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.
The workers of the world had to be “liberated” from bourgeois exploitation. As the principle communist nation of the world, Russia had a duty to spread the revolution begun in 1919 to the rest of Europe. The view of many Marxist scholars was that the proletariat had been brainwashed by the rich, and thus were not capable of instigating a workers’ revolution themselves – therefore Communism had to be introduced by force. Stalin realised that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a rare opportunity for Russia to act as this vanguard. Perhaps less importantly, though still a significant point in the domination of Eastern Europe, was the desire of Stalin to
How did Stalin's dictatorship develop? Stalin made his way into becoming dictator by a series of manipulative and clever tactics he would use to aid his influence. After Lenin and his party took over the election of the Provisional government which had been elected after the fall of the tsarist regime through a series of well-aimed political hits and armed threats; Stalin ascended the ranks of the government through extensive manipulation and threats as well as gaining the strong loyalty of some socialist idealists. In 1922 Stalin received the majority vote to become the General Secretary of the Communist party; a role that really no one else in the party really wanted as they deemed it unimportant and much like “House-chores”. What the other members of the soviet party such as Trotsky did not realize however; was that Stalin would use the position to gain a mass of followers for his socialist ideals and would use it as a stepping stone to achieve greater political influence and manipulate his way even further in the ranks.
The transition from the old Russia to a truly communist state would require industrialization on a massive scale. According to Marxist theory, only through a modern industrialized economy could a true proletariat class be developed as Marx makes no mention of a peasant class. Marxist theory aside, the need to industrialize was also a pragmatic matter of self-defense. Stalin, either as a result of paranoia or a simple distrust of the capitalist West, assumed his country would have to fight for its survival. He presented the need to industrialize as a life or death struggle.
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.
Truman in the late 1940s, started to introduce doctrines that moved for the “containment” of communist expansion and influence in Europe. There was also the fear of an internal communist threat that spurred the creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The HUAC held public investigations and tried to uncover communist toleration and subversion. One notorious investigation was against Alger Hiss, who was accused of passing classified documents to the Soviet Union in 1937 and 1938. In 1950 the McCarran Internal Security Act passed and required communist organizations to publish their records, and register with the government.
When the Cold War began, many countries started to immediately take sides, either with the Soviets, or with the U.S. Even though it started in Europe and Asia, the Cold War eventually reached Latin America. In 1975, right-wing dictatorships of Latin America, (mainly Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia), joined forces in a campaign to eradicate communist ideas, and Soviet influence. They were Technically and militarily supported by the U.S until 1978. Of course, even though the U.S was supporting dictators, it was far more important to stop the evil Communists!
By the outbreak of world war in 1939 Stalin had fully established a dictatorship in Russia. For this to be a totalitarian regime it needed several things.This included control over over the economy, political and social aspect of life. Stalin, although he does face fair oppositions, seems to have full control over all areas, with little room for diversity. In the case of economy we see a shift from a society largely based on agriculture to a society mainly based on industry. One of the main aims of the communist regime was to industrialise the country, they wanted to change Russia from a ‘backward peasant-based country’ to a modern more industry based society.
How far was the Communist dictatorship under Lenin different from the Tsarist autocracy in the reign of Alexander the III ? By 1922, Vladimir Lenin's plan to create a Communist revolution based on his own interpretation of Marxism had succeeded through the bloody civil war of 1918-1921, and Russia was firmly in his grasp. However, historians have looked back at this new totalitarian state of the USSR, and drawn a number of similarities between Lenin's dictatorship and the autocratic rule of Tsar Alexander III. In this essay, I will look at how far the rule of the two differs and are similar, and come to a conclusion based on this if Lenin's rule really was the revolution against oppression he claimed it to be, or whether he was simply a “Red Tsar” in disguise. One way in which the Communist dictatorship of Lenin and the Tsarist autocracy in the reign of Alexander the III were similar was in the respect of governmental power.
When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in October 1917, communism came to the fore as an issue in international relations. In January 1918 Woodrow Wilson issued his “Fourteen Points”. Although the Fourteen Points were a list of specific aims, they also presented the U.S. ideological framework for international relations. The Fourteen Points promoted the principles of self-determination, open markets and collective security. Self-determination was a criticism of European imperialism but also an attack on the seizure of power by small armed groups like the Bolsheviks.