"How The Cold War Begins" Topic

"Until the late 1960s, most Western historians and politicians blamed the Soviet Union for causing the Cold War, while Soviet bloc historians and politicians blamed the United States. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal led to a loss of credibility by the U.S government, and some U.S. historians began to blame the United States. Thus, in attacking U.S. "imperialist" policy in Vietnam, they also claimed this policy was key to the Cold War. This was called the "revisionist school. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, however, historians are returning to the view that the USSR was more to blame for the Cold War.

The origins of the Cold War can be traced to the late 1940s.. In fact, almost as soon as World War II ended in Europe, Western opinion was disturbed by Soviet or Soviet-inspired repression in Eastern Europe, especially in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland. However, the seemingly democratic governments in Hungary and Czechoslovakia counterbalanced the repression elsewhere. This was, of course, Stalin's intention, so Western opinion did not begin to turn strongly against the Soviet Union until a communist victory seemed possible in the Greek civil war, which led to the Truman Doctrine (March 1947). Also, postwar economic disruption made it seem likely that communist parties would come to power in France and Italy, which led to the Marshall Plan (June 1947).Then the Berlin Blockade, which began in the summer of 1948 (went to May 1949) signalled the threat of Soviet-communist expansion into West Germany and thus Western Europe. We should also bear in mind that a civil war was raging in China between the nationalist forces of Chiang kai-Shek and the communist forces of Mao tse-Tung, who emerged as the victor in October 1949 (see ch. 9).Furthermore, in June 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea (see ch.11) while the French were fighting the North Vietnamese communists in the Indochina War (see ch. 12). Thus, communism seemed to be engulfing the world…."
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Amicalement
Armand

So… we can blame the Greeks?… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand