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The Cold War often conjures up images of divided continents, nuclear standoff, and proxy wars fought all over the world. It was a decades-long competition between communist and capitalist economies, between democratic and authoritarian political frameworks, and between value systems that ended with the dissolution of the USSR and the end of communism in Eastern Europe. And whilst this end date isn't the subject of too much debate, when the Cold War began exactly is much more nebulous, with most assuming that it starts in the wake of the Second World War. But given the obvious enmity that existed from day one between the Bolshevik revolutionaries and the rest of the
non-communist world, how do we know when the Cold War actually started? Now, obviously, given that the Cold War wasn't actually a war, choosing a definitive starting date is going to be difficult. It's not like there was ever a formal declaration of not being at war, but being very suspicious of those guys. As such, it's always going to be up to interpretation. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical competition between the communist and non-communist worlds for dominance, where both blocks sought to undermine and ultimately destroy the other. So, when is the earliest you could say that this begins?
Well, depending on whose perspective you're looking through, it was pretty early. As of 1917 in the October Revolution, the newly empowered Bolsheviks didn't exactly get along with, well, anyone. By coming to power, they had removed a vital military ally from the Entente powers during World War I. And immediately after taking power, the Bolsheviks were quick to renege on Russia's previous commitments to the West by refusing to pay back money loaned to Russia and releasing secret documents to embarrass Britain and France. As the Bolsheviks fought for control of the remnants of the Russian Empire, the Entente and also Germany, whilst it was still able to, at least, try to aid the Bolsheviks' enemies, the
Whites. Long story short, this didn't work, and after a few years of fighting, Lenin's Bolsheviks were victorious, and they established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. The Western response to this was to, well, ignore it and hope that the communists just sort of went away. Spoiler alert, they didn't. Well, I guess Lenin did, but the USSR survived, and so Western powers had to learn how to deal with it. As a result of the war, most of them were broke, and Britain sought to normalize trade with the resource-rich Soviet Union to help its economy bounce back. However, there was a lot of opposition to having a relationship that amounted to anything more than trade. In 1924,
after the Labour Party came to power for the first time, Ramsay MacDonald, the new Prime Minister, was quick to recognize the Moscow government and begin diplomatic relations, something which did not go down well at all with the rest of Britain's political class. Soon after this, Italy and France recognized the USSR, too, but that doesn't mean that they got along. One of the issues plaguing early relations was the Soviet Union's support for political radicals in the West, as well as all of the spying stuff. When the British government discovered that Soviet trade envoys were in fact stealing military documents, it broke off relations. And in Moscow, there was a genuine fear that
Britain would form an alliance with Poland and go to war over it. This didn't happen, and despite this war scare, Soviet leadership was quick to return to supporting dissidents and conducting espionage. Now, obviously, this wasn't a one-sided affair, and the Western powers were also quick to spy on Moscow and worked hard to geopolitically isolate it. But the difference between this period in the post-World War II landscape was that the anti-communists weren't united behind a single leading country. In fact, the countries that would later form the backbone of NATO were themselves extremely divided at this point. Whilst the British and French governments disliked communism intensely, it was nothing compared to
the hatred for it coming out of Berlin, Rome, and also Tokyo. Germany actively sought to build a subtly named anti-Soviet alliance, the Anti-Comintern Pact, and after Spain had descended into civil war, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union all sent weapons and soldiers to fight for their respective sides. The Japanese and Soviets even briefly came to blows in Mongolia. However, the Japanese quickly learned that was a bad idea. Expansionism by Germany, Japan, and as always, to a much lesser extent, Italy, made the democratic powers much more hostile. When the Soviet attempt to make an anti-German alliance with the West fell through, and the Soviet-backed Spanish side in the civil war was defeated, the USSR's leaders reasoned that there was
now more to gain by getting on board with Germany, which, to be fair to them, there was. Now, across the Atlantic, the Americans were much more consistent in their approach towards the new communist government in Moscow, in that they completely ignored it. Its citizens were also owed money, and it wasn't until 1933 that Franklin Roosevelt actually recognized Stalin's government, mostly because American businessmen figured that they could make more from the USSR's growing economy and thirst for imports. Now, whilst the distrust from the West, the spying, the geopolitical maneuvering, and the attempts to stop the spread of communism seem very Cold Wary. To the overwhelming majority of
nations, the main threat wasn't the Soviets, but Germany or Japan. In fact, the USSR, whilst acknowledged as a great power, wasn't exactly feared militarily, due mostly to its defeat at the hands of Poland and its small, albeit growing, economy. It was only as the 1930s came to a close that the USSR's global position was taken more seriously. Its failure to defeat tiny Finland was offset by its annexation of the eastern half of Poland, Baltic states, and by gaining this land off of Romania. And when Berlin broke its non-aggression pact with Moscow and invaded, the allies were quick to do whatever they could to aid the Soviets in defeating the Germans. And as such, the ideological feud between the Soviet Union and
Britain, China, France, and later on the Americans had to be put aside for this one common goal. But of course, even during the conflict, the two sides didn't exactly trust one another. For example, the USSR was desperate for the UK and USA to open up a second front in Western Europe against Germany, which would relieve some of the pressure on the Eastern Front. Britain and the United States, however, were more than happy to bide their time with this, because better that the USSR spend its people's lives fighting than they spend theirs. What can be said for certain is that after the Second World War had ended, relations between the two groups didn't exactly get any better. And so,
for many, having a Cold War which starts pre-war is then ignored for a 4-year period, and then immediately kicks off again, doesn't make much sense. Anyway, in the aftermath of Germany and Japan's surrenders, both sides did things that alarm the other and raise tensions. For example, the Soviets had expected that Germany would be reunified under a single government, but the USA, UK, and France feared that a single Germany would be subject to communist influence. And so, better to keep it split up, thereby guaranteeing that these parts wouldn't align with Moscow. Furthermore, the US nuclear arsenal was extremely worrying to the Soviets, especially when Truman made it clear that he would use
it wherever and whenever he felt he needed to. And also, the Americans' immediate ending of Lend-Lease after Japan's surrender was seen as a means of undermining Soviet efforts to rebuild the country. It wasn't all just one way, though. The Western allies were unhappy that the USSR's idea of a liberated Eastern Europe was very different to theirs, and the hopes that Poland or Czechoslovakia here once again become free and independent states were soon dashed. Also, the USSR's refusal to leave Iran after the war's end and its constant delay to withdrawing from Manchuria was seen as the Soviets going back on their word and by extension an attempt to expand its empire. What we do
know for certain is that at this point and unlike in the pre-war world, neither the Soviets nor their rivals did much to hide their distrust of the other. In 1947, these hostilities took on a new dimension though. Truman was afraid of increasing Soviet power and so pledged to give support to any democratic government under threat from armed uprising, by which he meant communist uprisings. And fearing that an impoverished Europe would be more susceptible to communism's message, the United States announced the creation of the Marshall Plan, which would give economic aid to European nations ravaged by the war. The USSR however saw this as little more than an attempt by the United States at undermining Moscow's
influence there, which wasn't an unreasonable assumption given that unofficially anti-communist governments were the only ones who'd receive any sizable amounts of aid, which is why in both France and Italy the governments there kicked the communists out of government. Growing distrust meant that when Truman learned of upcoming elections in Romania, he demanded that Western observers be allowed to monitor it for pro-communist election rigging. Stalin happily agreed to this on the condition that Soviet observers be given the same access to Italy's impending elections too. The demand was soon dropped. This angered the Soviets because in the elections just held in Czechoslovakia, they had respected the
result and overwhelmingly pro-Western government. The initial hope that eventually the communists there would simply just win an election were dashed when the country accepted Marshall aid and in response Moscow simply ordered the Communist Party there to just overthrow the government. And Moscow also created Cominform, which would be used to create a unified foreign policy for communist parties across Europe, something the USA saw as being very anti-Washington, which let's be reasonable, that's exactly what it was. And whilst these events aren't as clear-cut as an invasion, when you can say whether or not a state of war exists between two parties, the events of 1947 and the permanent change in tone between the US-led world and the Soviet-led one
are why it's so often seen as the year in which the Cold War began. The problem with this is that the actions taken during that year were in response to what had previously happened and so giving the Cold War a firm starting date of 1947 doesn't take into account all of the maneuvering and distrust that existed since long before then because both sides spent the entire thing talking about how what they were doing was justified because of some previous thing that the other side had done just before that. Now, obviously, for some nations this date doesn't work well at all. For example, the USSR had maintained a tense relationship with Britain from its creation until the two made an alliance against Germany in
1941. And during this period both wanted to and acted to reduce the others influence globally. And with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of British leadership was publicly hostile to Moscow. And for those two, at least with respect to each other, 1917 or 1922 are perfectly acceptable dates for declaring the start of the Cold War. Some people will point to 1946 when Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech. However, he wasn't the Prime Minister at this time and so it made no change to British foreign policy. And in China, the Cold War was a very, very different thing since its pre-war government outlooks were often both anti-communist and anti-Western. And its
attention was entirely devoted to fighting its ongoing civil war and its war with Japan. And thus accepting help from whoever would give it. And even after the communist victory there, a unified anti-US foreign policy wouldn't last long since China and the USSR would soon find themselves fighting and also geopolitically opposed, meaning that its Cold War is extremely hard to pin down. And so whilst 1947 is not exactly a perfect start date for something as nebulous as the Cold War, it's probably one of the better ones. Because let's be reasonable, we're almost certainly never going to get an agreed upon beginning. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons, James
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