There are three divisions of western historians when it comes to their opinion on the Cold War, the Traditionalists, the Revisionists and the Post-Revisionists. Each party have their own opinion on who was actually to blame for the Cold War. Traditionalists are historians who believe that the Soviet Union were to blame, Revisionists, who believe that the United States were to blame and Post-Revisionists believe that both the USA and the Soviets were to blame. Each group has reasons for believing what they believe and they will all be argued within this essay.

There are many points that may have triggered the Cold War. Firstly, the history of mistrust between the USA and the Soviet Union that formed after their alliance in

1938 - Stalin believed that there was an indication of Western support to Hitler after the two European countries, Britain and France turned down an Anti-Hitler alliance.

The basic mistrust that the Soviet Union and the USA had for each other made the breakdown of the wartime alliance inevitable.

1919 - USA, Britain and France sent troops across to help the USSR's opponents.

The setting up of NATO and the Warsaw Pact consolidated the positions of the two superpowers.

Poland's Eastern border would be moved west to the rivers Oder and Neisse.

Stalin also had another government in exile, ready to be taken over, the Lublin Poles. But Britain and the USA supported a different group called the London Poles, who were strongly against communism. These poles had helped organise the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, aiming to gain part of Poland, before Stalin's army took over the whole country. Stalin wanted all the Germans out of Poland so that the Lublin Poles would have the country under complete control. By 1945 this had happened. Roosevelt and Churchill did not want Stalin to have control over Poland. At the Yalta conference, they forced him to agree that some of the London Poles would be included in the government and that there would be free elections for a new government 'as soon as possible'

However there were faults on the Russian side too, The Russians expanded into Eastern Europe, this was one of the most important reasons in my view that the Cold War got worse. If the Soviets hadn't done this, the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan may not have even happened. Stalin did not keep the agreements that were made at Yalta. This annoyed the other leaders, as Stalin was being selfish. Stalin also set up the Berlin Blockade with the idea that he could push western power out of Eastern Berlin. "The cold War was the brave and essential response of free men to Communist aggression." (A.M. Schlesinger 1967) Schlesinger believes that the soviets were wrong. The USA was trying to stop the USSR from going any further. He is a Traditionalist Historian. T.A. Bailey also believed that the Soviets were to blame, he thinks that they always had one more plan for world domination up their sleeves.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2833
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)