Ebook: Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958

Overview

* A new theory, societal constructivism, with the innovative addition of institutions to explain which identities get empowered

* Many new sources, as the book is almost entirely archivally based, either from the author's own work in the archives, or through the use of heretofore rarely if ever used archival work of Russian scholars

* A very controversial thesis in that it is Soviet society, or its own self-understanding, that explains Soviet relations with other states and movements, in the early years of the Cold War, not Stalin, not Khrushchev, and certainly not any systemic theories, whether neorealist or constructivist

* Offers a mid-range theory that can account for broad swathes of relationships among states, or groups of states.

General answers are hard to imagine for the many puzzling questions that are raised by Soviet relations with the world in the early years of the Cold War. Why was Moscow more frightened by the Marshall Plan than the Truman Doctrine? Why would the Soviet Union abandon its closest socialist ally, Yugoslavia, just when the Cold War was getting under way? How could Khrushchev's de-Stalinized domestic and foreign policies at first cause a warming of relations with China, and then lead to the loss of its most important strategic ally? What can explain Stalin's failure to ally with the leaders of the decolonizing world against imperialism and Khrushchev's enthusiastic embrace of these leaders as anti-imperialist at a time of the first detente of the Cold War?

It would seem that only idiosyncratic explanations could be offered for these seemingly incoherent policy outcomes. Or, at best, they could be explained by the personalities of Stalin and Khrushchev as leaders. The latter, although plausible, is incorrect. In fact, the most Stalinist of Soviet leaders, the secret police chief and sociopath, Lavrentii Beria, was the most enthusiastic proponent of de-Stalinized foreign and domestic policies after Stalin's death in March 1953.

Ted Hopf argues, instead, that it was Soviet identity that explains these anomalies. During Stalin's rule, a discourse of danger prevailed in Soviet society, where any deviations from the idealized version of the New Soviet Man, were understood as threatening the very survival of the Soviet project itself. But the discourse of danger did not go unchallenged. Even under the rule of Stalin, Soviet society understood a socialist Soviet Union as a more secure, diverse, and socially democratic place. This discourse of difference, with its broader conception of what the socialist project meant, and who could contribute to it, was empowered after Stalin's death, first by Beria, then by Malenkov, and then by Khrushchev, and the rest of the post-Stalin Soviet leadership. This discourse of difference allowed for the de-Stalinization of Eastern Europe, with the consequent revolts in Poland and Hungary, a rapprochement with Tito's Yugoslavia, and an initial warming of relations with China. But it also sowed the seeds of the split with China, as the latter moved in the very Stalinist direction at home just rejected by Moscow. And, contrary to conventional and scholarly wisdom, a moderation of authoritarianism at home, a product of the discourse of difference, did not lead to a moderation of Soviet foreign policy abroad. Instead, it led to the opening of an entirely new, and bloody, front in the decolonizing world.

In sum, this book argues for paying attention to how societies understand themselves, even in the most repressive of regimes. Who knows, their ideas about national identity, might come to power sometime, as was the case in Iran in 1979, and throughout the Arab world today.

Ted Hopf is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He is the author or editor of five books, including Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign nPolicies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Cornell 2002), which won the 2003 Marshall D. Shulman Award, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for the best book published that year on the international politics of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. Hopf received his B.A. from Princeton University in 1983 and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1989. He was a Fulbright Professor in the autumn of 2001 at the European University at St. Petersburg. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Olin and Davis Centers at Harvard University, and The Mershon Center at Ohio State University.

Reviews/Awards

APSA Jervis-Schroeder Book Award in International History and Theory for 2013
Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize, 2013

"Ted Hopf uses a sophisticated and nuanced societal constructivist approach to illuminate Soviet understandings and motivations in the years of the Cold War. By combining discursive analysis with a serious investigation of institutions, he demonstrates that the Stalinist state discourse of capitalist danger to state socialism, which dominated in official views until Stalin's death in 1953, was replaced by an alternative discourse of difference that allowed for greater variety and tolerance within the socialist camp. Taking identities as fundamental to foreign policy, Hopf illustrates their profound effects on the choices made by the Soviet leaders. From his unique perspective, he is able to go beyond conventional neorealist accounts and lay out an original new approach to understanding the origins of the Cold War. This is a work that breaks through the impasses of old-style Sovietology and enlivens our debates and understanding."--Rondald Grigor Suny, author of The Soviet Experiment

"A uniquely audacious book that marshaled findings of Soviet political, social, and even cultural history to demonstrate the power of a Constructivist theory in the analysis of the Cold War. The effort of an international relations theorist to break interdisciplinary partitions and get to the nitty-gritty of domestic scenery must be applauded."--Vladislav Zubok, author of A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev

"In today's environment of overwhelming academic output, Hopf stands out as a scholar whose research one is always inspired to read and reflect upon. This book is no exception. It is a must-read for its combination of IR theory and history, precisely because history is not used simply for quick theoretical points. Instead, Hopf devises a theoretical framework for understanding the history of Soviet foreign policy." --Journal of Cold War Studies