¹ Halle, Louis J., The Cold War as History (London 1967)Google Scholar emphasizes historical determinants. The second approach has not been worked out systematically but pervades much of the literature. There are traces in Alperovitz, Cold War Essays; it is suggested by an excellent short history which reflects both revisionist and traditional insights, LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1966 (New York 1967)Google Scholar. American domestic determinants, economic and ideological, are examined in the writings of Gardner, Lloyd C.: Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy (Madison 1964)Google Scholar, and Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941–1949 (Chicago 1970)Google Scholar.

² Earlier discussions of the revisionist literature include: Seabury, Paul and Thomas, Brian, “Cold War Origins” (two articles), Journal of Contemporary History, in (January 1968), 169–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pachter, Henry, “Revisionist Historians and the Cold War,” Dissent, xv (November-December 1968), 505–18Google Scholar; Maier, Charles S., “Revisionism and the Interpretation of Cold War Origins,” Perspectives in American History, iv (1970), 313–47Google Scholar. Revisionist authors discussed in one or more of these, in addition to Alperovitz, Horowitz and Kolko, include D. F. Fleming, W. A. Williams, Isaac Deutscher, P.M.S. Blackett, and Konni Zilliacus. Charles Maier's article discusses some of the themes of the present article, with less emphasis on Europe but greater attention to the general assumptions and perspectives of the revisionist school. Some of my conclusions are very close to his: but as they are approached by different routes, and as this paper was first drafted before his article appeared, I have left them to stand as originally formulated.

³ The question of dating the start of the Cold War, and its dependence on different definitions of the conflict, is discussed by Seabury, Paul, The Rise and Decline of the Cold War (New York 1967), 4–10Google Scholar. The definition offered above raises problems for the revisionists insofar as it points to 1947–48 rather than 1945 as the start of the Cold War. But this is not an attempt to resolve the issues verbally: it is open to the revisionist to argue that the main causes of the lapse into Cold War by 1947–48 are to be found not in the events of those years, but in the events of 1945 or earlier.

⁴ Millis, Walter, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York 1951), 50Google Scholar.

⁵ Alperovitz accepts the importance of the concessions on Poland, but argues that the Americans hoped to reverse the position after the dropping of the atomic bomb (Atomic Diplomacy, p. 89). This is difficult to reconcile with prompt recognition or the failure to attempt such a policy after Hiroshima, indicated below. At most it was a vague aspiration or a form of face-saving.

⁶ Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1945, v (Washington, D.C. 1967), 594Google Scholar. For documents on the crisis, see pp. 565–609.

⁷ Mosely, Philip E., The Kremlin and World Politics (New York 1960), 214Google Scholar.

⁸ Foreign Relations (fn. 6), 374–76, 388–93, 411–16, 419, 422.

⁹ Thomas (fn. 2), 185–86, cites speeches by Acheson, Byrnes, Eden, Macmillan, and Bevin in October-November 1945 and February 1946.

¹⁰ McNeill, W. H., America, Britain and Russia: Their Co-operation and Conflict 1941–1946, a volume of Survey of International Affairs 1939–1946 (London 1953), 698, 700Google Scholar.

¹¹ Briefing Book Paper for the Yalta Conference; Briefing Book Papers for Potsdam on the former Axis Satellites and on Poland; Telegram from Harriman to Secretary of State, June 28, 1945; in Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington, D.C. 1955), 234Google Scholar; The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference) 1945, i (Washington, D.C. 1960), 360–61, 715, 728. (Emphasis added.)Google Scholar

¹² Brzezinski, Zbigniew K., The Soviet Bloc, rev. ed. (New York 1961), 51–64Google Scholar, points to stresses in Soviet relations with Eastern Europe (the problems of “domesticism”) as a reason for the formation of the Cominform.

¹³ Seton-Watson, Hugh, The East European Revolution, 2nd ed. (London 1952)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Ibid., 194.

¹⁵ Brzezinski (fn. 12), 32, citing an article by E. Varga.

¹⁶ In his discussion of Hungary in 1944–45 Kolko cites Seton-Watson to the effect that the Communists did not have full control, but neglects Seton-Watson's evidence that they were striving for it and that some of the non-Communists in key positions were dependent on the Communists. The situation was not unlike that described by Wolfgang Leonhard in the Soviet zone of Germany, where the Communists controlled what at first appeared “bourgeois” local governmental authorities. See Leon-hard, Wolfgang, Child of the Revolution (London 1957), 287–372Google Scholar.

¹⁷ The fullest account is Paterson, Thomas G., ‘The Abortive American Loan to Russia and the Origins of the Cold War, 1943–1946,” Journal of American History, lvi (June 1969), 70–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Herz, Martin F., The Beginnings of the Cold War (Bloomington 1966), 153–74Google Scholar; Kolko, 333–40 and 499–502.

¹⁸ Foreign Relations (fn. 6), 946 (telegram to Secretary of State, January 6, 1945). See also recommendations by Harriman, 845, 996.

¹⁹ Ibid., 994–96, 1009.

²⁰ See, for example, the Soviet reaction to the cutoff of lend-lease. Although there appears to have been no attempt to negotiate with the Soviet leaders on political conditions for credits, Ambassador Lane met with an angry response when he broached the issue with the Polish government Ibid., 415.

²¹ See Herring, George C. Jr., “Lend-Lease to Russia and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–1945,” Journal of American History, lvi (June 1969), 93–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Herring shows that the cutoff of lend-lease in May 1945 followed a deliberate decision to terminate the exceptionally favorable conditions which applied to Russia, and was in general accordance with Harriman's “quid pro quo ” approach, but his account places emphasis on congressional pressures to terminate lend-lease and overzealous execution of the cutoff—factors neglected by the revisionists—and he shows that Harriman and the State Department were shocked by the manner in which the cutoff was executed.

²² This had been a consistent principle of American reparations policy prior to Yalta. See Hammond, Paul Y., “Directives for the Occupation of Germany: The Washington Controversy,” in Stein, Harold, ed., American Civil-Military Decisions (Birmingham, Alabama 1963), 431Google Scholar.

²³ Ibid., 418–20, 432.33, 435.

²⁴ Foreign Relations (fn. n), 440–41.

²⁵ Kuklick, B., ‘The Division of Germany and American Policy on Reparations,” Western Political Quarterly, xxiii (June 1970), 293Google Scholar; see also 281.

²⁶ Stimson, for example, who was the adviser most concerned with the political implications of the bomb, advised a relatively accommodating approach to Soviet demands in Eastern Europe.

²⁷ A reading of the early chapters of Truman's memoirs suggests that the postponement of Potsdam was due less to any specific consideration than to his determination to master the issues and options before him, to avoid merely being swept along by events; his interest in the budget (dismissed by Alperovitz) was an important aspect of this.

²⁸ Fleming, D. F., The Cold War and its Origins (London 1961)Google Scholar, I, 363–415; Noel-Baker, P., The Arms Race (London 1958), 181–201Google Scholar.

²⁹ Fleming (fn. 28), I, 373.

³⁰ Deutscher, Isaac, “Myths of the Cold War,” in Horowitz, D., ed., Containment and Revolution (London 1967), 17Google Scholar.

³¹ See, for instance, Rieber, A. J., Stalin and the French Communist Party (New York 1962), esp. 212–37.Google Scholar

³² Ibid., 212–15; Graham, B. D., The French Socialists and Tripartisme 1944–1947 (Canberra 1965), 97–101Google Scholar; Edinger, L. J., Kurt Schumacher (Stanford 1965), 97–104Google Scholar.

³³ Djilas, M., Conversations with Stalin (Harmondsworth 1963), 119Google Scholar: a passage never cited by the revisionists but conveying the same impression of authenticity as the rest of his memoir.

³⁴ Ulam, Adam B., ’Expansion and Coexistence (London 1968), 440–47Google Scholar.

³⁵ Lippmann, Walter, The Cold War: A Study in U.S. Foreign Policy (New York 1947)Google Scholar, discussed in Horowitz, 243–48.

³⁶ At a meeting between Stalin and Marshall on April 15, Stalin responded to Marshall's pessimism with the suggestion that: “these were only the first skirmishes and brushes of reconnaissance forces… when people had exhausted themselves in dispute they then recognized the need for compromise.” Jones, Joseph M., The Fifteen Weeks (New York 1955), 222–23Google Scholar.

³⁷ Indeed, at this point in his analysis he suggests that Soviet insistence on retaining forward military positions would show that Moscow's motive was to dominate Europe. Lippmann (fn. 35), 43–44.

³⁸ E.g., Horowitz, 19. It is possible to suggest a parallel between Lippmann and Henry Wallace, both of whom remained essentially within the mainstream of American policy thinking even when opposed to pressing particular issues as the Truman Administration chose to. Thus Wallace, arguing for a more conciliatory line, insisted on an “Open Door” to trade in Eastern Europe (as, in different words, did Lippmann). See La Feber (fn. 1), 37–39.

³⁹ Hunter, Robert, Security in Europe (London 1969), 12Google Scholar. Hunter develops an original reinterpretation of the Cold War as a consequence of the lack of agreed guidelines for conflict management.

⁴⁰ Cited in La Feber (fn. 1), 78.

⁴¹ Kennan, George, Memoirs 1925–1950 (London 1968), 407–08Google Scholar.

⁴² The term is used here not to refer to any specific systems theory, but in the manner of Waltz, Kenneth, Man, the State, and War (New York 1959)Google Scholar; he posits three basic images which underlie interpretations of international conflict: the individual-psychological, the type of nation-unit, and the international system—the milieu in which international politics takes place, whether envisaged as Hobbesian anarchy or as international society.

⁴³ Taylor, A. J. P., The Origins of the Second World War, Foreword to second edition (Harmondsworth 1964), 7Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Horowitz argues for continuity between American policy in Europe and the Third World by suggesting somewhat more subtle similarities; e.g., American resistance to a Lippmann-type negotiated settlement in Europe is likened to counterrevolutionary policies elsewhere (pp. 16–19). For Kolko the case is more straightforward: the U.S. and Britain systematically cut down the Left (as it were, a Greek model for Europe as a whole). He can even assert: “The existence of Soviet power in Eastern Europe permitted more or less natural and indigenous forces to take their logical course, while in Western Europe, American and British power contained these forces directly or in-directly, a containment that became the preeminent unifying element in the Western alliance after 1945, and which also hindered postwar economic recovery” (pp. 169–70).