Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958

316 Pages·5.378 MB·English

by  Ted Hopf

R econstructing the Cold War
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R econstructing
the Cold War
The Early Years, 1945–1958
T ED HOPF

1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hopf, Ted, 1959–
Reconstructing the Cold War : the early years, 1945–1958 / Ted Hopf.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-985848-4 (hardback : alkaline paper) 1. Soviet Union—Foreign relations—1945–1991.
2. Cold War. 3. Social change—Soviet Union. 4. Group identity—Soviet Union. I. Title.
DK268.5.H67 2012
327.47009′04—dc23 2 011047116
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
C ONTENTS
r e f a c e P
vii
1 . I ntroduction
3
2. t aSlinism aft er the War: A Discourse of Danger, 1945–53
29
3 . S talin’s Foreign Policy: Th e Discourse of Danger
Abroad, 1945–53
72
4. The Th aw at Home, 1953–58
143
5. The Th aw Abroad, 1953–58
198
6. Conclusions
254
e f Rerences
269
n dIex
291
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P R EF ACE
There are many reasons to revisit the Cold War. Th e fi rst is its remarkably mis-
leading name. Th e Cold War was anything but cold for the almost 20 million
people who lost their lives during the postwar confl ict between the Soviet Union
and the United States from 1945 and 1991. It has been said that victors write the
history. In this case, the very naming of the confl ict erases what it meant for most
of the rest of the world. While the United States and Soviet Union lost fewer than
100,000 men and women in combat during the so-called Cold War, these losses
are dwarfed by the millions who died in Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, Hondu-
ras, Mozambique, Somalia, Kampuchea, and elsewhere, as the two superpowers
acted out their competition in arenas where they could plausibly avoid directly
fi ghting each other. One purpose of this book is to remind readers that the “long
peace” and the era of “bipolar stability” remarked by historians and political sci-
entists only mask how dangerous and bloody and hot the Cold War really was for
much of the rest of the world, especially the decolonizing world.
Th e political science subfi eld of international relations (IR) theory also needs
a book on the Cold War. In particular, social constructivism should provide an
account of the Cold War based on the identity relations of the Soviet Union and
its allies and enemies around the world. Systemic IR theories, such as neorealism
or systemic constructivism, are not aimed, or able, to do more than explain why
there was confl ict between the Soviet Union and the United States aft er World
War II. And historians, for the most part, concentrate on providing compelling
accounts of particular events and relationships during the Cold War. What I
off er here fi lls the middle-range theoretical void left by systemic IR theories and
Cold War historians. Th rough societal constructivism, I off er explanations for
Soviet relations with both individual countries, but also for entire regions, such
as Eastern Europe, or categories, such as the decolonizing world, and over some
signifi cant period of time.
vii
viii Preface
Th is book has a history of its own. Aft er fi nishing a book that applied con-
structivism to Soviet foreign relations in 1955 and Russian foreign relations in
1999, I was asked by Ron Suny to write a chapter for a volume he was editing,
Th e Cambridge History of Modern Russia . In that chapter I both tried to account
for the entire postwar period of Soviet foreign policy until its collapse in 1991,
and also att empted to add institutions to my societal constructivist argument. I
did this in response to many well-placed criticisms of constructivist work,
i ncluding my own. In arguing that particular discourses of identity inform a
state’s interests in other states, we had not developed convincing arguments for
why one discourse rather than another ended up the dominant one infusing
the state’s conceptions of its own interests. In this book, I suggest that domestic
institutions, as sites for alternative discourses of identity, help address these
criticisms.
Having writt en the chapter for Ron Suny’s volume, I realized that what I really
needed to do was write a book on the entire Cold War, applying societal con-
structivism and institutions to its entire sweep. Several years into the project I
realized that I already had writt en far too many words, and was only approaching
1958. So, this book is just volume I in a prospective three-volume constructivist
account of the Cold War. Th e second volume will bring the Cold War up to Gor-
bachev’s assumption of leadership in 1985, and the third volume will deal with
the six years that ended the Cold War.
In a project of this size and duration, I have relied on many colleagues, insti-
tutions, and friends. Th e place that has been my most faithful companion is the
Mershon Center of International Security at Ohio State University. Not only
has it been my research home for the last 12 years, but it has responded gener-
ously to my requests for fi nancing trips to archives in Moscow, as well as meet-
ings at which I presented pieces of the book as it unfolded. Th is book would
have taken even longer had it not been for the release time from courses pro-
vided by the Center over the years. In addition, the Mershon Center itself,
through its broad and deep multi-disciplinary interpretation of the concept of
security, has provided a rich intellectual home in which my ideas have fermented
for some time. I would especially like to thank Richard Herrmann for his years
of support as director of the Mershon Center, as well as to note my appreciation
of his superb performance as director of the Center for the last eight years.
While I would like to thank two Mershon colleagues, Robert McMahon and
Carole Fink, for commenting on the manuscript, I would also like to note that
many Mershon associates have contributed over the years to my thinking in
conversations about everything but the Cold War. I am grateful to Dorothy
Noyes, Alexander Wendt, Allan Silverman, Gerry Hudson, Peter Gries, Brian
Pollins, Markus Kornprobst, David Hoff mann, Chad Alger, Jacques Hymans,
and Andrew Ross. In addition, I have been blessed with an extraordinarily
Preface ix
t alented cohort of graduate students in political science. While only a few—Jim
Delaet, Dane Imerman, Caleb Gallemore, Richard Arnold, and Srdjan Vucetic—
worked directly on this book, many others, in class and out, continually edu-
cated me about social theory and international relations. Th ey enriched my
understanding of both, directed me to literature of which I was not aware, and
convinced me to change my views on much of what I had read. I am deeply ap-
preciative to all of them for their many keen insights. Special thanks goes to
Suzanna Dunbar whose last minute editing made the fi nal manuscript possible.
Finally, I would like to thank David McBride and Marc Schneider at Oxford
University Press for their att ention and advice during the development and pro-
duction of this manuscript, Michele Bowman for her truly superior copyediting,
and Mary Hashman for the index.
I am also deeply grateful to the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
for inviting me to spend my sabbatical year, 2006–07, there. In particular, I wish
to thank Tim Colton, Yoi Herrera, Lis Tarlow, and Nira Gautam for making that
time possible and most productive. During those nine months I depended on
Mark Kramer’s incomparable reserve of knowledge of the Soviet archives. Mark
has given me advice on researching the Cold War for the last 15 years, and this
book would be hard to imagine without his abiding generosity and continual
stream of comments and advice.
Mark Kramer is a member of another extraordinary institution whose mem-
bers I have learned from for the last 15 years. PONARS, or the Program on New
Approaches to Russian Security, was created by Celeste Wallander in 1995 and
is now under the leadership of Henry Hale and Cory Welt. By now a network of
almost 100 scholars from around the world who specialize in Eurasian security
studies, understood most broadly and deeply, PONARS has been a constant
source of information, good advice, and meetings of incomparable value.
I am also very grateful to Matt hew Evangelista and Jeff rey Checkel, my two
anonymous reviewers at Oxford University Press, who revealed their identities
to me, no doubt fearing I was not going to follow their many useful pieces of
advice. I hope I have done enough to justify them outing themselves.
O ver the years I have also received penetrating and timely advice from Iver
Neumann, Peter Katzenstein, Jim Richter, Ned Lebow, and Iain Johnston.
Kavita Baireddy, a soft ware engineer by trade, read the introduction and con-
clusion, and deemed the book readable by an audience beyond IR faculty and
graduate students. Th at was perhaps the most encouraging commentary of all.
Th is book is dedicated to the 20 million who died in the not-so cold Cold
War.