There’s a lot of places one could argue the Cold War started. I totally agree with you except many of the nations falling for this in large numbers belong to post Soviet states.

It wasn’t Cold War propaganda, it’s been anti-Soviet propaganda all along driving the Russophobia which is now in an unfettered and free floating state, like a free radical just shouting out. The anti Soviet sentiment in Soviet Baltic states predated the American propaganda and focus that defines the post-war understanding of when the Cold War started.

America sent troops to support the whites, that’s pre war even, but it lacked the propaganda drive. Can we understand this as the start of the Cold War or as an extension of the capitalist unity I. Which regardless of messaging has always been anti-Soviet due to inherent anticommunism? That perhaps the first proper attempt originating in Russia created a link that allowed for Russophobia as a whole to become so normalized in the west that they no longer saw a difference between anticommunism and opposing the interests of Russia?

The concept I am grasping at could possibly be called propagandic inertia?