Edexcel A Level History Coursework debating the origins of the Cold War - this coursework was awarded an A* in 2021. Can be used as a template to help structure your history coursework no matter what topic you are writing about
How far do you agree that the start and early development of the cold war in the
years 1945-53 was mainly the fault of Stalin?
After World War Two the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union was
extremely fragile due to ideological, economic and militaristic factors which created
increasing tensions between the two superpowers. The origins of the Cold War have
consequently been subject to a great historical dispute among a plethora of historians
due to it never officially being declared, nor was there any direct conflict between the
two sides during this period. David S Painter and David S Hanson with their traditionalist
view on the origins of the Cold War believe that the differences of principle and the
hegemonic nature of the Communists in the Soviet Union meant that the Capitalist US
government felt threatened by the Soviet Union’s actions and they feared the global
spread of communism in which Stalin desired. Contrastingly, Thomas G Paterson
upholds the revisionist view, placing responsibility mainly on the US as a result of their
foreign policies they implemented leading to a dramatic increase in tensions between
the sides. The foregoing arguments will be evaluated based on to what extent Stalin
was responsible for intimidating and threatening American interests, to what extent was
the US responsible for misinterpreting Stalin’s actions causing miscommunication and
distrust and to what extent did Stalin’s actions cause the drastic deterioration of the
relationship between the US and the Soviet Union. Taking these factors into account,
along with evidence provided by the stated historians, this essay will come to conclude
that the start and early development of the Cold War in the years 1945-53 was mainly
the fault of Stalin.
David S Painter, an orthodox historian, blames Stalin’s desire to achieve political,
economical and social world dominance as a root cause for the Cold War and that his
selfish actions to enable a dictatorship stemmed from when “the Soviets had
cooperated with Hitler between August 1939 and June 1941, and had not joined the war
against Japan until it was almost over which exposed his priorities of becoming a world
dictator to the US” [1]. Painter believes that this betrayal by Stalin during WW2 made it
highly unlikely that the US and USSR would cooperate well with each other in the future
and it further led to the initial deterioration of the relationship between the two allies.
This initial conflict between the two superpowers escalated when ‘the Soviets also
emphasized that they had borne the brunt of the fighting against Hitler’ [1] suggesting
that Stalin’s military was superior to the US. This is believable because through Stalin
attempting to steal the heroic behaviour shown by Britain and the US throughout the
war to present Stalin as a hero and present communism in a positive light, the US
became angry due to this misconception of Capitalism being inferior to Communism.
Stalin’s desire for full world dominance derived from his excessive paranoia of losing
power. For instance, after the war had ended the Soviets immediately “extracted an
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