Essay+Plan

'Stalin's expansionist policy between 1945 - 1948 was the main factor in the emergence of the Cold War.' How far do you agree?

For

Buffer states;
 * Survival of communism was to spread throughout the world
 * France 1947
 * Czechoslovakia 1947
 * Greece
 * Italy 1947-8
 * Arguably the red Tsar
 * WW2 to regain territories to begin with
 * Berlin Blockade

Against

Stalin's personality; paranoid about being threatened (could be for both) Americas intervention; truamn doctrine, NATO Secrets kept from one another

Main argument would be Stalin wanting to regain lost territoy and then further expand the communist Empire Para 1 Czechoslovakia and attempts in other countries Para 2 Berlin Blockade, trying to gain control of all of Germany Para 3 How Stalin's PErsonality drove him to making those decisions Para 4 Americas intervention Para 5 Increasing tensions with secrets (atom bomb)

Stalin's expansionist policies between 1945-1948 were the main factor for the emergence of the cold war can be agreed upon to a small extent. This is because there was a huge variety of contributing factors to how the Cold War developed. Blaming the occurrence of this conflict on one event seems narrow mind and it was indeed the fact of numerous outcomes and decision made by both sides that the whole cold war developed. Examples such as the Americas intervention of 'containing communism' and the formation of the Truman Doctrine and NATO are but a few of events that all added up to the Cold War. Stalin's expansionist policies were a factor but not the main one.