ABSTRACT
In a sense there has always been a Cold War between the West and Soviet Russia, right from the start of the Bolshevik takeover. The Americans was not particularly active in European politics before the war, but the British seemed to have nurtured the same perceptions in 1939, in principle, regarding Soviet intentions as in 1945. In 1939-1941 the Soviets were seen as so weak by the Western observers that few believed that the USSR would be able to resist a German invasion for more than a couple of months or so. The Soviets were still seen as a potential threat to Western political interests, just as in 1939, but now the USSR had the military strength and capabilities which made such threats the more dangerous. The assessments nevertheless show, regardless of what can be said about Soviet exhaustion, and the need for Soviet post-war reconstruction, that the Anglo-Americans at least believed that they faced a very credible potential threat.
