What were the factors that contributed to the start of the Cold War?
Section 1: Identification and Evaluation of sources
This investigation will study the question: What were the factors that contributed to the
start of the Cold War? This investigation focuses on the events that have happened at the end of
World War II, Pre-Cold War, and the start of the Cold War.
The first source that will be examined will be David S. Mason’s “Revolution in East
Central Europe: The Rise and Fall of Communism and the Cold War.” Being one of the Political
Science professors at Butler University, Mason has written many established works in this area
of history. He has published many books on different aspects of Eastern European history. The
source being referenced was published in 1992. A value of origin of this book is that it was
published around 50 years after the events which strengthens the value of this source since it has
the benefit of hindsight as it has time to look at many other references and sources. Eastern
Europe is also Mason’s area of specialty which can also add to this source’s value. A limitation
of origin of this source would be that Mason is not necessarily a historian but actually a Political
Scientist. Although he is a Political Scientist, his specialty is in Eastern Europe which would be
able to provide him various amounts of background knowledge. The purpose of this book was
that it provided analysis of the Cold War As a whole. It recognizes and describes events from the
rise of communism in the early 1900s all the way up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is
valuable due to how this source describes in detail what caused the events to happen and what
was the result of those events. A value of content would be how this source has a large collection
of sources that it took and analyzed. This action allowed the author to include conflicting aspects
of history that is argued by historians. This source is relevant to my research question because it
goes in-depth on the actions that had caused the Cold War from multiple stances and it also
covers a rise in communism during the time which is an attribute to the start of the Cold War. A
limitation of content in this source would be that there are points in the book where he only gives
a brief summary of the events instead of going into detail about.
The second source that will be examined will be Geoffrey Robert’s “Starting the Cold
War.” This source is a historical article written by a historian that specifically specializes in the
Soviet diplomatic and military history of WWII. Geoffrey Robert attended undergraduate at
North Staffordshire Polytechnic and studied International Relations. He has won a Fulbright
Scholarship to Harvard University and is also a professor of modern history at University
College Cork in Ireland and was formerly head of the School of History at UCC. This should
provide the value of origin as he has an exemplary amount of high-value education which
supports his case even further. This article was also published in the year 2000 which provides
another value of being able to look at a more variety of sources and provides the benefit of
hindsight. This article has a value of purpose that looks closely at post-WWII events as he had
stated that a majority of the cause of the Cold War was due to the relationships in WWII. Roberts
has recognized world authority on Stalin which adds to his case further. This source serves as
sufficient to my research question as it allows me to cross-check between the two articles and
allows me to see more in-depth the events that were not closely looked at in the first source. A
limitation of origin would be that this article would be that he had referenced two of his books in
his source list which could fault this article as there is a low chance of it being wholly inaccurate.
A limitation of purpose would be that it specifically looks at post-WWII events which would not
give me a holistic view of the past and future. A limitation of content would be that there is that
the first half of the article it only questions the event of the Cold War without giving any
underlying information about it.
Section 2: Investigation
There have been many debates on whether the Cold War had started in the period of time
directly after WWII in 1947 or whether it started when the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917
(Roberts). In this investigation, we will be defining the start of the Cold War to when the rivalry
between the USA and the USSR. had started. The Cold War was a progression of the political
rivalry between the US and Soviet Union that occurred during WWII and was mainly focused on
the socio-economic factors of the country rather than the fighting and weapons. The bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki had spurred the end of WWII and revealed the strong presence of
nuclear weapons in the US. The presence of nuclear weapons in the US was a shocking event as
the three superpowers that were working on them had mostly shifted their focus from creating
nuclear weapons to different projects (Leffler, 376). Russia had also held the Eastern front during
2 wars and the USSR had already taken over control of some of the Eastern European countries
regained from Hitler before the bombs were dropped. During this time, the three nuclear
superpowers included the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union, also known as The Big 3. The
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the key events at the start of the Cold War and
led to many of the actions by Joseph Stalin. In this investigation, there will be an analysis of the
actions taken by Joseph Stalin, the relationships between different countries, and the impact of
nuclear weapons.. Nearing the end of WWII, there had been an establishment made between the
big three leaders of the world, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin to meet
at the town of Yalta to negotiate the order of power in Europe after the war (Mason, 11). This
event would later be known as the Yalta Conference. The Yalta Conference was an extremely
important event that led to the start to the Cold War as we know it. Joseph Stalin’s actions were
an important contribution to the Cold War and it had encouraged the rivalry between the US even
further. The investigation will also be going in-depth in the actions taken by Stalin during WWII
and right before the Cold War.
WWII had many necessary events that had caused the eruption of the Cold War. At the
start of this war, the Soviet Union was effectively an ally of Nazi Germany and this relationship
would later set up the Soviet Union for failure. This alliance with Nazi Germany had set up the
Soviet Union to be an untrustworthy ally in the future with the United Nations. The alliance of
the two was not a very long-lasting one as the agenda of Germany was one of conquering the
world which resulted in a betrayal and attack on the Soviet Union. This move was called
Operation Barbarossa and caused the Soviet Union to slowly become an ally to Britain overnight
(Gompert 85). The Operation was meant to fool Joseph Stalin into thinking that the Germans
would invade Britain but instead would actually invade Soviet Russia. With the new alliance of
Soviet Russia and the Allies, Nazi Germany would slowly crumble and a key event, the Yalta
Conference, would come into play. As stated earlier, the Yalta Conference was an extremely
important event that may have had a significant impact on the execution of the Cold War. The
Yalta Conference was held in a Soviet resort town to “plan the final stages of WWII and
negotiate the postwar order of Europe,” (Mason, 11). The Yalta agreements were the division of
Germany into occupation zones, the status of Poland which had left some parts to the soviet
union, and the agreement that the nations of Eastern Europe were to be democratic and benign to
the Soviet Union. However, the Yalta Conference would later become a symbol of betrayal by
the Soviets as it left Joseph Stalin with control of the region of Eastern Europe and led to the
communist regimes put into the areas of control (Mason, 12). The US had a great fear of the
spread of communism that was put out in response to the recent areas that had been put into the
communist regime. The clash of Capitalism and Communism would be one of the main reasons
that the cold war had occurred which would be resulted from Stalin's addiction to gain power
(Roberts). These events stated were some of the key items that had added on to the animosity
between the two massive superpowers of the world, The USSR and the US.
With the ending of WWII in 1945, the display of the atomic bombs by the US had played
a significant impact in the rivalry. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had helped play a
significant role in ending WWI and made it known to the entire world that the US was the only
nuclear superpower. With this being known to the Soviet Union, the rivalry between the two, the
US and the Soviet Union led to the nuclear arms race (Suri, 1017). With Truman’s flauntation of
the nuclear weapons,it only made the tension and anger rise even more between the two nations
which would inevitably result in the Cold War. The launch of RSD-1, also known as The First
Lightning, had severely impacted the relationship between these two countries. RSD-1 was the
first nuclear warhead that the Soviet Union had produced and it only increased animosity. RSD-1
was first tested in 1949 and this spurred many of the events that had happened in the Cold War.
The development of RSD-1 had only increased the conflict between the two countries and this
development further led the push into the Cold War.In conclusion, there were many different
factors that had caused the Cold War. Russia had already had simmering tensions with the US
from all the way back in the early 1920’s, and Russia’s untrustworthiness only helps this cause
even more. The actions taken by Stalin that led to the Cold War was the Berlin Blockade, his
development of more nuclear bombs, the pursuit of expansion and power he seeked, and the
spread of communism that he had done. These reasons were one of many that had helped the
world go straight into the Cold War. Although Joseph Stalin may not have been the only reason
that the Cold War had started, Stalin would be the main reason that the war had started. He has
one action that was a direct cause of the Cold War, and this action would be the Berlin Blockade
that he had induced. Joseph Stalin has many indirect causes to the Cold War though; these
reasons would be his untrustworthiness and the already high tensions with the US. All in all,
there had been many factors to the start of the cold war such as Stalin being the leading cause to
the tensions and untrustworthiness to other countries, the spread of communism, and the egos of
the two big superpowers, the US and the USSR.
Section 3: Reflection
Through my investigation, I was able to gather some knowledge on the many methods that
historians may use. As David Mason was producing the book “Revolution In East-Central
Europe: The Rise And Fall Of Communism,” he had to read through various different research
sources including many different subjects of this era. These all ranged from history, politics, and
all the way to theory. Through David Mason, I learned a crucial skill in researching history.
There needs to be a massive accumulation of sources with thorough analysis to have a conclusive
and concise investigation. The skill that Mason has used is the massive amount of sources that he
has acquired and used to publish his book. He researched many different viewpoints to come to a
clear and concise description of the events and he has the value of verifying the events with the
massive amount of sources. This skill adds on to the value of the book and with the historian's
specialty in Eastern European politics and history. Although one limitation would be that there is
little use in eyewitness accounts and Mason was also born in the US which also adds as a
limitation. Using this skill, I was able to identify 10 relevant sources to my topic and was able to
fact check throughout each source. However, the difficulty with this is that many of these sources
would have many different approaches to each event and with that it would make it even more
difficult to claim one specific thing in the investigation. The different approaches add on to the
difficulty in researching history.
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