Who caused the cold war? Focus ; the function of each personality in lending to the cold wartime frame: 1945 to 1952Cold war- period of intense tenseness and misgiving. taking to competition and confrontations.
Base: both Stalin and Truman contributed to the cold war.
The cardinal personalities that contributed to the cold war are viz. Stalin and Truman. both in office in US and USSR severally. both were responsible as their personalities and degree of experiences contributed to their policies made. which heightened tensenesss and therefore caused the cold war.
Personality traits like Stalin’s paranoia gave rise to his expansionist policy. which hardline Truman viewed as aggression and tried to counter it in the Truman Doctrine and Marshall program. Truman’s low degree of experience in covering with Stalin besides increased tensenesss and led to the cold war.
Stalin was aggressive and protective of the USSR as he was a true hardline Communist and believed that Russia had to remain strongly communist. However. the USSR was invaded thrice in no more than a century and besides suffered civil war and intercession from anti-communist forces from 1918 to 1920. when communism as an political orientation was at babyhood.
These anti-communist forces comprised of the West when they helped the Whites during the Bolshevik Revolution. From this. Stalin believed that the West wanted to destruct communism before communism became stronger. His misgiving grew as he became paranoid and idea of the West as a possible security menace this was because? ? This prompted his shiping on salami tactics ( an expansionist policy ) so that Communism would stay strong in Eastern Europe.
Gradually the Russians began to consistently interfere in the states in Eastern Europe to put up pro-communist authoritiess. in states like Poland. Hungary. Bulgaria. Albania and Romania. Stalin felt that his actions were justified for the defence of communism. and that salami tactics were perfectly necessary. He did non recognize that his actions had frightened the West. What he failed to see was that the West was non interested in destructing communism but was looking more towards post war cooperation. The West showed this through the determinations made at the post-war conferences when Russia was allowed to take reparations from Germany and it was allowed to profit from the loans from the West. known as the Lend Lease. His paranoia in shiping on the expansionist policy ( consisting Salami tactics ) when juxtaposed with Truman’s hardline positions. merely served to rise intuition and tensenesss. taking to the Cold war.
Similarly. Truman became leery of the USSR’s purpose towards eastern Europe. He was a hard-line president who stood steadfastly against Communism. and was intolerant of the demands of the USSR. Truman saw Stalin’s actions as a breach of the Declaration of Eastern Europe where Stalin had promised to let states like Poland free elections but failed to make so. alternatively transporting out the contrary and coercing communist authoritiess in these states through rigged electionsTruman. with his hardline position that communism was bad. viewed Stalin’s moves as being unusually similar to Hitler’s salami tactics. and that the USSR was shiping on aggression. In add-on he felt that if he did non halt Stalin. Stalin would believe that Eastern Europe was his for the pickings. and capitalist economy would die. This in bend led to the formation of the Truman Doctrine and Marshall program which would function to increase tensenesss ( elaborated below ) Second. the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.
The West formulated the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall program to incorporate communism in Greece and Turkey. Communists were seeking to subvert the monarchy but British military personnels who restored the monarchy in the yesteryear were experiencing the strain of back uping it against the Communists. The British premier curate appealed to the USA and Truman announced that it would ” support free peoples who are defying subjection by armed minorities or by outside pressure’ and Greece received monolithic sums of assistance and the Communists were defeated. The financess of the Truman philosophy were obtained through Congress where Truman portrayed the state of affairs in Greece and Turkey as portion of the planetary Communist menace. Truman’s low degree of experience prevented him from recognizing that Stalin would see the Truman philosophy as an effort to overthrow them. In other words. he did non cover with Stalin before. and did non see that his portraiture was overly confrontational and would function to rise Stalin’s paranoia and intensify his misgiving towards the West.
Similarly. the Marshall program was formulated to ease economic recovery in Eastern Europe. By September. 16 states had drawn up a joint program for utilizing American assistance and in entire over 13000 million dollars of Marshall Aid was given to western European states. However. the West did non see the impact that the Marshall program would hold on how the USSR viewed them. Truman’s low degree of experience with covering with the Stalin prevented him from seeing that the Stalin was sensitive about USSR’s economic position ( Stalin refused to sign the the Bretton Woods understanding so that the West would non recognize how economically weak the USSR was in 1945. The Bretton forests understanding was a system to get international currency stabilisation which required foreign entree to sensitive economic informations. Stalin viewed the policy as ‘dollar imperialism” and as a blazing American device for deriving control of western Europe. and made all Russian provinces reject the offer.
The Truman philosophy and the Marshall program would finally motivate Stalin ( along with his paranoia ) to come up with the Cominform and the Comecon which served to unite all Eastern European orbiter provinces. Truman’s low degree of experience in coming up with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall program. when juxtaposed with Stalin’s paranoia. fueled farther consolidation of power by Stalin. which escalated tensenesss on both the USA and the USSR and caused the Cold war.
Biblography:
Richard Crockett. the 50 old ages war: The United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics. 1945-1991Gaddis. John Lewis. We now know: Rethinking Cold war History. United states: Oxford University Press.
