Kennan’s Impression of the Soviet rule with Novikov’s Impression of the American Agenda
The Grand Alliance period was characterized by suspicions between the East and the West with each side unsure of what the pother was intending. Subsequently, both the Soviet Union and the United States required their diplomats in the respective embassies to inform on the attitudes of each other. The Soviet ambassador to the United States was Nikolai Novikov while the American charge d’ affaires in Moscow was George Kennan. This paper is a comparison and contrast of the resultant reports from a diplomat in the United States and Russia and how the reports reveal about the origins of the Cold War. Kennan’s and Novikov’s telegrams are a reflection of the existing conflict and rivalry between communism and capitalism after the Second World War.
George Kennan was among the first diplomats in the United States that helped establish the first American embassy in the Soviet Union around 1933. While the diplomat seemed to show respect for the Russian citizens, his attitude towards the communist leadership in the Soviet Union came out as negative and skeptical. Throughout the Second World War, the diplomat was convinced that Roosevelt’s administration’s spirit of cooperation with then-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was not in the best interest of the United States (Fakiolas 415). Shortly after the death of President Roosevelt, Kennan, the United States charge d’affaires in Moscow, expressed his points of view in what is now referred in history as the “long telegram.”
Kennan’s February 22nd eight-thousand-word memorandum started with the claim that the Soviet Union did not have intentions of a permanent coexistence with the West. Kennan’s point of view was a manifestation of Russia’s approach to international relations whereby the Soviets were suspicious of every other nation and believed that they could only be secure if they destroyed rival power. In his memorandum, Kennan expressed conviction about the Soviet’s alleged attempts to expand their influence in the International scope with Iran and Turkey being the most likely countries to be affected due to their proximity (Kennan 20). The ambassador also believed that the Soviet Union would not approach this matter with a reason but rather force in ensuring that the Western powers were neutralized and hence the United States would have to offer resistance (Kennan 21). At the center of the Kennan’s intentions in the “long telegram,” therefore, was warning the United States that the Soviet Union was a threat to the capitalist world since capitalism was opposed to the ideals of socialism and hence communists could not trust capitalist or allow them to be influenced by the latter.
In September 1946, Soviet Union ambassador to Washington D.C, Nikolai Novikov sent the Novikov telegram to Moscow. Like Kennan’s telegram, Novikov’s telegram was long and was an analysis of the United States foreign policy in the same regard Kennan’s telegram was an analysis of the Soviet Union’s foreign policies. In his telegram, Novikov declared that the United States was attempting to achieve global supremacy (Novikov 528). He went ahead to declare that due to the resultant devastation of European countries after the Second World War, the United States was making attempts to infiltrate in the disguise of providing offers to rebuild. Also in his memorandum, Novikov provides proof of his claims with the various peacetime military forces and the establishment of United States bases across the world. He also mentioned Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain Speech” pointing out how the prime minister advocated for a solid military alliance in the United States. Fourthly, Novikov ascribed the United States’ hardline policy to President Truman’s administration who unlike President Roosevelt was less cooperative with the Soviet Union (Novikov 529). He ended the memorandum with a prediction that the United States was plotting to wage a third world war against the Soviet Union.
The two telegrams were written immediately after the Second World War, a period referred to in history as the Cold War. The Cold War was an era of political tension between the United States and the Soviet Union or the Eastern and the Western Bloc. The term “cold” is used because unlike the preceding wars, the period was not characterized by large scale fighting though superpowers supported significant regional conflicts referred to as proxy wars (Jensen 43). At the center of the regional conflicts was the struggle for global supremacy after a temporary alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union that had resulted in the defeat of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The two telegrams are therefore a reflection of the tension that characterized the grand alliance that had been forged between the United States and the Soviet Union and each country’s need or ambition for expansion.
They are not only a reflection of the geopolitical conflict and between the Eastern and Western bloc but also a reflection of the rivalry of the social ideologies of capitalism and communism. The two ideologies contrast in their socio-economic approach with capitalism being an economic system where the companies and individuals own most of the property and make most of the decisions instead of the state. Communism, on the other hand, can be defined as a system in which property is owned by a community and every person is awarded according to their contributions and abilities (Jensen 44). From the two memoranda it is evident that while the United States advocated for capitalism, the Soviet Union advocated for communism and from this came the source of the cold war. The communist feared the expansion of the capitalists and vice versa as the global domination of one would mean the suppressing of the other. It is also evident from the telegrams that both the United States and the Soviet Unions had ongoing plans of dominance with the United States allegedly taking advantage of the devastation of European countries after the Second World War to intrude them while the Soviet Union allegedly plotting against any rising rival to ensure that it sustains communist while maintaining its dominance.
In conclusion, the “long telegram” and Novikov’s telegram are a reflection of how shared ideologies are the foundation of any alliance without which allies can easily turn into rivals. While each nation wanted global supremacy and domination, the main source of conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States was the approach to governance whereby the while the Western Bloc advocated for capitalism the Eastern Bloc advocated for communism. This assertion is further proven by the fact that the two powers had effectively collaborated during the Grand Alliance that had resulted in the defeat of the German Nazi but immediately fallen apart due to the fear of each other’s governance systems and expansion plots.
Works Cited
Jensen, Kenneth Martin. Origins of the Cold War: The Novikov, Kennan, and Roberts” long Telegrams” of 1946: with Three New Commentaries. US Institute of Peace Press, 1993.
Kennan, George. “The long telegram.” Origins of the Cold War. The Novikov, Kennan, and Roberts “Long Telegrams” (1946): 19-31.
Novikov, Nikolai. “The Novikov Telegram Washington, September 27, 1946.” Diplomatic History 15.4 (1991): 527-537.