THE COLD WAR

Introduction

 A  General Background

   i  The term 'Cold War' refers to the development of an attitude of mistrust, suspicion and downright hostility between Russia and her former allies, the U.S.A., Britain and France.  It started with reference to points in the post-war settlement, the frontiers of Poland, reparations, the build-up of Soviet power in Eastern Europe and developed into an ideological war between com¬munism, the faith of Soviet Russia and her allies, and capitalist democracy based on free parliaments, the political philosophy of the U.S.A.  and her allies. 

   ii  It was said that Russia feared the threat of the American atomic bomb and the vast economic wealth of the U.S.A., and wished to rebuild her own strength and influence by seizing every advantage possible, both economic and political, in the post¬war world.  A second view point maintained that Stalin could only keep his own police state in being by conjuring up threats from without and that, in fact, he was confident that the Euro¬pean and American capitalist states would collapse in a post-war depression, if only enough communist pressure was kept up against them.  For Stalin, communism and capitalism could not live together, and communism was infallibly right. 

    iii  The Americans, especially under Roosevelt and his advisers, had been very conciliatory with regard to Russia.  They expected the Soviet Union to co-operate with them in ruling the post-war world.  For this reason they gave way on reparations and the European frontiers.  When they finally realized, in 1947, that Russian intransigence and aggression were deliberate and un¬changing, that the Russians 'were coldly determined to exploit Europe in the interests of communism' (General Marshall), they too, began to wage their religious war, not for communism like Stalin, but against it in favour of Western democracy.  iv The 'Cold War' was therefore a mixture of a religious crusade in favour of one ideology or the other and the most ruthless power politics, striking out for advantage or expansion not only in Europe but all over the world.  The communists were better organized both militarily and politically, and could take the offensive.  The U.S.A., as leader of the western democracies, had to follow in the main a policy of containment based on econo¬mic aid, regional pacts, and defensive military alliances.  Only in the last resort could she make actual war. 

2   The Cold War in Europe and the Middle East

 A  Persia, Greece and Turkey

   i  Immediately after the war, in addition to her massive gains in Eastern Europe, Russia started to push out at three points Persia, Greece and Turkey.  Under the terms of a treaty be-tween Britain, Russia and Iran, made during the war, the Rus¬sians had troops in Azerbaijan.  In 1946, they began to take over this area.  The Iranian government complained to the Security Council and the Russians reluctantly withdrew. 

   ii  There had been a communist rising in Greece in 1944, and communist guerillas continued to infiltrate into the country from Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.  The United Nations sent an investigating mission but a Soviet veto prevented them from taking any decisive action.  It had been agreed between the war-time Allies that Greece should be a British area of influ¬ence.  Soviet action after the war was considered a breach of this agreements. 

    iii  The Russians said that Turkey was a weak state and therefore a danger to the Soviet Union since some other power might set up fortifications there.  In the immediate post-war situation this was unlikely in view of Soviet military strength, but the Rus¬sians demanded a base in the Dardanelles and put growing pressure on Turkeyr. 

 B  The Truman Doctrine, March, 1947

     Britain felt that she could not maintain the independence and economic stability of Greece and Turkey entirely alone, and appealed to the U.S.A.  for help.  This led to the declaration of the Truman doctrine by which the American president stated that the U.S.A.  would support free peoples who were resisting subjugation by armed minorities, or harassment by outside pressures.  American aid both economic and military poured into Greece and Turkey, obviously to counter communist infil¬tration and Soviet pressure.  The split between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1948 certainly helped the Western Allies in this area and eased communist pressure on both Greece and Turkey.  The Truman doctrine marked the beginning of the 'anti-communist crusade' . 

 C  Marshall Aid, June 1947

   i  There was danger, from the Western point of view, much nearer home.  Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Italy were all drastically weakened by the war, and in France and Italy there were militant communist parties.  Through the Marshall Plan, the U.S.A.  offered massive economic aid to all the countries of Europe, allies, ex-enemy, communist and non-communist.  Rus¬sia refused to participate and would not allow her satellites to join in.  'This in June 1947, was the real turning point, collabora¬tion between East and West was at an end and Europe was finally split (Laqueur).  The fact that Yugoslavia was one of the main beneficiaries under Marshall Aid again emphasized the conflict between east and west. 

   ii  It was in October 1947 that the Cominform, the Communist Information Bureau, similar to the old Comintern, was set up in Belgrade.  It was composed of representatives from the com¬munist parties of Eastern Europe and France and Italy.  In November 1947, Cominform persuaded the French and Italian communist parties to stir up serious strikes intended to bring down the government and the parliamentary political system. 

 D  Eastern Europe — the Satellites

   i  Russian domination of Eastern Europe through her satellite states was seen as a serious threat by the West, especially since most of these states had been turned into one-party police states.  By contrast, Czechoslovakia had enjoyed a real measure of independence up to 1948.  When Berms was forced to accept a communist-dominated government and Masaryk was killed, the gap in political theory and practice between East and West widened ominously. 

   ii  The Russian answer to Marshall Aid was Comecon, a council for mutual aid set up in Warsaw in January 1949 to integrate the economies of the satellites with Russia. 

 E  Military Alliances — NATO and the Warsaw Pact?

   i  Fear of communism and of the military might of Soviet Russia made Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg join together for mutual defence in the Brussels Treaty of 1948.  The real importance of the treaty was that it was used as a springboard for the formation of the much larger and stronger North Atlantic Treaty Organization of 1949.  NATO included the U.S.A.  and Canada and ten European nations: Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal, Nor¬way, Denmark and Iceland.  If one member were attacked all the others were to come to its aid.  Following the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, NATO set up a unified command in Paris under General D.  Eisenhower.  Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952, and West Germany became a member in 1955. 

   ii  The Soviet Union had bilateral, military security agreements with each of the satellite powers, but in 1955, these single agree¬ments were merged into a common military organization under the Warsaw Pact. 

 F  Germany

   i  Germany was the veritable battleground of the 'Cold War,' for it was here above all that economic and political co-operation were essential, with both Germany and its capital divided into four zones.  Yet it was in Germany that co-operation most obviously and implacably broke down.  'In Germany quadri¬partite policy broke down before it was enunciated; even prior to Potsdam, the Russians were treating their zone as their own property and converting it into a satellite' (Ryder-Germany).  Stalin said as early as June 1944, 'This war is not like past wars; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system as far as his army can reach.' No wonder that the foreign ministers of the four powers failed to agree on Germany. 

   ii  By the agreements between the Allies on reparations, the Rus¬sians were to receive a part of the reparations from the western zone in the form of machinery, mainly from the British zone.  In return Russia was supposed to send food to this basically industrial area, which she did not.  The economic burden of the British zone became a heavy burden on the British taxpayer and in addition, the German economy looked in danger of com¬plete collapse.  In order to avoid this the Americans and the British merged their zones in January 1947 (Bizonia) and the French joined them early in 1948.  Germany became a member of OEEC and following a reform of the currency in June 1948 there was a marked improvement in the economic prosperity of West Germany. 

   iii  The Russians watched this separate build-up of West Germany with unconcealed hostility.  A meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow, in December 1947, failed to reach any agreement and the atmosphere in the Allied Control Council and in the Kom¬mandatura, the governing body of Berlin, became very hostile.  The Russians hit back in Berlin which they regarded as the capital of their zone and wished to make a communist city.  They insisted on a new currency for the capital which the West refused, and then they cut off supplies, power and access to Berlin in June 1948.  The Berlin airlift, carried out by the U.S.A.  and Britain 1948-49, eventually persuaded the Russians to lift the blockade. 

   iv  The breakdown of any sort of co-operation in Germany led logically and inevitably to the creation of two separate states, one in the east and one in the west.  In September 1949 the three zones of West Germany were made into the German Federal Republic, with its capital at Bonn, and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, one month later..