Zheng 1

Xinyu Zheng

Professor Michael Holm

HI334 - History of International Relations, 1945The Present

Jul. 21, 2017

From Passive to Active: Cold War from Containment to Confrontation

After the end of World War II, the complex after-war jurisdiction overlap, heavy

reconstruction, and dissolution of wartime partnerships brought the world an indistinct, polarized

situation consisting of communist allies and capitalist allies. From 19461950, the U.S.

government, in an effort to consolidate and enhance the reconstruction and development of

democratization, gradually changed its passive policies toward the Soviet Union and its

communist followers to more active strategies.

In 1945, President Harry Truman voiced his approval of the Soviet leadership, saying, I

like Stalin. He is straightforward. Knows what he wants and will compromise when he cant get

it (PPT 0707 slide 10). From this statement, it is obvious that the U.S. government still

maintained its positive evaluation of Stalin and his communist world. However, based on the

study of George Kennans Long Telegram in February, 1946, the U.S government recognized

that Moscow [could not] cooperate with rival powers, unless it [was] dominant in [the]

international system (PPT 0707 slide 15). Also, Kennan reasoned that since the core of the

communist ideology involved splitting and taking over the noncommunist world, the future of

communism depended on destroying the existing international order. Thus, he argued that the

Soviet Union would likely attempt to set other countries against each other, split united countries

(or interfere in their efforts to unite), or give support to and ally with anti-capitalist

governments/groups. Those moves the Soviet Union might take make it difficult for the U.S. to
 Zheng 2

cooperate with its wartime partner, and also in fact, the wartime control had formed a highly

centralized Soviet Union that was positioned to destroy the peace of the entire world. Coexisting

with communist countries would also be less possible given the Soviet Unions expansion plan,

which was anticipated to become increasingly drastic.

The author of the Long Telegram, assuming that the collision of ideologies was

unavoidable, presented a persuasive analysis of the dangerousness of the Soviet Union. Kennan

urged, We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and

constructive picture of the sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in the

past . . .. We should be better able than the Russians to give them this. And unless we do, the

Russians certainly will (111). Kennans argument was influential in the U.S. governments

change in its policies on communism-related issues from passive and friendly to more active and

provident.

When the British government was engaged in the United Kingdoms domestic

reconstruction, it became difficult for it to continue supporting Greece and Turkey (PPT 0707

slide 24). Consequently, reconstruction in Greece was a slow process, which exacerbated the

countrys internal contradictions and led to civil war (Keylor 261). In addition, as the report from

the U.S. observer mission in Greece noted, the Soviets were convinced that Greece [was a] ripe

plum ready to fall into their hands in a few weeks (PPT 0707 slide 24). The Greek civil war,

which weakened government control and split the Greek military forces, presented an

opportunity for the Communist power to organize a coup. To prevent this, the U.S. government

officially took the place of the UK with the release of the Truman Doctrine in March, 1947. The

Truman Doctrine stated the U.S. governments position on the issue of the Greek civil war and

its obligation to Greece and Turkey. It also warned the entire free world of the danger of
 Zheng 3

premeditated revolutions and liberations. This remarkable announcement constituted the first

step in the U.S.s attitude shift on Soviet issues and also reflected the majority opinion from the

U.S. public.

Just as the need for supporting Greece and Turkey precipitated the Truman Doctrine to

prevent Soviet communists from taking advantage of the chaos in European countries and

dominating them, the need for a European economic recovery program gave rise to the Marshall

Plan, which was offered to all European nations. On June 5, 1947, based on the experience of the

Greek civil war and Kennans study on the Soviet Union, George Marshall stated that for

Western European countries facing the threat of Soviet totalitarianism, the slow reconstruction of

their economic systems and the insufficiency of solving the existed and impend problems were

fatal weaknesses (Keylor 265). As Kennan proposed in his Long Telegram, world Communism

is like [a] malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue (111). The core guidance

given by the Communist Party to vulnerable people was to overturn existing institutions, which

was intended to improve peoples lives. However, since the essence of this guidance was a

violent relocation of existing fortune, it could not ensure a stable society, stable lives, and

positive development, but only endless disputes and wars. Unfortunately, after the end of World

War II, incapable governments and widespread poverty largely intensified Western European

countries internal conflicts. Fearing starvation, disease, and death, people were forced to seek

help from the Soviet Union and trust in the vision of common prosperity promoted by the

communist system.

On the other hand, the worldwide warfare had connected every country with regard to

their economies, military forces, cultural communication, and even their territories. A self-

circulative economy could not exist due to the lack of resources, laborers, and customers. Based
 Zheng 4

on this fact, Marshall argued that the U.S. government should take further action to connect with

the Western European countries since a basic capitalist market system had already formed and

the only need was recovery. Hence, the U.S. government launched a supportive program to build

a more mature, positive, and diverse capitalist market with developmental potential. According

to records, the U.S. government supplied grants and credits totaling 13.2 billion dollars to

roughly twenty European countries through the Marshall Plan (Keylor 264). The economic

impact of this investment was substantial; by 1952, European industrial production had risen to

thirty-five percent and agricultural production to ten percent above the prewar level (Keylor

264).

Also in 1947, Stalin sent the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to Paris for

further information and negotiation. As the representative of the Soviet Union government,

Molotov refused to accept the Marshall Plan and drew up an alternative in response. The

Molotov Plan, which offered support to communist Eastern European countries, became the

foundation for the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In 1948, the Soviet Union secretly

facilitated the Czechoslovakia coup, since Czechoslovakia was the sole surviving democratic

country in Eastern Europe. After the Czech coup, a one-party communist state emerged. In fact,

this coup seemingly confirmed the American fear of communisms spread (PPT 0707 slide 33).

While the U.S. government made efforts to build a more stable, connected, recovered,

and cooperative Western Europe, the Soviet Union started the Berlin Blockade. Since Germany

had been occupied and supervised by four countries after the end of World War II, the possibility

of a German split had not been readily apparent. Thanks to the Marshall Plans successful

implementation, the U.S. government had almost reached a consensus with the UK and France

on the democratic development of Western Germany as an additional step in the European

 Zheng 5

Recovery Program. However, on June 24, 1948, facing an increasingly united Western world, the

Soviet Union made a move to expel the Western occupation forces from its territory. All traffic

from the Western zone to West Berlin inside the area under Soviet control was blocked (Keylor

273). This action shocked the Western world since almost 2.2 million residents in West Berlin

were left with limited food supplies, medical supplies, fuel, and intermittent power controlled by

the Soviet government (PPT 0707 slide 36). Driven not only by sympathy for the struggling

Germans and a sense of justice but also by the need to retrieve the hard-won recovery, the U.S.

government allied with the UK and other forces and started the Berlin Airlift. Through this

operation, which lasted roughly a year, Western Germany received 2.3 million tons of supplies

(PPT 0707 slide 37). On May 12, 1949, Stalin halted the Berlin Blockade.

Through this airlift, which was achieved through an alliance of multiple countries, the

U.S. government successfully showed the Western world the importance of being united. This

bore out Kennans assessment that gauged against the Western World as a whole, Soviets are

still by far the weaker force (110). On April, 4, 1949, twelve countries signed the North Atlantic

Treaty in Washington, DC and officially established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) to face their common enemy, which was threatening their sovereignty, safety, benefit,

and the development of the recovering world (Keylor 275). Different from their common enemy,

the Soviet Union and its followers, the NATO countries implemented a practicable plan of future

construction. This plan was persuasive and reasonable since it considered human nature, which

seeks better material life, and fulfilled the requirements of positive development, which included

becoming globalized rather than isolated. All those features made NATO different from the

Soviet Union, which was characterized by negative guidance, an impracticable economic system,
 Zheng 6

and the use of threats and oppression to maintain its alliance, which could hardly last for a long

period.

This fact pressured the Soviet Union to find a new battlefield with the increasingly

developed Western countries, so it instigated an armament race. On August 29, 1949, the Soviet

Union detonated its first atomic device (PPT 0707 slide 46). This successful explosion marked

the end of the American nuclear monopoly on which the shield and sword strategy of the

NATO was based (Keylor 278). In the same year, the Chinese civil war ended with the victory

of the Communist Party supported by the Soviet Union, and the U.S.-supported Republic of

China Armed Forces was expelled to the island of Taiwan. The proclamation of the

establishment of the Peoples Republic of China marked the entry of a new and potentially

strong ally of the Soviet Union on the international stage.

The transformation of the Soviet Unions anti-American policies from diplomatic to

military forced the U.S. to reconsider its position toward solving the problem of communism.

Simply waiting for the internal collapse of communist countries and continuing to develop

capitalism were no longer tenable strategies. However, the armament race, proving the

impossibility of coexistence, also reinforced the U.S.s resolution to thoroughly defeat the

enemy. The Soviet Unions obviously offensive intention forced the U.S. government to

implement recommendations made by the National Security Councils Report 68 (NSC-68) in

1951. This marked the militarization of U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union and of the Cold

War.

Having delineated the intrinsic characteristics of communism and the Soviet nation, the

Long Telegram was the theoretical basis of policies which expressed comparatively passive

methods for solving the issue of global communist expansion. Unfortunately, the Soviet Unions
 Zheng 7

strong desire to establish a hegemony posed a threat to the globalizing world, which had just won

peace at great cost. To avoid being buried by the Soviet Union, the U.S. government developed a

new, more militaristic strategy based on the NSC-68. To protect its interests in worldwide

democratization, the U.S. changed its policies gradually from passive responding to proactive

striking, allowing it to take the initiative in democratization processes.

 Zheng 8

Works Cited

Holm, Michael. The Coming of the Cold War, 19451947 & From Containment to

Confrontation, 19481950. History of International Relations, 1945The Present, 7 July

2017, Boston University, Boston, MA. https://onlinecampus.bu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-

5185538-dt-content-rid-18517498_1/xid-18517498_1

Kennan, George. Long Telegram. The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness

Accounts, edited by Jussi M. Hanhimaki and Odd Arne Westad. Oxford; New York:

Oxford UP, 2004. Print. 108111.

Keylor, William R. The Twentieth Century World and Beyond: An International History Since

1900. New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.