American History

The Cold War that took place between 1945 and 1991 began after the termination of the World War II. It was the ongoing situation of political clash, military pressure and fiscal competition. The tension was basically between the Soviet Union and the powers of the west, including the US. Even if the key participants in the Cold War never had a direct military contact, they conflicted through military alliances, organizing tactical conservative forces, nuclear weapons contest, surveillance, substitute confrontations, propaganda, and technological antagonism. This was how the Cold War earned its name because the participants did not want to wage war between each other directly. They fought each other indirectly. The Cold War represented an era of relative calm but a lot of international tension. American raised political, military and financial strains against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The Soviet Union was at the time experiencing severe economic stagnation. The Cold War terminated in 1991, after the collapsing of the Soviet Union. The US was left as the dominant military power.

President Trumans involvement in the outbreak of the Cold War
Truman entered power in the United States government on 12th April 1945. He became the president amidst deep concerns about his capability for national or international leadership. This was the same period that the World War II had terminated and all the involved nations needed proper leadership for reconstruction. Truman was inexperienced in foreign affairs and did not know anything about the complex diplomacy of his predecessor, President Roosevelt. During the same period, the expedient Anglo American Soviet Alliance was becoming strained over the Soviet Union acts in Eastern Europe. In his last final year in power, republicans claimed that his administration has given up 15 states and 500 million people to communism. They also claimed that the administration had condemned 20,000 United States citizens to death in Korea. The acts of the United States that assisted in fuelling the cold war were as a result of fear and trepidation. Truman could not accept the fact that a state could exist with principles divergent from democracy and capitalism.

In 1945, President Truman cut off all assistant to the USSR, as a reaction to Stalins policies. In august of the same year, Truman expressed scruple over the world subject to enmity between USSR and the rest of the world. According to Truman, the USSR was not anywhere close to accepting peace. Truman was conscious of Stalins prospects of a second depression in America. He therefore talked about the Soviet Union being enthusiastic to take advantage of the economic depression to extend communism. Truman had taken advantage of the fact that the economy of the Soviet Union was nearly collapsing and knew that Stalin would start seeking financial support. He came to the realization that the United States was in a better bargaining position. Under Trumans authority, the United States had begun to restrict financial aid to the Soviet Union. In 1945, congress reached a decision to deny Lend-Lease for post war construction in Russia.

In 1946, Truman felt tired of baby sitting the USSR. He argued that all they understood was iron fist and strong language. Stalin reacted with a talk emphasising the primary incompatibility between communism and democracy. He also established a new hard line policy. This is where the war of words started.  So as to earn support from the congress to use a lot of finance necessary in rebuilding European economy, Truman argued ideologically that communism thrives in economically deprived regions. His aim was to use scare and anxiety to win the support of the congress.

Truman is described as having employed mole drivers language in addressing the foreign minister of the Soviet Union. This shows that he was not afraid of offending the USSR diplomats. The president was not patient with discussions and compromises concerning the non-communists in the governments of those states that were occupied by the USSR. He referred to Romania and Bulgaria as police states. He also announced that America would not identify governments forced upon any state by the power of any foreign authority, in a speech on 27th October 1945.  

The western democracies under the leadership of the US were trying to terminate the spread of communism and soviet influence. The United States and Britain were unable to stop the influence in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, they were determined to hinder communist power from gaining control in Western Europe. Even though Truman was not able to avoid soviet influence in Eastern Europe with a lot of bipartisan help from congress, he was able to prevent further growth. The president advocated assistant to Greece and Turkey to prevent communism. He argued that it was supposed to be a policy of the US to help liberated people who are against suppression by armed minorities or foreign influence. The Marshal plan followed this Truman Doctrine. The Marshall plan was a huge financial aid program to rehabilitate Western Europe after the war.

Even if it is clear that President Truman had a hand in the start of the Cold War, he is clearly not the most responsible for the outbreak. There were very many other key players in the outbreak of the Cold War the greatest of all being Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. The Cold War began as a struggle for control between two powers.

Two months following the surrender of Germany, the Big Three gathered at Potsdam to debate the destiny of Germany. The Big Three were Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman. By this time, Stalin was an expert revolutionary who had held power in the Soviet Union for almost 20 years. Truman on the other hand had become the president of the United States for barely 3 months. The Soviet Union was out to reconstruct the destroyed economy using the German trade. The US on the other hand was afraid of having to pay the whole price of reconstructing Germany, which would consequently assist in rebuilding the USSR.

At the end of the meeting, they agreed that Germany would be separated into four zones. Britain, France and the US would take the parts on the west, while the USSR took the east. The main problem was which of the powers would control Europe. Everyone thought the control over Europe was a necessary move in avoiding another war the problem was that they all wanted Poland. The United States was determined to make the world a safe democracy. The Soviet Union was against this because it believed that the US was assuming too much power in determining what kinds of governments to be adapted by states. This was the reason behind the final establishment of the iron curtain.

The Soviet Union and the United States had been associates in opposing axis countries. They also had the most prevailing military instruments compared to their peers. However, the two powers conflicted about the occupation of Europe after the World War II. The USSR established the eastern bloc. The bloc had the eastern European nations it took possession of some nations like Soviet Socialist Republic and maintained others as settlement states. Some of these nations were later consolidated as Warsaw Pact. The United States and some western European nations created containment of communism. This was a defensive policy that created coalitions like North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Joseph Stalin is identified as the one most responsible for the commencement of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had the belief that it has a pact with the western democracies that established the Eastern Europe as under its authority. In 1945, Joseph Stalin announced that any liberally appointed government in Poland, Czech Republic and other Eastern Europe nations, would be anti-Soviet and he was not willing to accept that.

The blame of the break out of the Cold War cannot be entirely on Truman because given the experience of the World War II the separation of Europe was unavoidable. The two conflicting sides wanted their economic and political principles to triumph in regions which their military forces had assisted to gain liberation. If the conflicting factions had accepted the two spheres of authority, the Cold War could not have happened. This was however impossible because, the US and Western Europe still remembered what damage Hitler had caused and they viewed Stalin as an equal threat. Following the conflicts between the USSR and the western democracies, Churchill won in that an iron curtain was descended in between Europe.

Another problem that fuelled the commencement of the Cold War that had nothing to do with Truman was atomic weapons. The problem of atomic weapons such as the ones used in Japan posed another problem that separated the once friendly states. During the World War II, Roosevelt and Churchill followed a policy that would enable a nuclear weapons race after the war. Stalin started creating a soviet bomb when he got information about Manhattan Project.

Stalins interest was to protect the kind of soviet that he had created. He was out to protect Stalinism. He talked of being at war with capitalism, a course that the United States was out to protect. To Stalin, this was more important than the good relationship that once existed between the two states. Stalin had a belief that a depression was forthcoming in the capitalist states. He told Djilas of Yugoslavia that another war would reoccur in twenty years or so. He felt that by then the Soviet Union would have recovered and he would be able to enter into the war with his brand of unity.

The United States senate also played a part in the fuelling of the Cold War. This was however in the line of thought of President Truman, but the decision was not entirely his. The senate had of course observed the intentions of Stalin. The United States senate attacked the senate. Senator Wheeler of Montana claimed that the USSR was in the Eastern Europe because it was appeased by the US. The senate announced that the Soviet Union was on the way out and that they would appease it no more.

Churchill was another force that cannot be ignored. He was operating in support for Truman. Churchill talked about the iron curtain that had fallen from Stettin to Triest. Churchill spoke in favour of the US. A Soviet Union newspaper referred to Churchill as a warmonger just like Hitler and Goebbels. Stalin used the speech from Churchill to mobilise people that there was a threat from the western capitalists.

Conclusion
Even though President Truman contributed to the start of the Cold War, it is evident from research that he was not the most responsible for the commencement of the Cold War. In fact, the greatest power behind the start of the Cold War is Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Another point that comes out clearly is that even without President Truman, the Cold War was inevitable. This is revealed by the fact that the enmity between the United States and the Soviet Union had began in Roosevelts regime, the disagreements due to the atomic weapons, and the fight between capitalists and communists were factors that were out of Trumans control.