Origins of the Cold War

McNeill, Herbert Feis, and Thomas Bailey blamed the start of the Cold War on the USSR's resolution to pursue a path of expanding the ideas of communism and a essentially wanting a socialist revolution come alive throughout Eastern Europe and eventually the world. They pointed to evidence of the Soviets objective to support and set up governments in Eastern European countries that reflected not only their communist views, but also the Soviet way of running those governments through a " return to doctrinal belligerence by Russian leaders. In the view of the Orthodox, the distinction between the Soviets and the US was that the United States didn't really have an active role in the precipitation of the Cold War; rather, the US was somewhat harmless and only interested in making sure that peace and order were achieved in the region by countries being able to fend for themselves in the name of freedom and being governed by laws. .
             As the 1940's began to wind down, U.S officials started to understand the ineffectiveness of remaining in such a passive fashion. George Kennan, at the time the Ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote what is called his "Long Telegram." According to the Department of State Office of the Historian, Kennan: [Wrote] as Mr. X, [and] published an outline of his philosophy in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs in 1947. His conclusion was that "the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. Containment provided a conceptual framework for a series of successful initiatives undertaken from 1947 to 1950 to blunt Soviet expansion. Given the innate hostility of the Soviet Union and settled upon a policy of "containing "Russian expansionism." The central theme in much of traditionalist historiography was an ideological one: the United States, confronted by an implacably hostile foe for which no amount of Western conciliation would satisfy its global ambitions, came to the defense of freedom and democracy, saving the world from the spread of communist rule.