How did the Cold War actually start?

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How did the Cold War actually start?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Well basically everybody was hostile to the Bolsheviks from the start and the Entente intervened in the Russian Civil War against them. Not enough to win but enough to ensure that the Bolsheviks would not forget.

So, not a great start

Here are some possibilities for starting moment:

The Bolsheviks expected a World Revolution, and under Marxist theory this was supposed to take place somewhere more industrially advanced like Germany or Britain.

When it didn’t, and the Red Army was repulsed from Poland and Bela Kun thrown out of Hungary they drew back from a hot war; but realise everyone still hates them even if they are not trying to get rid of them right now.

So a Cold War it is

This is also helped by Stalin winning the internal power struggle against Trotsky

But the Soviets aren’t “The” Enemy, they are a backwards pariah mostly content to be horrible to their own people

In the aftermath of WW2 the Soviets are a lot closer and a lot relatively stronger, and in addition to their own ideology telling them their triumph is inevitable they have also inherited the ambitions of Imperial Russia and have suffered devastating invasions from the West twice in 30 years so want a buffer zone.

However this wasn’t acceptable to The West and no one wanted a Hot war (it was called Operation Unthinkable for a reason); so back to semi-peaceful Cold War it was.

Or if you want the TLDR:

Cold War is the default state between the Soviet Union and just about everybody else; WW2 forced a temporary change in that but neither Stalin nor his fellows forgot that “My Enemy’s Enemy is my Enemy’s Enemy, nothing more”

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