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Book Review
| The First Cold War: The Legacy of Woodrow Wilson in U.S.-Soviet Relations. By Donald E. Davis and Eugene P. Trani. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002. xxvi, 329 pp. $42.50, ISBN 0-8262-1388-X.)
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The First Cold War's thesis is stark and simple. As Donald E. Davis and Eugene P. Trani argue in their first sentence, "President Wilson's administration initiated a 'cold war' that lasted from 1917 to 1933" (p. xxi). Further, they argue that Woodrow Wilson's stance toward Soviet Russia "set a precedent" (p. xxi) for what most of us term the Cold War (1946–1991). The two authors end their book by extending their thesis:
It is possible to draw a relatively straight line from Wilson and his collaborators down to Kennan and Reagan. The Wilsonians were the first cold warriors, and in the era of Wilson the first cold war began. (p. 206)
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This study is based on extensive research in American, British, and Russian archives and considerable reading in secondary sources and published collections. The story contains little that is new, however, and much that does not support its thesis. Most disappointing for readers of the JAH is the almost total lack of attention given to social and cultural issues. The story of The First Cold War runs from 1913 to 1921. Davis and Trani review the twists and turns of American policy toward Russia, particularly Soviet Russia, 1917–1920. The authors are generally judicious in their survey, pointing out disagreements within the administration, experimental probes, and evidence of intervention and negotiation. |
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But in pressing hard to establish "the first cold war" as a policy of Woodrow Wilson and his administration at least since 1917, Davis and Trani seriously overreach. A few examples must suffice. While arguing throughout that "the first cold war" was a policy of Wilson and his key advisers, the authors are quick to admit that "ad-hoc voices" spun "alternative policies" (p. 15) and that the key policy makers had no policy "except that of doing nothing—watching and waiting—in the hopes that Lenin's government would be overthrown" (p. 73). This applies particularly to Secretary of State Robert Lansing, who developed the ideological basis for opposition to Bolshevism in December 1917 but was unable to convince Wilson. If the August 1920 note from secretary of state Bainbridge Colby to the Italian ambassador Camillo Avezzana, who had asked about the U.S. policy toward Soviet Russia, was the "crystallization of Wilsonian diplomacy with respect to Soviet Russia," albeit "reached by an arduous route" (p. 198), why had it taken three years for Wilson to agree with Lansing? |
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As for the lack of attention to social and cultural issues, although the authors argue that U.S. policy from March to November 1917 "represented a lost opportunity of gargantuan proportions," they ignore the social basis for a deepening Russian revolution and civil war. On the American side, while they argue that the Red Scare of 1919–1920 was the precedent for McCarthyism, they provide little evidence and do not explore strikes, suspension of civil liberties, or cultural insecurity. |
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Finally, on their fundamental question Davis and Trani most fall short. This book argues throughout that Wilson and his advisers started the first cold war. In order for Wilson to have started this war in 1920, the hiatus 1920–1945 must be explained. Davis and Trani view only 1933–1945 as important, asserting that Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy was a departure from "cold war" that reinforced the return to Wilsonian cold war positions in 1946. For Davis and Trani, the 1920s were an extension of the Colby note into the "Colby-Hoover-Hughes Doctrine" (p. 200). This ignores much, including the rise of Soviet-American trade in the late 1920s, famine relief efforts of 1921–1922 (the Hoover-Gorky agreement was the first Soviet-American treaty), and the integration of Soviet Russia into the world. |
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| David W. McFadden
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Fairfield University
Fairfield, Connecticut |
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