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“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”[1] – Winston S. Churchill, March 5, 1946.
In the period following the Second World War, the globe was divided along an ideological fault line with the United States of America influencing one half and the Soviet Union influencing the other. This division was frequently referred to as the iron curtain, a term coined by Winston Churchill in 1946. The partition developed in 1917, following The Bolshevik Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin twenty years before the Cold War’s beginning. This revolution brought a classless, communist state to Russia. This revolution created the Soviet Union, a nation that in only thirty years rose from the confines of poverty to become the superpower rival of the United States. The communist beliefs held by the Soviets conflicted with those of capitalist America, and a lengthy conflict ensued based on these opposing political and economic beliefs. This global system of bipolarity lasted for nearly five decades and is known to historians as the Cold War. It was named appropriately to reflect the nature of the conflict as no physical combat took place. The American disdain for Soviet conduct resulted in several incidents that sparked and fueled the Cold War. The United States initiated the Cold War through the nation’s policies following the Soviet Union’s Bolshevik Revolution, the attempted manipulation of the Soviet Union through Marshall Aid policies, and the diplomatic scare tactics surrounding the American use of the atomic bomb.
It can be argued from a Western perspective that the American reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution was justified. When the Bolsheviks seized power in October of 1917, Lenin and his comrades forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate, leaving a communist government in control of the nation’s affairs. In protest of this action, a group of Soviet anti-revolutionaries known historically as the ‘Whites’ led an armed uprising against the new communist regime. A bitter civil war broke out as a result, pitting these anti-revolutionaries against the communist ‘Reds.’[2] The United States, at this time openly opposed to the communist system, dispatched 12,000 troops to the Soviet Union to fight against the revolutionaries in the Russian Civil War.[3] In opposition to the communist rule of the nation, American armies occupied the northern Soviet Union between 1918 and 1919, and Siberia between 1918 and 1920.[4] The Americans saw their involvement in the civil war as a means of helping the Whites defeat the revolutionaries and end the communist rule in the region before it strengthened or spread to other nations. The American goal of promoting democracy, adopted by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson following the First World War, was threatened by the growing strength of communist rule. Containing the spread of communism was imperative to the U.S. at the time in order to encourage democratic regimes across the globe. The Bolsheviks did not seek “socialism in one country” like the second Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. Instead, they believed that the long-term success of the October Revolution depended on similar revolutions taking place across Europe. The Bolsheviks urged other nations to adopt socialist societies similar to their own.[5] Through military intervention, Wilson hoped to prevent the Soviets from extending their communist beliefs across Europe, and by doing so protect the world from what he called “the poison of Bolshevism.”[6] If Wilson was able to stop the spread of communism, he could follow through with America’s post-WWI goal of preserving democracy. In helping defeat the communist government and its Bolshevik leaders, the Americans hoped to spare the West any threat in its newfound goal of promoting democracy around the globe.
Following the Russian Civil War, which concluded with a victory for the communist Reds, the United States adopted a policy of non-recognition towards the Soviet Union. America refused to grant political acknowledgment to the Soviet Union because the Soviets had abandoned the Americans and the Allied world towards the end of World War I. In December of 1917, less than two months after the Bolsheviks seized power, the new Soviet government signed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signifying peace with the Central Powers of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The signing of this treaty effectively withdrew Soviet forces from the war.[7] However, the war had not ended for the rest of Europe, nor had the war ended for America. Russia had the largest army in the world, with 1.4 million soldiers at the war’s onset in 1914 and over 5 million once fully mobilized.[8] Pulling out of the war prematurely left the Americans and allied forces without those five million well-trained and experienced soldiers. The West was left to fight the war and defend against Germany’s imperialistic threat without Soviet assistance. From a Western perspective, the Soviet Union had abandoned the free world. America and the allied coalition continued fighting without Soviet men or support for nearly a year before the war was finally won. The Americans believed their policy of non-recognition towards the Soviet Union following the Bolshevik Revolution was warranted because they had been abandoned by the Soviets during the war.
From the American point of view, the Soviet Union had failed to legitimize itself as a nation, seemingly justifying America’s policy of non-recognition. The U.S. refused to offer immediate recognition to the Soviet Union as the situation in the nation was deemed unstable at the time.[9] The outbreak of the Russian Civil War showed that a large number of Soviet citizens opposed the new communist government, suggesting that it may not be permanent. If revolution could overthrow Nicholas II’s tsarist government, a second revolution could have very possibly overthrown Lenin’s communist regime. The Soviet state was fragile and in political turmoil, presenting an appearance of falliability. The U.S. government also attributed its policy of non-recognition to the belief that the Soviets showed few characteristics of being a globally responsible nation. The Bolsheviks ignored their predecessor government’s treaties and agreements and refused responsibility for the prior government’s large foreign debts.[10] The last Russian government had acquired a debt nearing $600 million to the American government.[11] The Soviet rejection of all responsibility of this debt led American diplomats to the conclusion that the nation was undeserving of political recognition.
Despite opposing Western opinions, the American military reaction to the Soviet Union’s Bolshevik Revolution was unjustified and furthermore damaging, causing tension to grow between the Soviet Union and the United States. In the modern state system, created in 1648 with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, all nations are ensured the right to self-governance without intervention from outside forces, whether it be neighbouring states or otherwise.[12] Though neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were truly sovereign nations at the time that this treaty was drafted, and therefore neither nations were signatories, the treaty produced the modern state system that most nations have abided by since the treaty’s documentation. This principle was generally followed by international diplomats before and during the Cold War era. American intervention in the Russian Civil War violated this international standard, and with it the sovereignty of the Soviet Union. In doing so, the United States began an unfriendly relationship with the Soviet Union that would inevitably manifest itself in the form of the Cold War.
The diplomatic response to the Soviet Union’s Bolshevik Revolution created conflict between the two superpowers. The American refusal to grant acknowledgment to the Soviets lasted for sixteen years, between the Soviet Union’s creation in 1917 and 1933.[13] Refusal to recognize a nation in modern politics was a rare occurrence and an act of explicit hostility. The un-recognized status of the Soviet nation left the country politically disrespected not only by the United States but also by other nations around the globe, sparking further tensions between the Soviets and the Americans. As an unrecognized nation, the Soviet Union was politically isolated and was not offered access at the Treaty of Versailles.[14] Even though the Soviet Union signed a separate peace treaty with Germany and the Central Powers to withdraw itself early from WWI in an attempt to end the suffering of the war-torn Soviet civilians, Soviet presence at the peace conference at Versailles would have been preferable. It was in this palace where the fate of Europe was discussed, planned and decided. Being a major power at the time, the Soviet Union should have been present. The future of Europe, which was discussed at this conference, altered the future of the Soviet Union. Because the Soviet Union was not permitted to partake in the peace conference, the Soviets were deprived a degree of control over its future. It was the American government’s refusal to recognize the Soviet Union as a state that kept the Soviets from becoming involved in the Treaty of Versailles and the future of Europe. This American action contributed to the uncooperative relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that eventually manifested itself into the Cold War.
The policy of non-recognition, which contributed to the initiation of the Cold War, was unwarranted and unnecessary. The American argument that non-recognition resulted from the Soviet Union’s failure to legitimize itself as a nation is flawed. The claim that non-recognition was even in part due to the Soviet’s failure to pay debts is dubious. Following the First World War, war-torn Europe was in economic shambles. By 1932, the majority of nations in Europe had still failed to begin war debt payments.[15] Following the American logic that failure to repay debt indicates failure as a nation and thus unworthiness of recognition as one, few countries in Europe should have been recognized at the time. However, all European nations other than the Soviet Union were politically recognized at the time. The Soviet Union was treated unfairly by American diplomats in their demands for repayment of debts, which created conflict between the two countries that embodied the Cold War.
Furthermore, the American insistence upon receiving Soviet debt repayment was unfair. The predecessor government acquired much of that debt fighting off the multiple revolutionary attempts prior to the successful October Revolution, including the 1905 Revolution that saw a brutal Russian government firing bullets at peaceful protestors in the streets.[16] It was unfeasible to expect the Soviet Bolsheviks to repay a debt acquired through their opponent’s attempt to defeat them.[17] Another large portion of the debt stemmed from the economic costs of the First World War. The Russian citizens did not support the war, and lost families and land to invading German forces.[18] The Bolsheviks did not support this war, and removed their nation from it at the first available opportunity. Expecting the Bolsheviks to finance a war fought against the Bolshevik regime was unreasonable.
The American military response to the Bolshevik Revolution led to the Cold War that would take place nearly thirty years later. The United States’ intervention in the Russian Civil War following the revolution was unwarranted and unjustified in the modern state system. The sovereignty of the Soviets was disrespected and violated by the United States’ military action. The American refusal to grant the Soviet Union political recognition was also unjustified. Though Russia was in poor shape when the Bolsheviks seized power, the rest of Europe’s recognized nations were shattered as an end result of the destructive war as well. America’s reasons justifying the non-recognition of the Soviet Union were biased and unfair. The stance was offensive, inappropriate, and harmful to the Soviet Union. Depriving the Soviets of recognition meant refusing them presence at the Treaty of Versailles. In denying the Soviets a voice at Versailles, the Americans withheld from the Soviets a say in the future of their own continent. The American response to the Bolshevik Revolution caused conflict between the two countries that later embodied the Cold War.
The Americans claimed to have attempted to rebuild the shattered Soviet-American relationship in 1947, when the nation presented a recovery program for Europe. Crafted by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the program was aimed at restoring European nations in economic need following the Second World War. It can be argued that this program, known as the Marshall Plan, played no role in the initiation of the Cold War and instead sought to help the entirety of Europe out of war debt. American diplomats made Marshall Aid available not only to the war-torn countries in Western Europe, but also to the Eastern nations within the Soviet bloc, including the Soviet Union itself.[19] The Americans believed they were being kind and unbiased towards the Soviet-controlled nations, offering them the same amount and type of economic relief that was offered to democratic regimes in the continent. Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson, in a United Nations address, stated: “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, desperation and chaos.”[20] The Soviet Union, unlike many Western European nations, did not receive any Marshall Aid because the nation’s government refused to accept it.[21] U.S. diplomats firmly alleged that their policy did not exclude the Soviets from the recovery program, and that on the contrary, it was the Soviets who opted to exclude themselves. On the surface, it does seem that the United States made a generous effort to aid the suffering Soviet nation. Many American diplomats denied all accusations of using Marshall Aid to manipulate the Soviets, as the same proposition was offered to all other nations in war-torn Europe.
American diplomats proclaimed that the Marshall Plan was developed largely, though not exclusively, for American benefit and insisted that the crafters of the plan had no ulterior motives involving manipulation of the Soviet Union. In the same U.N. address, Acheson spoke of the Marshall Plan in this regard: “Your Congress has authorized and your Government is carrying out a policy of relief and reconstruction today chiefly as a matter of national self-interest.”[22] The main American motivation behind the Marshall Plan was to indirectly benefit the American economy by benefiting the economies of Europe. Rebuilding European economies would provide America with trade partners, which would lead to new economic opportunities and a better financial standing in the global market. In 1947, the U.S. donated over $13 billion to European countries, which is nearly $100 billion by present-day conversions.[23] This led to the fastest economic growth recorded in history. By 1952, European nations had experienced an economic growth of 35%.[24] The Marshall Plan was extremely successful in aiding European recovery following the Second World War. Nations demolished during the war were able to rebuild quickly, sparing further suffering of the citizens. The American economy benefited from this as well. The money donated to these nations was used largely to purchase goods from United States, allowing for growth in the American economy.[25] New European interests that the Marshall Plan drew in benefited U.S. industries. The Marshall Plan achieved its goal of aiding economic growth both in the war-torn Europe and in the United States. Many American diplomats maintained that these were the only goals of the Marshall Plan, and that no ulterior motives existed.
Despite American denial, Marshall Aid was used in an attempt to manipulate the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence within Eastern Europe, which furthered the growth of tension between the superpowers. In 1947, Soviet Ambassador Andrei Vyshinsky presented the Soviet perception of the Marshall Plan to the U.N. General Assembly:
In bringing forward this plan, the United States government apparently counted on the cooperation of governments of the United Kingdom and France to confront the European countries in need of relief with the necessity of renouncing their inalienable right to dispose of their economic resources and to plan their national economy in their own way. The United States also counted on making all these countries directly dependent on the interests of American monopolies, which are striving to avert the approaching depression by an accelerated export of commodities and capital to Europe. It is becoming more and more evident to everyone that the implementation of the Marshall Plan will mean placing European countries under the economic and political control of the United States and direct interference by the latter in the internal affairs of those countries. Moreover, this Plan is an attempt to split Europe into two camps and, with the help of the United Kingdom and France, to complete the formation of a bloc of several European countries hostile to the interests of the democratic countries of Eastern Europe and most particularly to the interests of the Soviet Union.[26]