What was the character of Stalin’s policy towards the West between

1945 and 1953?

“When Roosevelt and I met we did not call each other such names. I am neither
a sectarian nor a propagandist. I am a man of business.”1

The fall of Nazi Germany in May 1945 ushered in a new era for the global arena:
the Cold War. Despite being allies during the war, relations between the West
and the Soviet Union soured over time, eventually leading to an “us versus
them” mentality shared by both sides. The policies carried out by Stalin from
1945 to his death support that assertion. The memories of the two German
invasions from the West were still fresh in his mind, and there is certainly
evidence that he misunderstood the west (particularly the USA) which explains
the cold, defensive character of his foreign policy. That is the argument that we
are presenting: Stalin’s foreign policy towards the West was cold, defensive and
even at times opportunistic based on a misinterpretation of policies carried out
by the West.

In February 1945, three months before the surrender of the Nazis, the “big
three” of Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Stalin himself met at Yalta
to discuss the futures of Germany and Poland, the latter being a particular
source of debate between the leaders. Stalin agreed to permit the Poles free,
democratic elections and carve up Germany into zones, each being under the
control of a particular ally.2 The Declaration on Liberated Europe extended this
assurance throughout the whole of Europe as it stated that all three allied
countries were to provide equal assistance to weakened nations, thus ending the
“spheres of influence” agreement made between Stalin and Churchill at the
Tehran conference four months prior to Yalta.3 Stalin interpreted the agreement
differently, believing that it “represented nothing more than rhetorical window
dressing, perhaps to placate voters of East European descent in the United
States”.4 It has even been argued that Stalin expected Eastern European
countries to vote for communist governments anyway, thus leaving him in a win-
win situation.5 Even before the war had ended, there were worrying signs from a
Soviet perspective that the allies were going back on the Yalta agreements. In
March 1945 Stalin was informed that negotiations were underway between Nazi
general Wolffe and US agent Alan Dulles over a surrender agreement.6 He also

1 Timothy Dunmore, Soviet Politics, 1945-53 (MacMillan Press Ltd, 1984), p. 109

2 William Keylor, The Twentieth-Century World and Beyond: An International History

Since 1900 5th Edition (Oxford University Press, 2006) p. 174

3 Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Stalin’s Cold War: Soviet strategies in Europe, 1943 to 1956
(Manchester University Press, 1995) p. 49

4 Keylor, Twentieth-Century, p. 175

5 Kennedy-Pipe, Cold War, p. 50

6 Ibid p. 59
noticed that while the Germans focussed on defending the largely irrelevant
Zemlenice station on their eastern frontier, they were doing little to prevent the
allies marching through in the west where more important stations such as
Osnabruck and Mannheim were positioned. Stalin referred to Zemlenice as
something “they [the Germans] need as much as a dead man needs a poultice”. 7
Anxiety can be detected in the General Secretary’s tone. With his documented
history of paranoia, this is probably another example of his jumping to
conclusions which subsequently led to his cold relations with the west. To further
sour relations, by the end of the war president Roosevelt had died and was
succeeded by his vice president Harry Truman. The new president was not as
cooperative with Stalin as his predecessor; he had not been president for two
weeks before he accused the Soviet foreign minister Molotov of acting with bad
faith.8 This set the tone for the respective leaders’ relationship, each accusing
the other of foul play (as one can see in Stalin’s quote at the beginning of the
essay). Stalin’s relationship with Britain was also weakened. Soon after the end
of the war, Churchill lost the general election that summer. This did not stop his
influence from being felt around the world: in 1946 he delivered the “Iron
Curtain” speech, arguing that all of Eastern Europe was now under the “Soviet
sphere” of influence.9 This further damaged Western relations with the Soviet
Union.

Yalta: The “big three” of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in February 1945.10

7 Ibid p. 60

8 Thomas Paterson (ed), The Origins of the Cold War 2nd edition (D.C. Heath and
Company, 1974) p. 3

9 Winston Churchill, “Iron Curtain Speech” http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/churchill-

iron.html (March, 1946)

10 “FDR at Yalta”, http://www.princeton.edu/~bsimpson/2008%20Hist

%20380/history380week4.html (February, 1945)
With these factors in mind, we need to assess Stalin’s options when dealing with
the West. Timothy Dunmore summed up Stalin’s options into two Rs: revolution
or retrenchment.11 These in turn symbolise the two main points of view held by
historians in regards to the character of Stalin’s foreign policy. On one hand, he
could make a risky attempt to unsettle the citizens of the West in the hope of
spurring revolutions as his Leninist-Marxist ideals promoted – thus supporting the
“traditional” argument that Stalin fully intended to spread communism, and with
that, Soviet control throughout the world (historian Anthony Bouscaren even
goes so far as to describing communism as a “disease of the mind”) 12.On the
other hand, he could avoid Western contacts and focus on strengthening the
Soviet Union’s internal position, thus promoting his own “socialism in one
country” slogan. This in turn supports the “revisionist” argument made by
historians who claim that Stalin’s foreign policy was purely defensive in nature;
not expansive. Stalin chose the latter, which Caroline Kennedy-Pipe describes as
being his “strategy of denial”.13 Stalin intended to deny Germany’s potential to
rearm and also deny allied forces any influence in Eastern Europe - especially the
United States who still had troops deployed there. To start with, Stalin proceeded
to establish a strong buffer zone on Russia’s western front which came to be
known as the Eastern Bloc. People’s Republics sprung up, including nations such
as Bulgaria (1946), Romania (1947), Hungary (1947) and, to the dismay of the
allies, Poland (1947). Stalin was able to bring Poland into Soviet control at the
Potsdam conference in July 1945. As a result of his troops occupying the country
at the end of the war, he along with Molotov was able to force the allies into
accepting the new Oder-Niesse line in which Poland ceded their eastern territory
to the Soviet Union but gained eastern parts of Germany.14 In reality, both
territories were under strong Soviet control – strengthening our argument that
Stalin was opportunistic as well as cautious. If Stalin’s statement of intent had
not yet been acknowledged, then by February 1948 it most certainly was.
Czechoslovakia, the country that Churchill remarked as being the only exception
to the “police governments” of Eastern Europe in his Iron Curtain speech was
overrun after a communist coup. As one would suspect, the Czech communists
had support from Moscow – particularly from their Soviet ambassador Valerian
Zorin.15 With Czechoslovakia added to the Soviet satellite states, Stalin had the
defensive line he so desired on the Soviet Union’s western frontier. What needs
to be stressed, however, is that Stalin did not suddenly forbid non-communist
parties from getting involved in their political arenas at the end of the war: some

11 Dunmore, Soviet Politics, p. 100

12 Anthony Bouscaren, Soviet Foreign Policy: A Pattern of Persistence (Fordham

University Press, 1962) p. 7

13 Kennedy-Pipe, Cold War, p. 35

14 Chris Ward, Stalin’s Russia: Second Edition (HodderArnold, 1993) p. 204

15 Bouscaren, Persistence, p. 121

were still able to participate in their political arenas for at least a few years
before Stalin began tinkering with their governments.16

The “Iron Curtain”: The map on the left17 shows Europe on the eve of war in 1939 while
the map on the right18 shows Europe 10 years later in 1949. Europe has changed
significantly: the buffer states (light red) are in place to prevent future invasions from
the West, emphasising the defensive side of Stalin’s foreign policy.

Germany, of course, was a vital cog in putting Stalin’s defensive plan into action.
However, the country was split into four sections in accordance to the Yalta
conference. Berlin, which was deep in the Soviet section, was also split. In June
1948 the city was to become the arena for arguably the first major Cold War
crisis between the great powers. The previous year, the United States followed
up on her commitment to remain involved in international affairs by introducing
the Marshall Plan, an economic relief plan that handed out financial aid to
struggling European countries to help them rebuild after the war. Stalin again
perceived this differently. To him, it was “a capitalist offensive against his rule”. 19
It would be easy to assume that Stalin simply dismissed the Marshall Plan with
little thought. On the contrary, Stalin sent Molotov along with 100 Soviet
specialists to hear the details of the plan in Paris – demonstrating that he did at
least for a time take this plan seriously.20 After rejecting the plan, Stalin did two
things. First, he created Cominform in September 1947 to provide Eastern
Europe with Soviet foreign aid and manage the communist parties scattered
around the continent. Second, and most crucially, he ordered all road and
railways used by the allies to access Berlin to be blocked on the 24th of June

16 Keylor, Twentieth-Century, p. 234

17 “Europe on the Eve of World War II”,

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/wwii.htm (n.d)

18 “Europe’s Changing Borders”,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/europe/02/euro_borders/html/8.stm (2003)

19 Ralph B. Levering, The Cold War, 1945-1972 (Harlan Davidson Inc, 1982) p. 34

20 Ward, Russia, p. 207

1948. This was done in frustration to the success of Marshall Plan aid and
certainly demonstrated that any hint of friendship was absent from the General
Secretary’s policy towards the West – one can argue that the Berlin blockade
policy was jealous and bitter in nature. Yet, one can also argue that Stalin was
simply using the blockade for tactical gain: by bolting the doors to Berlin, he may
have gained the whole city for himself, which yet again, indicates opportunism.
Yet, Stalin underestimated the allies’ resolve. In response, they flew cargo over
the barriers and were able to provide the Berliners with supplies. Despite taking
measures to end the aid, Stalin later relented and reopened the routes on the
12th May 1949.

By 1950, a number of events had occurred. Of particular importance was the

creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) by the allied forces in
April 1949 and the fact that, two four months later, the Soviet Union had
successfully tested their own atomic bomb which meant Stalin “could come to
any future diplomatic negotiations as the equal of the American and British
leaders”.21 Both superpowers were now in possession of nuclear weapons, giving
Stalin more of a say in international affairs. The global politics of the early 1950s
saw a shift from Europe to Asia: by 1950 China was a communist state run by
Mao Zedong’s Communist Party and, more importantly to the superpowers,
North and South Korea went to war in June 1950 with the north representing the
People’s Republic and the south representing the Republic. In other words, it was
a clash of ideologies. As with the case with Eastern Europe, historians have
argued that Stalin saw Korea as vital for forming a buffer zone against potential
invaders – in this case Japan.22 The North, led by Kim Il Sung, invaded the South
on the 25th June armed with Soviet weapons whose soldiers had been trained by
the Soviet Marshal Malinovsky, indicting that Stalin had intentions to spread
communism around the continent.23 There is also evidence indicating that Stalin
provided Chinese forces (fighting on behalf of the North) with $2 billion worth of
military equipment (Keylor, 2006:333).24 The United States, in retaliation, utilised
the United Nations to fight on behalf of the South, leading to a proxy war
between East and West, communism and capitalism, the Soviet Union and the
United States. By this stage, the United States was underway in carrying out
Truman’s containment policy which aimed to “support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”.25
The Soviet Union were clearly in his thoughts which further froze relations
between Stalin and the West. The Korean War ended on July 27th 1953, when an
armistice was signed between the two factions. In a Cold War context, it was an
ideological stalemate. On reflection of the Korean War, George Kennan, the

21 Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (MacMillan, 2004) p. 509

22 Dunmore, Soviet Politics, p. 120

23 Bouscaren, Persistence, p. 138

24 Keylor, Twentieth-Century, p. 333

25 Harry Truman, “The Truman Doctrine”

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp (March, 1947)
United States’ ambassador to the Soviet Union between May and September of
1952, believed Stalin’s foreign policy in Asia was “tended to the reliving of old
situations and to the re-employment of old devices rather than to the recognition
of the realities of a new day”.26 He argued that Stalin, rather than act purely with
the intention of securing the Soviet Union from future invasions, planned to oust
Western (particularly American) forces from the Eurasian territories and replace
them with his own communist regimes, thus giving him more political clout on
the world stage.27

The Korean War: Chinese soldiers marching to war in April 1951, likely armed with Soviet weapons.28

Having acknowledged the two main historian arguments regarding the character
of Stalin’s foreign policy along with examining events during the period 1945 to
1953, we have shown that there is a strong argument behind the claim that
Stalin’s foreign policy towards the West was cold, defensive and opportunistic.
The historian’s arguments appear to largely ignore each other, but when some
points of each are merged, we can see a fuller picture of the nature of Stalin’s
foreign policy. On one hand, the buffer states emphasised Stalin’s determination
to defend his country from the West – supporting the “revisionist” argument. His
occasional remarks about the West also portrays him as anxious – perhaps even
paranoid – which strengthens our own argument that he mistrusted the West and
misinterpreted a number of policies from the final months of World War Two to
the Marshall Plan. On the other hand, his success at Potsdam to bring Poland
under Soviet control, failed attempt to block Berlin off from the allies and his

26 George Kennan, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (Mentor Books, 1961) p.
361

27 Ibid

28 “Korean War: Chinese Troops” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-

art/322419/71893/Chinese-soldiers-prepare-to-advance-in-their-Fifth-Offensive-of (April,
1951)
involvement in the Korean war (where communism had potential to spread) are
strong arguments that he was even willing to take risks if it gained more control
for his Soviet Empire, as argued by the “traditional” side of the debate. This
essay believes that both arguments have strengths and weaknesses; we have
simply taken the strong points from both and merged them – giving us the
conclusion that Stalin was both defensive and opportunistic despite the
occasional pragmatic act.