ON THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

Synopsis

The Western Allies and the Soviet Union, through a series of conferences, mapped out the post-war world, trying to set up an international system to ensure peace and stability.

Such a system could only be stable if all great powers have issues of vital interests met. Where such interests coincide, there is stability. Where such interests conflict, there is instability.

Not all issues discussed were of the same importance to all the participants. Germany was an issue of vital interest to both sides. On the other hand, Poland was of secondary interest to the Western Allies, although the Soviet Union regarded it as of vital interest.

To achieve stability, the Western Allies sacrificed Poland and other Eastern European states to the Soviet sphere of influence. Germany was divided up and a reparation scheme worked out. A stable international system seemed to have been achieved in 1945.

But this system was actually unstable as it was based on false assumptions and poor foresight. The original agreement on Germany proved unworkable, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe proved unpopular, and the United States became deeply engaged diplomatically, economically and militarily in post-war Europe.

As each side attempted to adapt to reality, these attempts led to a series of events between 1945 and 1948 that destabilised the system, threatening the vital interests of the other side.

The First Cold War can be seen as the period of instability as each side adjusted its posture and policies according to what it perceived as the other sides’ posture and policies – accurately or inaccurately – until a new form of stability was arrived at.

The Search for A Post-War System

The Allies began to find a way to construct a system for post-war Europe even before the end of the war there. The primary mechanism used by the Allies to do so was a series of major conferences between themselves, of which the two most important were the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference.

Underlying these conferences were the assessments and calculations made by the different powers with regards to each other. In their assessments, they determined what were their vital interests, the likely dispositions of the other great powers, and analyse how best to protect the former given the latter.

To a large extent, the wartime calculations of the great powers coincided rather than conflicted with one another. There was a recognition that the best way to ensure that there would not be another war between the great powers it to construct an international system that would be stable, where the vital interests of each of the great powers were satisfied.

At the same time, the great powers were willing to accommodate each other’s vital interests, which became the foundation of a seemingly stable system in 1945. In particular, the Western Allies were sensitive to the Soviet Union’s national security needs.

Finally, there was the fact that the shape of post-war Europe had been settled de facto by realities on the ground as the Western Allies and the Soviet Union fought their way towards Germany. As Weinberg put it, ‘Most of the major diplomatic choices were prefigured at the Teheran Conference, and the most contentious political issue between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies – the fate of Poland and Southeast Europe – had been effectively settled between Teheran and Yalta by the occupation – or liberation – of practically the whole of that area by the Red Army in the interim.’

This concord can be seen on two major issues that preoccupied the great powers at the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference: Poland and Germany.

Poland

In the aftermath of a very bloody and costly war, national security was the primary concern for all the great powers. At the same time, they were conscious of the security needs of the other great powers.

The Western Allies understood the ‘expanded’ security requirements of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union saw the creation of a buffer zone in Eastern Europe as critical to their national security. This was clearly recognised as such by the Western Allies, as can be seen from Churchill’s Percentage offer in Oct 44, which clearly defined an area of Soviet dominance on its immediate borders, although not quite as far west as the Soviet Union would eventually come to dominate.

This went well beyond a pragmatic recognition that any area occupied by the Red Army would probably be under the influence – if not domination – of the Soviet Union. Western politicians seemed to recognise that the Soviet Union had a legitimate security interest in maintaining a buffer zone with governments friendly to it. There was also the recognition that this domination was a blood price paid to the Soviet Union for its sacrifices during the war, and a recognition of its status as a great power on par with both the US and the UK.

There was only one issue that the great powers seemed to be in disagreement, and that was Poland. First, there was the issue of Poland’s borders, where the Soviet Union proposed amend such that its eastern border would be pushed further west, to be compensated by pushing its western border out at the expense of Germany.

This issue was discussed at both Yalta and Potsdam. At the latter conference, the issue of Poland’s political independence became salient, taking the form of a discussion concerning the provisional government running what was now Red Army occupied Poland. It soon became clear that Stalin was unwilling to accommodate the Western Allies’ plea for the provisional government – dominated by elements supported by the Soviet Union – to become more inclusive and representative.

However, it should be noted that at neither the Tehran Conference, nor the Yalta Conference, did the American President or the British Prime Minister challenged Stalin on the issue of Poland by making a firm stand. The discussions took more the form of supplications and appeals – in other words, moral-suasions – rather than a firm statement of Western Allied interests that they were staking a claim on.

The reason for this was obvious. Neither the US nor the UK had a vital interest in the independence and freedom of Poland, or in any of the small Eastern European states, while they recognised that the Soviet Union clearly perceived itself to have a vital interest in those countries.

Roosevelt and Churchill’s discussions with Stalin seemed to carry the flavour of a “manly attempt” to appeal to the better nature of Stalin, and if this were to fail, well, the matter would not be pursued further. Stalin clearly recognised this, and stood his ground firmly without even making any cosmetic gestures towards reconciliation on this point. He further pointed out clearly that Poland was of critical interest to the Soviet Union in terms of security given that ‘throughout history Poland has always been a corridor for attack on Russia’, while for the Western Allies, it was a ‘question of honour’. Neither the US nor the UK voiced strong objections to this assertion. (See “Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta, 6 February 1945, FRUS, Conferences at Malta and Yalta, pp. 221-3”)

It was perhaps inevitable that the ‘Americans and the British found that they would get very little in the way of concessions on the government of Poland, and the concessions which they did obtain were quickly repudiated soon after the meeting’. (p803, “A World at Arms” (extract), Weinberg)

As such, while there was disagreement on the issue of Poland, since this issue was regarded as of vital interest only to one side and was of only secondary interest to the other, there was in actuality no actual conflict between the vital interests of the two sides.

As it was with Poland, so it would be with the rest of Eastern Europe. While they remained hopeful about Soviet benevolence, the Western Allies had ceded to a de facto Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, by not challenging the Soviet Union firmly. Thus, it is difficult to argue that the fate of Poland, as well as the other fates befalling Eastern European states such as Czechoslovakia and Hungary, led directly to the Cold War.

It might not be too harsh to say that the Eastern European states were sacrificed to pay for a stable international system between the great powers.

Germany

While Poland might be of secondary interest to the Western Allies, Germany certainly was of vital interest to them. And Poland was of vital interest to the Soviet Union precisely because Germany was an issue of vital interest to the Soviet Union.

Considering the subsequent crises over Germany, it was surprising to find that the great powers saw eye to eye on the fate of Germany in 1945. All saw the need for it to be thoroughly defeated, occupied and de-nazified. There was also a certain amount of enthusiasm on both sides for Germany to be fragmented into portions that would no longer be threatening.

In particular, two critical issues were settled between the great powers even before the surrender of Germany. At the Yalta Conference, the different zones of occupation of Germany were drawn up, and reaffirmed at the Potsdam Conference (with changes to accommodate a zone on the western side for France). This was of vital interest to all the great powers as a fragmented Germany would not be able to pose the same threat as it did since 1871. At the same time, with each great power holding only to a small portion of Germany, none of them could exploit German potential to reinforce its own strength to threaten the others.

The second issue was that of reparations. This issue, too, was settled, with the Soviet Union receiving a generous proportion of the booty not only from its own zone, but also from the zones held by the Western Allies, with 20% of industrial assets from those zones to be transferred to the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union had intended such reparations to be punitive, the Western Allies had accepted that it needed such reparations to compensate for and help rebuild its war-shattered economy. This was clearly understood by the Western Allies to be of vital importance to the Soviet Union, and not something they could or would begrudge it after all its sufferings at the hands of Germany.

There remained the issue of what was to be done with the fragments of Germany that each great power held. This could be considered as a minor issue compared to the other two issues. There seemed to be an agreement that Germany was to be kept down economically and politically. With harsh plans such as the Morgenthau Plan on the one side, and the heavy reparation demands on Germany from the Soviet side, it seemed as if there was also agreement on this issue between the two sides.

Thus, Germany, once a great power, through defeat, was reduced to the same secondary status as Poland and other Eastern European state, to be used as bargaining chips to achieve stability amongst the great powers.

An Unstable Legacy: Wrong Assumptions and Reality

In 1945, the great powers had agreed on many issues. over an international system in which each powers’ critical interests were met, where they agree on important issues, and where their disagreements were confined to secondary issues that they could – and did – sacrifice to achieve great powers concert.

Given the high degree of agreements between the great powers, and the rather minor disagreements over issues of secondary importance to one side or the other, the question was then, what led to the Cold War? If there were such agreements, why did the Western Allies and the Soviet Union end up confronting one another? To continue with the thread of reasoning above, we might reinterpret the question to ask: “Why did the system worked out in 1945 breakdown?”

On this issue, we might refer to Weinberg, who assessed that:

‘Perhaps it would be more reasonable to take a view which sees the three Allies as trying hard for an accommodation of divergent ideologies and interests, with the great problem being that some of the agreements reached were not afterwards carried out, so that the high water mark of cooperation was followed by new crises rather than more steps towards continued working together’.

But why were the agreements not carried out, such that they led to crises rather than cooperation?

On hindsight, it could be seen that while the 1945 system was apparently stable, it was not in reality stable at all. It had been constructed on the soft sands of false assumptions and poor foresight, rather than reality and correct assessment of the future.

And the central issues at the core of this instability were the very things where the great powers seemed to be most in agreement: the fate of Germany and the domination of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. Very quickly, the agreed arrangements worked out by the great powers for a stable international system broke down under the demands of economic and political realities. Put another way, the challenges thrown up by these two issues were such that they could not be overcome without the 1945 system being upset. They could not be overcome without the critical interests of one side or other being threatened or sacrificed.

Germany

The Western Allies quickly found it difficult to carry out their original plans of keeping the Germany economy down. Aside from the humanitarian considerations of the poverty of Germans under their care in their zones of occupation, there were very pragmatic considerations as well.

First, there was the very practical consideration that with Germany in ruins, ultimately, the Western Allies – in particular the United States – would have to pay for the upkeep of the Germans for what could well be the long term. As Gerhard Weinberg put it, given the way Germany was carved up with the main agricultural zone in Eastern Germany, ‘there would be a massive problem of feeding the population of the British and American zones.’ The best alternative was to allow the Germans to ‘rebuild their economy and earn the cost of importing food’, rather than impose ‘indefinite burdens on the British and American taxpayers’. (p793, “A World at Arms” (extract), Weinberg)

Besides the Germans, the other countries in Europe were living in poverty as well, and with the German economically depressed, this would create a drag on its neighbouring economy as well. The German economy in the Western Allies’ zone would need to be revived in order to help drive economic growth in the rest of Western Europe.

As Gaddis noted, “It was clear by this time that Europe could not revive without Germany: earlier ideas for rehabilitating Germany’s neighbours while punishing the Germans themselves ... had come to seem increasingly unworkable.” (p118, “We Now Know”, John L. Gaddis)

Finally, the economic depression and poverty in Germany and its neighbours could eventually lead to political instability within the zones of occupation, instability that the Western Allies probably would find difficult to suppress without brutal methods. Perhaps even more critically, such instability might lead to such dissatisfactions that a new government under Soviet control might come into power there. As Gaddis put it, “the first consensus among all the Western allies, including the French, in support of Bevin’s view that a truncated and rehabilitated Germany would be less dangerous than a unified state that might come under Soviet control.’ (p117, “We Now Know”, John L. Gaddis)

Without the ruthlessness of the Soviets, the Western Allies, in particular the United States, come to realise that the original arrangement with the Soviet Union was untenable, at least as far as their zones of occupation were concerned. The economic challenges, carrying with it the potential for political instability, were too great to ignore. Something had to be done to help revive the German economy, as well as those of its neighbours.

As George Kennan said, and as quoted by Gaddis, “We have no choice but to lead our section of Germany – the section of which we and the British have accepted responsibility – to a form of independence so prosperous, so secure, so superior, that the East cannot threaten it.” (p117, “We Now Know”, John L. Gaddis)

The result was the Marshall Plan where the United States poured large amount of economic aid into the economies in Europe. Whether or not it was an economic policy directed against Communist subversion or an attempt at American economic hegemony, the results would have been equally threatening to the Soviet Union’s vital interests.

The revival of the German economy, and thus its strength, was obviously dangerous in the eyes of the Soviet Union, whether or not such strength was allied to the United States. That the zones of occupation under the Western Allies were more industrialised while the Soviet Union’s zone was more agricultural created an imbalance in the relative strengths of the two halves. And with the rapid economic recovery of western Germany, this economic imbalance could only increase.

The Buffer Zone

The second challenge was that Eastern European states proved less than welcoming to Soviet Union, much to its surprise and contrary to its earlier assumption. As Gaddis wrote, “Stalin as well as Roosevelt and Churchill miscalculated when they assumed that there could be friendly states along an expanded Soviet periphery. For how could the USSR absorb the Baltic States entirely and carve off great portions of Germany, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, while still expecting the citizens of those countries to maintain cordial attitudes towards the state that had done the carving?” (p18, “We Now Know”, John L Gaddis)

Furthermore, “However vast the moral capital the Soviet Union ... had accumulated in fighting the Germans, it could not obscure the fact that Stalin’s government was, and showed every sign of continuing to be, as repressive as Hitler’s had ever been” (p18, “We Now Know”, John L Gaddis)

The Eastern European states did not accept Soviet domination easily, so much so that the Soviet Union could not risk holding free elections in those countries, for fear that governments it had put in place there would fall. With its strict definition of what a ‘friendly’ government constituted, it really had no other alternative.

Aside from the resentment such domination would create, the economy of its buffer zone proved slow to recover. This was partly because the Soviet Union had refused to allow those states to receive American aid, and partly because of the command economy practiced under Communism in those states.

This situation soon led to a vicious cycle. This less than welcoming attitude on the part of Eastern European states made the Soviet Union feel less secure about its domination of its vital buffer zone. In turn, it made crude attempts to intervene in the politics of those states to reinforce its control. This only led to more resentment and an even more fragile sense of control.

Into this deteriorating situation, the Americans made their offer of the Marshall Plan to Eastern European states. The Soviet Union could not fail but see this as a challenge – whether intended or not – to Soviet control of its buffer zone. If Eastern European states become economically tied to the United States, the Soviet fragile grip on their internal politics could well be compromised.

The Americans Stayed

Finally, much to the surprise of the Soviet Union – and perhaps to the Americans themselves – the United States found that it could not pull out its troops within two years of the defeat of Germany after all. Instead of disengaging from Europe as it did after the First World War, and as the Soviet Union had expected, it had reinforced its involvement in Europe through the Marshall Plan. This economic involvement would soon be deepened by a political and military involvement through the formation of NATO.

Instead of being a great power safely across the oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific, suddenly, the United States had become a European power as well. Given its leviathan economic power and its temporary monopoly of the atomic bomb, the United States was a formidable land power in its own right, perhaps even more dangerous than Germany had been. And it had formed an economic hegemony – as the Soviet Union saw it – and a military alliance right at the doorstep of the Soviet buffer zone, which was already becoming increasingly unstable.

Given the above three challenges then, the Soviet Union probably began to find the 1945 system untenable. In any case, the three challenges all involved fundamental policy changes on the side of the West, such the reality in 1948 no longer looked anything like the picture painted by the great powers in 1945 that they had used to settle on a stable system.

The Soviet Union could no longer abide by the 1945 system with all these changes and when its assumptions proved wrong on the three key points on continued German weakness instead of revival, a compliant Eastern Europe, and on American withdrawal from Europe. With each policy change on the part of the West, its vital interests as it saw them was increasingly challenged. Given this situation, it was not surprising that it chose to take the final step to upset the system by imposing a blockade on Berlin in 1948.

The Issue of Legacy

We may perhaps take a look at the some of the issues asked of us by the course at this stage.

The first issue was to what extent the legacy of the Second World War influenced developments towards the Cold War. The answer is obvious. The legacy was very great indeed. The war in Europe created the two spheres of influence based upon the occupation of Europe by the great powers.

Just as importantly, the ground reality after the war was created as a result of the war. The severe economic situation found in Western Europe that had led to the American Marshall Plan was a product of the war. The hostility towards Soviet domination in Eastern Europe was probably also a product of the war, given the conduct of the Red Army in its march towards Berlin.

However, perhaps the most significant legacy was the 1945 system, together with its assumptions and policies, many of which was drafted during the war, and settled based upon the ground reality in the immediate aftermath of the war. The wartime assumptions and planning of the 1945 system might, in hindsight be seen as flawed. Its flaws led to the instability that led eventually to its own collapse, which in turn led to the start of the Cold War in 1948.

The Issue of Inevitability

We can now also take a look at the issue of inevitability. Was hostility between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies inevitable? This is a much harder question to answer, as it involved counterfactual speculations, of which much could be guessed at, but very little proved or established for sure.

However, from the discussion above, we might construct a scenario where the West might have refrained from challenging the 1945 system. The United States could probably not have come up with the Marshall Plan. It might not have become involved in a defence alliance with West European countries. It might have withdrawn its forces across the Atlantic. The West could have continued to prevent a German recovery in the West.

In this view, it might seem that the Cold War was not inevitable. But this is not the case. This alternative would probably be unpalatable to the Western Allies. Most of the countries in Western Europe might remain economically depressed for years to come. This in turn might lead to a crisis of confidence in the capitalist system, similar to that during the Great Depression. There might have been political instability in many of the countries as the population become impatient and demand a change in government and economic policies.

Even without Soviet intervention, a situation might well be created that would be similar to the Soviet conception of the collapse of western capitalist economies, and the rise of popular front governments vulnerable to Soviet subversion. It might even be that Communist governments might come into power in free elections, without Soviet subversion.

If such a situation were to arise, then the Western Allies’ vital interests would be threatened. They would probably have taken measures to stabilise the situation, probably in the form of economic aid and of military alliances with friendly governments. In such a case, the 1945 system would probably have collapsed in any case, this time as a result of the Western Allies’ actions, instead of the Soviet Union’s actions.

In this way, the collapse of the 1945 system was probably inevitable. It was simply too unstable to last once the initial assumptions were proved false. It would have collapsed by the actions of one side or the other, attempting to defend their vital interests.

Conclusion

In conclusion then, the 1945 system based upon a clear delineation of spheres of influence and founded upon the vital interests of all the great powers, was an unstable one as a result of false assumptions about what the post-war Europe would be like. Reality was such that on the one side was the economic and political chaos of Western Europe that demanded a humanitarian answer, while the other was the insecure zone of unwilling buffer states. This unstable system quickly collapsed when both sides were confronted by the reality of post-war Europe.