Finally, Andre Liebich has claimed that a micro-event (exiled Mensheviks who came to New York City in the 1940s) had an effect on a macro-event (the Cold War's genesis). "Raphael Abramovitch, David Dallin, and Boris Nocolaevsky – succeeded in carving out a strategic niche in American discourse on the Soviet Union." [53] Russian Cold War policy was thus obliquely affected by past historical trauma and revolution counter-exported from without.

Korean War Analyses

With Europe's recovery and China's collapse, Soviet pressure would turn toward Asia.

Korean War (1950-53) analyses offer an invaluable example of Russia becoming caught in macro-systemic transitions. Henry Kissinger argued the traditional view of events: American policy was "caught in a cross-fire between those who considered it too bellicose (the followers of [old New Dealer Henry] Wallace) and those who thought it too passive (the conservative Republicans)." [54]

Mark Kramer emphasized that "the outbreak of the Korean War can easily be explained by neo-realists or neo-classical realism. The new evidence is valuable in highlighting the complexity of Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean bargaining in the lead up to the war." [55]

There is disagreement, notably, on Josef Stalin's role in the Korean War. After viewing Soviet documents, William D. Jackson claimed that "Stalin had concluded that the prolongation of the conflict would tie down and humiliate the United States." [56] Mark Kramer is far more cautious in his views: it was "impossible to discern Stalin's motives with great certainty." [57]

'Atomic Diplomacy' and Nuclear Deterrence

The final considerable factor is 'atomic diplomacy': was it a coincidence that the Alamogordo test took place on July 16, 1945 and the Potsdam meeting began on July 17, 1945?

Siviu Brucan contended that the US doctrine of massive retaliation was important, but part of a wider systemic worldview: the Cold War was "the politico-military East-West confrontation . . . the former USSR succeeded to build a nuclear missile force equal to that of America. But military technology is non-ideological and cannot constitute the basis of a new socioeconomic system." [58] Jonathan Schell claimed: "the politics of mass annihilation . . .were in 1945 transferred to the care of Washington." [59]

Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley have outlined the doctrine of massive retaliation's initial effects: "the bomb appeared to be a godsend to the Americans. They could impose their will on any recalcitrant nation merely by threatening to use it. Stopping aggression would be simplicity itself – just drop the bomb." [60] This strategic advantage changed on September 22, 1949 when the US President announced that Russia now had exploded an atomic bomb. [61]

Soviet ascendancy to nuclear superpower would effectively close the Cold War's opening phase. Soviet national security interests would deploy world Communism as an ideological barrier to US 'Open Door' diplomacy and disguised psychological warfare. The complex interaction of Soviet industry infrastructure re-construction, unresolved traumas and 'historical wildcards', and macro-systemic effects would become a Cold War under-current, requiring 'both-and' logic in a predominantly 'either-or' world to decipher.

Works Cited:

Gar Alperovitz. "More on Atomic Diplomacy." In David Carlton and Herbert M. Levine (ed.). The Cold War Debated. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988: 27-34.

Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley. Rise To Globalism (8th ed.). New York: Penguin Books, 1997.

Alexei Bogaturov and Konstantin Pleshakov. "The Dynamics of International Stability." International Affairs [Moscow]. August 1991: 30-39.

Silviu Brucan. "Communism versus Capitalism: A False Issue." Review [Fernand Braudel Center]. Vol 21(2), 1998: 201-205.

David Carlton and Herbert M. Levine (ed.). The Cold War Debated. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Edward Crankshaw. "The USSR Revisited." International Affairs [Royal Institute of International Affairs]. Vol 23(4), October 1947: 492-499.

Theodor Draper. "Neoconservative History." In David Carlton and Herbert M. Levine (ed.). The Cold War Debated. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988: 10-20.

Herbert J. Ellison. "Soviet-American Intervention." In David Carlton and Herbert M. Levine (ed.). The Cold War Debated. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988: 165-171.

David S. Foglesong. "Roots of 'Liberation': American Images of the Future of Russia in the Early Cold War, 1948-53." International History Review. vol XXX(1), March 1999: 57-79.

John Lewis Gaddis. Strategies of Containment. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.