Was the Cold War inevitable, or could it have been avoided?

I do not believe the Cold War was inevitable, but I do believe that some sort of conflict between the communist and capitalist worlds was bound to occur. It could have been a cold war or a hot war in which US and Soviet troops met directly on the battlefield in one or the other's country (rather than through proxy wars on foreign soil), or it could have been a nuclear war. We are fortunate it was not worse than it turned out to be.

Once Hitler and the Axis powers were defeated, a clash was bound to happen. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were very powerful countries with wholly incompatible ideologies. Both were determined to spread their own way of organizing society throughout the world, and both were intolerant of the other side's worldview, perceiving it not only as different but evil.

In the struggle to be the dominant world power, the two nations were destined to clash. The United States was willing to go to great lengths to stop communism from spreading to new areas, while the Soviets (and China) were willing to go to great lengths to spread communism as far as they could. As there was little room or desire for compromise on either side, there was going to be conflict and a winner and a loser.

Had World War II not erupted, the Cold War might not have erupted; however the aftermath of the war was such that Cold War was inevitable.

The Capitalist West and Communist East held philosophies which were both opposite and antagonistic to each other. They were forced allies during the war, and fought against the same enemy rather than with each other. The Soviet invasion of areas held by Germany gave them a foothold in Eastern Europe which they refused to abandon. Additionally, Joseph Stalin saw the war as continuing on a different front, this time against Capitalism rather than German totalitarianism. Additionally, the need to bring the war against Japan to a quick conclusion led the U.S. to employ nuclear weapons for the firs time, and thus introduce the nuclear era to world affairs. Had the war not happened, Germany and much of eastern Europe would have provided a convenient buffer between East and West. Additionally, without the war, the development of the Atomic Bomb may have been obviated. Since none of this happened, however, it appears safe to say that the Cold War was inevitable.

Was the Cold War avoidable? Why or why not?

When trying to answer this question, another useful strategy is to look at the origins of the Cold War. Specifically, you could focus on the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945, an event which many historians believe marked a critical turning point in US and Soviet relations, leading to the inevitability of a cold war.

We know, for example, that prior to the bombing, Truman told Stalin that he had a significant weapon which would bring World War II to an end. However, Truman did not tell Stalin what the weapon was or how exactly he intended to use it. Of course, Stalin probably already knew about the bomb, as he had spies in the US, but by not confiding in his ally, Truman risked provoking Stalin’s anger. Conversely, the fact that Truman had the atomic bomb and the Soviet Union did not may have made him more aggressive in his foreign policy.

If we look at this specific incident, then, we see that there is a sense of inevitability of conflict on both the US and the Soviet sids. The relationship was changed significantly and paved the way for the creation of Soviet satellite states and the issuing of the Truman Doctrine. This is an idea that you could develop in further detail, focusing more closely on the events between 1945 and 1947.

See the reference link for more information and to kickstart your research.

There are two points of view regarding the Cold War. One viewpoint is that it was not preventable. The Soviet Union had broken several agreements with the Allies at the end of World War II. There were supposed to be free elections in Poland to determine the composition of the new Polish government after the war ended. Those elections didn’t appear to occur. The King of Romania said he was pressured to have a communist government, which violated the principles of the Declaration of Liberated Europe. If there was one lesson the Allies learned from World War II, it was that aggressive actions must be dealt with immediately. The idea of appeasing the Soviet Union was not something the Allies were going to do based on what happened with the Munich Pact during World War II. Since the communists wanted to spread their system around the world, it was reasonable to think that using force against them might stop them from spreading communism. Thus, the people with this point of view would argue that the Cold War was inevitable.

An opposite point of view was that the Cold War could have been prevented. If the Allies and the Soviet Union could have worked out an agreement regarding the spread of communism, the Cold War could have been avoided. Allowing the people to determine what kind of government they wanted to have was one possible solution. If truly free elections could be held, then the people of a country would determine their future. It wasn’t unreasonable for both sides to want their system to exist in areas of importance to them. Thus, a compromise could have been developed.

You can, of course, argue this either way.  I will give an argument for each side and you can decide which you think is the better argument.

We can say that the Cold War could not have been avoided because communism and democracy/capitalism were incompatible ideas that could not coexist.  Communists believed, as a matter of faith, that their system was destined to take over the world.  This made them believe in policies that tried to extend communism to other countries.  The West felt threatened by this expansion because they knew that communism believed it would take over the world.  The West inevitably fought back against what they saw as aggressive communism.

On the other hand, we can say that anything in human history could have been avoided.  The US and the USSR were allies during WWII.  They did not have to start distrusting one another.  The US could have been more understanding when the Soviets wanted to control Eastern Europe.  The US could have realized that it, itself, wants to control its own neighbors and it could have not felt threatened by the Soviets’ attempt to do the same thing.  The Soviets, in turn, could have been less paranoid about the West.  They could have believed that the West only wanted to contain communism, not to destroy it where it already existed.  If people had seen things in these ways, the Cold War could have been averted.

Which of these arguments do you find more convincing?