As he abandoned the party’s monopoly on political power and machinery controls, the Moscow leadership declined and harsh regulations were de-imposed. Now there was no means to prevent disintegration. 36. Why was the independence of Russia significant to the disintegration of the USSR? Russia was the largest and most powerful of the Soviet Republics.
Analysis of the Essays There are those who blame the United States, those that blame the Soviet Union, and there are the post revisionists, who take no side. In analyzing these two essays, we see the two opposing opinions quite clearly (there is no essay in this chapter supporting the post revisionists). In the first essay, “Truman’s Hard Line Prompted the Cold War” by Walter Lafeber, the United States is put at fault for instigating the war. Lafeber gives numerous reasons, examples and evidence to strengthen his argument, and among them are: Truman’s hunger for power, his stubbornness to show himself as ‘tough’, and several economic and political reasons as well. Lafaber uses phrases such as “highly insecure” and “tried to compensate for his insecurity” to paint a negative image of Truman.
When Reagan became President he had only one well-defined foreign policy goal: containing the Soviet Union or the "evil empire" as he once referred to it (Reagan 1983). He primarily wanted to stop the USSR from growing larger and to keep other non-Communist countries from becoming Communist. He disliked the decade-long Détente begun by President Nixon and continued by President Ford. Détente is defined as a relaxation of strained relations or tensions between nations, in this case the two nations being the United States and the Soviet Union. Reagan firmly believed that the USSR was using Détente and the SALT talks to take advantage of the United States.
announced intent to treat with East Berlin, regardless of any third party occupation rights in either sector of the city. A depressed and angry president then assumed his obligation was to prepare the country for nuclear war as the only option, and which he then personally thought had a one in five chance of occurring. In the weeks immediately after the Vienna summit, more than 20 thousand people fled from East Berlin to the western sector in reaction to statements from the U.S.S.R. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup with NATO allies as the appropriate response. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion to the defense budget, along with over 200 thousand additional troops for the military, saying an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating.
A quote from Ronald Reagan with a conversation with Richard V. Allen says “My idea of the American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic.” “It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of that?” In his first term as president, both he and Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, put down the Soviet Unions ideas and political thoughts. Other bold statements he has made of the Soviet Union is, “The Soviet Union is an evil empire and communism will soon be but an ash heap of history.” These
Isolationism , the made idea in the early 1920’s was changed after the course of World War 2, and urge to engage in world affairs made America the leading power in the world. America was beginning to get through World War 1 and trying to establish better relations with world powers but their differences led America into changing its foreign policies politically. Although most of the countries joined the League of Nations, America had from the start opposed it. As president Harding says in a speech at Des Moines, Iowa on October 1920 that he completely opposes America Joining the League because it is against the constitution and what Americans had fought for. Isolationism is still the idea in Washington.
Two years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union buckled. The Communist party was broken because the Russian Republic hindered to eject Gorbachev from office. In December 1991, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) included Russian Republics. “The Russian Republic assumed leadership of the CIS, but the Soviet Union was no more.” The Cold War was a long drawn out battle between Democracy and Communism. The United States believed that a country should have the ability to choose its government; not be feared of it.
The Truman Doctrine’s Influence on the Cold War Harry Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. The U.S. and Russia were allies during World War II. They had undividedly diverse government systems, the authority- craving Stalin (Russia’s leader) and the anti- isolationist Truman, which caused hostility between Russian and the United States. The disparity in patriotic concepts revealed by Stalin and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would instigate the route to the Cold War. The tactics exercised by the U.S. and Great Britain were created to impede the Soviet Union’s endeavor to explicate pushover communist governments over subverted nations, with this approach Truman exposed his doctrine which pursued a responsibility in determining U.S. relevance’s.
Essay; American Involvement in the Vietnam War Initially, the Vietnam War was in essence was a civil war with contesting rival ideologies, Communist North and Capitalist South.1 The Geneva Conference of 1954 brought the small-scale conflict of differing ideologies into the international arena. 5 As the superpowers, Russia and America were seeking to avoid direct confrontation, the opportunity to oppose the antagonistic ideals had arisen, both United Soviet Socialist Republic and the USA assisted the governments sympathetic to their own.2 As historian, H.R Cowie succinctly commentated “the rival claims of the two Vietnamese governments rapidly became entangled in Cold War animosities.” 1 The Vietnam War became a playing field for Cold War conflict when America became involved, increasing the need for communist superpowers to oppose them in the area and spread their influence by
Stalin was worried by the idea of a successful anti-communist government in the west of Germany. Stalin who now wanted to think of a plan to stop the success of the US decided to block off the area of West Berlin. However this threat to Stalin was even harsher due to the Truman Doctrine and containment. Due to the high pressure that the US held over the Soviet Union the idea of success for the US penetrated throughout the whole of the Soviet Union and Russia. Outraged by Western plans to create an independent West Germany, Soviet forces imposed a blockade cutting off rail, highway, and water traffic between West Germany and West Berlin.