Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Cold War Historiography
- Orthodox
- Holds the soviet Union responsible for the Cold War - states the the soviet union were inevitably
expansionist due to their suspicion of the west and in accordance with the marxist theory of world
revolution
- Stalin violated Yalta and Potsdam agreements, occupied and imposed soviet control in
eastern europe and plotted to spread communism throughout the world
- The US had to act defensively from the truman doctrine and the marshall plan to the establishment of
NATO
- Post Revisionist
- neither the us nor the USSR can be held solely responsible for the
cold war- grew out of a complicated interaction of internal and
external factors
- the external situation- circumstances beyond the control of any power left the americans and russians facing
one another across prostrated europe at the end of WW2
- internal influences in the soviet union- the need for security, the role of ideology, massive post-war
reconstruction, the personality of stalin
- USA- need for self-determination, fear of communism, the illusion
of omnipotence fostered by american economic strength
- misperceptions played an important role at the beginning of the cold war- both superpowers overestimated the strength and threat of each other
and much of the growing tension of the 1940s was a result of the pattern of action and reaction- both sides were improvising rather then following a
well defined plan of action
- Revisionist
- Holds the US responsible for the cold war- the motives behind US foreign policy were seen as inherently linked to capitalism- containment of communism
was driven by the requirement to secure markets and free trade - american policy was determined by the nature of capitalism and by fears of recession -
also saw stalin as a pragmatic leader and the americans should have been more willing to understand his needs (stalin then would have made
concessions)
- Post Cold war Historians
- Focuses on the role of stalin- suggests that stalins policies coupled with the soviet totalitarian/authoritarian government that drew the west into an escalation of hostility and the arms race