CAMBRIDGE IGCSE HISTORY REVISION 8 - WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR THE COLD WAR - POST REVISIONISTS VIEWS. A presentation containing: a view over post revisionists and post revisionism, views of John Lewis Gaddis, LaFeber, Leffler, Trachtenberg, Accuf.

1. CAMBRIDGEIGCSE
HISTORYREVISION8
WHOWASTOBLAME
FORTHECOLDWAR?
POSTREVISIONISTSVIEWS

2. THEPOSTREVISIONISTS
As time went on, however, a group of historians called the ‘post-
revisionists’ tried to present the foundations of the Cold War as neither
the fault of the Americans or the USSR.
This school of thought does not exactly combine the Orthodox and
Revisionist views, but Post-revisionists do stress that neither the USA
nor the USSR can be held solely responsible for the origins of the Cold
War. One of the key figures for this group was American historian John
Lewis Gaddis. He declared in 1983 that there was a growing
"consensus" of opinion that followed the "Post-revisionist" line of
argument.

3. THEFIRSTREVISIONISTJOHNLEWISGADDIS
The first was John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of
the Cold War (1972), who believed that both America and Russia
wanted to keep the peace after the war but that conflict was caused
by mutual misunderstanding, reactivity, and above all the American
inability to understand Stalin's fears and need to defend himself after
the war.

4. HISVIEW
John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War
1941−47 (Columbia University Press, 1972), pp. 359−61
"The Cold War grew out of a complicated interaction of external and internal
developments inside both the United States and the Soviet Union. The external
situation − circumstances beyond the control of either power − left Americans
and Russians facing one another across prostrated Europe at the end of World
War Two. Internal influences in the Soviet Union − the search for security, the
role of ideology, massive post-war reconstruction needs, the personality of
Stalin − together with those in the United States − the need for self-
determination, fear of Communism, the illusion of omnipotence fostered by
American economic strength and the atomic bomb − made the resulting
confrontation a hostile one. Leaders of both superpowers south peace, but in
doing so yielded to considerations, which, while they did not precipitate war,
made resolution of differences impossible."

5. GADDISANDLAFEBERVIEW
John Lewis Gaddis and Walter LaFeber both agreed at this time that
misperceptions played an important part at the beginning of the Cold
War. Both superpowers overestimated the strength and threat of the
other, and much of the growing tension of the 1940s was a result of a
pattern of "action and reaction."
Both sides were "improvising“, rather than following a well-defined
plan of action. Stalin's search for security was not deterred initially by
strong lines being drawn, while at the same time the West did not fully
recognize the Soviets' motives.

6. THEPOSTREVISIONISTVISION
The revisionist vision produced a critical reaction of its own. In the
1970s and 1980s, a group of historians called the post-revisionists
argued that the foundations of the Cold War were neither the fault of
the U.S. nor the Soviet Union. They viewed the Cold War as something
inevitable.
According to the post-revisionists, the Cold War emerged from the
power vacuum after World War II, when the European countries were
severely weakened by the war. The multipolar situation that had
existed before the war had given way to a bipolar world. For both the
United States and the Soviet Union it was unacceptable to let the
other superpower dominate Europe, as this would seriously disrupt
the balance of power. Conflict over spheres of influence was therefore
an inevitable result of considerations of national security.

7. THEVIEWOFMARTINLEFFLER
Martin P. Leffler, in his book: A Preponderance of Power: National
Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (1992) saw the
Cold War as a clash of two military establishments both seeking world
domination.

8. THEVIEWOFMARCTRACHTENBERG
Marc Trachtenberg, A Contested Peace: The Making of the European
Settlement, 1945-1963 (1999) claimed that the Cold War was really
about settling the German question in the aftermath of World War II.

9. THEVIEWOFMARCTRACHTENBERG
Analysis of President Truman’s ideas at a site called Innocents Abroad:
Presidents and Foreign Policy.
“The Cold War was caused by the conflicting interests of the United States and
the USSR, compounded by miscommunication and poor diplomacy. The
differences in the cultures of the American political leaders and their moral and
righteous justifications for diplomacy from Soviet leaders' communist
expansionist policies led to the unravelling of the new international order nearly
established in Roosevelt's wartime conferences with Churchill and Stalin.”

10. THEREVIEWOFJOHNACUFF
Statement made in a review of a book The Good German by John
Acuff, ‘Country Lawyer’, a Christian lawyer who writes reviews of the 3-
books-a-week he reads.
“In view of this reviewer… much of the cold war was caused by these NAZI
spooks who we hired to watch the Russians and that it was beyond
comprehension the number of NAZI officials who we illegally allowed to come
here. America has always had a very strong German base and as one TV show
observed the NAZIS did not loose the war they simply had to relocate.”