Richard L. Hill Kelvyn Park High School

In preparing for this colloquium on the Cold War, we were asked to read The Specter of Communism, by Melvyn P. Leffler. This book expanded my knowledge of the Cold War in several ways. First, it argues that the Cold War really began in the wake of World War I, with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, where I had always marked its beginning as occurring in the years immediately following World War II. Secondly, Leffler frequently argues that the US (especially FDR and Truman) "fought" the Cold War as fiercely as they did in order to prevent the creation of a "garrison state" at home. Finally, I was intrigued by Leffler's assertions that many of those who so fervently fought the specter of an internal Communist takeover within the US were lukewarm to the idea of spending money to fight the spread of Communism abroad.
As I read this book, I tried to keep in mind how this information could be effectively communicated to my students. I believe that these three ideas are relevant enough and yet simple enough to grasp, that they will be useful in expanding the mind of the typical high school student at Kelvyn Park.

First, let us examine Leffler's thesis that the Cold War really began near the end of World War I. This point became obvious to me as soon as I started reading Chapter One of the book. Once the Bolsheviks overthrew Kerensky's Provisional Government in November of 1917 and sought a separate peace with Germany, the Allies, and Wilson in particular, did all they could to assure the failure of Communism in Russia. Wilson was justifiably angered that the Bolsheviks had repudiated their war debts, removed Allied war supplies from Archangel, and dissolved the Constituent Assembly, the only truly democratic body in Russia, The Allies responded by supporting the Whites during the Russian Civil War, even going so far as to send American, British, French and Czech troops to Russia to fight alongside the Whites. This made sense, because the Allies were desperate to re-open the eastern front against Germany that had been silenced by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March of 1918. Clearly, this action of the Allies was met with hostility and suspicion by Lenin, and really does mark the beginning of the Cold War. Add to that the refusal of the United States to formally recognize the Soviet Union until 1933, and one can see that the battle of competing ideologies that marked the Cold War began much sooner than Churchill's "iron curtain" speech of 1946 or the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947.

Secondly, Leffler claimed throughout his book that one of the main purposes for opposing Soviet expansion abroad was to protect American liberties at home. If the Soviet (and later, Chinese) brand of totalitarianism were to spread throughout Europe and Asia, the US would be forced to become a garrison state in order to protect itself from foreign threat. As Leffler states in the final sentence of his book, "ultimately, the Cold War was waged abroad to maintain a political economy of freedom at home" (130). That is why FDR and Truman took so many steps to assure that the two defeated powers of World War II, Germany and Japan, did not fall under Soviet and/or Chinese influence in the postwar years. I know that many have argued that Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945, more to intimidate the Russians than as a military measure to defeat the Japanese. Protection of Japan also helps to partially explain Truman's decision to support South Korea in the Korean War, There is an old saying that "Korea is a dagger pointed at Japan" and Truman clearly worried that the quick fall of South Korea might encourage Stalin or Mao to attempt to seize Japan. As for Germany, the decision to unify the three western zones of occupation into West Germany was clearly designed to marry West Germany to Western Europe and the US. The Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, and NATO were also designed to prevent Soviet infiltration of West Germany and the rest of Western Europe as well.

Finally, and most interestingly to me, is Leffler's assertion that many of those who most rabidly fought the specter of communist subversion at home, cared very little about the spread of communism abroad. This seems to me to be ironic at best and hypocritical at worst. The most obvious example of this disconnect is Senator Joe McCarthy. While he was conducting his phantom witch hunts for alleged Communists in the State Department and later, in Hollywood and the US Army, he provided no support to Truman's efforts to stem the spread of communism abroad. Of course, McCarthy was playing politics in an attempt to strengthen his own hand and weaken Truman and the Democratic Party. He knew full well that voters were more concerned with the idea of Communists running the government than they were about South Korea falling to the communists or Greece or Italy or France. The same goes with congressman Richard Nixon, at least at this early stage of his career. According to Leffler, Nixon "initially found anti-communism an irresistible tool to clobber political foes, win votes, discredit the New Deal, and attack the executive branch" (119). Eisenhower largely ran with this red-hunting pack to win election in 1952, and then proceeded to essentially continue Truman's foreign policy of containment after assuming the presidency.

In conclusion, The Specter of Communism was worth the time spent reading it because it expanded my thinking on the subject of the Cold War. At this point in my history-teaching career, I am more interested in learning new ideas than I am in learning more facts about history. This book didn't really disclose any important factual information that I was not already aware of, but it did provide me with some new ways of thinking about the Cold War. My chief concern is whether high school students, even those in AP level classes, have enough broad-based knowledge to really understand the significance of these new ideas, or whether most of it will go right over their heads. This is one question that I hope will be answered during the colloquium.

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