Were Stalin's actions in the cold war led by legitimate security concerns or an expansionist ideology?

Question

Would there not be a Cold War if the US could accept Soviet need for a security buffer zone? Or was Eastern Europe the first stage in the process of the global expansion of an internationalist ideology?

Answer 1

First stage of a global expansion. That's why Communist countries provided aid to wars where Communists were fighting to take over (i.e. China sending troops to help North Korea during the Korean war, the Soviet Union helping Cuba in the 1960s, etc.)

Answer 2

This is a very good question. Yes and no.

Stalin had always been aware that the West despised communism - even regarding Hitler as a bulwark against communism. The agreement at Munich over Czechoslovakia would have worried stalin. Stalin's agreement to divide Poland with Hitler in 1939 was a bid to buy the Soviet Union time against a greedy Hitler.

Stalin was also aware that when the West declared war on Germany in 1939 over Poland, it had nothing to do with preventing Hitler from getting at Russia - it was aimed at stopping the continental dominance of one power - Nazi Germany.

When the Second World War ended, the short co-operation between Stalin and Churchill and Roosevelt quickly ended. Hitler's invasion of Poland revealed just how vulnerable the Soviet Union's eastern borders were. Stalin was anxious to secure their eastern borders - but he was also wary that the West was dividing up the spoils of war - without Russia.

Was Stalin concerned about spreading communist ideology - yes and no. He subdued Czechosolovakia and Hungary, but yet he allowed Yugoslavia a great deal of independence. One of the other answers to your question summed it up - Stalin was an opportunist - and communism did serve his political ambitions well.

Answer 3

Don't forget that the Cold War started about 1947, going on until the late 1980s. Stalin was dead by 1953. The cold war was created by mutually incompatible ideologies, capitalism and communism. Is was as much the fault of the western nations, led by the USA, as of the USSR. McCarthyism was a phenomenon in the USA, not the USSR. I'm not aware of any member of the Politburo questioning Russians as to 'are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Democratic/Republican Party'

Answer 4

Stalin/Communist Party took advantage of Russian feeling of being hemmed in by the West. They had no reliable warm water points for import and export. The use of this to fight the Cold War was very helpful to the Communist plans to spread the collectivist ideology around Europe and - hopefully for them - around the world.

But Stalin was no doctrinaire communist, he was simply a tyrant who had used the party to rise to is absolute power. He was willing to compromise the theory whenever it advanced and aided his continued power. He sent to Siberia some of the most hard line communists in the country so as to cement his personal power.

He even purged the Soviet Military, killing or sending to Siberia all officers of Major and upward. They were a possible threat to his power, so off they went. It weakened the Soviets for some time, even in the early stages of WWII when there was a shortage of experienced officers in the upper ranks.

Answer 5

Personal paranoia more than anything else. He murdered over twenty million of his own citizens, that we know of!