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.
He charged that there were 205 communist spies in the state department who were selling out the United States. McCarthy warned that there were communist traitors in American government and society that were threatening to destroy the United States. He declared: "When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within." McCarthy called for a "moral uprising" of Americans to drive these dangerous communists out of government and society. He also declared that the United States had lost ground in the world not as a result of foreign aggression, but “because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this nation.” The corporate-controlled news media also shared the blame for McCarthy's ability to disseminate "great lies."
However, you shouldn't make the assumption that devotion to ideology was all that was behind Cold War animosity; countries tend to be more complaint trading partners with countries that share their political systems and both Stalin and the Cold War Era presidents in the US knew this. The tension eventually built, but no one wanted to go to actual war again after the colossal massacre of WWII, hence the term Cold War. 2. Describe and explain the ideological differences between the United Stated and the Soviet Union. In 1917, Russia became a communist country with an agenda of converting the world to communism.
Fear of the other country laying influence of their ideology, as a means to gain power, tensions rose. These tensions were fueled by the truman doctrine, which requested 400 million from congress to help combat communism in greece and turkey. The purpose of the Truman doctrine was to provide American economic and military assistance to any nation threatened by communism. The US feared the encroaching soviet strength, which perpetually launched them into an arms race with the U.S.S.R. The Soviets broke the US nuclear monopoly, and that struck fear into all americans, there is now someone just as dangerous as you are.
After the second world war, the Soviet Union occupied several countries in eastern Europe by not allowing them to have free elections. By doing that they created a buffer zone in order to protect their ideology. The government of America saw it as a violation of their pledge and the possible spread of the disliked ideology all over the world. This motivated the States to put their energy into an arms race and to be ready for a Soviet invasion, which actually never happened because this might not even have been the goal of the Soviet Union. In his work, Fleming explained that if the Soviets wanted to attack the united states of America they had done it because they had all the necessary equipment but at that period the nation was more interested in its inner politics than conquering the world.
So for example if the allies in the west did not promise to rebuild Germany and try to stop every country from becoming communist when they threatened to even if it through fair vote (rare as it was). It can be argued that the cold war was an avoidable one. Firstly the Russians were very aggressive in creating a buffer zone and in fact created communist states practically all over Eastern Europe and made much more than a buffer zone and Stalin was at the heart of all these communist political movements and was trying to spread his influence to even Italy and France. This worried the west very much because they thought their very freedom was being threatened but more importantly the more states that became communist the less ttade there was. The west needed trade partners in the east and they couldn’t trade with communist states.
This patronage was important because of the threat from political extremists; the government needed a strong army of support that could withstand the persuasions of the extreme left and right winged groups, the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the British Union of Fascists (BUF). In European counties such as Russia and Germany they had succumbed to fascism and communism. It could be argued that this takeover of political extremism in both countries was due to the weaknesses in foreign government. After Russia’s 1916 revolution they were left in a vulnerable position without a government meaning they were more susceptible to influences of a communist party who took advantage of the country’s instability therefore the country became communist. Similarly in Germany the economic depression and the downfall of the Weimar Republic left their country in a state of vulnerability that was taken advantage of by the fascist party.
Later that year in Potsdam, many open disagreements took place because Germany had lost the war so Russia had promised to fulfil, Churchill had lost the 1945 election and Roosevelt died so Truman, who replaced him was angered by the large scale reparations imposed on Germany and the setting up of a communist government in Poland. He did not trust Russia, so kept him in the dark about him having the atomic bomb in 1945 before he dropped it on Japan to get them to surrender. By America using the atomic bomb, Stalin knew that it was possible for it to be used against them. Russia was therefore tricked by America preventing the Red Army from going to Japan. This threatened Russia and warned them that America was wary of them and could act on it.
Due to the Depression making people want a drastic change in political party in ower there was an increase in communist support and as a result an increase in Nazi support because people were scared of communism and the Nazi's promised to deal with them. The depression was taken advantage of by Nazi propaganda and they convinced a lot of people that electing Hitler would solve their problems. This means that the Depression was the most important factor in the election of Hitler because with out it then nobody would want to change the current party in power because before the depression then German was extremely prosperous. Therefore, the Depression was the most important factor that lead to the election of Hitler. It could be argued that the Hitler attributes was the most important reason for why Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933.
To what extent was security the prime motivation in Russian Foreign Policy between 1917 and 1939. In the very early years of Soviet Foreign Policy, security was very much the prime motivation in the form of withdrawing from the First World War, the Civil War and the threat to revolution. In 1919, Lenin set up an organisation called the Comintern to facilitate contacts between communist groups throughout the world after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. This was somewhat an aggressive tactic due to the fact they wanted Communism to unite and destroy Capitalism. The Bolsheviks wanted originally, world wide revolution but the countries in the West were cautious of Communism and therefore the Bolsheviks felt that survival of the regime was more important, they hoped that the West would collapse.