Stalin And The Cold War Essay Research

Stalin And The Cold War Essay, Research Paper

As long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union a cold war was unavoidable. (JL Gaddis, We Now Know). Discuss this interpretation of the origins of the Cold War.

The war obliged Stalin to make radical changes in his foreign policy. Before the attack by Nazi Germany he could allow himself to observe the development of events and swim with the tide, choosing between Hitler or the West, but after June 22nd, 1941 he had to take positive action. In this new situation the characteristics of Stalinism were clearly displayed. One of the most notable features of Stalin’s diplomacy was rudeness. Understandably, however, he was obliged to take his allies into consideration and moderate his temper on the international stage. in his relations with Roosevelt, Stalin was to some extent successful, as he respected the power and strength of the country standing behind the president. However, it often did not seem to be the same with other Americans, or with the British, including the prime minister, with whom he was rude and over familiar.

There are many examples of this kind of conduct. In his memoirs Churchill wrote that he was snubbed more than once and many of his telegrams were not answered at all or a reply would be held up for days, but the prime minister was patient, understanding that patience was the key for any one who had dealings with the Kremlin. Once it came to the point where an indignant Churchill decided on a diplomatic demarche. On October 13th, 1943, in a series of messages, Stalin accused the British Government of intentionally avoiding earlier commitments on deliveries, posing a threat through the attempt to increase the number of British servicemen in the north of the USSR and to recruit Soviet citizens. When he received the letter Churchill did not believe that it had been written by Stalin and suggested it was the hand of the bureaucracy at work. Even so on October 18th, summoning the Soviet ambassador, Feodor Gusev, Churchill made a point of handing a message from Stalin back to him. The demarche had an effect, and, after a few days, Stalin actually apologised to the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, in Moscow, declaring that he had had no intention of insulting anyone.

During the war Stalin had to explain the tone of his messages more than once, and almost always tried to pass off rudeness as frankness or talked his way out of a situation with idiosyncratic jokes and aphorisms. Thus, having accused General Brooke at the Teheran Conference of unfriendliness to the Red Army and received a firm rebuff, Stalin said jokingly, The best friendship begins in misunderstanding However sometimes Stalin was deliberately rude, Stalin handled at least three meetings in the same way. He played out the same scenario with Averell Harriman and Beaverbrook in September 1941, with Eden in December 1941 and with Churchill in August 1942. The first conversation went smoothly and Stalin was careful and correct, but the next day he was openly rude and capricious and behaved insultingly. Discouraged by such a reception the Western participants at the meeting went away puzzled. Attending the third meeting with some apprehension, Stalin, was however courtesy itself, good-natured and humorous, as if nothing had happened.

What was Stalin’s aim in acting in this way. The majority of Western authors willingly accept the evidence of those who witnessed Stalin’s Performances’ and suggest that, if He was not satisfied with his allies’ proposals or their reactions to his proposals, he tried to use his anger to overpower them. Judging by the results of the meeting mentioned above Stalin did not obtain immediate benefits. He did however succeed, in sowing confusion amongst his counter-parts, but this did not make them more compliant and there would develop long-term side effects. By periodically creating tension during personal meetings and by means of correspondence via ambassadors, Stalin skilfully cultivated a feeling of uncertainty in Western officials about the Soviet position and created the impression that, if they would go some way to meeting his demands, the uncertainty and misunderstanding would disappear by themselves.

The inherent suspicion and secrecy of Stalin’s diplomacy came to full flower during the war. For example, Stalin did not believe that Roosevelt’s death had been due to natural causes and, in a telegram to Truman persisted in asking for a post-mortem to be carried out on the president’s body, in case he had been poisoned. Furthermore Churchill’s statement that it was difficult to maintain good relations with Communists, as one did not know how to behave with them, showed that such Stalinist diplomacy brought its fruits. During personal meetings however, Stalin simply charmed his guests. It was not by chance that Roosevelt, Churchill and many other official personalities made numerous statements praising the Soviet leader. Such methods were effective as long as the threat from Germany continued, but as soon as that threat lessened, Stalin’s caprices and insults achieved the opposite result. This was demonstrated when Churchill, at the end of the war he wrote to the British Charge d’Affaires in Moscow (Frank Roberts), that is was no longer desirable to maintain detailed arguments with the Soviet government about their views and actions’.

Hardly any other diplomacy could compare w