1987/01/01 by H. W. Brands · 7 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Balkan and Eastern European Studies #Balkans: History, Politics, Society #Opposition (politics) #Communism #Democracy #Conviction #Political science #Cold war #Economic history #Communist state #Iron Curtain #Soviet union #Political economy #World War II #Law #Development economics #History #Sociology #Politics
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1987.tb00003.x
published in Diplomatic History 11(1), 41-54 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 1987/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
By 1948 the basic outlines of the Cold War were clear to most Americans. On one side of the conflict were the United States and the countries of what Americans unabashedly called “the free world”; on the other were the Soviet Union and its Communist satellites. In some areas, East Asia particularly, the front lines remained fluid, but relatively few people in the United States doubted the existence of a profound gulf between the nations that aspired to democracy and those that followed the teachings of Marx and Lenin. Nor did the events of 1948 do much to belie this belief. The rapid decline of the Chinese Nationalists, the deepening division of Korea, the Czech coup, and the Berlin blockade all reinforced the conviction that the source of most of the world's trouble was communism, and that the necessary American response was opposition of some kind or another. One event of that year did not fit the pattern. At first, even specialists in Kremlinology and its Balkan variants did not know what to make of the dispute between Stalin and Tito. A falling out among thieves, apparently, but how serious the quarrel was and where it might lead remained to be seen. As the months passed the debate grew nastier and more public. Tito held little attraction for most Americans, but in a fight with Stalin many were willing to cheer the underdog.