When did the Cold War actually start? (Short Animated Documentary)

The Cold War often conjures up images of divided continents, nuclear standoff, and proxy wars fought all over the world. It was a decades-long competition between communist and capitalist economies, between democratic and authoritarian political frameworks, and between value systems that ended with

the dissolution of the USSR and the end of communism in Eastern Europe. And whilst this end date isn't the subject of too much debate, when the Cold War began exactly is much more nebulous, with most assuming that it starts in the wake of the Second World War. But given the obvious enmity that existed from day

one between the Bolshevik revolutionaries and the rest of the non-communist world, how do we know when the Cold War actually started? Now, obviously, given that the Cold War wasn't actually a war, choosing a definitive starting date is going to be difficult. It's not like there was ever

a formal declaration of not being at war, but being very suspicious of those guys. As such, it's always going to be up to interpretation. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical competition between the communist and non-communist worlds for dominance, where both blocks sought to undermine and ultimately

destroy the other. So, when is the earliest you could say that this begins? Well, depending on whose perspective you're looking through, it was pretty early. As of 1917 in the October Revolution, the newly empowered Bolsheviks didn't exactly get along with, well, anyone. By coming to power,

they had removed a vital military ally from the Entente powers during World War I. And immediately after taking power, the Bolsheviks were quick to renege on Russia's previous commitments to the West by refusing to pay back money loaned to Russia and releasing secret documents to embarrass Britain and

France. As the Bolsheviks fought for control of the remnants of the Russian Empire, the Entente and also Germany, whilst it was still able to, at least, try to aid the Bolsheviks' enemies, the Whites. Long story short, this didn't work, and after a few years of fighting, Lenin's Bolsheviks were victorious, and

they established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. The Western response to this was to, well, ignore it and hope that the communists just sort of went away. Spoiler alert, they didn't. Well, I guess Lenin did, but the USSR survived, and so Western powers had to learn how to deal with it. As a

result of the war, most of them were broke, and Britain sought to normalize trade with the resource-rich Soviet Union to help its economy bounce back.

However, there was a lot of opposition to having a relationship that amounted to anything more than trade. In 1924, after the Labour Party came to power for the first time, Ramsay MacDonald, the new Prime Minister, was quick to recognize the Moscow government and begin diplomatic relations, something

which did not go down well at all with the rest of Britain's political class. Soon after this, Italy and France recognized the USSR, too, but that doesn't mean that they got along. One of the issues plaguing early relations was the Soviet Union's support for political radicals in the West, as well as all of

the spying stuff. When the British government discovered that Soviet trade envoys were in fact stealing military documents, it broke off relations. And in Moscow, there was a genuine fear that Britain would form an alliance with Poland and go to war over it. This didn't happen, and despite this war