Name- Sumedha Bhowmick

6th Semester
History (Honours)
Roll no- 20/HIST/63
What were the main reasons for the origins of the Cold War? Is it correct to solely hold
Stalin's aggressive policies as the reason for its origin?

The United States of America and the Soviet Union had fought on the same side in World
War II against Germany and Japan. The allied forces had emerged victorious. So why after
fighting and winning in solidarity with each other, did they embark on an era of cold war?
One of the reasons could be the significant difference between the two superpowers’
political and socio-economic systems. Although both the states had emerged out of
revolution through the American Revolution (1765-1791) and the Bolshevik Revolution
(1917-1923), the principles on which the states functioned were vastly contradictory. The
American state had little control over the society, economy and culture of their domain.
Despite the presence of slavery and discrimination against the indigenous people, the USA
was the most liberated state in that period. On the other hand, the Soviet Union sought to
remove class inequality through the establishment of an authoritarian rule which rigidly
controlled every aspect of the nation.
The dissimilar World War II experiences of the two states might have also been a
contributing factor to the cold war. The USA had not lost soldiers in large numbers in the
combat. As they were situated at a great geographical distance from their enemies, they
had not suffered many attacks. The significant exception was the Pearl Harbour attack.
Furthermore, wartime spending greatly benefitted their economy. In contrast, the Soviet
Union suffered significant losses. There had been a lot of physical destruction in the cities,
and in the countryside of the Soviet Union. Their industries were destroyed or hastily
relocated. The Soviet Union suffered 90 times the casualties that America had suffered.
Joseph Stalin, who had been the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union since 1929, believed
that as the Soviet Union had expended the most manpower and capital in World War II,
they were entitled to the largest portion of winnings in form of territories and reparations
from Germany. But the World War had significantly weakened the Soviet Union and hence
needed support from their allies - the USA and Britain to achieve their objectives. The Soviet
Union required peace, diplomatic and economic support. This compromised position
ensured that Stalin did not want to engage in any kind of war.
But Stalin misinterpreted the objectives and nature of their allies because his understanding
was entrenched in Marxist-Leninist philosophy. He believed that capitalist powers could not
cooperate for long because of their greed for profits. Hence, he believed that the
communists only had to wait for capitalist powers to fight amongst themselves which would
lead to their self-destruction. This theory had some validity. World War I was essentially a
conflict between capitalist states which had allowed for the first communist state in the
form of the Soviet Union to sprout. During the Great Depression which occurred post-World
War I, the capitalist countries were too busy looking after their interests to cooperate. This
lack of cooperation paved the way for the emergence of Nazi powers. Stalin was convinced
that after World War II such a crisis would recur and then the capitalist states would require
assistance from the Soviet Union. He surmised that once a rift broke between the USA and
Britain, other European nations would grow disillusioned with capitalism and adopt
communism. Therefore, the Soviet Union would establish dominance over Europe without
taking any proactive steps. Hence, Stalin believed that the USA would willingly provide them
with financial assistance as they would need their help after the inevitable economic crash.
At the same time, the USA was realizing that it was no longer possible for it to be the model
for Europe while maintaining its isolationist policies. Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted the USA
to play a more proactive role in world politics and not to revert to its isolationist policies
after World War II as they had done after World War I.
While World War II was going on, the three powers - Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union
tried to consolidate their political differences to execute common military missions. But in
most cases, they did not succeed. These failures created the foundation for the cold war.
The USA and Britain feared that the Soviet Union would reach a point of compromise with
Germany as they had done in 1939. Hence, they desperately tried to keep the Soviet Union
on their side by providing all kinds of aid. They also did not turn down Stalin’s demands
regarding territory.
Stalin believed that the USA had intentionally delayed sending in their troops to counter the
Germans so that the Soviet Union would take the brunt of the fighting and the USA would
swoop in at the last moment and take the credit for ending the war. At the end of the war,
the allied forces undertook the task of annexing the territories previously controlled by
Germany. When Italy fell in September 1943, the Anglo-American army did not include
Russians in the process of annexation. This prompted Stalin to exclude Britain and America
when the Red Army annexed Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary in 1944-1945. Stalin and
Churchill had made a pact in 1944 that the Soviet Union could control these areas if Britain
had primary control over Greece. But Roosevelt was unhappy that he was not given a say in
this pact. Furthermore, Stalin feared that the USA and Britain had orchestrated a strategy
which would lead to the Germans surrendering in the West but keeping fighting in the East.
The USA feared that Stalin’s demands would lead to the endangerment of liberty in Europe.
Roosevelt and Churchill pressured Stalin to allow elections in the Baltic states, Poland and
other Eastern European countries but to no avail. The Soviet Union was dissatisfied with
their share of German territories. Britain, USA and France had come to control two-thirds of
Germany mostly because of their troops being present close by at the time of annexation.
Stalin consented to this as he believed that when he would establish a communist
government in East Germany, people from West Germany would be attracted to
communism and would rise in a proletarian revolution to create a single communist state.
But he did not take into account that Germans were disillusioned with the Soviet Union
because of the tyrannical behaviour they had exhibited while occupying East Germany.
The Anglo-American alliance did not show much inclination to give the U.S.S.R. a role in the
annexation of Japan. They had earlier promised some territories to Stalin when it looked like
Soviet help would be necessary for winning the Pacific war. But with the invention of the
atomic bomb by the US, Soviet assistance was not required.
The atomic bomb also contributed to the growing tension between the US and the Soviet
Union. The bomb had been originally built by the British and the Americans to fight the
Nazis but the Germans accepted defeat before they used it. The Soviet Union was not
informed about its existence till the last moment, although Stalin employed many spy
missions to investigate the matter. Stalin criticized the atomic attack on Hiroshima as
barbaric. He was scared that the fact that the USA possessed the atomic bomb disturbed the
balance of power, putting the Soviet Union at a disadvantage. Stalin was also paranoid that
the USA would use the atomic bomb to their advantage while negotiating post-war
concessions.
After considering all the above points, we can conclude that the issues connected to World
War II created the foundation for the Cold war. The allied powers had different visions for
the post-war world. Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to promote cooperation and peace
between nations through mechanisms such as the United Nations and allow for political
self-determination and economic integration to avoid the conditions which led to World
War II. Stalin was only interested in securing his state’s power. He wanted capitalist powers
to fight among themselves so that the Soviet Union could emerge as the world dominator.
To understand the cold war, we have to understand the concept of security dilemmas. It is
the phenomenon when a state tries to increase its security and compromises the security of
other states in the process. This prompts the other states to take steps to weaken the first
state’s security. This vicious cycle continues. The Anglo-American alliance and the Soviet
Union had been enveloped in this cycle even before World War II. It is, therefore, not
possible to determine the exact date of the start of the cold war. The cold war did not
involve explicit warfare or cutting off diplomatic ties but entailed a constantly rising sense of
insecurity among the US, Britain and the Soviet Union.
After consolidating its position in East Europe, Stalin sought to secure power in the south.
He continued to maintain his troops in northern Iran which had been stationed there under
the Anglo-Soviet arrangement to prevent Nazis from getting control of the region’s oil
resources. He also tried to secure control of the Turkish straits. He sought to acquire some
naval bases in the eastern Mediterranean. But the Soviet Union was not successful in these
negotiations. Furthermore, the US and Britain raised the issue of Soviet control of Northern
Iran in the United Nations. Stalin planned a withdrawal of troops from Iran.
George Kennan, an officer from the US embassy sent a telegram explaining the Soviet
motivations. This telegram guided US policy over the cold war. He explained that Soviet
actions were not triggered by any actions by the West but by internal motivations. The
Soviet Union needed to frame the West as the enemy to justify its dictatorship. In reaction
to this, a telegram was also sent from the Soviet embassy which concluded that the US was
motivated by a desire to establish capitalism all over the world. It also remarked on the
fragile nature of the Anglo-American alliance, harkening back to the belief that capitalists
could not cooperate long-term. In 1947, there was a meeting between the American, British,
French and Soviet foreign ministers in Moscow. The American, French and British delegates
held secret meetings discussing ‘the importance of cooperation for the reconstruction of
Europe’. The Marshall plan, formulated by an American Secretary of State, was based on the
theory that as Europe was poverty-stricken, it was obliged to elect communist governments.
Hence the USA had to assist Europe in distancing them from communism. Stalin reacted to
this by prohibiting East Europe from benefiting from this assistance. He also formed the
Cominform whose function was to ‘enforce orthodoxy in the international communist
movement’. Stalin sought to expand communist influence by supporting the plan to take
over the only democratic state in East Europe Czechoslovak communists. The Soviet Union
faced challenges from within the communist fold as well. The communist leader of
Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito had risen to power independent of Soviet help. He, therefore,
refused to conform to Cominform orthodoxy and started receiving financial help from the
USA.
The next step that Stalin took was to blockade Berlin. But this ended up benefiting the US,
as it executed an airlift and won the appreciation and gratitude of the Germans and
highlighted Stalin’s tyrannical incompetency. These rash decisions of Stalin led to the US
greenlighting the Marshall plan and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) for the military protection of Europe.
The US was confident about its military superiority over the Soviets because they possessed
the atomic bomb. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested their atomic bomb. This
prompted the US to upgrade their conventional forces, post troops in Europe, increase the
quantity and quality of atomic bombs and most significantly plan the manufacture of a
hydrogen bomb, which would be a thousand times more destructive than the atomic bomb.
At this juncture, a new development came forth in the form of the end of the civil war in
China and the establishment of a communist government under Mao Zedong in 1949. The
USA thought that like Tito, Mao Zedong would not accept Soviet supremacy. But Mao had
contradictory ideas. He was committed to Marxism-Leninism, the legacy of the Bolshevik
revolution and hence accepted the Soviet Union as the leader of the International
Communist movement. This was also motivated by Mao’s hatred towards the USA. The USA
had been supporting its rivals, the nationalists in the civil war. In December 1949, Mao
visited Moscow and a Sino-Soviet treaty was signed which was similar to NATO. At this
point, American fears about the Soviet Union were reinforced by the discovery of some
major espionage attempts.
The last major event which accelerated the two superpowers into the cold war was the
Korean War. The USA and the Soviet Union had jointly captured Korea from Japan at the
end of World War II. The Republic of Korea was established in the South under the
supervision of the US, while the Soviet Union controlled the Democratic Republic of Korea in
the North. The two sides were always threatening to attack each other but were waiting for
the support of the superpowers. Initially, both the US and the Soviet Union refused to
support this war. But in 1950, Stalin became enamoured with the idea of creating a second
front in East Asia and gave his approval to the attack on South Korea with the help of China.
Stalin also encouraged Ho Chi Minh to oppose French rule in Vietnam. The attack on South
Korea threatened to upset the post-war international order as the division of Korea had
been mandated by the United Nations. The US sent troops to defend South Korea. It looked
like the American army would be able to occupy North Korea, and Stalin was ready to accept
defeat. But at this point, China intervened, further intensifying the conflict.
We can conclude that the genesis of the cold war can be attributed to a variety of factors.
The primary one was the clash between the ideologies of the US and the Soviet Union. The
cold war was rooted in the tensions that arose as a result of World War II and the failure of
the former allies to navigate the complexities of the post-war world. The Soviet drive to gain
control of the territories conquered during World War II also contributed to the cold war.
The discovery of the atomic bomb by the US and later its manufacture by the Soviet Union
raised the risk of violence between the two superpowers. The competition between the US
and the Soviet Union to dominate Europe and later East Asia was a driving force behind the
cold war. The arrival of communist China further complicated matters. The tensions
between the superpowers played out through their vassal states such as Germany and
Korea.
The cold war was in many ways a result of the policies of Stalin. Stalin’s ambition for
expanding communism and Soviet control powered all developments leading to and during
the cold war. His entrenched Marxist-Leninist viewpoint convinced him that capitalism
would fail and motivated him to wage a war against capitalism. Many times, he made
obstinate and rash decisions to further his ambition.

Sources
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2005.
2. Gaddis, John Lewis. (2005). The Cold War. New York: Penguin Press.
3. Haslam, Jonathan. (2011). Russia’s Cold War: from the October Revolution to the Fall
of the Wall. New Haven: Yale University Press.
4. McCauley, Martin, ed. (1987). Khrushchev and Khruschevism. Basingstoke and
London: Palgrave Macmillan.
5. Ulam, Adam. (1968). Expansion and Co-existence: The History of Soviet Foreign
Policy from 1917-67. USA: Praeger.
6. Brown, Archie. (2010). The Rise and Fall of Communism. London: Vintage.
7. Leffler, Melvyn P., ed. (2010). The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volumes I, II,
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