The historic differences between East and West are things we've discussed since the beginning of the course. The West was rooted in roman catholicism (then the reformation) it's language was based on the vulgate of latin and evolved into specific vernaculars. The Russian language and alphabet was Cyrillic, it was NOT based on LATIN. The Eastern orthodox church played an enormous roll in what it means to be "Eastern", russian or just "Slavic." The East never had an "Enlightenment." It had few (in fact they try to fight a series of wars to get access) to war water ports which precluded diversity of knowledge, new ideas, new peoples' etc...As the west liberalized and east (specifically Russia and it's sphere of influence throughout the east) held on to it's themes of Autocracy, Slavism, and Orthodoxy. Lot's of pride in being from the east.

 

Now, was the cold war inevitable? Communism(although what was in USSR was NOT communism, it was a "Re-run" of the autocracy(stalin replacing the czar and the state replaces orthodoxy) existed DUE TO THE INEQUALITIES of capitalism. The two were incompatible. Stalin was ruthless. The west desired a rebuilt (Marshall Plan!) europe to promote democracy and capitalism. According to George Kennan, an american diplomat, who wrote the "The Long Telegram" in 1946 said that Russian (therefore Soviet) "insecurity" of the west would make it impossible to have peace w the West. Kennan said (of the USSR) "it's impervious to the logic of reason, but it was highly sensitive to the logic of force." BE STRONG AGAINST THEM!!!! Soviets had always been threatened from nomadic tribes from the East and also army's from teh West. New ideas FROM the west alway "threatened" them, too. Remember! (triad-orthodoxy, nationalism, autocracy)

 

Truman will stand tough against stalin. Containment will become us policy for decades, Truman doctrine will seek to help countries fighting outside communist influence in their country. The US, based on Kennan's telegram, commits itself to fighting communism globally. That being said, Stalin went back on his yalta promises at Potsdam, supported the spread of his sphere of influence in satellite countries in Eastern Europe, arms race, LATER the Berlin wall. That being said.....the US AND the Soviets will engage in large scale espionage