Soviet and US relations changed dramatically between 1945 and 1947, there were many reasons to explain why and how this happened. Firstly, one reason was the end of WW2. During the Second World War, America and the USSR were members of the Grand Alliance in order to oppose Hitler, but when this war finished there was nothing to bring the Communists and Capitalists together. Therefore, the two countries went from allies to progressing enemies after Germany was defeated. This developed until a confrontation, from Western and Eastern Europe, in a nuclear arms race.
In 1950 the McCarran Internal Security Act passed and required communist organizations to publish their records, and register with the government. When the Soviets successfully detonated a nuclear weapon in 1949, it took America by surprise. The speed at which Soviet technology was advancing drew suspicion to a conspiracy that American atomic secrets were handed over to the Soviets. These fears were found to be true in 1950 and masterminded by members of the Communist Party Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. On April 5, 1951 the Rosenberg’s were found guilty and sentenced to death.
Russia’s main national interest after setting up other communist republics was to further spread communism. They went about setting up organisations such as Cominform (Communist Information Bureau) and Comecon (Council for Economic Mutual Assistance) to provide economic and military assistance to soviet satellite states. The Warsaw pact was set up in 1955 to provide a combined military force of soviet satellite states. As Eastern Europe unified as communists, Eastern Europe united with the fear of communism. The fear of the spread of communism to Western Europe caused Western European countries to join forces to stop the spread.
In the following essay the different reasons of the containment policy will be discussed and therefore the distinctive approaches of George Frost Kennan, former diplomat and the author of “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” which inspired the containment policy, and Denna Frank Fleming, an American historian who wrote the essay called “Resolving the Russian American deadlock”, will be used. One of the key arguments in order to create the containment policy, mentioned by George Frost Kennan, was the innate antagonism between capitalism and socialism. Kennan made this conclusion after analyzing the outstanding features of communist thought. One of the main elements of Communist ideology was that Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and the working class will one day rise
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a black comedy film that satirizes the nuclear arms race between the USSR and the United States. As for Stanley Kubrick’s view of American foreign policy, I believe that this film it is a realist point of view. The reason being is that the satire highlights the Cold War attitudes felt at the time. There was a focus on the missile gap between the USSR and the US. But most notably, it is the “doomsday device” that is the primary focus of the film’s satire.
It significantly highlighted the true conflict involving the US and the USSR, and more importantly the ongoing battle between two opposing ideologies- capitalism and communism. The Korean War began with the communist North’s invasion of South Korea only years after the neighboring China ended its civil conflict and embraced a new Communist Regime under Mao Zedong. Whilst in the West communism had already been threatening to “swallow up” Europe seen through Stalin’s role in Czecoslovakinan Crisis; his disregard for the Yalta-Potsdam Agreements and the mobilized Red Army troops scattered over Eastern Europe. Consequently, the US where experiencing the beginnings of “anti-communist hysteria” due to the domino-effect Communist had had in Asia seen through the Sino-Soviet Pact (1950, and the possible threat of world-communism. In this sense, the Korean War is highly significant because it displayed the new terms of post-World War Two conflict and how difficult it would be to fight a contained War due to the snowballing effect of communism around the world.
• Who was more to blame for the start of the Cold War, the USA or the USSR? The origins of the Cold War; the 1945 summit conferences including the parts played by Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and Truman, and the breakdown of the USA-USSR alliance in 1945–6; Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe; the Iron Curtain; the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; the Berlin Blockade and its immediate consequences. June 2012 | Q.2 (a) What was the Iron Curtain? [4] (b) Explain why Berlin was a cause of tension between East and West between 1945 and 1949. [6] (c) How successful was the West in containing Communism in Europe up to 1949?
From 1917 to 1980, their relationship shifts from good relationship to bad relationship that almost led to nuclear war, which was fallowed again with a good relationship that led to arms control and détente, then to an intensified relationship until the end of the cold war. IA. It is important to know the background that strained the relationship of the Americans and the Soviets by understanding the period 1917 to 1945. It is not at this span of time that the nuclear arms race started but rather this period marked the beginning of the ideological clash between the Americans and the Soviets. The overthrowing of the Tsarist Empire in 1917 led to the creation of the Soviet Union, marking the expansion of communism in Europe.
For instance, when Mother Russia overthrew its tsar, made a revolution, became the Soviet Union, unified itself under Lenin and created an ideological structure called communism, the United States could only react with fear and trepidation. The government could not accept the simple fact that a country could exist with economic and political principles so critically opposed to democracy and industrial capitalism. The first factor is that during World War Two, the USA and the western powers had worked together with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. However, the alliance was based solely on the fact that they had a common enemy- Germany. Once that enemy was near defeat, disagreements began to emerge.
Another key reason was a result of Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, due to which Stalin had forced communism on Eastern Europe. The Truman Doctrine, set up in 1947, outlined the policy of ‘Containment’, in which America was determined to go to war in order to prevent the spread of communism into Western Europe. The Marshall plan, also set up in 1947, was a follow up to the Truman doctrine, which provided financial aid to Western Europe, to entice the communist countries of Eastern Europe to turn to Capitalism. Stalin responded by setting up the ‘COMECON’, providing aid and resources