Origins of the Cold War: 1917-1942

Photo by Daniil Onischenko

While the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended the Second World War (“WWII”), the dramatic and deadly ending to the war in the Pacific was also one of the first shots of the Cold War. Most scholars conclude that use of the world’s first nuclear weapon was a contributing factor to beginning of the Cold War between the United States (“USA”) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (“USSR”) who were allies during both the First World War (“WWI”) and WWII. Despite the USA and the USSR being allied against the Nazis during WWII, there were always underlying tensions between them related to the development of the atomic bomb and opening a western front against the Germans in order to alleviate pressure from the Nazis on the Soviets in Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow. Yet in the immediate aftermath of WWII, the tensions between the USA and the USSR reached a boiling point and quickly escalated into a stand-off between the two largest superpowers in the world.  This pitch battle for global hegemony lasted more than four decades and still continues to a certain degree today, but over the course of those 40 years, neither country engaged in a direct battle or war against the other and only fought by proxy. The question becomes how these allies in both WWI and WWII become seemingly mortal enemies within the short period of only a few years.  

In the immediate aftermath of WWII, the USSR began recapturing lands which were lost by the Soviets to the Nazis in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In addition, the USSR aggressively expanded its communist influence into Eastern Europe in violation of its agreements with the USA and Great Britain. This aggressive Soviet expansion of communist ideology in an effort to replace capitalist systems exemplifies the ideological differences between the USA and of the USSR which were the driving factors of the origins of the Cold War. 

In order to gain a complete understanding of Soviet ideology, one must begin with the October Revolution of 1917. Until the October Revolution, the Romanov Dynasty ruled the Russian Empire for over 300 years. In the immediate years preceding the October Revolution and despite its backwardness as compared to the West, Russia was evolving into a constitutional monarchy but still, the “disparity between the few and the many” was stark. While Russia possessed some of the best artistic schools in the world, the vast majority of the Russian people were illiterate and lived in deep poverty. This grinding Russian poverty and fundamental inequality combined with the enormous stress upon the Russian people as a result of WWI and the inability of Czar Nicholas II, who was narrow minded, weak, and “deficient in perspective,” to effectively address these issues, led to the workers becoming more radicalized in St. Petersburg and Moscow.  

The instability of the imperial Russian social and economic structures provided an exploitable environment which eventually led to the rise of the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in 1917. On March 15, 1917, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, and a provisional government was established. Despite promoting liberal policies of democracy and freedom, the provisional government was unable to “overcome the extraordinary difficulties that beset the country” and controlled the country for only eight months. With the October Revolution of 1917, the power struggle between the revolutionary Bolshevik party and the imperial government ended, and Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power by force leading to the rise of the communist USSR.

The USSR arose from the Bolshevik state and was based upon Lenin’s ideology known as “Bolshevism.” In short, Bolshevism is a form of Marxist ideology which calls for the toppling of capitalism and the centralization of power in the state through the dictatorship of the working class. This Marxist ideology of state control of the modes of production is the antithesis of capitalism (free markets) upon which the economic systems of the West are based and, as discussed infra and as the USSR sought to spread communism globally, such ideology eventually led to deep tensions between the USSR and the West.

On December 6, 1917 and a direct result of the new Bolshevik government failing to honor the prior debts of imperial Russia, the USA broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR. On March 3, 1918, and after losing millions of Russian (now Soviet) nationals during WWI, the USSR entered the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk thus ending the participation of the USSR in WWI. Lenin, well aware of the growing war weariness of both the Soviet people and the people of Europe in general, entered into the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk for two reasons. By way of the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the USSR ceded control of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and most of Belarus to the Germans in exchange for cessation of hostilities. While Lenin, who had only risen to power less than a year before, knew that cessation of fighting WWI would be popular among the exhausted Soviet populous, Lenin and Leon Trotsky, the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs at the time and Lenin’s cohort, hoped that the war-weary Germans and other Europeans would look to communism as an alternative to military imperialism. The Soviet leaders hoped to achieve what they could not achieve militarily, “namely World Revolution and the replacement of military imperialism by the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

While Lenin’s World Revolution did not occur, fear of such a communist revolution became prevalent in the USA after the October Revolution and manifested itself into what is commonly known and the “Red Scare.”  Murray Levin, a member of the Communist Party in the USA and in his book Political Hysteria in America: The Democratic Capacity for Repression, wrote of the Red Scare and posited that it was “a nationwide anti-radical hysteria provoked by a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent—a revolution that would change Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of Life.” This fear of the communist Soviets in America was justified. In fact in 1922, the Communist International, which was formed by the Bolsheviks, demanded that the two American communist parties merge and follow the communist party line as established in Moscow which exacerbated the fear of communism and fear of the USSR in the USA. Thus began the tensions between the USA and the USSR. The USA wanted Russia to fight in WWI and at the same time to stop the spread of communism.  Such desires by the USA resulted in communist distrust of the West.

This ideological conflict between capitalism (free market democracy) and communism (state-controlled economy ruled by an authoritarian party) would span the period well beyond the beginning of the Cold War. The Soviet goal of a worldwide socialist revolution resulted in increased tension with the USA. Indeed, Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the USSR and each president, until Franklin D. Roosevelt (“FDR”) who finally recognized the USSR in 1933, followed the policy established by Wilson.

On January 21, 1924 and after suffering a stroke and slipping into a coma, Lenin died leaving a power vacuum in the USSR. Josef Stalin, who was deeply embedded in virtually all communist party functions since the October Revolution, succeeded in defeating Leon Trotsky for party control and consolidated his power over the USSR on December 27, 1927. Throughout his tyrannical rule, Stalin proved ardently anti-capitalist, advocated worldwide socialism, and was a brutal dictator. Between his rise to lead the USSR and 1939, virtually any person who at any time opposed Stalin did not survive. Indeed and by 1940 with the assassination of Trotsky who was self-exiled in Mexico, Lenin’s entire politburo was eliminated. While some estimates suggest that Stalin killed around three to five million people during his dictatorship, Robert Conquest in his book The Great Terror estimates that Stalin actually killed around 20 million people during his lifetime.

While Stalin was purging all opposition to his authority in the USSR, another brutal dictator, Adolf Hitler, rose to power in fascist Nazi Germany on a wave of anti-Jewish and anti-communist sentiment. During the 1930’s tensions increased between the Nazis and the Soviets to the point that a proxy war in Spain broke out between the two countries in which the Soviets supported the Spanish Republic and the Nazis supported the Spanish Nationalists. In fact, Hitler’s virulent anti-communism was a reason why the USSR was not invited to the Munich Conference in September of 1938 during which Chamberlin of Great Britain and Daladier of France agreed to cede the Sudentenland (a portion of land in Czechoslovakia) in an effort to appease his lust for territory. Following the Munich Conference and keeping in mind that the Soviets were treaty partners with both France and Czechoslovakia, Stalin felt that the West was simply giving Czechoslovakia away to the Nazis and feared that the West would allow the same with the USSR and that the USSR may be next.

In August of 1939, Great Britain and the USSR attempted to negotiate a Triple Alliance in an effort to contain the Nazis. Because the Soviets desired to “rescue any Baltic state from Hitler, even if it did not want to be rescued” and Great Britain would only agree with the USSR if assistance was agreed to by these countries, the negotiations failed.

Seven days later, in order to establish a counter-weight to the West and to allow the USSR time to build up the Soviet military which suffered heavily directly as a result of Stalin’s purges, Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (“Pact”) with Hitler. Stalin told Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference in 1945 that, absent the appeasement of Hitler at the Munich Conference, the Pact would not have happened. Pursuant to the public portion of the Pact, both the Nazis and the USSR agreed to refrain from attacking each other for 10 years. Pursuant to the secret portion of the Pact, the Nazis and the USSR outlined the spheres of influence of the parties to the Pact. The Pact effectively green lighted the Nazi invasion of Poland which began eight days later.  

In any event and following the Pact and the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Soviets began to consolidate the lands which they lost in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 including parts of the Baltics and Ukraine. By this time, FDR and Churchill were weary of Stalin after the Pact and even militarily supplied Finland in their battles against the USSR. By the end of 1940, Hitler, for the most part, defeated much of western Europe, and the Soviets consolidated control of much of the land west of the USSR. On June 22, 1941 with Operation Barbarossa and after his victories in much of western Europe, Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the USSR. Quickly thereafter and despite Churchill’s weariness of Stalin and on July 12, 1941, Great Britain and the USSR agreed to mutual support against the Nazis.  After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 and the entry of the USA into the war, and on June 11, 1942, the USA and the USSR pledged mutual support against the Nazis as well.

That said, the mutual support eventually turned adversarial. 

This story continues in Origins of the Cold War: 1942-1947.