Cold War historiography

conflicts b/c:

  1. unique perspectives & different backgrounds
  2. recency of the Cold War and the political complications

Traditional view

late 1940s - early 1960s

  1. Russia’s inherent expansionism
  2. doctrine of Marxist-Leninism on international revolution and world communism
  3. Stalin’s anti-western paranoia
  4. Stalin broke the agreements made in Yalta and Potsdam

US entered 1945 negotiation:

  • guided by principles, not self-interest
  • want no territorial gains

figures:

  • Thomas A. Bailey
  • Herbert Feis
    • also recognized US faults but deemed more humane
    • Harry Truman’s naivety and belligerence when dealing w/ Stalin
    • Truman’s rapidity of decisions during his first year; looked firm to reflect insecurity
    • Truman’s impatience in foreign diplomacy
      • liked ‘black and white’
    • Communist dogma

  • George Kennan

Revisionist

mid-1960s - mid-1970s

US:

  • driven by economic considerations and national self-interest
  • ‘open door’ policy
    • Lend-lease
    • post-war credits
    • Marshall Plan
  • ‘atomic diplomacy’
    • Truman dropped the bomb on Japan, unnecessary but to show the SU

‘soft’ revisionist - changing of gov. personnel
‘hard’ revisionist - American system’s weaknesses

figures:

  • William Appleman Williams
    • US’ inflexible attitude to the Bolsheviks since 1917
    • tragedy of the US imposing will on people, betraying its claims for freedom and self-determination
      • US refuse to establish intercourse / concession / collaboration w/ Bolsheviks
    • 3 basic ideas of the US:
      • US isolationist
      • anti-imperialist
      • US economic power, intellectual and practical genius, and moral rigor allow US to build a better world without building an empire in the process
    • SU also to impose its views onto US
    • US policymakers aware that SU unable to launch a war with its postwar conditions
      • & Stalin’s needs to rely on the US
    • A bomb gave the SU two choices:
      • complete intimidation by the US
      • confrontation
  • Denna Fleming
    • US refused to accept consequences of WW2
      • SU invaded through Poland three time since 1914
    • US leaders directly painted the SU as the next enemy
    • US didn’t take a good lead in the League of Nation
    • SU defense due to the aggressions and threats by Truman and Churchill
  • Christopher Lasch
    • began as a Marxist
    • criticized US liberalism and progressiveness failed to oppose Cold War and Vietnam War for people’s own comforts
    • US people indoctrinated with notions of freedom and self-determination & communist people as slavery -> the US becoming the real enslaved
    • SU & eastern Europe already losing faith in socialism

Post-revisionist

early 1970s - 1989

figuers:

  • John Lewis Gaddis
  • Ernest May
    • destined conflict of traditions, culture, economic & social structures, ideologies, etc.
    • the contrast in West & East Berlin
    • US expectation of SU military force too high <-> possibly SU deliberately coined them to intimidate
    • McCarthyism 1950s to increase anti-communism

Gaddis’ theories for Cold War origination

  • lack of communication and formal recognition pre war
  • delay of second front
  • US’ refusal to recognize SU spheres of influence in eastern Europe
  • Atomic diplomacy and refusal to share nuclear tech with SU

post-post revisionist

1991 until now

focus:

  • back on ideological struggle

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views of Cold War’s aftermath:

  • Samuel P. Huntington
    • future struggles to be on inherent social order, cultural and religious
  • Francis Fukuyama
    • liberal democracy’s final victory over history of ideological struggles