COLD WAR: ITS ORIGINS AND INEVITABILITY 1945-1947
This essay analyzes the relative positions of the United States and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Second World War and discusses the origins of the Cold War, including whether its coming was inevitable. A power vacuum was created in the center of Europe and other areas on the periphery of the Soviet Union by the defeat of the Axis. The methods used by the Soviets to pursue their interests provoked vigorous defensive countermeasures by the United States and its allies. No other response from the West could have been realistically anticipated so long as the Soviet Union remained under the control of Josef Stalin.
According to La Feber, "the Cold War developed on a foundation of a half century of Russian-American distrust and apprehension" (6). Relations between the West and Russia were interrupted and distrust between the two blocs was sown by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Russia's departure from the First World War, the repudiation of its war debts, communist subversive activities in Europe and Allied, including American, half-hearted military intervention in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1921. The antagonism between Russia and the West was somewhat muted during the early interwar period as Stalin concentrated on building socialism in Russia. It flared up again in the late 1930s after the West and the Soviet Union failed to form an effect alliance against Hitlerism and reached its nadir after the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939. According to La Feber, "Hitler's invasion of Russia in 1941 forced a four-year partnership upon the Soviets and America" (6). Despite a great deal of mutual suspicion, that military and political alliance remained intact until the common Axis enemies were destroyed.
American and Soviet Postures in 1945
With the destruction of Germany and Japan, Soviet power thrust deeply into Central Europe. Russia reconquered territories in the F...