HISTORY COURSEWORK

SUPPORT PACK 3

How far was Stalin to blame for the Berlin crisis 194849?
&
Assess the view that the US policy of Marshall Aid was
motivated mainly by the altruistic desire to help the
economic recovery of Europe.

The debate on Soviet foreign policy

If the Western powers were able to set up a West German state unopposed, they would
see the Soviet Union as a weak opponent and be encouraged to pursue a more active
policy. It was important for the Soviet Union to make a stand 1
Berlin Blockade Soviet leaders regarded relations with the West as a war of nerves, and
were determined to show that they would not be intimidated2
Stalin became wary of Germanys partition or dismemberment he feared it might breed
a lasting desire for revenge3
Having started as a political conflict, the Cold War changed its character as a result of the
Berlin crisis. The risk of an armed clash created by Soviet action made the West more
inclined to conceive of the Soviet threat as potentially a military one 4
Berlin Blockade the Soviet argument for it was not without a certain logic: since the
London decisions ran counter to the Potsdam agreements and the allied control
mechanism based on those agreements, the Western presence in Berlin lost its earlier
justification, and the Soviet side had justification for closing its occupation zone 5
Stalin never refused to negotiate with Washington and London on any relevant issue;
from the creation of the United Nations to Germanys fate, from Moscows participation to
the war with Japan to Europes post-war settlement6
The United States simply could not comprehend the visceral fears of Germany that
gnawed at Soviet leaders the importance of a secure Eastern European buffer and a
reliable German settlement to guard against repetition of the traumatic surprise attack of
19417
German claims of superiority during the war drove the Russians to rapethe Russian
soldiers desire for revenge was fed by his desire to restore his honour and manhood, to
erase doubts about inferiority that were exacerbated by German wellbeing and selfsatisfaction Perhaps this is the reason there were so many cases in which a German
woman was purposely raped in front of her husband, after which both husband and wife
were killed8

1 Vaksberg in Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p79
2 Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p260
3 Kynin, in Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p19
4 Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p58
5 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p138
6 Varsori in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p292
7 Reynolds, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p172
2

Hatred of the Germans was fed by anger and resentment about their wealth9
It is not unreasonable to suggest that rape in the Soviet zone became the final
repayment for the German invasion and mauling of the Soviet UnionRussians
themselves had been dishonoured by a nation so arrogant that it not only invaded,
occupied, and destroyed the land and defiled its inhabitants, but it also relegated to itself
superior racial attributes10
With the combination of hate propaganda, personal experiences of suffering at home,
and a fully demeaning picture of German women in the press, Soviet officers and men
easily turned on the Frau as their victim11
Naimark explains how rape affected the politics of the zone. Russian actions destroyed
their ability to mobilise popular support for German communists. Rape poisoned the
atmosphere of the zone and helped to shape enduring images. Not only in the minds of
Germans, but also in the minds of many westerners, rape conveyed indelible images of
Soviet culture and Russian rule. It explained to many contemporaries why the Soviets
needed to be contained and why a cold war needed to be waged 12
At the end of his book, We Now Know, John Lewis Gaddis, uses Naimarks chapter on rape
to inquire whether the Cold War should be seen as a struggle between good and evil 13
Naimark details how the Soviets were unable to find a balance between their desires for
revenge and reparations and their security needs, which called for a friendly Germany.
Naimark examines the brutal behaviour of Soviet soldiers in their occupation zone in
Germany this behaviour created formidable obstacles to friendly relations with the
German people. As a result the German communists were discredited and Soviet security
objectives compromised14
Ulam suggests that Soviet policy towards Germany was tentative, unclear as to what
would best serve Soviet interests, but clearer as to what it wished to avoid: the
consolidation of the western zones into a powerful anti-Soviet state 15

8 Pirogov, in Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p187
9 Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p181
10 Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p186
11 Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p184
12 Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p178
13 Gaddis, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p179
14 Naimark in Leffler anf Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p8
15 Ulam, in Richardson, Cold War Revisionism, p599
3

Russians were refusing from the beginning to take seriously what the Americans
regarded as a necessary condition for a cooperative solution to the German problem, the
four-power treaty; the Russians began to take measures in their own occupation zone
giving them full control of its political life; they began to champion the idea of full
independence16
The inability to agree on the future of Germany was a cause of the Cold War; because
Germany had threatened the military interests of both the United States and Soviet
Union, it was to be expected that the victors would seek settlements that would minimize
the probability of the recurrence of such threats in the future 17
It was how to avoid the danger of a resurgent Germany itself, on the one hand, and the
threat of a Germany on the wrong side in the Cold War, on the other that made its
future so central an issue in the origins of the conflictit is now clear that Stalin came to
see Germany as a postwar and Cold War problem well before the Americans did 18
Division of Germany was Stalins fault his initial reluctance to reach a four-power
agreement on Germany. his rejection of Marshall Plan, his decision to blockade Berlin, his
authorisation to Kim to invade Korea19
Stalin arrived in Potsdam with a noticeably different set of priorities. He was still
concerned about Russias frontiers in Europe, about preventing Germany from trying it
again, and about a major economic transfusion for the Soviet Unions battered
economyrealising that he little chance to obtain a large loan from the United States
Stalin laid emphasis on obtaining massive reparations from Germany and its former
allies20
The conflict in Germany developed not so much because of what the Western powers did
or failed to do as because of the Soviet difficulty in implementing the contradictory
policies that Stalin let his different agents pursue there 21
Separation would deprive the Soviet Union of its ultimate prize in Germany: access to the
Ruhr region, the countrys industrial heartland22

16 Wagner, The Decision to Divide Germany and the Origins of the Cold War, International Studies Quarterly,
Volume 24, No.2, p182

17 Wagner, R, The Decision to divide Germany and the Origins of the Cold War, International Studies Quarterly,
Vol.24, no.2, p156

18 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p116

19 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p125
20 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p246
21 Naimark in Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p24
22 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p144
4

The Kremlins attempts to check Western moves and control the future of German power
backfired. Feeling threatened and challenged in an area of vital importance, the
Americansmoved directly to enhance their own security. Stalin wavered between
options and the Soviet position worsened, but Stalins goals were neither revolutionary
nor his actions incoherent23
Germany the Soviets desperately needed their share of production and equipment from
the Ruhr to restore their own heavy industry, and to speed up construction of new
military-industrial installations. But at the same time they wanted to dismantle the Ruhr
altogether, to prevent it from becoming, yet again, the industrial heart of a German war
machine directed against the East24
There is little evidence that before the Marshall Plan Stalin had any master plan for
immediate expansionthrough Cominform he did not want to take advantage of the
political and economic chaos in Western Europe to get the Americans out of there but to
build up the Soviet-led bloc25
The joint management of the system of international relations survived until the
announcement of the Marshall Plan26
Stalin was lacklustre and intermittent in his support of communist insurrectionary
activitythe disillusionment of some French, Italian and Spanish leftists was well founded
as was the intermittent disappointment of Greek and Chinese communists who looked for
Soviet support and did not get it as nearly as much as they thought they should 27
In the Italian case, many scholars have depicted Soviet-PCI relations as a one-way
command structure, in which the Soviet Union made all the decisions and the PCI
implemented them28this ignores substantial evidence of the complexity of Soviet
strategy toward Europe Stalins postwar policy never seemed directed at installing
Communist regimes in Western Europe29
Pons, examines the constraints placed on Italian communists by Stalins reluctance to
jeopardise relations with his coalition partners. Pons suggests that Stalin did not intend to
spread communism to Western Europe. Rather, Stalin sought to prevent Communist

23 Narinskii, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review, p517
24 Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p100
25 Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p130
26 Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p103
27 Leffler in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, P45
28 Aga-Rossi and Zaslavsky, in Pons, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p208
29 Pons, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p208
5

parties in Western Europe from taking actions that could precipitate the formation of an
anti-Soviet Western bloc30

Pons says that the PCI did not have much room for autonomous action; that Stalin
expected the party to serve the interests of the Soviet Unionthe Soviet dictator did not
possess a master plan for the Bolshevisation of Europe. In fact he seemed to champion
moderation31
Soviet foreign policy the evidence
Soviet leaders regarded relations with the West as a war of nerves, and were determined
to show that they would not be intimidated32Khrushchev when describing the blockade
prodding the capitalist world with the tip of a bayonet 33
Molotov on the Berlin Blockade to squeeze the capitalist orders. Thats the Cold War. Of
course you have to know your limits. I think that in that respect Stalin kept very sharply
within the limits34
The paucity of internal Soviet documents about the preparation and implementation of
the blockade suggests its being largely improvised on short notice rather than
meticulously designed in advance35
When on 18 June the Western powers officially announced their expected monetary
reform they unexpectedly exempted from it their Berlin sectors but Soviet authorities
chose to ignore the conciliatory gesture, instead precipitating a confrontation by
preventively prohibiting the allies from circulating their new currency in their own sectors
on the spurious grounds that the entire city comes within the Soviet zone of occupation
and is economically part of the Soviet zone36
Molotov really wanted to cooperate with the West in working out an agreement on a
peace treaty for Germany. At the London Conference in the winter of 1947 he almost

30 Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p8

31 Pons, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p205
32 Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p79
33 Khrushchev in Harmondsworth in Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p79
34 Sto Sorok Besed in Holloway, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p82
35 Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p47
36 Proclamation of the Soviet Military Administration to the German Population, June 19 1948, The Soviet
Union and the Berlin Question, Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1948, in Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity,
p48

desperately tried to bring about an accord on the early establishment of a German

central government37
The famous Soviet commandant of Berlin, General Berzarin, indirectly excused the
excesses of Soviet troops in the following fashion: during my whole life I have seen
nothing like the bestial way German officers and soldiers pursued the peaceful
population. All of the destruction you have here in Germany is nothing in comparison 38
The final directive from the Main Political Administration of the Army on the eve of
crossing the borders of East Prussia said that, on German soil there is only one master,
the Soviet soldier, that he is both the judge and the punisher for the torments of his
fathers and mothers, for the destroyed cities and villages39
Front newspaper, Ehrenburg if you have not killed at least one German a day, you have
wasted that dayif you kill one German, kill another there is nothing funnier for us than
a pile of German corpseshang them and watch them struggle in their nooses. Burn
their homes to the ground and enjoy the flames these were the messages that
permeated the last years of war40
The Soviet proposal diverged from the Anglo-American position the Russians called for
tripartite agreement on a fixed monetary sum to be taken out of Germany, suggesting
the figure of $20 billion, of which half would go to the USSR. They also assigned first
priority of the extraction of reparations, making no firm provisions for preventing
starvation or maintaining the German standard of living raised fears among the British
and Americans of mass starvation in the industrialised but food-poor Western zones 41
Molotov revived the original Russian demand for a fixed sum of $10 billion, to which, he
claimed, Roosevelt had agreed at Yalta and vigorously condemned the unlawful action of
General Clay in halting removals from the American zone 42
Final protocol on reparations at Potsdam: reparations claims of each victor would be met
by removals from the territory each occupied, but that in addition the Russians would
receive from the Anglo-American zones 10% of such industrial capital equipment as is
unnecessary for the German peace economythe Soviet Union would get another 15%
of such material from the west in exchange for an equivalent value of food, coal from the
Russian zone43

37 Loth in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p243

38 Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p184
39 Pirogov, in Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p180
40 Ehrenberg, in Naimark, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p179
41 Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-47, p128
42 Molotov Statements, July 1946, FR: 1946, II, 842-847, in Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the
Cold War 1941-47, p330

Stalin, October 1952, - what guarantee is there that Germany and Japan will not rise to
their feet again, will not attempt to break out of American bondage and live their own
independent lives? I think there is no such guarantee44
10 March 1952 Stalin proposed a four-power conference to arrange free elections
throughout Germany, which would in turn establish an independent, reunited but neutral
state45
New evidence reveals that Stalin met with leaders of the KPD as early as 4 June 1945, to
lay out plans for incorporating a reunified Germany within Moscows sphere of influence.
Two principal instruments would accomplish this: the Red Army would control the Soviet
occupation zone, while the KPD would seek popular support beyond the reach of Soviet
military authority. Germany would at first be divided, with its eastern territories
administered by the Russians, the remainder by Western allies. Within the east the KPD
would merge with the SPD to form the SED. Having consolidated its position in the east,
the SED, operating under KPD control, would then solicit the allegiance of Social
Democrats and other sympathetic Germans in the west, and by these means bring about
unification46
All of Germany must be ours, that is Soviet, Communist47
Between 1945 and 1961, approximately one sixth of all East Germans departed for the
West, most of them through Berlin48
There were large numbers of communist party members throughout Germany at the end
of the war Soviets alienated them through brutality (rape) mass rapes took place
precisely as Stalin was trying to win the support of the German people throughout the
country. He even allowed elections to be held inside the Soviet zone in 1946 only to have
Germans vote overwhelmingly against Soviet candidates49 = played a major role in
determining which way Germans would tilt50

43 FR: Potsdam, II, 296-97, 297-97, 473, 480, 512-15, in Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the
Cold War 1941-47, p241

44 Stalin quoted in Daniels, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p128

45 FRUS, 1952-54, vii, 169-72, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p126
46 Pieck, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p116
47 Djilas, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p116
48 Gelb, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p138
49 Naimark, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p287
50 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p287
8

In Teheran in November 1943 he warned Roosevelt and Churchill several times that
Germany might rise again in fifteen or twenty years 51
Stalin told Soong in July 1945 that Germany had recovered within fifteen to twenty years
of the Treaty of Versailles; Germany and Japan, he said, would rise again52
In October 1944 he told Churchill that Germany should be deprived of the possibility of
revenge, otherwise every twenty-five or thirty years there would be a new world war 53
Stalin had sent a note in March 1952 to the three Western powers proposing that they
agree on a neutral, unified Germany. This note caused a big connotation among West
German Social Democrats, some of whom blamed the division of the country on Western
policy. To this day some German scholars and Soviet diplomats believe that the chance
for reunification was real54
On June 26 1947, Molotov arrived in Paris with 89 economic experts and clerks, then
spent much of the next three days conferring over the telephone with Moscow officials
the Russians were giving the marshall plan serious consideration 55
Molotov proposed that each nation individually establish its own recovery program
French and British proposed instead that Europe as a whole create the proposal for
American consideration. They also watered down his demands that new controls be
clamped on Germany Molotov angrily quit the conference56
Molotovs reaction to the Marshall Plan I had agreed to the plan in the beginning and
sent a suggestion to the Central Committee that we should participate. Not only we but
also the Czechs and the Poles57
26 March 1948 = Molotov told Togliatti that a Communist insurrection would be a
dangerous misadventure. Molotov warned the Italian Communists not to listen to
Yugoslav advice58

51 FRUS, The Conferences at Cairo and Teheran, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p151
52 Hoover Institution Archive, Victor Hoo Papers, Box 2, Sino-Soviet Relations 1945-46, in Holloway, Stalin and
the Bomb, p151

53 Gilbert, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p151

54 Steininger, in Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p159
55 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p60
56 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p60
57 Molotov in Chuev, in Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p104
58 Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, in Pons, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War,
p215

There were limits to the degree of confrontation that Stalin soughtin Dec 1947, Stalin,
worried that disorder might lead to civil war, indicated to the French and Italian
communist leaders that they should restrain their supporters, and draw back from
confrontation59
In France CP membership reached over 1 million in 1946; in Italy 1.7 million by the end of
1945. In both of the countries the Communists were in coalition governments in 19454760
In May 1947 the French Communist Party voted no confidence in the government of
Premier Paul Ramadier, only to have him expel their representative from his cabinet
Zhdanov, who managed the Soviet Communist Partys relations with its foreign
counterparts, sharply reprimanded the French comrades for acting without Moscows
authorisationhe then passed on this communication to all other European communist
parties61the implication was that none of them should do anything without consulting
Moscow first62
In December 1947 Stalin, worried that disorder might lead to civil war, indicated to the
French and Italian communist leaders that they should restrain their supporters, and
draw back from confrontation63
Stalin used the conference of European communist parties in Poland in Sept 1947, to
tighten his grip over East European communist parties and to launch them on a new
offensive. Zhdanov, who presided over the conference, delivered his sharpest criticism
against the French and Italian communists, who under US pressure had left coalition
governments and gone into oppositionthis policy was almost a U-turn from Stalins
earlier line of restraining militant communism in western Europe in hopes of continued
cooperation with western leaders64

The debate on ideology

Roberts Stalin wanted to cooperate with the United States, but he also distrusted his
wartime allies. Stalin wanted security, but his fears were rooted in his ideological
presuppositions as well as his countrys historical experience. The fear of a revived
Germany loomed large = fraught with ambiguity65

59 Haslam in Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p76
60 Reynolds, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p168
61 Yegorova, From the Comintern to the COminform, CWIHP conference paper, Moscow, Jan 1993, pp22-23, in
Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p41

62 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p41

63 Haslam, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p257
64 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p132
10

Naimark shows how the Soviets gradually established a police state and a command
economy in their zone of occupation in Germany, notwithstanding their initial desire to
coopt all of Germany through moderate economic policies, coalition building and support
for unification. The Soviets were driven by concrete events in their zone, rather than by
preconceived plans or ideological imperativesthey Bolshevised the zone not because
there was a plan to do so, but because that was the only way they knew how to organise
society66
When Hitler forged the Allied system by creating the necessity for it, none of the pre-war
considerations disappeared, and the political leaders and tendencies responsible for
these policies were also still largely in the major seats of power. Indeed going back to the
years after 1917 and the intense hostility of the western nations toward Bolshevism, it is
clear that the coalition between England, France, the United States and the Soviet Union
was the exception to the basic trend in international affairs after World War I, and that
any temporary alliance would be fragile at best67
The coalition against the Axis was born of necessity rather than deliberation or choice,
and only the common need to defeat a common enemy bound it together. Great Britain,
the Soviet Union and the United States shared no single set of objectives other than this
preeminent reality, no unifying political and economic peace aims 68
In the long term perspective, Stalins pledges of cooperation with capitalist powers was
only a truce69
In the Soviet leaders mind the conflict between communism and capitalism was an
unavoidable feature of world history and in the end communism would triumph over
capitalism70
Zubok and Pleshakov argue that ideology was a key element that shaped Soviet
behaviourthere was a lodestar that guided Stalinit was the promise of Communist
revolutionary universalism71
Stalin appears to have gone through the entire post World War II period convinced that
the capitalists would soon fall and fight with one another72

65 Roberts in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold war, p43

66 Naimark, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review, p517
67 Kolko, The Politics of War, p14
68 Kolko, The Politics of War, p618
69 Varsori in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p292
70 Varsori in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p292
71 Zubok and Pleshakov, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review,
p507

11

Constantly seeking to extend the orbit of American hegemony, the US had been the
most expansionist of all great powers. Impelled by the inner drives of American
capitalism, the nations leaders have sought to fashion a global environment conducive
to the steady growth of the American economythe most powerful nation on earth in
1945, the US tried to reshape the world to suit the needs of American capitalismthe
USmust bear responsibility for beginning the Cold War73
BUT ideology is not constant, Marxism-Leninism contained many different strands one
day Stalin was opposing Nazi Germany; the next he signed a non-aggression pact with it.
And during the Cold War, one day Khrushchev combated capitalism; the next he
emphasised peaceful co-existence with it74
Varsori sees little chance of there not being a conflict between the US and West
European elites on the one hand and Stalins regime on the other, because of past
ideological hostilityboth East and West read into each others actions what beliefs and
prejudices stretching back to be before the Russian Revolution told them that the other
side was aggressive75
Ideology - the evidence
In March 1945, Stalin: we are now smashing the Germans, and many people now
assume that the Germans will never be able to threaten us again. Well, thats simply not
true. I hate the Germans!...its impossible to destroy the Germans for goodwe are
fighting the Germans and we will finish the job. But we must bear in mind that our allies
will try to save the Germans and conspire with them. We will be merciless toward the
Germans, but our allies will seek to treat them more leniently76
Stalin to Comintern leader Dimitrov, Jan 1945 the crisis of capitalism is evident in the
division of the capitalists into 2 factions once fascist and the other democratic. The
alliance between ourselves and the democratic faction succeeds because the latter had
an interest in preventing Hitlers domination. At present we are with one faction against
the other, but in the future we shall be against this faction of the capitalists as well 77
Molotov Stalin looked at it this way, World War One wrested one country from capitalist
slavery; World War II has created a socialist system & the third will finish off imperialism
forever78

72 Gaddis in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p34

73 Tucker, in Krueger, Review: New Left Revisionists and their critics: Reviews in American History, p467
74 Lundestad in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p73
75 Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p15
76 Stalin quoted in Kramer, in Roberts, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p50
77 Stalin quoted by Poznyakov, in Roberts, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p50
12

Kennans Long Telegram examined the Soviet outlook and why Russian leaders were
not cooperating with their wartime alliesKennan wrote, the basic Soviet instinct was
that there can be no compromise with rival power and the constrictive work can start
only when Communist power is dominant79
Kennans Long Telegram world communism is like a malignant parasite which feeds
only on diseased tissue80
Vandenberg (leading Republican) 2 rival ideologies, democracy and communism, now
found themselves face to face, they could live together in harmony but only if the US
speaks as plainly upon all occasions as Russia doesand if we assume a moral
leadership which we have too frequently allowed to lapsewhen Vandenberg had
finished speaking the Senate and the galleries stood and applauded81
Clayton, Roosevelt administration: as a matter of fact, if we want to be honest with
ourselves, we will find that many of the sins that we freely criticise other countries for
practicing have their counterpart in the US82
Novikov Telegram The Soviet version of Kennans Long Telegram both depicted the
other side as driven by an insatiable urge for world dominationNovikov worried about
Americas global reach, described the US as trying to reduce Soviet influence in
neighbouring countries in order to hamper the process of democratisation there and to
create conditions for the penetration of American capital into their economies 83
Secretary of State Byrnes suggested at Potsdam that differences in ideology between the
Soviet Union and the United States were so pronounced that peaceful relations between
the 2 countries might be impossible84

The debate on US foreign policy

78 Molotov Remembers, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p14

79 Kennans Long Telegram, in Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the
Cold War, p39

80 Kennan, in Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p73
81 Congressional Record, Feb 27 1946, pp1692-95, in Gaddis, J, The US and the Origins of the Cold War 19417, p296

82 Claytion, in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p234

83 The Novikov Report, 27 Sept 1946, in Pechatnov & Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of
the Cold War, p160

84 Byrnes in Gaddis, J, The US and the Origins of the Cold War, p298
13

The setting for the confrontation, though not its cause, was provided by the Allies
intention to introduce a separate currency in their zones 85
The airlift provided a huge victory for the West in the battle for German public opinion.
Whereas Russia appeared to be trying to starve, freeze and force communism on the
West Berliners, America and Britain were seen as trying to help them survive and remain
free86
From Russias perspective, the Berlin blockade was a legitimate response to the Wests
unilateral decision to unify the three western occupation zones and to move toward
establishing a West German government, including the decision in the spring of 1948 to
institute a new currency in the western zones and in the three western sectors in Berlin 87
Wilfried Loths account of Germanys role in the early Cold War emphasises how
American and Soviet policies were formed around their respective perceptions of
Germanys futureWhile Washington was pessimistic about the long-term survivability of
capitalism and liberal democracy in a united Germany. Moscow was more ebullient on the
issue and toyed with the idea of reunification but neither Stalin of Khrushchev had
given up on the perspective of Soviet influence in all of Germany 88
Eisenberg: American officials showed little inclination to work out an agreement on
Germany, although one might have been possible89
The Soviet Union protested against the formation of Bizonia argued that the US
contravened the Potsdam agreement on the formation of a unified, democratic German
state90
Kolko presents the American policy on Germany as a deliberate choice of zonal autonomy
in full awareness that it amounted to an abandonment of four-power control. In fact the
conference created the basis for a truncated Germanys return to world power
Americans were already looking toward the restoration of industrial Germany 91
The economic division of Germany resulted from the opposition between Soviet and
American priorities, the former seeking above all the maximum German contribution to

85 Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p48

86 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p55
87 Levering and Botznhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p54
88 Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p12
89 Eisenberg quoted by Leffler in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p53
90 Hannes Adomeit in Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p78
91 Richardson, Cold War Revisionism, p592
14

Soviet reconstruction, the latter seeking to pay the minimum to avert economic and
social breakdown in Western Germany92
For the American government the threat posed by Germany had never been as great as
it had been for the Soviet Union93
A truncated and rehabilitated Germany would be less dangerous than a unified state that
might come under Soviet control94
Washingtons role in Germany had been passive: officials there gave relatively little
thought to the German problem as a whole during the early postwar years 95
Decision to stop reparation payments = Soviet officials stationed in Germany who later
came to the West testified that it was one of the pivotal events and it provoked the first
all-out post-war propaganda attack by the Russians upon American policy 96
Eisenberg shows that US plans for the recovery of postwar capitalism depended on the
revival of the German economy. The United States, she contends, took all the initiatives
that wound up dividing Germany. The United States had to do what it did because it was
of utmost importance to integrate the resources of the Ruhr and the Rhineland into their
postwar plans for western European renewal. The Kremlin was willing to settle for a
neutral, unified Germany, but US officials would not risk the possibility of Western
Germany slipping out of an American sphere of influence 97 - fits in well with the spate of
new evidence showing a decisive turning point in the Cold War in mid-1947 as a result of
the Marshall Plan
Although the Marshall Plan was theoretically open to Soviet participation, in reality
Washington officials were determined to avoid this, and succeeded in manoeuvring so
that the onus for the break would fall on the Soviet leaders rather than themselves 98
Marshall Plan purpose was to create an American sphere of influence, to be sure, but
one that would allow those within it considerable freedom99

92 Richardson, Cold War Revisionism, p594

93 Wagner, The Decision to Divide Germany and the Origins of the Cold War, International Studies Quarterly,
Volume 24, no.2, p174

94 Deighton, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p117

95 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p121
96 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p259
97 Eisenberg, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review, p515
98 Horowitz, in Richardson, Cold War Revisionism, p600
99 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p38
15

Marshall Plan was a peacetime extension of a wartime innovation, Lend-Lease, in which

Washington included the fate of western civilisationanalogous bookkeeping explains
American efforts to promote European integration and Japanese rehabilitation: the idea
was to reconstitute independent centers of power that would balance the Soviet Union;
but the price was to create future economic competitors it is too simple to say then,
that the United States consistently used its predominance to exploit other states 100
Some historians have asserted that economic recovery on the continent was already
underway and that the Europeans themselves were never as psychologically demoralised
as the Americans made them out to be101
Marshall Plan the real crisis at the time was within an American economy that could
hardly expect to function hegemonically if Europeans lacked the dollars to purchase its
products102
It is misleading to overemphasise the differences between the Truman Doctrine and the
Marshall Plan. They were the two sides of the same coin of Americas traditional program
of open-door expansionism103
In the realm of ideas and ideals, American policy is guided by three conceptions. One is
the humanitarian impulse to help other people solve their problems. Second is the
principle of self-determinationbut the third ideainsists that other people cannot really
solve their problems and improve their lives unless they go about it in the same way as
the United StatesAcheson we are willing to help people who believe the way we
do104
The insistence that other people ought to copy America contradicts the humanitarian
urge to help them and the idea that they have the right to make such key decisions for
themselves105
Marshall Plan in his speech at Harvard on 5 June 1947, he offered the aid program as an
expression of Americas warm humanitarianism. There can be no question but that it did
represent Americas generous urge to help the peoples of Western Europe and that it did
play a vital role in the recovery of that regionapproached solely as a humanitarian
gesture, however, the Marshall Plan raises several troubling questions 106

100 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p197

101 Milward, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p38
102 McCormick, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p38
103 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p269
104 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p14
105 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p14
106 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p270
16

Americas motives are not evil. Neither are all of its actions wrong or fruitless. Indeed,
many of them have literally made the difference between life and death to hundreds of
thousands of people throughout the world. The Marshall Plan in Europe and other
assistance to less developed nations clearly benefited many human beings in those
areas107
Politburo interpreted the Marshall Plan to mean that Americans intended to restore the
economy of Germany and Japan provided it is subordinated to interests of American
capitalStalin also believed correctly that the Marshall Plan aimed to break up Soviet
control of Eastern Europe by tying that region into a general multilateral capitalist
reconstruction of all Europe Soviet dictator sharply reacted and Cold War drastically
changed108
Marshall invited the Soviet blocbut in reality the State Department made Russian
acceptance improbable by demanding that economic records of each nation be open for
scrutiny109
The Truman Administration announced the Marshall Plan for European recovery in full
expectation that Stalin and Molotov would boycott it, thereby freeing the Americans from
any commitments to their former partner110
Marshall Aid hundreds of billions of dollars in aid would be provided not only for
strategic and economic reasons, but also because US leaders believed that clear moral
issues relating to basic human freedoms were at stake in the struggle against
communism111
By stating that US policy was directed not against any country or doctrine but against
hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos, Marshall was inviting Russia and east European
nations to participate in developing a proposal for aid112
US officials doubted that Stalin would choose to participate in a program premised on
open, cooperative economies throughout Europe, they wanted Russia, not America to
bear the onus of the lasting division of the continent into communist and non-communist
blocs that might well result from the Soviet refusal to participate in the Marshall Plan 113

107 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p290

108 Telegram from the Moscow Embassy to Secretary of State Marshall, May 26 1947, Papers of Joseph Jones,
Truman Library, in Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p69

109 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p59

110 Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p50
111 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p51
112 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p52
113 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p53
17

The Soviet Union devastated by the Second World War, never intended to invade Western
Europe, whose real problems were socioeconomic and that the foundation of NATO and
the subsequent heavy rearmament represented a massive over-reaction 114
The American empire reflected little imperial consciousness or design 115
Revisionists have made it emphatically clear that when it came to the use of economic
power, the United States was neither nave nor innocent. It was as Truman once said the
economic giant of the world and most post revisionists now accept that it was
determined to make thorough use of this unique strength to promote specific political
ends116
Lundestad and Kuniholm = show that in Scandinavia and the Near East, the American
sphere of influence arose as much by invitation as by imposition117
What the postrevisionists are showing is that the American empire fits more closely the
model of defensive rather than offensive expansion, of improvisation rather than careful
planningthat it was an empire can hardly be deniedbut as Lundestad has pointed out,
it was an expansion with limitations ; it was an empire operated along defensive lines
and with some sense of restraint118
It was beyond doubt that there was an American empire and that a surprising number of
governments around the world wanted to be associated with it119
Post World War One one pattern is definite Americans were reluctant to assume world
responsibilities in the absence of a clear and present danger120
American policies were, to be sure, self-serving: those of great states always are
certainly they expected to benefit from leading the world toward an economic order its
leading economy had designed121what was unanticipated was Washingtons willingness
to subordinate economic to geopolitical objectives.the US sacrificed immediate
economic gains to invest in long-term geopolitical stabilisation 122

114 Richardson, Cold War Revisionism, p603

115 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p39
116 Pollard, in Gaddis, The Emerging Post-Revisionist View on the Cold War, p180
117 Gaddis, The Emerging Post-Revisionist View on the Cold War, p177
118 Lundestad, in Gaddis, The Emerging Post-Revisionist View on the Cold War, p182
119 Gaddis, The Emerging Post-Revisionist View on the Cold War, p182
120 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p7
121 Block, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p196
18

American empire by invitation = the American presence had a strong base of popular
support, confirmed repeatedly as free elections kept the governments in power that had
invited it. The Soviet presence never won such acceptance: that, no doubt, is why free
elections within Moscows sphere of influence ceased to be held 123
The American empire had its own distinctive internal roots, and was not solely and simply
a response to the Soviet external challenge124 but the American empire arose primarily
not from internal causes but from a perceived external danger powerful enough to
overcome American isolationism125
Lundestad the empire created by the United States in Western Europe was made
possible by the willingness of host governments to collaborate with the United States in
pursuit of their own interests126
US foreign policy the evidence
Army planners informed Eisenhower in June 1948 = the whole Berlin crisis has arisen as
a result of actions on part of the Western powers127
Truman on the Berlin blockade although he prayed the bomb would not have to be
used, if it became necessary, no one need have a misgiving but what he would do so 128
Truman did authorise on June 28 the dispatch to Great Britain of sixty bombers capable of
carrying atomic bombs129 - but the planes had not been configured to actually carry them
The Council of Foreign Ministers met in London in Nov 1947 to attempt to devise a
German settlement. Once again Molotov pressed for reparations and for four-power
control of the Ruhr, and argued for an all-German government. Against the background of
widespread strikes in Western Europe, however, Soviet proposals were regarded with
suspicion by the United States and Britain, which feared that a unified Germany would
fall prey to Soviet subversion130

122 Broscious, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p196

123 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p285
124 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p38
125 Pollard, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p38
126 Lundestad, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now Know? The American Historical Review, p520
127 Hillenkoeter in Leffler in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p29
128 Forrestal Diaries, in Lafeber, America, Russian and the Cold War, p77
129 Betts in Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity, p49
19

Clay: for many months to come German production would not suffice to keep the
German people alive, and that the use of any part of it for reparations would mean that
once again the United States would be not only supporting Germany but also paying the
bill for reparations131
Byrness Stuttgart speech represented an important reversal of the American position on
Germany state department planners had fought tenaciously for the principle of
economic unity but now they came to realise that unification could pose dangers as
Russians would permit a consolidation of zones only on their terms 132
Molotov: wouldnt Byrness proposal mean that each country would have a free hand in
their own zones and would act entirely independent of the others? 133
Ambivalence over Germany Hull: there had been a tendency to favour partition in high
quarters in the United States but as the discussions progressed and conflicting and often
very convincing arguments were advanced for and against, there was an increasing
disposition to keep an open mind on this point134
Kennan, Sept 1952 our stand means in effect no agreement with Russia at all and the
indefinite continuation of the split of Germany and Europe135
Khrushchev = West Germany had the support of the United States, a rich country that
you could say had robbed the entire world and grown fat off the first and second world
wars136
Eisenhower National Security Council, 1953 = West Germany had nearly three times the
population, about five times the industrial output and almost twice the size of East
Germany137
At the suggestion of Pleven, it was agreed that the FRG would have no army of its own,
but rather that its military forces would be integrated into those of a multinational
European Defence Community, coordinated with but apart from NATO. The Americans, in
turn, enhanced the Pleven Plans appeal by announcing that the universally respected

130 Bullock in Holloway, Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p78
131 Clay in Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-47, p240
132 Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-47, p331
133 Bohlen minutes, Byrnes-Molotov Conversation, July 27, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 450, in Gaddis, J, The United
States and the Origins of the Cold War, p241

134 Hull, memoirs, II, 1265-66, 1287, in Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, p101
135 Kennan memoires, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p131
136 Khrushchev Remembers, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p136
137 NSC 160/1, 17 Aug 1953, FRUS 192-54, vii, 512, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p136
20

General Eisenhower would come out of retirement to become NATOs Supreme

Commander138
Potsdam Byrnes proposed to Molotov that each country take reparations from its own
zone139Stalins reaction = fought for one week before accepting it and then commented
that it was the opposite of liberal140
Byrnes proposal meant that the Russians would have a free hand in their zone and
Eastern EuropeAssistant Secretary of State Clayton: there appears to be an
unfortunate tendency to interpret the reparations operating agreement as an indication
of complete abandonment of 4 power treatment of Germany141
On 3 May 1946, the United States abruptly and unilaterally announced that it was
terminating reparations to Russia from the Western zones of occupied Germany. These
reparations, never large, had been arranged as part of interzone economic rehabilitation
after the Potsdam Conference142
The decision, apparently taken on his own responsibility by General Lucius Clay, the
Military Governor of the American zone, very probably had a crucial effect on the
determining relations between the United States and the Soviet Union 143
Clay unless reparations were stopped and the zones rebuilt, he was convinced, the
population had little chance for survival144
In the three Western Occupation zones the Soviets could have only 25% of the
reparations about half of those would have to be paid for with foodstuffs from the
Russian zone with considerable grumbling Stalin accepted The US had finally made
their decision to hold tightly to the nations western industrial heartland and methodically
rebuild the shattered German economy BUT an economic division of Germany could
lead to a political division. The deal laid the basis for an eastern and a western
Germany145

138 May, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p125

139 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p249
140 Stalin quoted in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p249
141 Clayton quoted in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p250
142 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p259
143 McNeill, in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p259
144 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p41
145 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p24
21

Formation of West Germany contravened the Potsdam agreement on the formation of a

unified, democratic German state146
Novikov (ambassador in Washington) The United States was trying to impose its will on
the Soviet Union and to limit or end Soviet influence in neighbouring countries. Germany
was a key element in this policy. The United States was not doing enough to democratise
and demilitarise its zone of Germany, and might try to end the Allied occupation before
these tasks had been carried out. This would open the way to a revival of imperialist
Germany, which the United States counted on using as an ally in a future war against the
Soviet Union147
Byrnes, Sept 6 1946: while we shall insist that Germany observe the principles of peace,
good neighbourliness and humanity, we do not want Germany to become the satellite of
any power or to live under a dictatorship, foreign or domestic 148
The US took the decisive step of proposing a West German state. That development,
coupled with ongoing preparations for the introduction of a new currency in the emerging
Trizonia, was rightly perceived in Moscow as a complete break with the Yalta-Potsdam
agreements on four-power control over Germany149
The Kremlin saw the US decision to stop payment of reparations from the American zone
to the Soviet one as a clear violation of agreements made at Potsdam and an indication
that the United States was in Germany for the long haul 150
In July 1946, Moltov demanded the inclusion of Ruhr production in the Soviet reparation
plans. In response, the Truman administration, aware of the pivotal role of the Ruhr in the
economic rehabilitation of Western Europe, adopted new tactics: the British and
American zones would be united into Bizonia, the US troops would stay and the Soviets
would be excludedthis proved to be the first step toward the division of Germany 151
The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Zhdanov asserted, were part of the policy of
expansion aimed at bringing West European states under American controlCommunists
had to close ranks, and to lead all anti-Fascist freedom-loving forces in the struggle
against the American plans for enslaving Europe152

146 Adomeit, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p259

147 Novikov, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p170
148 Byrnes, in Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p74
149 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p138
150 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p120
151 Leffler, in Zubok, V and Pleshakov, C, Inside the Kremlins Cold War, p101
152 Zhdanov in informatsionnoe soveshchanie predstavitelei nekotorykh kompartii, Moscow: 1948, pp 22-23,
in Holloway in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p76

22

Marshall Plan (ERP) dispensed over $13 billion between 1948 and 1952 to Western
European countries. Over 90% of this aid was in the form of grants153
Bretton Woods-Marshall Plan synthesis did more than anything else to ensure that the
global economy did not again crash as it had in the 1930s; by the 1960s it was
prospering as never before. To take a single example, world steel production increased
from 106 million metric tons in 1947 to 265 in 1555 to 505 in 1965; but the American
share of it decreased from 54% to 39% to 26% in those same years154
Soviet ambassador in Washington, Novikov: a careful analysis of the Marshall Plan shows
that ultimately it comes down to forming a West European bloc as a tool of US policy. All
the good wishes accompanying the plan are demagogic official propaganda serving as a
smokescreen155
Truman and his advisers were convinced that their actions would advance American
interests. They never left initiatives entirely up to the Europeansin the end we would
not ask them, we would just tell them, what they would get 156
Acheson to Congress, 1944 it seems clear that we are in for a very bad time, so far as
the economic and social position of the country is concerned. We cannot go through
another ten years like the ten years at the end of the twenties and the beginning of the
thirtieswhen we look at the problem, we may say it is a problem of markets. You dont
have a problem of productionthe important thing is markets. We have got to see that
what the country produces is used and sold under financial arrangements which make its
production possibleyou must look to foreign markets157my contention is that we
cannot have full employment and prosperity in the United States without foreign
markets158
Milo Perkins, Board of Economic Welfare: we must sell great quantitiesabroad if we are
to avoid large-scale factory shutdowns here at home159
Byrnes the United States cannot reach and maintain the high level of employment we
have set as our goal unless the outlets for our production are larger than theyve ever
been before in peacetime160

153 Wood, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p240
154 Beckman, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p194
155 Novikov to Molotov, 24 June 1947, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p41
156 Situation with Respect to European Recovery Program, 4 Sept 1947, FRUS:1947, III, 402, in Gaddis, J, We
Now Know, p44

157 Acheson, in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p235

158 Acheson, in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p236
159 Quoted in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p238
23

Marshall: unless the plan was adopted the cumulative loss of foreign markets and
sources of supply would unquestionably have a depressing influence on our domestic
economy and would drive us to increased measures of government control 161
A cabinet official saw the restoration of Europe as a paying market for United States
goods162
Acheson to maintain the volume of American exports which the free world needs and
which it is our national interest to supply as a necessary part of building a successfully
functioning political and economic system, the free world must supply the dollars to pay
for these exports163
Molotov = Marshall Plan would undermine national sovereignty , revive Germany, allow
Americans to control Europe and most ominously divide Europe into two groups of
states164
Marshall Plan The Soviet Union was not excluded from participation, though neither
Marshall nor Kennan believed that it would cooperate on terms acceptable to the United
StatesNovikov cabled Moscow on June 9 that Marshalls proposal was a perfectly clear
outline for a West European bloc directed against us165
Marshall Aid was intended, in the words of its administrator, Paul Hoffman, to get Europe
on her feet and off our backs166
By late 1951, when the program ended, America had contributed more than $13 billion 167
Marshall Aid Will Clayton, the undersecretary of state for economic affairs, spring 1947
without further prompt and substantial aid from the USA, economic, social and political
disintegration will overwhelm Europewe need markets big markets, in which to buy
and sellonly growing international trade, US leaders believed, could prevent another
Depression and foster democratic insitutions168

160 Quoted in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p238

161 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p271
162 Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p271
163 Acheson quoted in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p272
164 Text in The New York Times, July 3 1947, p3, in Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p60
165 Kennan Memoirs, in Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, p254
166 Quoted in Peter Foot in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The
Historical Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p512

167 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p54
24

The CIA did take it upon itself at times to manipulate democratic purposes, most
conspicuously in the Italian elections of April 1948 169
Truman had so feared a French Communist Party seizure of power from within that in May
1946 he secretly ordered the US army in Germany to prepare for a march into France 170
The United States poured millions of dollars into the election campaign in support of noncommunist parties, and the Kremlin had to swallow electoral defeat in Italy 171
Article 5 NATO = the parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in
Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and
consequently agree that if such an armed attack occurs, each of them will assist the
party so attacked by taking such action as it deems necessary, including the use of
armed force172
It required four years of often bitter argument before the Federal Republic, under strict
limitations, was allowed to rearm and become part of NATO in May 1955173
The same pattern of invitation rather than imposition shows up in the recently opened
records of the British Foreign office, as the work of Terry Anderson and Robert Hathaway
makes clear. In London, the concern was not that the United States would be too
aggressive but that it would be too passive. The fear was not of American expansionism
but of American isolationism174

Debate on the role of the British/French/West & East Germans

Germany was not simply a bilateral problem between the United States and the Soviet
Union. There were four occupying powers and therefore at least four participants whose
agreement was necessary175

168 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p52
169 Miller, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p44
170 FRUS, 1946, Europe, V: 435-438, in Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p44
171 Pechatnov and Edmondson, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p134
172 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, p82
173 Fursdon, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical
Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p510

174 Hathaway, in Gaddis, The Emerging Post-Revisionist View on the Cold War, p177
175 Wagner, The Decision to Divide Germany and the Origins of the Cold War, International Studies Quarterly,
Volume 24, no.2, p164

25

On Germany it was left to the British to push the Truman administration into choosing
between the alternativesForeign Secretary Bevin manoeuvred Secretary of State
Byrnes into proposing that the American and British occupation zones become a single
economic unit176
In Germany the Americans went for the magnet approach a prosperous West Germany
linked to Western Europe could serve as a magnet that would in time attract the East
Germans, detaching them from Soviet control177no one on the American side designed
it; the British, the French and the West Germans largely drove it178
The United States allowed its allies the French, the British and especially the West
Germans to determine the conditions under which West Germany would again become
a military power179
For the most part it was Konrad Adenauer who pushed rearmament and Western
integration. He not only made use of the Korean War to provoke negotiations with the
West on a West German defence contribution but implored the western governments
not to reject the Stalin Notes of 10 March and 9 April 1952 180
For Germany, it was not just Washington and Moscow that mattered German leaders,
East and West, played a crucial role in furthering Cold War tensions 181
One can hardly imagine the Federal Republics integration in the West without Adenauer
as much as one cannot imagine the GDR without an Ulbricht 182
Adenauer had a clear vision a restored, independent Germany could develop only
through close cooperation with the United States Adenauer dedicated the last two
decades of his life to realising this vision183
The Marshall Plan offered a way to circumvent Allied restrictions on German
development, for it ties the Germans to a general European program and then offered

176 Deighton, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p117

177 Schwartz, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p123
178 Farquharson, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p123
179 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p134
180 Loth in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p248
181 Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p12
182 Loth in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p249
183 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p85
26

vast sums to such nations as France which might otherwise be reluctant to support
reconstructing Germany184
Bullock without question, little if anything would have come of any of his proposals if
the United States had not provided the resources and the will to turn them into reality.
But as Marshall insisted every time, the initiative had to come from Europe and it was
Bevin who made sure that it did185
Some individual Western occupiers acted improperly, but in the main west Europeans,
from Norway to Italy, welcomed the US and British presence on the continent as a
counterweight to Soviet influence. Local populations also generally understood that
America and Britain sought to restore individual rights, prosperity and democratic
governments186
Hogan Europeans exercised a considerable degree of autonomy within the framework
of the ERP187
The Americans were flexible enough to accept and build upon ideas that came from
allies; they also frequently let allies determine the timing of actions taken. As a
consequence, the British, French and other West Europeans came to feel that they had a
stake in what Washington was doing, despite the fact that it amounted to their own
incorporation within an American sphere of influence188
Within American hegemony British leaders chose what a classical historian might call the
Polybian strategy that is attempting to become the Greeks in Americas Roman Empire,
wagering on the special relationship to prolong their influence and status 189
Bevin we should use US aid to gain time, but our ultimate aim should be to attain a
position in which the countries of western Europe would be independent both of the US
and the Soviet Unionif Britain only pushed on and developed Africa, we could have US
dependent on us and eating out of our hand in four or five years190
Bevins imperialism does suggests that his policies could only lead to Cold War
confrontation191

184 FRUS, 1947, III: 225-229, in Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p62
185 Bullock, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical
Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p509

186 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p25
187 Hogan, in Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p53
188 Soutou and Poggiolini, in Reynolds, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p44
189 Maier, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p231
190 Pimlott in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p164
27

Bevins aim was to create a third world force independent of the United States and the
Soviet Union the Atlantic Alliance was not Bevins aim192
Historians have found British records to be an invaluable source for understanding the
origins of the Cold War. According to some scholars these records demonstrate that the
Cold War was not a bipolar affair193
John Kent shows that British concerns with their strategic presence in the eastern
Mediterranean and Bevins hopes for maximising the economic advantages of Britains
African possessions prompted the Foreign Office to take a defiant stand against
concessions to the Kremlin194
Kent argues that the attempt to redefine Britains global role was a prime cause of
growing tension in 1945 and therefore an important element in the origins of the Cold
War195
Britain in the late 1940s was unquestionably the strongest western European state,
economically and militarily, retaining worldwide commitments and interests 196
The overriding aim until 1949 was the reestablishment of Britain as a world power equal
to and independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union197
Americans so often deferred to the wishes of allies during the early Cold War that some
historians have seen the British as having managed them198the new Labour
government in London did encourage the Truman administration to toughen its policy
toward the Soviet Unionthe British were ahead of the Americans in pressing for a
consolidation of Western occupation zones in Germany. Foreign Secretary Bevin
determined the timing of the February 1947 crisis over Greece and Turkey 199

191 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p165
192 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p164
193 Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p155
194 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p155
195 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p156
196 Reynolds in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p169
197 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p156
198 Reynolds, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p43
199 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p43
28

The Cold War took shape in 1947 within the vacuums created by the contraction of
British power200
British withdrawal forced America to translate new perceptions into a new policy,
involving extensive US commitments201
Once the Nazi menace had been eliminated the Americans believed that the primary
responsibility for the security of Europe could and should revert to the Europeans and
given the devastation of the continent in 1945 much of that burden would fall on Britain,
the traditional guardian of European power. By 1947, however, the attitude had changed
dramatically, and so the story of the Anglo-American relationship in the mid-1940s is
crucial to understanding the USAs road from world war to cold war 202
Anderson takes issue with the excessively superpower interpretation of the early Cold
War arguing that until the Truman Doctrine in March 1947 there were not just two
nations fighting for control and influence in the post-war world, but three and that until
the second half of 1946, Britain, and not the United States, was Russias primary
adversary203
France became more enthusiastic about integration post 1948 to counter the Soviet
threat France provided the main governmental impulse behind the Council of Europe
(created in May 1949) and in 1950 Schuman took up Monnets proposal that that France,
Germany and their neighbours should place their coal and steel industries under a higher
authority204
Ireland problem for the Americans was to create a new balance of power in Europe
whithout also creating an imbalance of power in Western Europe at each stage,
commitment to French security was part of the price America had to pay for German
recovery205
NATO had been a European initiative from the beginning; it was as explicit an invitation
as has ever been extended from smaller powers to a great power to construct an empire
and include them within it206

200 Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical Journal,
Volume 28, Number 2, p506

201 Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical Journal,
Volume 28, Number 2, p505

202 Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical Journal,
Volume 28, Number 2, p502

203 Anderson, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical
Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p502

204 Grosser, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical
Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p511

205 Ireland, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical
Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p510

29

It is hard to see evidence of American design in NATO, for had it been left to Washington
alone there might never have been such an alliance207
The United States led the way in democratising Germany and Japan; and in NATO the
West Europeans together with the Americans constructed a democratic alliance 208
When Kennan worried that NATO would divide Europe permanently, put forward a plan
later that spring looking toward an eventual reunification and neutralisation of Germany
as a way of ending both the Soviet and American presence on the continent, British and
French opposition quickly shot it down209
Lundestad the American sphere of influence in Western Europe was not solely the
product of Washingtons push for it, but rather reflected an invitation extended by the
Europeans themselves210
Hitchcock the United States, having been invited in, was not in all respects certain of
what to do, and often followed the Europeans lead211
Europeans from the different countries understood how to pursue their own independent
agendas under the US umbrellaJohn Gaddis has used empire by consent, I have used
consensual hegemony212
The United States had immense power at the end of the Second World War, but it could
not and did not simply impose its will on its partners in the Western allianceLundestad:
an empire by invitation213
Whereas in Gaddis early work democratic pluralism was a complicating factor hindering
effective policymaking, it emerges in his new book as one of the great attributes of the
American empire. The habits of democracy encouraged compromise with allies and
conciliation toward defeated enemies. In implementing the Marshall Plan, forming NATO
and designing military strategy, US officials were flexible enough to accept and build

206 Lundestad, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p49

207 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p200
208 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p202
209 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p49
210 Lundestad quoted in Gaddis in Westad, Reviewing the Cold war, p32
211 Hitchcock quoted in Gaddis in Westad, Reviewing the Cold War, p32
212 Maier, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p223
213 Lundestad in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p221
30

upon ideas that came from allies; they also frequently let allies determine the timing of
actions takenthe US had no grand design214
Maier US ascendancy allowed scope for European autonomy215
Revisionists tend to see the expansion of American influence as something forced upon
other countries. Undoubtedly that was sometimes the case. In Western Europe, however,
it was generally not sothe United States did not force itself upon Western Europe 216
The role of the British/French/West & East Germans the evidence
Kennans analysis of Germany in 1946 = French opposition to German economic unity
threatened not only to make the division of that country permanent but to place upon the
United States the burden of supporting the food-deficient Western zones. But centralised
German agencies, could fall under Russian control, giving Moscow an opportunity to
dominate all of Germany compared to this a permanently divided Reich seemed the
lesser of two evils217
Stalins 1952 note = it was the British, not the Americans, who shaped the Western
response
British and French found it difficult to accept German rearmament. To reassure them the
Truman administration decided to send four army divisions to Western Europe to
supplement its occupation forces inside Germany218
Schuman Plan, 1950 Germanys basic industry would be integrated into Western
Europe, the Ruhr would be essentially internationalised, thus the French hoped
destroying Germanys military capacity while giving France entry to the areas rich coal
deposits; last but not least, exclusion of England and the United States from the plan
would increase the ability of France to influence all of Western Europe 219
Soviet intelligence picked up reports that American Under-Secretary of State William
Clayton had been conspiring with British officials on using the Marshall Plan to
reintegrate Germany into the West European economy and to deny further reparation
shipments to the Soviet Union220

214 Gaddis, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review, p504
215 Maier, in Leffler, The Cold War: What do we now know? The American Historical Review, p520
216 Lundestad, America, Scandinavia and the Cold War 1945-1949, p335
217 Gaddis, J, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-47, p328
218 Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p124
219 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p85
220 Vyshinsky to Molotov, 30 June 1947, cited in Narinsky, in Gaddis, J, We Now Know, p42
31

During March 1948, as Congress approved the Marshall Plan, the British, the French and
the Benelux signed the Brussels Treaty. In this defence arrangement each signatory
promised to aid the other parties in the event of attack with all military and other aid in
their powerTruman applauded the treaty and soon American officials were drawing up a
congressional resolution to pave the way for American entry into the new European
association221
When Marshall spoke at Harvard he was not announcing some carefully prepared
programme it was Bevin who took up Marshalls invitationhe rapidly began
discussions with the French, helped the US formulate its ideas, managed the crucial Paris
meeting at the end of June to prevent Russian obstruction and while maintaining French
support and produced from the July Conference on European reconstruction what was to
become the OEEC and a preliminary ERPBevin pushed ahead with his plan for Western
European Union, concluded by Brussels Pact in March 1948222
Marshalls speech the initiative for working out a specific proposal for US aid must
come from Europe223
Perceptions of the importance of the empire to Britains future global role and the
preservation of Britains Mediterranean position was to prove a key factor in the
breakdown of the first Council of Foreign ministers in London 224was concerned with the
Italian peace treatyItalian coloniesthe Chiefs of Staff emphasised that in strategically
important areas, Britain would require the use of military facilities, but there would be no
objection to sharing these under the aegis of the United Nations provided they were
controlled by Britain225Molotov argued that Britain was trying to create a monopoly in
the Mediterranean because of French and Italian weakness in the region. But if Russia
was granted Tripolitania and Britain Cyrenaica, he felt the whole question of the Italian
colonies could be settled very quickly Bevin = no concessions, stood firm 226in these
circumstances, the Conference of Foreign Ministers ended227
Roosevelt, Feb 1944: I do not want the United States to have the post-war burden of
reconstituting France, Italy and the Balkans. This is not our natural task at a distance of

221 Lafeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1996, p74
222 Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical Journal,
Volume 28, Number 2, p507

223 Levering and Botzenhart-Viehe, in Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War, p52
224 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p161
225 Comments by the Chiefs of Staff, Jan 1 1945, FO 371/50787, PRO, in Kent, in Leffler and Painter, Origins of
the Cold War, p161

226 Note of Conversation between Bevin and Molotov, Oct 1 1945, FO 371/50920, PRO, in Kent, in Leffler and
Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p161

227 Kent in Leffler and Painter, Origins of the Cold War, p161
32

3,500 miles or more. It is definitely a British task in which the British are far more vitally
interested than we are228

228 Roosevelt to Assistant Secretary of State, 21 Feb 1944, State Department Decimal File, 740.0019 Control,
2-2144, RG 59, National Archives, Washington, in Reynolds, The Origins of the Cold War; The European
Dimension, 1944-1951, The Historical Journal, Volume 28, Number 2, p502

33