Cold War
The blame for the Cold War cannot be placed on one person -- it developed as a series of chain reactions as a struggle for supremacy. It can be argued that the Cold War was inevitable, and therefore no one's fault, due to the differences in the capitalist and communist ideologies.It was only the need for self-preservation that had caused the two countries to sink their differences temporarily during the Second World War. Yet many of the tensions that existed in the Cold War can be attributed to Stalin's policy of Soviet expansion. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the role of Stalin as a catalyst to the Cold War.Stalin's foreign policies contributed an enormous amount to the tensions of the Cold War. His aim, to take advantage of the military situation in post-war Europe to strengthen Russian influence, was perceived to be a threat to the Americans. Stalin was highly effective in his goal to gain territory, with victories in Poland, Romania, and Finland. To the western world, this success looked as if it were the beginning of serious Russian aggressions. The western view of the time saw Stalin as doing one of two things: either continuing the expansionist policies of the tsars that prec
He called for a western alliance to combat the threat. Stalin re-established Cominform in September 1947. Even within this communist structure, Stalin had to exert his influence. Furthermore, the states within Cominform were expected to keep trade within the Cominform member states, and were discouraged from making any contact with the Western world. These actions on the part of Stalin only increased the rift between the capitalist and the communist systems, and made future compromise and negotiations more difficult. The Soviet Union responded with a statement saying "Poland broders with the Soviet Union, what [sic] cannot be said of Great Britain or the United States. While the blame for the Cold War cannot be placed on a single man, Stalin's expansionist policy was clearly an ever-present catalyst in the war. He was quoted as saying "We must stand up to the Russians. The final hostile movement of Stalin of importance was the Berlin blockade and airlift. Compounding tensions was the fact that Stalin's request that Russia be allowed to participate in the occupation of Japan was denied, even though Russia had declared war on Japan on 8th August (the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 10th August) and had been responsible for annexing south Sakhalin as agreed to at Yalta. Stalin's wished to create a buffer zone of Communist states around him to protect Soviet Russia from the capitalist West.
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Acceptance Essays
