1. What were the causes of the cold war? How did the United States and the Soviet Union each react to what it perceived to be the other’s hostility? What was the effect of the Cold War on Europe? The paper will focus on the cause and effect of the Cold War that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union that began at the end World War II.
Russia opposed the others’ capitalism. The installment of the Soviet puppet government, Lublin Poles, brought about tension among the big three. The Truman administration’s anti-Soviet attitude deepened the tension, and Truman unofficially told Stalin about the atomic bomb in Potsdam Conference. Also, George Kennan, the US Ambassador in Moscow in 1946, warned his mother nation of USSR’s
One problem with ideology was that the two powers openly criticised each other’s policies. Khrushchev was very critical about the Great Leap Forward, which led to the withdrawal of Soviet economic aid. Part of the reason was that Khrushchev did not agree with the ideological methodology of things such as the ‘back-yard’ furnaces. It was different to how the Soviets did it. Mao criticised Khrushchev for his policies such as de-Stalinisation and his secret speech.
Although both Truman and Stalin helped increase tensions in Europe and East Asia in the years immediately following World War II, the Cold War itself was likely inevitable. The alliance that had formed between the United States and the USSR during World War II was not strong enough to overcome the past decades of suspicion and unease between the two nations. Moreover, as both leaders sought to achieve their postwar security objectives, which were often mutually exclusive, neither was willing to compromise. The United States and the USSR had always generally disliked and distrusted each other, despite the fact that they were allies against Germany and Japan during the war. Americans had hated and feared Communism ever since it had appeared in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and had refused to recognize the new Soviet government, especially after Bolshevik leaders promoted the destruction of capitalism.
Many people will say there is no answer to this. Many Americans will pawn the blame on the Soviets and Soviets will blame the Americans for holding more responsibility in the Cold War. However, judging by many historical documents and actions, I personally feel that the Soviet Union was more responsible for the Cold War. The Soviet Telegram on Cuba, which was sent by Soviet Ambassador A. I. Alekssev. This telegram implies that the United States wanted
The split opinion in terms of ideology between the two nations can be dated to 1917 during the Bolshevik regime in which the West intervened (Gann, L.H., & Duignan, P. 1996). Within his work, ‘America Faces Russia’, Bailey, (1950) like other traditionalist accounts, would suggest that the blame for the Cold War lies with the Soviet Union and its desire to spread further into Eastern Europe. Furthermore, they argue that the beginning of the Truman term in office witnessed the shift in US diplomatic policies in response to the threat of communism. The combination of these two factors is convincing when claiming the inevitability of the war from the traditionalist perspective. However, the traditionalist school of thought challenges this notion with the view that Stalin’s personality, in addition to his communist ideology would lead to the
Because of the disagreement with the foundation of a countries’ structure, the USA and the USSR were strange bedfellows during the Second World War. Their alliance was purely strategic. The underlying differences between the supreme capitalist nation (the USA) and the original communist state (the USSR) were bound to re-emerge once Germany and Japan had been defeated. Both of the Superpowers saw each other as a threat to its continued survival and adopted strategies to preserve their positions, which brought a high level of tension after World War 2. At the final stage of World War Two, it was quite clear that the Allies would get the final victory, so in February 1945, Stalin (USSR), Churchill (UK) and Roosevelt (USA) met at Yalta to discuss
The Second World War ended in 1945 with the victory of ‘the Grand Alliance’ of the USSR, the USA and Britain. Although on the surface it appeared the West and the Soviets had reached a mutual understanding in their quest to defeat the Axis powers, strains in their relationship during the war and in the years preceding it suggests that conflict was imminent. Thus, certain actions by both the USA and the USSR can be interpreted as prompting the Cold War as early as 1945. As the Cold War did not involve direct conflict between the USA and USSR, locating its origin is a topic of contention. However, the breakdown in relations between the emerging superpowers during the war and the consequences of the disbandment of the Grand Alliance can be interpreted as the start of the Cold War.
‘’Truman was to blame for the outbreak of the cold war. How far do you agree with this statement?’’ The Cold War was a period of great tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, which were the two ‘superpowers’ that resulted from World War II. Although many believe that the ‘ideology clash’ between these two countries was the cause of the outbreak of the Cold War, many factors were involved. It would be impossible to summarize all of them in a text, since there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of small factors and events that affected the relations between these two countries, so this essay will concentrate on some of the ‘main’ causes of the cold war, at least according to historical resources. Defining the start date of the cold is a difficult thing to do: Some say it started even before World War II, after the Munich Agreement
Although the cold war had begun long before the Berlin Blockade it only amplified the suspicion between the USA and the USSR. By the end of the Berlin Blockade America had set up NATO with the aim of “deterring Soviet expansionism”(NATO) meanwhile USSR responded by creating their own military alliance: The Warsaw Pact. After the Berlin Blockade America and the Soviet Union were opposed military, ideologically and economically. The Berlin Blockade was the first point of tension between the two former allies, although the problem originally arose from the US introducing a new currency into Bizonia it was the Soviet’s rash reaction that almost lead to