By the late 1960’s, the relatively recent established relationship between the USSR and China had deteriorated to the extent that disagreements resulted in armed conflicts. It is believed that this is due to the ideological differences between the two nations. The two leaders of the communist states, Mao and Khrushchev, were both in different depths of the Cold War, to such a point where Khrushchev was hoping for peaceful co-existence, while Mao thought of that as a betrayal. On the other hand, there are many other factors with may contribute to the breakdown in relations, such as their individual personalities and the cooperation of the USA. But which factor played the greatest role in the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1960’s?
Many people ask the question, “Why did the U.S. even care about the Vietnam conflict, let alone fight a war there?” One Reason for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict was that the U.S. feared the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory is where if one state falls to communism, then all the other states around it will fall into communism too. Because the U.S. feared this, they responded with containment. Containment means to keep communism from spreading to other countries. Another reason for U.S. involvement is imperialism, which was left over from WWI and WWII.
Another reason to why America is to blame is after the success of the atomic bomb the members of the Grand Alliance began to see changes in Truman’s behaviour as he started to control the meetings they had and Stalin refused to be bossed around so arguments between Stalin and Truman started, they started. The USSR is to blame for the breakdown of the Grand Alliance for many reasons. One reason is that the USSR wanted to impose big respirations on Germany but America and Great Britain refused as they knew how it would affect Germany and could cause another war. A second reason is that Stalin wanted most of Europe to become communist, Roosevelt and Churchill didn’t agree. After Truman became Americas new President there was a lot of tension at the Potsdam Conference.
Tensions between China and Russia had long existed. In fact, the period of close relations between 1949 and 1956 are better seen as an exceptional interlude in a much longer historical pattern if mutual hostility. However tensions arose between the two communists’ powers in the late 1960s not due to just ideological differences, but also to national interest and the role of personality, as all three played an important role to the deterrence of the Sino-soviet relations. The Sino-soviet split in the late 1960s was the result of ideological differences between the two communists’ powers due to the fact that both superpowers had different opinions on the best way to peruse communist revolution. Khrushchev’s post Stalin policies began to irritate Mao; disagreeing when Khrushchev denounced Stalin in his speech to the twentieth congress 1956 and when he restored relations with Tito the Yugoslavia leader who also denounced Stalin.
American strategy remained torn between simply containing Communism or rolling it back by actively supporting the Soviet Union’s opponents. For historians of the Cold War, the great debate has been between traditionalists who tend to see the United States as the defensive power in the Cold War (and the Soviet Union as the aggressor) and revisionist historians who tend to see the United States and the Soviet Union as equally aggressive and equally at fault. Revisionists (those critical of American foreign policy) are usually accused of forgetting the ‘lessons of Munich’. It is argued that World War Two arose partly because too many historians thought Germany was unjustly treated after World War One by the Treaty of
Ideological concern shaped the development of Cold War because the two Superpowers’ ideology was the total opposite sides of the coins. Each of their policies such as economic and domestic policies contradicts each other, added with the bipolar assumption and zero-sum perception of the world; it seemed to them that it would be impossible for the two superpowers to coexist together. USA had a misperception about USSR that they practice the monolithic expansionistic ideology, thus stating that every country that were to turn or had a communist revolution must have started off by the incentive of the USSR. One very famous and obvious example is the Greece Crisis, where USSR was not involved at all but was accused to giving aid to the communists in Greece. Another distinct event where their difference in ideology was clearly shown was during the Yalta Conference where the party declined strictly to have their say accepted about the liberal of the Eastern Europe.
However, China's revolution differed because the initial democratic establishment led to opposition from the Communist party while the formation of the U.S.S.R faced minimal opposition. In China, the Qing dynasty was ineffective, instead of trying to modernized as early as possible, it squandered what remained of its wealth and in doing so led to heavy losses in influence and power. Similarly, in Russia, The Tsars became ineffective, the decision to enter World War I had brought Russia to its knees socially, politically and economically. The Tsars also faced many scandals that would deface their influence in Russian cities. It was due to these reasons that both China and Russia were seeking to replace the government in power with new ones that would appeal to the population's demands.
Essay comparing essay (Mao and Gandhi) Both Mao and Gandhi were the key leaders in each of their countries, China and India. The means they adopted in order to alter each of their government’s regimes, which are rotten to the core, was totally different, even though they desired to occur quite similar things. The attempts they tried to carry out were various, such as economical, social and political reason. As following evidence shows. Firstly, in order to acquire the power economically, Gandhi utilized a spinning wheel and the traditional clothes of India to address their citizens not to purchase western clothes, which greatly contributes to Britain economy.
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. During World War II, Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill delayed their decision to open a second front, which would have distracted the Nazis and taken pressure off the Red Army entrenched at Stalingrad. Stalin resented this delay, just as he resented the fact that the United States and Great Britain refused to share their nuclear weapons research with the Soviet Union. After the war, Truman’s decision to give Great Britain relief loans while denying similar requests from the USSR only added to the resentment. Another major factor contributing to the Cold War was the fact that the United States and USSR were the only two powers to escape World War II relatively unharmed.
The industry and agriculture sectors were severely damaged, governments were in disarray, there were supply shortages and a split had emerged between the Great Powers. The USA and Great Britain were on one side, the USSR on the other. These two camps followed different political ideologies. The Americans and the British believed in democracy, while the Soviets heeded the call of communism. Both sides wished to spread their ideologies around the world.