2.3 cold war interpretations

Question 1

interpretation 1: the US orthodox view (late 1940s-early 1960s)

Answer 1

to the US, it was clear that stalin and the soviet union were to be blamed for the cold war

• bailey: argued that the USSR wanted world revolution. the soviet union caused it by their actions in eastern europe after WW2
• kennan: argued that stalin needed a threatening enemy to convince the people in the soviet union that they needed his dictatorship to protect them - meaning that stalin deliberately took actions to provoke the USA
• feis: argued that the USSR was trying to spread communism across the world and that the USA had been provoked to respond with the truman doctrine and the marshall plan

Question 2

was the US orthodox view popular?

Answer 2

• most americans believed that their own foreign policy wasn’t driven by self-interest but rather by a desire to improve the world
• they believed that the USSR intended to export communism across the world by force if necessary and it was the USA’s job to stop this

Question 3

what is the context for US orthodox view?

Answer 3

• the red scare (1940s-1950s) - there were fears that there were soviet spies in the US government. many intellectuals were accused of being communist sympathisers which led to many historians censoring their works especially if they were researching an interpretation that contradicted the USSR being responsible - William Appleman Williams
• personal experience: many historians who wrote the the orthodox accounts at the start of the war had actually been involved in the events they were writing about. eg. george kennan had been a senior US government official and a key figure in the development of the containment policy + herbert feis had been an advisor to the US government
• lack of sources:

Question 4

quotes for the US orthodox view: for/against

Answer 4

thomas bailey: “a fanatical communist ideology”, “soviets pursue their own world-conquering objectives”

joseph: “in their opinion, american imperialism was the cause of the cold war” -> summarised the soviet view

Question 5

what was the impact of the US orthodox view?

Answer 5

• widely accepted by historians and politicians during the cold war
• accepted by the majority of the US public
• promoted by hollywood in films that were funded by the US gov

Question 6

what were the challenges against the US orthodox view?

Answer 6

soviet viewpoint:
- patriotism: many soviet historians were just as patriotic as the americans, and wanted to defend the rep. of their country especially in the years after WW2
- censorship: soviet historians had to deal with censorship and suspicion. accounts of the war that didn’t follow official lines were at risk of losing their jobs
- lack of sources: soviet historians could not access soviet or US sources

US viewpoint:
- william appleman williams argued that that cold war was instigated by the US and that soviet action was purely defensive
- E.H carr blamed the cold war on US policies

Question 7

interpretation 2: US revisionist view (mid 1960s-mid 1970s)

Answer 7

• many US historians became critical of the orthodox view as they believe that they had overstated soviet threat and mainly justifying US policy in the years after WW2
• they argued that the US provoked the cold war by trying to achieve to economic dominance in europe and asia - argued that the marshall plan was to prevent post war economic depression which would’ve harmed trade with the US —> this is why they only helped countries that agreed to US style democracies + capitalism - DOLLAR IMPERIALISM
• truman’s aggressive attitude made the soviets feel threatened

Question 8

what was the context for the US revisionist view?

Answer 8

• the cuban revolution: william appleman williams (1959). he studied US actions in cuba -> claimed that US behaved aggressively, more like an empire-building force just to stop the soviet union developing their own empire - was not widely accepted
• the vietnam war: (1960) the US had supported a corrupt regime in vietnam, killed thousands of civilians and used chemical weapons. this impacted the trust of the US public in their government

Question 9

what was the impact of the US revisionist view?

Answer 9

• stirred discussion among historians
• politicians were less receptive to this view
• popular opinion was divided: old people were uncomfortable with this view because they were more patriotic but the youth strongly agreed with the view

Question 10

what were some challenges against the US revisionist view?

Answer 10

• many traditionalists were assured that there were no circumstances in which america would instigate such a war and that everyone supporting this view was an apologiser

Question 11

quotes for the US revisionist view

Answer 11

• joyce and gabriel: “american foreign policy was a drive to expand american capitalism”

Question 12

what is the post-revisionist view: early 1970s-1989?

Answer 12

john lewis gaddis
- rejected the views of revisionists that the cold war was solely caused by US aggression and expansionism
- he argued that a substantial proportion of the responsibility for the cold war lay with the beliefs and actions of the USSR, and of stalin in particular
- but he also did accept that US policy was based on a misunderstanding and exaggeration of soviet strength and soviet intentions, causing the USSR to overreact
- gaddis didn’t believe that the cold war was inevitable but saw it as a result of fear, confusion and misunderstanding on both sides

Question 13

what is the context for the post-revisionist view?

Answer 13

• historical debate: historians were keen to find changing interpretations so everyone was challenging previous views
• thawing of the cold war: early 1970s, following the failure of the vietnam, richard nixon began a process of detente- trying to build better relations with china and the USSR. they agreed to the strategic arms limitation treaty (1972) -> influenced historians to think less about blame

Question 14

what was the impact of the post-revisionist view?

Answer 14

• had a huge impact among historians
• many felt more comfortable with the post-revisionist view because it was more complex and rounded

Question 15

what were the challenges to the post-revisionist view?

Answer 15

• it dominated the thinking of a lot of people for a long time
• some criticised it for being too close to the orthodox view

Question 16

what was the interpretations of the new cold war historians (1989 onwards)

Answer 16

• the cold war ended with the fall of the berlin wall in 1989 and then the USSR collapsed
• the access to new soviet sources served to strengthen existing divisions
• john lewis gaddis revised his views more towards the orthodox view: “in unequivocal terms, he blames the cold war on stalin’s perosnality, on authroitarian government and communist ideology”

Question 17

what is the context of the view of the new cold war historians?

Answer 17

• the end of the cold war: led to the release of new soviet sources which had once been off-limits to historians
• the reagan factor: many people started to allocate the blame of the cold war on the politics that had already been taking place within the US. reagan followed an aggressive policy towards the USSR -> this encouraged revisionist historians

Question 18

what is the impact of the view of the new cold war historians?

Answer 18

• many were surprised when gaddis revised his views
• some historians weren’t convinced by this change in view and wondered if it had more to do with gaddis’ own political views rather than his claim that the soviet sources helped