The Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War

In the second half of 20th century, one conflict, the Cold War, stands unchallenged as the preeminent organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy. A central question in the historiography of the Cold War is simply, whose fault was it? During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against the fascist Axis powers. In the waning years of that always uneasy alliance, greater signs of strain began to show, and soon a complete break would follow. Was this unavoidable? If not, who carries the greater blame for creating this division, which after all, repeatedly threatened nuclear holocaust and created the ideological justification for a series of horrendously destructive interventions into the so-called “Third World.” While there remains a great diversity of opinion regarding these questions, it has become commonplace in many academic discussions to refer to three broad “schools” of thought regarding the origins of the Cold War: “orthodox” explanations, “revisionism,” and “post-revisionism.” Of course, this categorization is not nearly as “neat and tidy” as one might be inclined to believe; it tends to mask the depth and diversity of the efforts of many historians. What follows will be a discussion of these three main perspectives, an evaluation of their arguments, and thoughts regarding the future of the field of Cold War historiography. For the first ten to twenty years after the end of World War II, the “orthodox” view dominated the history of the Cold War. In this formulation, the United States, repository of all that is pure and good in the world, stood firm against the diabolical designs of the Communist menace. The Soviet Union, seeking to foment world Stalinist revolution, exploited every opportunity to destabilize and destroy democracy, spreading chaos and despair which