The Early Cold War in Soviet West Ukraine, 1944–1948

Abstract

In 1989, when archival discoveries were about to revolutionize the history of the Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis published a pathbreaking article entitled “Intelligence, Espionage and Cold War Origins.” While Gaddis expressed serious doubts as to whether anyone had ever established that espionage had positively affected larger historical developments, he did render one sober and perceptive conclusion that did not rely on unencumbered access to Soviet, American, or British archives: espionage had heightened the atmosphere of distrust on all sides, and probably did more to escalate tensions than to abate them. “Was it all worth it, from the Russians’ own standpoint? There is good reason to doubt whether the benefi ts Stalin gained from spying on his allies during and after the war counterbalanced the problems created for him once his indulgence in espionage became known.”