ABSTRACT
The Cold War—is it finally over? World history during the second half of the last century was shaped by the Cold War and its consequences are felt even now, especially in Europe and in U.S.–Russian relations, more than twenty years after it ended. For decades the causes of the Cold War have been discussed and disputed, how did it start, whose (to put it somewhat crudely) fault was it, could it have been prevented, were opportunities missed in the decades after Stalin’s end, and when and how and why did it end? As long as Soviet rule existed Russian historians and commentators were not in doubt with regard to the answers to these questions. A “Cold Warrior” was a Western (mostly American) hardliner, distrustful of Soviet peaceful intention, probably with a vested interest in the maintenance of tensions and conflict, a hopelessly prejudiced individual, an obstacle to world peace and quite likely a warmonger. In some Western circles there was agreement with this Soviet image of the “Cold Warrior.”
