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Class notes IB History HL - Cold War Historiography
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Historiography by subtopic for Cold War paper 2 and 3
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McCarthyism:“the whole culture was permeated with anti-Communism” (talking about US)
- Howard Zinn
Cold War Americans “mindless, timid conformists”
- David Reisman (sociologist not historian) (opinion could be used to give value to Zinn’s opinion)
“partisan pressures from Republicans and Southern Democrats pushing Truman towards anti-
communism”
- Latham and Heale
(McCarthyism can be used to argue as an external factor that pushed Truman to Truman Doctrine and
Marshall Plan) (McCarthyism (1947 onwards) perpetuated because of Kennan’s Long Telegram and Iron
Curtain Speech)
Truman Doctrine:
“The Truman Doctrine was a milestone in American history… the doctrine became an ideological shield
behind which the United States marched to rebuild the Western political and economic system and
counter the radical left. From 1947, on, therefore, any threats to that Western system could be easily
explained as Communist inspired, not as problems which arose from difficulties within the system itself.
That was the most lasting and tragic result of the Truman Doctrine.” – Walter LaFerber
Marshall Plan:
“The plan’s approach… soon evolved into military alliances. Truman proved to be correct in saying that
the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan are two halves of the same walnut. Americans willingly
acquiesced as the military aspects of the doctrine developed into quite the large part.”
- Walter LaFerber
Both Expansionist Powers:
“The two powers did not initially come into conflict because one was Communist and the other
Capitalist. Rather, they first confronted one another on the plains of Asia in the late 19 th century. That
meeting climaxed a century in which Americans has expanded westward over half the globe and
Russians had moved eastward across Asia.”
- Walter LaFerber
Orthodox Views:
Places the blame on the USSR.
Written by 1950s and 1960s historians. à (Use this to explain the drawbacks of this perspective – bias
because Cold War situation and written by the West)
Soviets were inevitably expansionist
Stalin violated the Yalta and Potsdam agreements -> US had to act defensively = Truman Doctrine and
Marshall Plan to the establishment of NATO.
“Marxism-Leninism gave the Russian leaders a view of the world in which the existence of any non-
Communist state was by definition a threat to the Soviet Union… An analysis of the origins of the Cold
War which leaves out these factors – the intransigence of Leninist ideology, the sinister dynamics of a
totalitarian society and the madness of Stalin - is obviously incomplete.”
- Arthur M. Schlesinger
Others – WH McNeill and H Feis
Revisionist Views:
Held the US responsible for the Cold War.
, Flourished when the consensus over foreign policy in the US was crumbling during the Vietnam War. à
(Use this to explain the drawbacks of the perspective)
William Appleman Williams has explained the onset of the Cold War in terms of ‘dollar diplomacy’.
Containment of Communism was driven by the requirements to secure markets and free trade and
penetrate Eastern Europe.
Gabriel and Joyce Kolko view Soviet action as even less relevant to US foreign policy. They see American
policy as determined by the nature of its Capitalist system and by fears of recession.
Thomas Patterson wrote that “coercion characterized United States reconstruction diplomacy.”
Stalin himself was a pragmatic leader, and had the Americans been more willing to understand the
Soviets’ need for security, and offer some compromises, Stalin would have made concessions.
Gar Alperovitz suggests that Japan was already defeated, and that this ‘new’ weapon of awesome power
was used to warn and intimidate the Soviets.
Post-Revisionist Views:
Stress that neither the USA nor the USSR can be held solely responsible for the origins of the Cold War.
Was written after the Cold War à (Use this to explain the value of this school of thought)
“The Cold War grew out of a complicated interaction of external and internal developments inside both
the US and the USSR. The external situation – circumstances beyond the control of either power – left
Americans and Russians facing one another across prostrated Europe at the end of WW2. Internal
influences in the USSR – the search for security, the role of ideology, massive post-war reconstruction
needs, the personality of Stalin – together with those in the United State – the need for self-
determination, fear of Communism, the illusion of omnipotence, fostered by American economic
strength and the atomic bomb – made the resulting confrontation a hostile one. Leaders of both
superpowers sought peace, but doing so yielded to considerations, which, while they did not precipitate
war, made resolution of differences impossible.”
- John Lewis Gaddis
John Lewis Gaddis and Walter LaFerber both agreed at this time that misperceptions played an
important part at the beginning of the Cold War -> Both superpowers overestimated the strength and
the threat of the other. Both superpowers were ‘improvising’ rather than following a well-defined ‘plan
of action’.
Post-Cold War Revisionist Views:
“… as long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union, a Cold War was unavoidable.” – John Lewis Gaddis
Gaddis had access to the new material and the initial writings of the post-Soviet-era Russian historians,
which he used to revise his own Post Revisionist views. à (Use this to explain the value of the opinion)
Suggests that it was Stalin’s policies, coupled with the Soviet totalitarian/authoritarian government, that
drew the West into an escalation of hostility and the protracted arms race.
Concluded that had Stalin been removed from the equation, the Cold War would have been unlikely to
develop.
Reasons for Participation in Korean War:
US feared communist expansion after revolution in China 1949
- David Rees (Orthodox)
Role of Europeans:
European elites partly engineered the Cold War to lock the USA into military and economic support. The
British did much to heighten the US awareness of the ‘Soviet Threat’ – The Iron Curtain Speech.
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