ABSTRACT
Stalin never trusted the West, though he did not anticipate any immediate Western aggression. The orthodoxy still persisted in his day that capitalism would never tolerate communism and that a clash between the two worlds was historically inevitable. The deplorable state of the Soviet Union after the Second World War, however, made a postponement of any new conflict the highest priority of Soviet policy. This meant avoiding extreme provocations of the West, maintaining as long as possible the cooperation of the wartime alliance. It involved resisting Western moves dangerous to the security of the Soviet Union, above all the reviving and rearming of Germany. It was equally essential, Stalin believed, that despite the need for reconstruction and the poverty of the Russian people the armed forces should be kept strong and that nuclear and missile developments should be continued. The Soviet Union had to avoid appearing vulnerable and the Red Army had to maintain its grip on Eastern and central Europe, where uncertain allies acted as buffers. Given this pessimistic global outlook the prospects of building up confidence and allaying Soviet suspicions were never very good. There seemed to be a glimmer of hope in 1945 and 1946 after the defeat of Nazi Germany, but Western demands that the Soviet Union pull back to its redrawn frontiers and permit the countries of central and Eastern Europe a free choice of government – demands justified from a Western point of view by the agreements reached at Yalta, and by Western values – alarmed
Stalin. Soviet security rested now, in his view, on Soviet military dominance in Eastern and central Europe: Western demands, if fully acted on, would only recreate a line of hostile states along Soviet borders.
