Stalin never trusted the West, though he did not
anticipate any immediate Western aggression. The
orthodoxy still persisted in his day that capitalism
would never tolerate communism and that a clash
between the two worlds was historically inevitable.
The deplorable state of the Soviet Union after the
Second World War, however, made a postpone-
ment of any new conflict the highest priority of
Soviet policy. This meant avoiding extreme provo-
cations of the West, maintaining as long as possi-
ble the cooperation of the wartime alliance. It
involved resisting Western moves dangerous to
the security of the Soviet Union, above all the
reviving and rearming of Germany. It was equally
essential, Stalin believed, that despite the need for
reconstruction and the poverty of the Russian
people the armed forces should be kept strong and
that nuclear and missile developments should be
continued. The Soviet Union had to avoid appear-
ing vulnerable and the Red Army had to maintain
its grip on Eastern and central Europe, where
uncertain allies acted as buffers. Given this pes-
simistic global outlook the prospects of building
up confidence and allaying Soviet suspicions were
never very good. There seemed to be a glimmer of
hope in 1945 and 1946 after the defeat of Nazi
Germany, but Western demands that the Soviet
Union pull back to its redrawn frontiers and per-
mit the countries of central and Eastern Europe a
free choice of government – demands justified
from a Western point of view by the agreements
reached at Yalta, and by Western values – alarmedStalin. Soviet security rested now, in his view, on
Soviet military dominance in Eastern and central
Europe: Western demands, if fully acted on,
would only recreate a line of hostile states along
Soviet borders.
Stalin did attempt to compromise initially by
holding a loose rein (according to Soviet, not
Western, standards) in Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria and Romania, where he did not insist on
the establishment of one-party communist gov-
ernments and permitted freedoms unthinkable in
the Soviet Union at the time. He kept out of the
Greek Civil War, and provided no encouragement
to communist parties in Western Europe, though
they were especially strong in Italy and France.
According to Soviet perceptions, this moderation
had not paid any dividends. The West showed no
appreciation of Russia’s losses and sacrifices during
the Second World War, even going so far as to halt
reparations from the Western zones of Germany.
The reconstruction of the Western zones of
Germany was viewed by Stalin with the deepest
suspicion. The failure of an East–West agreement
over the future of Germany was a crucially import-
ant reason for the start of the Cold War. The
nightmare of new German armies in a capitalist
coalition haunted Stalin. The Truman Doctrine
and Marshall Aid were seen as further evidence of
implacable Western hostility, of a grand design to
revivify former enemies and to undermine the
hold an economically weakened Soviet Union
held over its satellites. Finally, Britain and the US(^1) Chapter 42
THE RISE OF KHRUSHCHEV
THE SOVIET UNION AND THE WEST