We shall consider the “Cold War”, first from the angle of “rule and system”, secondly from the total history of international relations in the post war era.
The rule-making between the U. S. and the USSR can be summarized in the processes as follows: 1) the rule-making has been successful during the Nixon-Brezhnev era-symbolized by the fundamental principles in the U. S. -USSR ielationship. 2) the rule making was groped for during the Kennedy-Khrushchev era (the Vienna meeting of 1961). This original efforts led to a partial rule-making (the Hot-line agreement, the Partial Test Ban Treaty). 3) The rule-making was implicitly undertaken during the Roosevelt-Stalin era (the Yalta Conference).
Any case of rule-making efforts between the two superpowers shows that there have been assumptions for such attempts; namely, assumptions were based on recognition of the Yalta principles (first, great power unanimity; second, recognition of mutual vital interests). The building of international system has been attempted on the ground of the “U. S.-USSR rule-making”. For instance, during the Nixon-Brezhnev era, the United States undertook to build an international system composed of three combinations of rule-makings: 1) rule-making between the U. S. and USSR; 2) Kissinger's new Atlantic Charter (rule-making among advanced capitalist countries); and 3) rule-making between South and North.
“The rule-making between the U. S. and USSR” tends to be attempted, especially by political leaders whose observations are unique on international affairs. They used to distinguish 1) superpowers' international politics from 2) other area of international politics, and they used to see the politics of 2) through the politics of 1). They are also confident of their own “establishment”. If both the U. S. and the USSR were led by such political leaders, and when they feel compelled to control international affairs, then one can say that rule-making will be opened up (the Kennedy-Khrushchev era). The rule-making will also be undertaken when they were challenged by other kind of organizational ideas at world politics (e. g., Gaullism, Chinese thought).
The “Cold War” is the reverse trend to what analyzed above. The “Cold War” was a situation where leaders after the war placed their strategic priority less on the politics of superpowers than on the politics of other area, and where political leaders were obsessed with crisis mentality. This was the situation in which rule-making between the U. S. and USSR was flatly rejected. Accordingly, the “Cold War” ceases to exist by emergence of “rule-making” efforts.

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The debate on the origins of the cold war which reached a peak in the late 1960s in America had declined with the end of the Vietnam war. Now a new debate on the sources of American foreign policy seems to be discernable.
It may be said that the cold war debate diminished under the heavy criticism from the revisionist school. However, why the revisionist school was able to achieve such an eminent position? The answer seems to lie in their determined advocacy of the American retreat from Vietnam. When the American Oligarchy decided to retreat from Vietnam then the position of the revisionist school was vindicated. The Pentagon Papers show that since 1968 this policy option was under discussion in the government. Therefore, the revisionist had been utilized by the government to make the national consensus for the retreat.
The end of the cold war debate has not seen the solution to the problems under dispute. But, now there is a prevailing tendency, among the scholars of Establishment, to insist that it was a sterile exercise. And some of them have the opinion that it seems at present more useful to analize international relations since the end of the second world war in the style of professor Kissinger who conceptualized them on the pattern of the congress system after the Napoleonic war.
On the other hand, the new Left theorists had also contributed to the end of the cold war debate. Their views insisted that the cold war debate had the unfair effect to justify the Yalta Agreement which was one accomplishment of F. D. Roosevelt's imperialistic diplomacy. Therefore, they avoided the use of the term “cold war” which would justify the Roosevelt position as an imperialist policy maker.
We can find a new controversy now in America. The point at issue here seems to be the various possibilities of America's return to “normal diplomacy”. In this context the estimation of President Truman as being a rational politician or not is one focus of the debate.

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When one reconsiders the “Cold War”, a reassessment of the Yalta Diplomacy, especially co-operation between the USA and the USSR, is one of the great problems which we cannot neglect, because it marks the beginning of the Cold War.
In the reassessment of the Yalta Diplomacy, this work takes as its starting point the following traditional basic points of view: (1) power politics and personal diplomacy (J. Snell); (2) the limits of power (G. Kolko), and; (3) the dynamism in Great Power conferences (D. Clemens). After due consideration of these points, we should now totally reassess the Yalta Diplomacy by making clear the efficacy and limitations of each basic point of view. At the same time we should pay attention to the “reformism” of the foreign policy of F. D. R.
Generally speaking, co-operation between the USA and the USSR characterized the international political history of that time. If, however, we reassess it at each of the following levels: (1) American policy towards the Big Three Conference (especially “Conference diplomacy”); (2) American policy towards each country or area on the agenda and else, and; (3) American postwar planning (in its role as a Great Power), we should add these limitations to the degree of the characterization. We should also remember that these limitations result from the tendency of power politics and the reformism in the foreign policy of F. D. R.

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The process of “Cold War” is not a product of subjective thought, but that of objective operating forces. In the processes of “Cold War”, the historical situation was by and large inevitable. There were apparently limitations as to policy makers' capability to cope with the “Cold War” situation.
It seems clear that the Soviet Union has not placed much importance on the communist ideology and world revolution in policy preferences through the postwar era, as during the war period. Instead, she has put security concerns on the top agenda in foreign policies, thereby attempting to maintain balance of power with much vigor. The problem of Germany was a critical political matter to the USSR during the Second World War. Since Stalin had expected the resurgence of the German imperialism after the war, he had hoped to launch an effective policy over the post-war Germany with the U. S. -Britain-USSR collaboration. It aimed obviously at preventing the German imperialism in the post-war scene of world politics. And that, the Soviet Union was seriously damaged by the German aggression in World War II. Therefore she has tried to recover from the damage by exploiting the aggressor. The negotiating matters among allied powers over Germany were deeply associated with the Soviet basic interest mentioned above. These matters were those of “occupation”, “dismemberment”, and “reparation”. They were problems which would determine the possibility of cooperative behaviors among allied powers in the post-war era.
The occupation plan reached concensus among negotiating partners without serious conflicts. Thus it hilighted a hope that the Soviet cooperation would be possible over the German problem. With respect to the issue of dismemberment, the Soviet Union took a position where the dismemberment policy could become an alternative to the security policy against Germany unless other better idea could be found. On the other hand, both the United States and Britain invited strong oppositions within the government circle against the policy of dismemberment. Consequently, they were unable to draw another effective security measure against Germany from conflicting views over dismemberment.
Speaking of the issue of reparation, such a position became gradually penetrated into the policy-making process among western allied powers that the first priority should be placed on rebuilding of European capitalism. It proceeded over the sympathy toward the magnitude of damage which the Soviet Union had suffered. As a result of that, they failed in launching an inclusive plan about economic assistance, the post-war economic cooperation among allied powers that could replace the plan of reparation.
Thus the Soviet Union came to have an impression through the negotiating processes that Western Powers had increasingly lost their original wish to preserve an alliance with the USSR. Such a fear was felt more strongly by the USSR as a consequence of negotiations over East Europe as well. In fact, it seems to have been a key factor toward development of cooperative behavior in the post-war era whether or not cooperation could be accomplished with respect to the German problem. It was also a critical point to get the settlement of East European problem being possible in a conciliative manner. The Soviet Union had lost her hope to prepare for the possible threats from a revitalized Germany through cooperativeness with Western allied powers. Therefore, she undertook to stop withdrawal of reparation from the Soviet occupied zone, and then embarked on socialization of East Germany and control of all East European regions. East Germany was added to the vital region (the sphere of influence) for the Soviet security concern. Stalin's policy of socialization of East Germany and East Europe was the “revolution from above”, and the “half conquest and half revolution”.

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The study of the Cold War had centered before about the problem which was more responsible for the aggravation of the East-West relations, America or Russia. However, since the middle of 1960's there has appeared the so-called new left revisionists strongly criticizing the politico-economic policy of the United States as the main cause of the Cold War. It is true that the overwhelming power of the United States at the end of the Second World War ought to have been the potential danger against the security of the Soviet Union because the war-time cooperation of the big two powers had abruptly stopped by the change of the American administration from Roosevelt to Truman. But we can also see that immediately after the victory over Nazi-Germany the Soviet leaders began to enforce the rigid ideological tightening of the war-stricken society in order to reassert the authority of the Party as well as mobilize the popular efforts for the reconstruction. Though this tightening campaign was reasonable at least in terms of maintaining the communist rule, it could not but have unfavorable effects outwardly, too.
In this sense, the process of the reestablishment of the post-war Stalinism, a sort of the “primitive accumulation” of legitimacy (A. Meyer), seemed to be indirectly related to the development of the Cold War. Moreover, the hostile attitudes of America toward Russia at that period had to create an atmosphere appropriate for the Stalinist political regimentation.
The present paper is an effort to analysing the circumstances in the Soviet Union at the initial stage of the Cold War. The author's concerns are; what the real conditions of the Soviet society were at the end of the Great Patriotic War, how Stalin was obsessed by a kind of security complex, and thirdly, how the official views on the capitalist world were influenced by these two factors.

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As generally known, the Truman Doctrine, being a signal to get the “Cold War” started in the post war international politics, was announced to draw support from the Congress about the U. S. assistance to Greece and Turkey, especially to the Greeks. In this context, to look at political development in Greece from the period of World War II to the post war era will provide us with one of important references to evaluate the nature of “Cold War”.
Before the Second World War, Greece found its established political parties severely lost their power bases under the autocratic regime. The ancient regime came to be further broken into pieces by the fact that Greece had been occupied by the Axis Powers. Consequently, National Liberation Front (EAM) and National People's Liberation Army (ELAS) succeeded, through their resistance movement, in ruling over almost all territory of Greece under their influence.
Faced with this new situation, Britain found the strategic importance in Greece, thereby forced the Greek communist party to accept to form a coalition with the government in exile, by concluding agreement on sphere of influence with the USSR. In 1944, Britain attempted to disarm the ELAS and to make a new national army, mainly recruited from the army stationed in the Middle East. The EAM (=ELAS), which controlled almost whole of Greece at that time, naturally rejected the British attempt. Britain, however, undertook her strong military intervention into Greece. As a result of that, Varkiza agreement was reached in February 1945; the EAM (=ELAS) was forced to be disarmed in return for amnesty and free elections.
Thus the right wing from abroad came to seize political power in the capital of Greece by means of British force. The right wing regime, however, lacked in domestic support; she had no other choice but resort to violence and reaction in order to maintain her political power. Several regimes born in Greece after the war were unable to overcome a series of financial crises regardless of tremendous economic assistance from UNRRA. Therefore, they had to get their financial program exclusively dependent on assistance from foreign countries. Moreover, their administrative organizations were just impotent and corrupted. There lacked any momentum for national integration in Greece. The situation became much worse. The army, the police, and the right wing began to suppress the left wing throughout the country. The leftists were compelled to hide themselves again in mountain areas for their survival. Then civil war started in 1946.
Accordingly, it should be noted that the civil war in Greece was never induced from interventions by communist countries. To the contrary, it was a by-product of British intervention into Greece to bring back the ancient regime forcibly. However, it was a high price-politically and economically-for Britain to maintain the imported right wing in power for years. This is precisely the reason why the United States came to replace Britain to pay that price. Through the foregoing analysis, one can conclude that what determined the inception of the “Cold War” were 1) the collapse of ancient regime by war at global level, and 2) major powers' reaction to prevent the situation. This is really demonstrated by the Greek case.

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Yoshida Shigeru's letter of December 24, 1951 to John Foster Dulles laid the foundation for two decades of Japan's China policies. In it the prime minister revealed his intention to make peace with Taipei rather than Peking. Historians have regarded the letter as a product of American domestic political pressures. Dulles sought it to get “China Lobby” Republican senators' approval of the peace and security treaties with Japan.
New evidence suggests that this interpretation is too narrow. While American policy-makers wanted smooth ratification of the treaties, they worried more about coordinating British and American East Asian policies than about Sino-Japanese problems. The Anglo-Saxon powers differed over recognition of Peking, peacemaking in Korea, and the consequences of peace with Japan. Dulles' and other officials' failure to resolve these disagreements stimulated partisan debate in Washington and changed the purpose of his December visit to Tokyo. Never doubting the Yoshida Government's anti-communism, Dulles sought its aid in bringing London to support Washington's policies. He used the letter to calm senators worried about the British and the Chinese, and tried unsuccessfully to get the Churchill Government to acknowledge American leadership in the Pacific.
The Yoshida letter was the product of complex alliance politics as well as of American domestic politics. Washington's view of its relationship with Tokyo, and of the Sino-Japanese relationship, was strongly influenced by its differences with London. The letter should remind historians that American-Japanese relations in the postwar era must not be seen in narrowly bilateral or exclusively Cold War terms. They must study the past from a genuinely multi-national perspective.

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