Theresa R

Theresa R. Jach

History 6395

Buzzanco

Thomas Paterson’s Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War places the majority of the blame for the Cold War on the United States’ shoulders.[1] The United States’ plans for restructuring the post-World War II globe, along lines economically favorable to themselves, intensified the Cold War. Even before the war ended, the United States realized that economic aid, offered or withheld, influenced politics in Europe. Paterson begins his book by examining the ways in which U.S. leaders developed their postwar policies. Paterson uses Truman’s phrase “peace and prosperity” to describe the policy of economic coercion employed by the United States to insure open markets and access to raw materials. The United States expected countries requesting aid to make concessions that followed American goals of free and open trade in the American model. The Truman administration withheld aid if the requesting countries did not agree to these demands. The United States tried various methods of economic coercion to bring the countries in line. Examples of economic coercion aimed at the U.S.S.R. included a quick end to Lend-Lease, denying a reconstruction loan, and restricting U.S.-Soviet trade. The United States wanted to limit Soviet influence over Eastern Europe and the Balkans.[2] Paterson argues that the economic blackmail employed by the United States actually sped the Soviets toward erecting the ‘iron curtain.’

In the Truman administration’s quest for “peace and prosperity,” world peace was tied to free and open world trade. Both American business and government feared negative economic impact on free trade if a ‘soviet sphere’ of influence denied the West access to markets and resources. This is not a complete economic determinist argument. The Truman administration seems to have believed that an open world system was the best route to lasting world peace. Behind these actions was a belief that everyone had a price and the only ‘right’ system was the American system. There is a basic assumption that the U.S. system was right and Communism was wrong.

Paterson gives examples of economic coercion on the United States’ part. In chapter two, he covers the ‘dangling’ of a post-war loan to Russia. American businessman, Eric Johnston, assured Stalin he would actively promote the loan. Johnston saw the loan as “the nub of our trade with the Soviets.”[3] Ambassador Harriman wanted the loan to be “dependant upon Russian behavior.”[4] Paterson dispels the myth that ‘administrative clumsiness’ lost the Russian’s loan request. For the Soviets, this episode was just another reason to distrust the Americans.

The United States abruptly halted Lend-lease aid to the U.S.S.R. in 1945. Again, the U.S. used Lend-Lease as a lever to keep the Soviets out of the Rumanian oil industry.[5] Stalin reacted with anger and said this attempt to pressure the Russians was a mistake.

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), created in 1943 by the Allies, was “designed to feed, clothe, shelter, and dispense medicine to millions of helpless people in Europe and the Far East.”[6] The goal was to foster political security. Paterson argues the United States stopped this aid when it had no diplomatic effectiveness.[7] China received $518 million in UNRRA aid, the most paid out. According to the article “The Big Three after World War II” by Vladimir Pechatnov, one of the Soviets’ biggest fears was United States’ influence over China.[8] Selective use of UNRRA could only have reinforced this fear. All United States’ policy, designed to manipulate economics, in order to limit Soviet power, only made the U.S.S.R. tighten its grip on the areas it felt necessary for their national security.

Paterson has reduced Soviet actions to simply justifiable reactions to United States’ economic expansion. Paterson gives us a Stalin that allows anger and annoyance to dictate Soviet foreign policy. That surely underestimates the man. Paterson did not have access to Russian documents, and that is why the Russians have no ‘agency’ in this book.

Reading “The Big Three after World War II,” which utilizes recently declassified Soviet documents, gives the Soviet side of some of these complicated issues.

Bretton Woods was another example of United States control over world economics. By establishing a worldwide gold standard with the U.S. dollar as the official currency, the United States could control other countries. This was the use of economic containment. The Bretton Woods decisions understandlably offended the Soviets. As one Russian commentator said, “the decisions made at Bretton Woods are adapted to the capitalist economy and are directed toward the settlement of the difficulties which are faced by the capitalistic countries. Many of the provisions are simply superfluous, with regard to the USSR, or inapplicable, due to the peculiarities of the economy of the USSR.”[9] To many Americans, Russia’s rejection of the Bretton Woods Agreements seemed like a deliberate attempt to increase U.S.-Soviet tensions.

The United States claimed they had no interest in empire building, but Paterson wrote, “American diplomacy was not accidental or aimless: rather, it was self-consciously expansionist.” Paterson portrays the Truman administration as fully aware of the power of their economic strength. They were eager to use this economic power to influence a postwar reconstruction that favored the capitalist system of the United States. Truman said in 1946, “in fact the three – peace, freedom, and world trade – are inseparable.”[10] Arrogance made U.S. officials believe that what was best for the U.S. would be best for the world. What was best for the United States was a strong economy with low unemployment and high production. To achieve these goals, open world trade was key. Economic coercion was one way to insure these goals.

[1] Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London: 1973.

[8] Vladimir O. Pechatnov, “The Big Three After World War II: New Documents on Soviet Thinking about Post War relations with the United States and Great Britain,” Working Paper Number 13, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, July 1995.