The Collapse of the Grand Alliance
The problem started in Europe. At the end of the war, Soviet military forces occupied all of Eastern Europe and the Balkans (except for Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia), while U.S. and other Allied forces completed their occu-pation of the western part of the Continent. Roosevelt had assumed that free elections administered by ‘‘democratic and peace-loving forces’’ would lead to the creation of democratic governments responsive to the aspirations of the local population. But it soon became clear that Mos-cow and Washington differed in their interpretations of the Yalta agreement. When Soviet occupation authorities turned their attention to forming a new Polish govern-ment in Warsaw, Stalin refused to accept the legitimacy of the Polish government in exile---headquartered in London during the war, it was composed primarily of repre-sentatives of the landed aristocracy who harbored a deep distrust of the Soviets---and instead installed a government composed of Communists who had spent the war in Moscow. Roosevelt complained to Stalin but, preoccupied with other problems, he eventually agreed to a compro-mise solution whereby two members of the exile govern-ment in London were included in a new regime dominated by the Communists. A week later, Roosevelt was dead of a cerebral hemorrhage, leaving the challenge to a new U.S. president, Harry Truman (1884--1972), who lacked experience in foreign affairs.
The Iron Curtain Descends The Iron Curtain Descends
Similar developments took place elsewhere in Eastern Europe as all of the states occupied by Soviet troops be-came part of Moscow’s sphere of influence. Coalitions of all political parties (except fascist or right-wing parties) were formed to run the government, but within a year
or two, the Communist parties in these coalitions had assumed the lion’s share of power. The next step was the creation of one-party Com-munist governments. The timetables for these takeovers varied from country to country, but between 1945 and 1947, Communist gov-ernments became firmly entrenched in East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Hungary. In Czecho-slovakia, with its strong tradition of democratic institutions, the Com-munists did not achieve their goals until 1948. In the elections of 1946, the Communist Party became the
largest party but was forced to share control of the government with non-Communist rivals. When it ap-peared that the latter might win new elections early in 1948, the Communists seized control of the government on February 25. All other parties were dissolved, and Communist leader Klement Gottwald became the new president of Czechoslovakia.
Yugoslavia was a notable exception to the pattern of growing Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. The Communist Party there had led resistance to the Nazis during the war and easily took over power when the war ended. Josip Broz, known as Tito (1892--1980), the leader of the Communist resistance movement, ap-peared to be a loyal Stalinist. After the war, however, he moved toward the establishment of an independent Communist state in Yugoslavia. Stalin hoped to take control of Yugoslavia, just as he had done in other Eastern European countries. But Tito refused to capit-ulate to Stalin’s demands and gained the support of the people (and some sympathy in the West) by portraying the struggle as one of Yugoslav national freedom. In 1958, the Yugoslav party congress asserted that Yugoslav Communists did not see themselves as deviating from communism, only from Stalinism. They considered their more decentralized economic and political system, in which workers could manage themselves and local communes could exercise some political power, closer to the Marxist-Leninist ideal.
To Stalin (who had once boasted, ‘‘I will shake my little finger, and there will be no more Tito’’), the cre-ation of pliant pro-Soviet regimes throughout Eastern Europe may simply have represented his interpretation of the Yalta peace agreement and a reward for sacrifices suffered during the war while satisfying Moscow’s as-pirations for a buffer zone against the capitalist West.
Recent evidence suggests that Stalin did not decide to tighten Communist control over the new Eastern
European governments until U.S.
actions---notably the promulgation of the Marshall Plan (see below)---threatened to undermine Soviet au-thority in the region. If the Soviet leader had any intention of promoting future Communist revolutions in Western Europe---and there is some indication that he did---in his mind such developments would have to await the appearance of a new capi-talist crisis a decade or more into the future. As Stalin undoubtedly recalled, Lenin had always maintained that revolutions come in waves.
The Truman Doctrine and the Beginnings The Truman Doctrine and the Beginnings of Containment
of Containment
In the United States, the Soviet takeover of Eastern Eu-rope represented an ominous development that threat-ened Roosevelt’s vision of a durable peace. Public suspicion of Soviet intentions grew rapidly, especially among the millions of Americans who still had relatives living in Eastern Europe. Winston Churchill was quick to put such fears into words. In a highly publicized speech given to an American audience at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, the former British prime minister declared that an ‘‘Iron Curtain’’ had ‘‘de-scended across the continent,’’ dividing Germany and Europe itself into two hostile camps. Stalin responded by branding Churchill’s speech a ‘‘call to war with the Soviet Union.’’ But he need not have worried. Although public opinion in the United States placed increasing pressure on Washington to devise an effective strategy to counter Soviet advances abroad, the American people were in no mood for another war.
The first threat of a U.S.-Soviet confrontation took place in the Middle East. During World War II, British and Soviet troops had been stationed in Iran to prevent Axis occupation of the rich oil fields in that country.
Both nations had promised to withdraw their forces after the war, but at the end of 1945, there were ominous signs that Moscow might attempt to use its troops as a bar-gaining chip to annex Iran’s northern territories---known as Azerbaijan---to the USSR. When the government of Iran, with strong U.S. support, threatened to take the issue to the United Nations, the Soviet Union backed down and removed its forces from that country in the spring of 1946.
A civil war in Greece created another potential arena for confrontation between the superpowers and an op-portunity for the Truman administration to take a stand.
Corsica
Communist guerrilla forces supported by Tito’s Yugoslavia had taken up arms against the pro-Western government in Athens. Great Britain had initially assumed primary re-sponsibility for promoting postwar reconstruction in the eastern Mediterranean, but in 1947, continued postwar economic problems caused the British to withdraw from the active role they had been playing in both Greece and Turkey. U.S. President Harry Truman, alarmed by British weakness and the possibility of Soviet expansion into the eastern Mediterranean, responded with the Truman Doc-trine, which said in essence that the United States would provide money to countries that claimed they were threatened by Communist expansion. If the Soviets were not stopped in Greece, the Truman argument ran, then the United States would have to face the spread of commu-nism throughout the free world. As Dean Acheson, the American secretary of state, explained, ‘‘Like apples in a barrel infected by disease, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all the East . . . likewise Africa. . . Italy . . .
France.. . . Not since Rome and Carthage has there been such a polarization of power on this earth.’’2
The
The MarsMarshalhall l PlaPlann The U.S. suspicion that Moscow was actively supporting the insurgent movement in Greece was inaccurate. Stalin was apparently unhappy with Tito’s promoting of the conflict, not only because it suggested that the latter was attempting to create his own sphere of influence in the Balkans but also because it risked provoking a direct confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. The proclamation of the Truman Doctrine was soon followed in June 1947 by the European Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan. Intended to rebuild prosperity and sta-bility, this program included $13 billion for the eco-nomic recovery of war-torn Europe. Underlying the program was the belief that Communist aggression fed off economic turmoil. General George C. Marshall noted in a speech at Harvard, ‘‘Our policy is not directed against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.’’3
From the Soviet perspective, the Marshall Plan was nothing less than capitalist imperialism, a thinly veiled attempt to buy the support of the smaller European countries, which in return would be expected to submit to economic exploitation by the United States. The White House indicated that the Marshall Plan was open to the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite states, but they refused to participate. The So-viets, however, were in no position
to compete financially with the United States and could do little to counter the Marshall Plan except to tighten their control in Eastern Europe.
Europe Divided Europe Divided
By 1947, the split in Europe between East and West had become a fact of life. At the end of World War II, the United States had favored a quick end to its commitments in Europe. But U.S. fears of Soviet aims caused the United States to play an increasingly important role in European affairs. In an article in Foreign Affairs in July 1947, George Kennan, a well-known U.S. diplomat with much knowl-edge of Soviet affairs, advocated a policy of containment against further aggressive Soviet moves. Kennan favored the
‘‘adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet pol-icy.’’ After the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, contain-ment of the Soviet Union became formal U.S. policy.
The fate of Germany had become a source of heated contention between East and West. Besides denazification and the partitioning of Germany (and Berlin) into four occupied zones, the Allied Powers had agreed on little with regard to the conquered nation. Even denazification pro-ceeded differently in the various zones of occupation. The Americans and British proceeded methodically---the British had tried two million cases by 1948---while the Soviets went after major criminals and allowed lesser officials to go free.
The Soviet Union, hardest hit by the war, took reparations from Germany in the form of booty. The technology-starved Soviets dismantled and removed to Russia 380 factories from the western zones of Berlin before trans-ferring their control to the Western powers. By the summer of 1946, two hundred chemical, paper, and textile factories in the East German zone had likewise been shipped to the Soviet Union. At the same time, the German Com-munist Party was reestablished under the control of Walter Ulbricht (1893--1973) and was soon in charge of the po-litical reconstruction of the Soviet zone in eastern Germany.
The
The BerBerlin lin BlocBlockadekade Although the foreign ministers of the four occupying powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France) kept meeting in an attempt to arrive at a final peace treaty with Germany, they grew further and further apart. At the same time, the British, French, and Americans gradually began to merge their zones economically and by February 1948 were making plans for
Berlin at the Start of the Cold War Berlin at the Start of the Cold War
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formation of a national government. The Soviet Union responded with a blockade of West Berlin that prevented all traffic from entering the city’s three western zones through Soviet-controlled territory in East Germany. The Soviets hoped to force the Western powers to stop the creation of a separate West German state, which threat-ened Stalin’s plan to create a reunified Germany that could eventually be placed under Soviet control.
The Western powers faced a dilemma. Direct military confrontation seemed dangerous, and no one wished to risk World War III. Therefore, an attempt to break through the blockade with tanks and trucks was ruled out. The solution was the Berlin Airlift: supplies for the city’s in-habitants were brought in by plane. At its peak, the airlift flew 13,000 tons of supplies daily into Berlin. The Soviets, who also wanted to avoid war, did not interfere and finally lifted the blockade in May 1949. The blockade of Berlin had severely increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and confirmed the separation of Germany into two states. The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was formally created from the three Western zones in September 1949, and a month later, the separate German
Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in East Ger-many. Berlin remained a divided city and the source of much contention between East and West.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact
NATO and the Warsaw Pact The search for security in the new world of the Cold War also led to the formation of military alliances. The North Atlantic Treaty Organi-zation (NATO) was formed in April 1949 when Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Britain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Iceland signed a treaty with the United States and Canada (see Map 7.1). All the powers agreed to provide mutual assistance if any one of them was attacked. A few years later, West Germany, Greece, and Turkey joined the alliance.
The Eastern European states soon followed suit. In 1949, they formed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) for economic cooperation.
Then, in 1955, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union organized a formal military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. Once again, Europe was tragically divided into hostile alliance systems.
A
A City DividedCity Divided .. In 1948, U.S. planes airlif ted supplies into Berli n to break the blockad e that Soviet troops had imposed to isolate the city. Shown here is ‘‘Checkpoint Charlie ’’ (a crossing point between the Western and Soviet zones of Berlin) just as Soviet roadblocks are about to be removed. The banner at the entrance to the Soviet sector reads, ironically, ‘‘The sector of freedom greets the fighters for freedom and right of the Western sectors.’’
c G e t t y I m a g e s
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 151151
Who Started the Cold War?
Who Started the Cold War? By the end of the 1950s, then, the dream of a stable peace in Europe had been obliterated. There has been considerable historical debate over who bears the most responsibility for starting what would henceforth be called the Cold War. In the 1950s, most scholars in the West assumed that the bulk of the blame must fall on the shoulders of Joseph Stalin, whose determination to impose Soviet rule on the countries of
Eastern Europe snuffed out hopes for freedom and self-determination there and aroused justifiable fears of Communist expansion in the Western democracies.
During the next decade, however, a new school of revi-sionist historians---influenced in part by their hostility to aggressive U.S. policies to prevent a Communist victory in Southeast Asia---began to argue that the fault lay pri-marily in Washington, where President Truman and his
MAP 7.1 The New European AllianThe New European Allian ce Systems Durince Systems Durin g the Cold War.g the Cold War. This map shows postwar Europe as it was divided during the Cold War into two contending power blocs, the NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact. Major military and naval bases are indicated by symbols on the map.
Q
QWhere on the map was the so-called Iron Curtain?
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anti-Communist advisers abandoned the precepts of Yalta and sought to encircle the Soviet Union with a tier of pliant U.S. client states.
More recently, many historians have adopted a more nuanced view, noting that both the United States and the Soviet Union took steps at the end of World War II that were unwise or might have been avoided. Both nations, however, were working within a framework conditioned by the past. Ultimately, the rivalry between the two su-perpowers stemmed from their different historical per-spectives and their irreconcilable political ambitions.
Intense competition for political and military supremacy had long been a regular feature of Western civilization.
The United States and the Soviet Union were the heirs of that European tradition of power politics, and it should not come as a surprise that two such different systems would seek to extend their way of life to the rest of the world. Because of its need to feel secure on its western border, the Soviet Union was not prepared to give up the advantages it had gained in Eastern Europe from Germany’s defeat. But neither were Western leaders pre-pared to accept without protest the establishment of a system of Soviet satellites that not only threatened the security of Western Europe but also deeply offended Western sensibilities because of its blatant disregard of the Western concept of human rights.
This does not necessarily mean that both sides bear equal responsibility for starting the Cold War. Some re-visionist historians have claimed that the U.S. doctrine of containment, combined with its temporary monopoly of nuclear weapons, was a provocative action that aroused Stalin’s suspicions and drove Moscow into a position of hostility to the West. This charge lacks credibility. As information from the Soviet archives and other sources has become available, it is increasingly clear that Stalin’s suspicions of the West were rooted in his Marxist-Leninist worldview and long predated Washington’s enunciation of the doctrine of containment. As his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, once remarked, Soviet policy was inherently aggressive and would be triggered whenever the opportunity offered. Although Stalin apparently had no master plan to advance Soviet power into Western Europe, he was probably prepared to make every effort to do so once the next revolutionary wave appeared on the horizon. Western leaders were fully justified in reacting to this possibility by strengthening their own lines of de-fense. On the other hand, it has been argued---by no less than George Kennan himself---that in deciding to respond to the Soviet challenge in a primarily military manner, Western leaders overreacted to the situation and virtually guaranteed that the Cold War would be transformed into an arms race that could quite conceivably result in a new and uniquely destructive war.