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Capturing the Historical Heights: Cold War Beginnings Reassessed
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11541 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1986 |
7,328 Words |
| Author
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John Braeman
John Braeman is professor of history at the University of
Nebraska at Lincoln. |
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union has dominated the international scene for the last four decades. Not surprisingly, explaining its causes and development has been, and remains, a major subject of debate. An apparently endless flood of books and articles has appeared seeking to discover how the Cold War began. Who or what was responsible? Could the conflict have been avoided? Policymakers, actual or would be, have defended their proposals in light of their reading of the historical record. Professional historians in turn have been influenced - whether consciously or unconsciously - by their attitudes toward contemporary issues in the U.S.-Soviet relationship.
Those taking a long view of history trace the roots of the U.S.-Soviet conflict to the expansive thrust of the two powers going back to the nineteenth century. Others see its beginnings in the Bolshevik Revolution and the mingled fear and animosity felt by the defenders of capitalism toward the communist ideological challenge. Still others find the source in the power vacuum after World War II - and the accompanying frightening uncertainty about the future shape of the world - resulting partly from the defeat of Germany and Japan, partly from the weakened position of Great Britain. But there is consensus that the critical defining period was between the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, and the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 - in short, the presidency of Harry S. Truman. Those years witnessed the breakup of the wartime Grand Alliance, the adoption by the United States of what became the containment policy, and the division of the world into two hostile blocs.
The broad outlines of the steps in this process may be briefly sketched. During World War II, Roosevelt had regarded an alliance with the Soviet Union as the key not simply to the defeat of the Axis but to the maintenance of postwar peace. Relations between Washington and Moscow were not without frictions while the fighting still raged. But those portents were largely hidden from public view. And at least until shortly before his death, FDR appeared to think he could gain Soviet cooperation by meeting Stalin's legitimate security concerns. Historians continue to debate the extent to which Roosevelt had begun to have second thoughts about Stalin as a partner and was moving toward a harder line in dealing with the Soviets. By 1946, however, no one could fail to recognize that the United States and the Soviet Union were at loggerheads over a wide range of issues - the tightening Soviet grip over Eastern Europe, the future of German control of the atomic bomb, Moscow's pressure upon Turkey and Iran. Even more ominous appeared
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