1.1 Roots of the Cold War

Who started the Cold War? This question has inspired years of passionate debate among historians. Some scholars place most of the blame on the Soviet Union, charging that its aggressive foreign policy was the logical outgrowth of an ideological commitment to world revolution. Other scholars contend that Russian aggression reflected a legitimate fear of American economic imperialism. In recent years, historians studying the origins of the Cold War have emphasized that both nations shared responsibility for the conflict, though these same historians differ greatly on how much responsibility to assign each side. Rather than seeing the Cold War as the product of conspiracies hatched in the Kremlin or in Washington, post–Cold War historians stress how history, ideology, and national interest created serious misperceptions, limited the range of options on both sides, and made confrontation nearly inevitable.

The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States had its genesis in the past. In 1917, relations between the two nations plummeted into a deep freeze when the Bolsheviks seized control of the Russian government. Under V. I. Lenin, the Soviets pulled out of World War I, leaving the West to fight the Central Powers alone. More importantly, the Soviets committed the new state to the goal of world revolution and the destruction of capitalism. Communism challenged the basic tenets of the American dream: it threatened democratic government, supported state power over individual freedom, and cut off free markets.

The brutality of the Soviet regime further inflamed American hostility. Joseph Stalin, who seized control of the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death in 1924, consolidated his power through a series of bloody purges that killed nearly 3 million citizens. He initiated a massive effort to collectivize agriculture that led to the deaths of 14 million peasants. In 1939, after Stalin signed a prewar non-aggression treaty with Adolf Hitler, he sent troops pouring into Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. By then most Americans agreed with The Wall Street Journal that “the principal difference between Mr. Hitler and Mr. Stalin is the size of their respective mustaches.”

Likewise, the Soviets had reason to distrust the United States. The rhetoric and actions of American policymakers appeared to support one of the principal teachings of Marxist-Leninist doctrine: the incompatibility of capitalism and communism. Western leaders, including President Woodrow Wilson, made  no  secret of their contempt for Lenin or their desire to see him ousted. Wilson’s decision to send American troops on a confused mission to north Russia in 1918 confirmed the Soviets’ suspicion of a Western conspiracy to topple their government. Indeed, the United States did not extend diplomatic relations to the Soviets until 1933—sixteen years after the new government came to power.

Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941 forced the United States and the Soviet Union into a brief alliance to defeat Germany. Wartime cooperation greatly improved the Soviet Union’s image in America. Confronted with evidence that the Russian people were willing to fight to defend their country, many Americans jumped to the conclusion that the Soviet Union had suddenly become a democracy. In the best-selling book Mission to Moscow (1943), former Ambassador Joseph E. Davies proclaimed that “the Russia of Lenin and Trotsky—the Russia of the Bolshevik Revolution—no longer exists.” Life magazine declared in 1943 that Russians “look like Americans, dress like Americans and think like Americans.”

The war may have softened American public opinion, but it did little to ease the mistrust between leaders. Franklin Roosevelt, though hopeful about a post-war settlement, recognized that “a dictatorship as absolute as any . . . in the world” ruled Moscow. At the same time, Roosevelt’s agreement with Winston Churchill in delaying a second front in Europe, and his refusal to share information about the development and testing of the atomic bomb, convinced Stalin that the Western Allies could not be trusted.