The Probability of “The Iron Curtain”

Was the Cold War inevitable?

The Cold War, emerging from the smoke and ashes of the destructive Second World War, while not necessarily inevitable, was indeed extremely probable given the situation on the ground in Germany at the close of hostilities. Soviet Russia, which had borne the brunt of Nazi military hostility, fought with renewed vigor and a deeply ingrained sense of revenge following the German defeat at Stalingrad. As Soviet forces recaptured lost territory and swept through Eastern Europe to the doorstep of Berlin, emotion and ideology followed in the Soviet forces wake. I made the argument during the course of our class discussion that Stalin and the Soviets would have pushed all the way to the Atlantic, given the chance, and I feel the possibility existed due to the whole hearted belief in the Soviet-Communist ideology.

It must be remembered that what Western historians refer to as the Second World War, Soviets, prior to the descent of the “Iron Curtain” were engaged in the nation’s Great Patriotic War. The lust for retribution against the German state coupled with the euphoria of consistent and overwhelming military victory after Stalingrad helped to fuel the belief in the Great Myth of the Revolution. The detonation of the atomic bomb caused the Soviet leadership to truly take notice and understand its limited potential for further expansion throughout Europe. Stalin desired a buffer-zone in Europe, that is true, but with Germany so completely defeated, the question arises: Was the buffer in place for Germany or Capitalism? Having been bled severely, the Soviet Union found the will to drive the Germans back singlehandedly, thus becoming victorious in their Great Patriotic War. Despite its alliances with the west, resulting in limited material support, the Soviet Union, essentially relying solely on itself, emerged as a superpower, with the ideological “influence” of Communism reigning supreme in the east.

The United States military, backed by its Capitalist industry, had proved to be the determining factor of the Western front. With the implementation of the Marshall Plan, the United States was capable of infusing war-torn Europe with not only funding and food, but culture and influence. Becoming the sheltering hand over all of Western Europe, the power of the United States in European affairs was blatantly obvious to the Soviet Union. The United States, the savior and rebuilder of Europe, would create a Westernized Political Bloc in its own image, diametrically opposed to the ideology of the Soviet sphere. Additionally, the adherence to the Truman Doctrine, which opposed the not-so-independent actions of self-determination within the Soviet sphere of influence, only served to add tension to the wary and suspicious relationship which existed between the east and the west prior to the war.

Both the Soviet Union and the United States had turned a complete 180 degrees by the end of the Second World War. Both formerly isolationist countries now found themselves as the major players on the world-stage, armed to the teeth, filled with victorious euphoria, and each at completely polarized ends of the ideological spectrum. The inability for the Soviet Union to cease its continuous perpetuation, by force and coercion, of the myth of the revolution forced the United States to take an ever more overtly defensive stance against the tangible threat to democracy. At the same time, the Soviet Union, having cultivated the conception that its war-time sacrifices had been underappreciated in addition to its newly gained political influence being disregarded, felt increasingly threatened by the capitalist influence growing in the West. With Stalin’s regression to tyranny and the old form of political terror, any chance of mutual political and ideological understanding dissipated at an incredibly crucial point in history. Thus the virulent weed of Cold War sprang to life, an organic manifestation of ideological paranoia and tension growing rapidly where the seeds of a mutually beneficial world order could have been sown instead.