions arose from it. The most important one was the
belief which went back to Lenin that Capitalists would never be able to co-operate with
another for long. This idea of a crisis within capitalism did have some plausibility. WWI
after all, had been a war among capitalists, it thereby provided the state to emerge. The
Great Depression left the remaining capitalist states scrambling to save themselves
rather than co-operating to rescue the global economy or to maintain the post war
settlement.

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  With the end of the 2nd WW, Stalin believed, the economic crisis was bound to return.
Capitalists would then need the Soviet Union, rather than the other way round. This is
why he fully expected the US to lend the Soviet Union several billion dollars for
reconstruction because the Americans would otherwise be unable to find markets for
their products during the economic global crash. Stalin’s goal therefore was not to
restore a balance of power in Europe but rather dominate that continent as thoroughly
as Hitler had sought to do. Unlike Hitler, Stalin followed no fixed timetable. Stalin’s
grand vision was the accomplished but historically determined domination of Europe. It
was also a flawed vision for it failed to take into account the evolving post war
objectives of the US.
 Historians Gaddis, Zubok and Pleshakov highlight the importance of Stalin’s character
and diplomatic failures in terms of understanding the escalation of tensions.

POST- POST REVISIONIST HISTORIANS

JOHN LEWIS GADDIS
 Gaddis, who had formerly been a key spokesperson of the ‘Post revisionist’ also had
access to the new material to revise his Post revisionist view, now putting even more
focus on the role of Stalin in the origins of the Cold War. He suggests that it was Stalin’s
policies coupled with the Soviet totalitarian/authoritarian government that drew the
West into an escalation of hostility and the protected arms race.
 Gaddis also considered the role of all other key leaders and players in the early stages of
the Cold War and concludes that if Stalin is removed from the equation, the Cold War
was unlikely to have developed. What emerges generally from the post-Cold War ‘new’
historians is that individuals and their actions, rather than the policies of whole
governments, are of vital importance in explaining key events in the Cold War. This is
particularly obvious in the origins of the Korean War and in the Berlin Crisis of 1961.
 Gaddis argues that personalities and ambitions of Lenin and Wilson magnified their
countries’ difference. Lenin based his ideology on Marx’s teachings of a supposed
science of class struggle whereby Lenin’s ultimate goal was world revolution and the
defeat of capitalism. Wilson was just as ambitious namely in the promotion of free and
open markets and the removal of injustice. Gaddis highlights that both nations set out
on their ideological pilgrimage around exactly the same time, with Russia’s revolution
starting in November 1917 and Wilson’s 14 Points address in January 1918 for the
Versailles settlement. In other words, to a large degree, these two as leaders, as well as
their successors, determined the direction of their respective countries.

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  According to Gaddis, Stalin’s misinterpretations ended up costing him. Stalin failed to
grasp Western concerns and did not possess a concrete vision for the future of the
Soviet Union as has been upheld by traditional historians. The development of the
Korean War was seen as a surprise by all sides. New evidence shows that Stalin was the
first to give the ‘greenlight’ for attack to North Korean Kim II Sung. The speech made by
Acheson in January 1950 portrayed evident intentions to other nations that Korea was
not on the US’s list of priorities in Asia. There have even been conspiracies that the
Americans set the war up and colluded with Syngman Rhee, the South Korean leader
but as Gaddis points out, no hard evidence exists for this.
 In summary, Gaddis presents a view that emphasizes the importance of Lenin and
Wilson in setting the ideological stage for the events that followed, how the US and
USSR were prone to isolationism in the 1920 and 1930s, the effect of the attack on Pearl
Harbour, that shook the US out of isolation, the impact of the atomic of the atomic
bomb and the implications of the Marshall Plan. Ultimately, Gaddis upholds that the two
nations clashed over different perceptions of security (political & economic) and how to
uphold it, rather than ideological differences. The search for security is argued to be the
root of US and Soviet concerns over the future of Germany, America’s unexpected
decision to intervene in the Korean War, the shaping of the Marshall Plan, ensuring the
future American security through the fortification of European markets which conflicted
with the Soviet perception of ensuring security by force.
ZUBOK AND PLESHAKOV
 Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov were Soviet historians who focused on the
factors shaping the Kremlin’s policies.
 The character of Stalin, his diplomatic faults, as well as the effect of the idea of Russia
being a historical ‘Savior.’ According to Zubok and Pleshakov, Stalin’s weaknesses as a
diplomat ultimately led to the development of the Cold War and various case studies
are depicted to portray this claim, including Germany and the Korean War.
 Zubok and Pleshakov underline the role of Russia’s messianism in shaping policies. The
religious concept of Russia as the Third Rome and assuming the ‘role of Protector’ of
Orthodox Christianity as well as protecting Europe from multiple invasions came
together to give Russians the assumed position as ‘protector of mankind.’

CHAIRMAN MAO 2019