I attempted to post this a couple days ago. Unfortunately IT conspired against me and it was erased before I could put it up. Here is attempt #2.

Induction over ...

I've completed the induction and, after blogging, aggregating and jumping through little practice VLE hoops of fire, I am ready to tackle unit 1 of module 2. First I'd like to say how pleased I am to be amongst such an interesting crowd. I look forward to conversing with everyone.

After reading through much of the unit 1 material I have some preliminary thoughts/rambling that I hope can be developed more in discussions. The first piece I read was Pechatnov's paper examining the telegrams of Gromyko, Litvinov and Maisky. For me, the most interesting aspect was the disconnect between the 3 telegrams' predictions and recommendations on the one hand and the actual events that developed and chosen actions on the other. For instance, all 3 saw continuing the war-time cooperation between the UK, US and USSR as critical to creating a stable and peaceful Europe. However, instead of focus on cooperation you have Stalin's Feb '46 speech decrying the incompatibility of the communist east and the capitalist west.

Several explanations come to mind for this example. The first, alluded to by Pechatnov in the text, is that the writers were all diplomats who were more likely to focus on the diplomatic instrument of power as a solution to Soviet security concerns vice military or others. Other explanations get more to the heart of the question of why the cold war began. A prominent one, I think, is the personality factor. Was Stalin the type of man who was truly interested in keeping cooperation going into the post-war era? After reading the excerpts from the Yalta and Tehran negotiations I would tend to think otherwise. Further, Truman's berating of Molotov at Potsdam, I am sure, was not conducive to future cooperation. Another factor which likely prevented continued cooperation were several frighteningly aggressive and seemingly demonstrative actions. The quick Soviet advance into and hard control over much of eastern Europe and the dropping of the atomic bombs come to mind. The more I think about this the more factors I see and the more complex it becomes. I must be a post-revisionist.

Another interesting aspect to the telegrams was the mention of cooperating with the US on the spread of democracy. This was based on the assumption that if people had the choice they would clearly select ideologies closer to communist Russia's. This indicates a fairly strong faith in their ideology. Sounds similar to faith expressed by many here in the US, at the end of WWII and now. On the eve of the cold war it must have been fairly innocent times for some on both sides. This was probably quickly crushed under the weight of Mutually Assured Destruction and proxy wars like Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, El Salvador, ...

Ran out of time. I must be off.