Historiography and approaches in

Cold War Studies

 The aim of the review

Problem:
• There are many stories about the Cold War proposing
divergent views
• All the stories are based on selected documents, and
every author tries to find surprising things, applying his
(her) personal interpretations and concepts.
Solution:
• To explain the past and continuing debate about the Cold
War
• To identify a number of major themes, dominated in
today’s literature
 Historiographical review: Stages

1) The orthodox/realist/positivist
interpretation: in the West, from the early
1950s through early 1960s
• central argument was that the Cold War had
its origins in a power struggle;
• they blamed the expansionist intentions of the
Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, and communist
ideology
Herbert Feis, Between war and peace : the
Potsdam conference, Princeton, NJ, 1960
 Historiographical review: Stages
1) The orthodox/realist/positivist
interpretation: in the East, from the
early 1950s until 1988
• central argument was that the Cold War
was launched by imperialists and the
U.S.
N. N. Inozemtsev, Vneshnyaya Politika
SShA v Epohu Imperialisma (The
Foreign Policy of the U.S. in the Epoch
of Imperialism),Moscow, 1960
 Historiographical review: Stages
2) The revisionism in the West, from the early of 1960s
until the mid-1980s
• central argument is that the crucial stimulant to
confrontation lay in the expansionist tendencies of the
United States (its intention to extend their economic
influence)
• Democracy is a cover for American imperialistic
intentions (Lasch)

W. A. Williams, The tragedy of American diplomacy NY,

1962
D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and its origins, 1917–1960.
NY, 1961
Lasch Ch. The Agony of American Left. N. Y., 1969
 Historiographical review: Stages
2) revisionism and post-
revisionism:
• Soviet leadership was influenced by
national security interests rather
than by communist ideology

Daniel Yergin, The shattered peace. New

York, NY, 1977
 Historiographical review: Stages
2) revisionism and post-revisionism:
• American policy was determined by failed
perceptions about Soviet behavior/policy

• Washington “mistook Stalin’s

determination to ensure Russian security
through spheres of influence for a
renewed effort to spread communism.”

Gaddis J. The Origins of the Cold War,

1941–1947. N. Y.,1972
 Historiographical review: Stages
3) triumphalism in the West, the end of
1980s through the early 1990s
• This concept constituted a Western
victory over the Cold War and the
inevitable spread of liberal democracy
and market economics
• Influence of Francis Fukuyama, ‘The end
of history’, The National Interest
(Summer 1989); The end of history and
the last man (London, 1992).
 Historiographical review: triumphalism

• The appraisal of politicians who participated in the

events of the End of the Cold War: R. Reagan, M.
Gorbachev, their Ministers of Foreign Affairs as G.
Shultz, E. Shevarnadze

Peter Schweizer, Reagan’s war: the epic story of his forty

year struggle and final triumph over communism. New
York, NY, 2003
Jack F. Matlock, Reagan and Gorbachev: how the Cold
War ended. New York, NY, 2004.
 Historiographical review: Stages
4) Revisionism in the East, the middle
and the end of 1980s
• The Cold War was a product of Stalin’s
ruthless regime

the special issue of Diplomatic History, 21

(1997)
 Historiographical review: Stages
5) The stage of shifts, reevaluations and
concentration on the concrete topics,
the mid-1990s through 2000s
Why shift?
1) The access to the former Soviet and Eastern
European archives;
2) the entry the scholars from disciplines such as
sociology, literature, and media studies in the Cold War
Studies>> cultural turn in these Studies >>

Two main approaches: political and

anthropological
 Historiographical review: Stages
Political approach: West researchers
• high-echelon politics
• a documented sense of the thinking
behind Soviet policy
John L. Gaddis. We now Know: Rethinking
of the Cold War. Oxford, 1997
John L. Gaddis. Cold war: New History, 2005
John L. Gaddis. George F. Kennan: An American
Life, 2011 (new Kennan, who loved Russia of
19th cnt, hated both democracy and Stalin)
 Historiographical review: Stages:
political approach
Political approach: Russian researchers
• Analysis of new dimensions of the Cold War
– Egorova N. Multilateral Diplomacy during the Cold
War. Moscow, 2008
• A balance and coolness of the analysis
– Pechatnov B. Ot Soyusa K Kholodnoy Voyne (From
the Alliance to the Cold War), Moscow, 2006
Renaissance of Soviet approach sponsored by the
government
– Utkin A. “The World Cold War”. M., 2006
 Main results of 1990s studies: a new
interpretation of the Cold War origins
1) a necessity to provide the national
security either for the USA or the Soviet
Union;
2) the incompatible difference between the
ideology and cultural values;
3) the role of person in history.
 Historiographical review: Stages
Anthropological approach is social and
cultural Cold War.
• Public diplomacy
• Cultural contacts
• Influence of the Cold War on a citizen, culture
F. Saunders. Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural
Cold War. L., 1999
Mitter R., Major P. Across the Blocks: Cold War Cultural
and Social History. L., 2004
Tsvetkova N. Cultural Imperialism? American Educational
Policy around the World during the Cold War, 2004
Tsvetkova N. The Failure of Cultural Imperialism: American
And Soviet Policy in German Universities, 1945-1990,
Leiden: Brill, 2013
 Historiographical review: approaches to
studies
1. Memories and oral history
Dobrynin A. In Confidence. Moscow, 1997
2. Publications of Documents from Archives:
The Archive of Modern History
The Archive of Russian Foreign Policy
The National Archives in Washington
the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz and Berlin
3. Cold War International History Project at W. Wilson
Research Center
4. Main research Journals:
Journal of Cold War Studies, 1999- (Harvard)
Cold War History Journal, 2000- (London)
Diplomatic History
Historiographical review: major themes
in the Cold War studies, 2015
1) Cultural and the ideological, propaganda
(=public diplomacy) dominated
2) CIA and Espionage is also developed
3) Die Deutshe Frage
4) China line and Chinese scholars
5) Home Fronts: dissidents, opposition and
how the Cold War influence the national
culture
 Main ideas of contemporary writings about
Cold War: Russian and Western scholars
1) Reasons of the Cold war are: 1) Soviet ideology and political
system were the main
source.
a political vacuum in Europe;
aim of the U.S. to fill this space
Washington was the victim
of 3 paradigms of
how to behave:
-to be a global power
-to be hard with Russians
Atom will help implementing
all aims
 Main ideas of contemporary writing about
Cold War: Russian and Western scholars
2) The Goal of the US to fill the 2) US wanted to save Europe
vacuum was clashed with the from communist expansion
real position of the Soviet
Armies in Europe
+Soviet Union feared another
+The Aim of the Soviet Union was
invasion, but the buffer closed
to create buffer zone in Europe
zone was not understood by
the U.S.

3) Ideology: The Wilsoniasm – 3) Soviet imperialism

expansion of liberal democracy
– was the main foundation for
American policy
 Main ideas of contemporary writing about
Cold War: Russian and Western scholars
4) A guilty: Should the 4) Personal mistrust
Soviet ideology and was another major
policy be blamed for factor, and Stalin was
the Cold War? responsible
“NO, it should not” is an
answer of Russian
scholars