Was the Cold War inevitable?

[BeBMan]

From today's view it seems like a logical consequence, however, there's quite a lot of evidence that - immediately at the end of WWII - Stalin wanted to continue to cooperate with his war allies on multiple levels. His ideology may have led him to a belief that "Capitalism" would break down in a long term perspective, but soon after WWII US, UK, and Sov had still common interests, for example the German question, and Stalin hoped for financial or economical help from the west (de facto: the US) in a certain form. Initially after the war he also seemed to believe in establishing some status quo that gives up influence over Western Europe (no active support for communist parties there in certain cases) while getting a free hand in his Eastern European sphere of influence in return.

Also, during developments that led to what we now call "Cold War" it seems that both sides did overestimate the possible intentions of the other side to go into a long, deep confrontation, and each of the sides also lacked understanding about the fundamental security needs of the other.

OTOH one can look at certain characteristics of both "the West" and the USSR and ask if they were so contrary to eachother that a certain form of confrontation was just a question of time.

Discuss.

[Dr Strangelove]

The United States began embargoing the Soviet Union virtually from the day of its birth, so in a way the Cold War began even before WW2. No one in Washington was fooled into thinking that the cooperation extended to the Soviet Union during the war would continue for long afterwards. Look how efficiently their spy network in the US worked during the war. We'd have been nuts to continue close contact with them and there were a lot of people in the SU who thought the same about us. One of the major changes in the international scene between 1939 and 1945 was that the US was left as the no questions asked leader of the non-Commintern world. That meant that after 1945 there would be a degree of cooperation aimed at isolating the Soviet Union that right wingers before the war could only have dreamt of.

[DarkCloud]

Well, this is such a huge question... I think that it probably needs to be narrowed down before it could be best addressed- narrowed down to at what point could something have been done different to avoid a cold war... because by 1944 and 1945 it was too late- there was already a scramble to get to Berlin, and the US wanted to keep Russia out of the Japanese theatre by dropping the atomic bomb...

[Lonestar]

Yes. So long as there was a Stalin, there would be a Cold War.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Yes. So long as there was a Stalin, there would be a Cold War.

Stalin wanted to buffalo the West as best he could. His intentions in Eastern Europe were only to extend Soviet influence. He wanted to consolidate.

[BeBMan]

Well, some thoughts:

- Its clear that there was hostility (even a western intervention after the revolution in SovRussia) before. I'd say however that what started after WWII in the later 1940ies - what we call cold war now - presented a whole new dimension being a confrontation on nearly every level (just not open and direct military conflict - though both sides engaged in proxy wars), not only between countries but "blocks" which divided much of the world into two camps, and affected lots of people/countries even outside those "blocks". Thatswhy I'd separate the cold war as such from earlier attempts to embargo or to isolate the USSR (and embargoes and isolation also happened at other occasions without becoming something comparable to the cold war in every case).

- I disagree though with the idea of the cold war being basically set in 1944/45, it's true there were increasing differences between USSR and US/UK but that alone doesn't make it IMO. For example the race for Berlin is no indicator for me here, since the postwar situation for Germany was not finally decided (only the occupied zones, but there was no fixed plan for the future of Germany as a state, that all developed later). Similar the situation in the Pacific, let's not forget that still in early 45 the Allies agreed about the Soviet invasion in Manchuria (at the Yalta conference IIRC) which came in summer.

- As for "big question", yeah. I don't think we can solve all big questions on the internet but why not debate it, it may be still interesting.

[Krill]

If the US had decided to not use nukes and keep the ma secret and work on them in secret, then their might have been. Or Stalin might have capitalised on the severe loss of men and materiel caused by an invasion of Japan and just conquered all of Europe.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Krill
If the US had decided to not use nukes and keep the ma secret and work on them in secret, then their might have been. Or Stalin might have capitalised on the severe loss of men and materiel caused by an invasion of Japan and just conquered all of Europe.

There is quite good reason to assume that the US did use the Bomb because the Soviet Union had just joined the Allied on the Japanese front. (as per agreement, the soviets attacked exactly 3 months after V-E day) With the unconditional surrender of Japan, communist influence in Asia was thus greatly reduced.

Without the Bomb the soviets would probably have overrun large parts of Japanese occupied Asia, with heavy losses on the soviet side as well, so it's doubtfull that the soviets would have gained relative strength in a no-nuke scenario.


On the OP: the cold war was certainly not inevitable, it could have turned into a hot war with ease. Especially during the time that the soviets were still without nukes, or were severely outnumbered in that field.
That the communists and capitalists could co-exist without making their lives misarable at every opportunaty is a fantasy though. I think in the end the cold war was the best outcome this ideological conflict could have had.

[Krill]

YEah, I can see that it could have been a hell of a lot worse...

[DarkCloud]

Similar the situation in the Pacific, let's not forget that still in early 45 the Allies agreed about the Soviet invasion in Manchuria (at the Yalta conference IIRC) which came in summer.

That's because the Allies had little other choice. They didn't have the manpower or the will to get the japanese out of Manchuria and attack the southern island of Kyushu at the same time. Until the atomic bomb was developed, the Russians were necessary. After that, they were no longer needed.

I don't think that at the time there was a belief that the russians would take exceptional casualties- I think it was pretty much well known that the Russians could take on the numerically inferior Japanese on manchuria. they were needed- this does not prove that the cold war was avoidable at the time.

Long term- the manchurian area was a heavy manufacturing area, it was very attractive for invasion- the most developed part of china during wwII. and it was a place of historical interest for russia (pre 1904)... remember, russia had interests in Korea before the Russo-Japanese conflict.

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At the point when the Russians thought they needed a buffer, and the rest of the Allies decided that the countries involved needed to be free- the conflict was born. Both sides would not budge. And could they be expected to budge?

Assuming the allies 'blinked first', they would have surrendered all of eastern europe, and perhaps manchuria to the russians. okay. considering communist influences in Italy, the country could then very well have joined the iron curtain soon after- and possibly even France might have fallen under russian sway (though that is less likely due to DeGaulle.)

interestingly, russia might have, in this scenario, actively went to war with the KMT/GMD in China and tried to seize northern manchuria- thereby flummoxing mao Zedong's Red Army... which woudl have been interesting- since the conquests in Manchuria is where Mao drew most of his strength and credibility from. At this point we begin an interesting guessing game... but since we're not writing an alternative history here, I'll stop since I'm wandering far off topic.

Basically, Stalin wasn't set up for conceding anything to the west, and the domino theory would have proved salient if the west backed down. Stalin's communist theory was that capitalism and communism were incompatible- that there would be worldwide struggle. Therefore, there could be little dialogue or cooperation to the two sides. The two ideologies were mutually inexclusive.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
I don't think that at the time there was a belief that the russians would take exceptional casualties- I think it was pretty much well known that the Russians could take on the numerically inferior Japanese on manchuria. they were needed- this does not prove that the cold war was avoidable at the time.

Sure, but that wasn't my point, rather that the situation then did not create conditions which made the cold war unavoidable. Cooperation in intl. politics is hardly ever just "selfless" so the fact that both sides needed eachother during the war doesn't say much about a possible later cooperation. Even with the cold war still running we saw some forms of cooperation between the two blocks (CSCE and following developments), or parts of these blocks (for example West-Germany's "Ostpolitik").

Basically, Stalin wasn't set up for conceding anything to the west, and the domino theory would have proved salient if the west backed down. Stalin's communist theory was that capitalism and communism were incompatible- that there would be worldwide struggle. Therefore, there could be little dialogue or cooperation to the two sides. The two ideologies were mutually inexclusive.

Yes, but as shown above this didn't rule out any cooperation per se. Sure, my examples are from post-Stalin times, when the Soviet block overall moved a bit away from outright totalitarianism, but the core differences between both ideologies were still there.

As for Stalin, we do have indications that he was prepared to concede something to the west. Both Stalin and Churchill divided South Eastern Europe into spheres of influence the other side would respect in Moscow 1944 and agreed formally on it again at Yalta. We also have Soviet foreign policy documents envisioning several spheres in Europe (for exaple the Litvinov memo from Jan 1945 with western, Soviet, neutral spheres), though one could ask how much of it made it into Stalin's practical policy.

To the role of ideology: Stalin was indeed convinced that capitalism would end in a certain timeframe, but that doesn't mean that he thought always he had to fuel this development by active and confrontational policy or even by the use of force. Being a good commie he saw this as something which was "natural", and already determined by history, but he didn't always think it had to put it into praxis by Soviet tanks. For example he told UK labour politicians in 1946 that their country would be the second communist state, but it could happen peacefully.