The Cold War lead too many of today’s most spoke of history. Anticommunism and McCarthyism is known worldwide and has had much to do with how the government and people where afraid of speaking out against McCarthy. When reading this essay the difference between anticommunism and McCarthyism was told and also how the media covered the controversy. The American foreign policy is how decisions and determine are made by anticommunism and how the Red Scare changed people life’s
The responsibility of the origins of the Cold War often triggers questions among historians yet both powers should be blamed for taking part in it and how the fear from unpaid reparations from Russia, Stalin’s fear of the nuclear weapon and Stalin’s fear of the Truman Doctrine. Through most analyses, the fault was often given to Stalin’s ambitions to expand communism in Europe, a conventional idea of the Orthodox school. Other historians revised this idea therefore blame the United States’ actions for the origins of the Cold War, which were analyses of the Revisionists. Though Later, the Post-Revisionist school was adopted; its goal was not to blame any side but focused on examining “what” caused the start of it. Even though, both sides have claimed responsibility for their actions, Stalin’s intentions should be seen as defense actions from the West therefore, the United States is mostly responsible for the start of the Cold War.
Historians such as Hobsbawn argue this, and believe that the traditional great power rivalry was fundamental to the start of the Cold War. Many different historians argue different points as to why the war began, McMahon argues that the difference between the Capitalist West and the Communist East was the fundamental reason for the beginning of the Cold War, the difference in ideology has been rife for many years leading up to the Cold War. Oppositely, Gaddis believes that the personality of the leaders, in particular Stalin had a main role and where he is concerned, all other leaders could have been removed, leaving only Stalin and the Cold War still would of started. I believe that the difference in Ideologies played a key, dominant role in the development of the Cold War, however I do appreciate that power rivalry and also leader personalities had a role. Firstly, Hobsbawn immediately dismisses the fact that ideology played a role in the development of the Cold War, he says ‘Confrontation would probably have developed even without ideology.’ Hobsbawn then goes onto say that after Kennan came up with his policy of Containment, the USA saw themselves as the only ‘rival power to Russia’ and that they would have to ‘contain its pressure by uncompromising resistance, even If Russia had not been communist’.
Their relations were worsen during Potsdam conference. Truman were the new USA president, he is very different from Roosevelt, he was much more anti-communist and suspicious of Stalin, he saw USSR's action in Eastern Europe a preparation of taking over the rest of the world. In Potsdam conference, USSR and USA had disagreement on the future of Germany, USSR want to impose heavy reparation on Germany as fear a strong Germany would post a threat to USSR in future, however USA want Germany to rebuild as Truman did not want to repeat the mistake in Treaty of Versailles again. Stalin was determined to protect USSR interest, so he was dissatisfied as the part of Germany he was controlling was pooper and less industry. Stalin was also obsessed with the security of USSR so the successful test of atomic bomb in USA
Mao was seen as an instrument of the Soviet Union’s bid to spread worldwide revolution. However, by 1958 relationships between the USSR and China began to deteriorate. One of the most dangerous points of tension during the whole of the cold war was the Taiwan Strait Crisis which occurred in both 1954-55 and 1958 between the USSR and China. The first Taiwan Strait Crisis ended when the Guomindang abandoned the Taschen Islands to the communists but held onto Quemoy and Matsu and at the same time the CCP took a more moderate line and negotiations was started. However, tension came to the
1984 is a dystopia, and a warning against many things which are satirised in its pages. The most obvious target is totalitarianism. There are obvious references to Soviet Communism (Big Brother even looks like Stalin! ), but naturally the totalitarian nature of Ingsoc is an exaggerated version. The surveillance devices are impossibly thorough given the technology Orwell shows in the book and the impossibility of keeping track of everyone—but they certainly convey the sense of fear and oppression, and the lack of privacy, which such totalitarianism would impose.
Prompt: American essayist and social critic H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote, “The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” In a well-written essay, examine the extent to which Mencken’s observation applies to contemporary society, supporting your position with appropriate evidence. In George Orwell’s 1984, Orwell writes of a society where the citizens are on government surveillance twenty four seven, having endless war with constantly changing enemies and forced to watch television that broadcast government propagandas. Many of us who have read or know the plot of the book either feared for our lives or laughed about it, thinking and hoping that this will never happen to us.
1984 Chapter 1 Mood Paragraph In the first chapter of the novel of 1984 by George Orwell, the overall mood developed is depressing. The mood is developed through society in 1984 being constantly under surveillance, through the slogans of the Party, and through the description of the setting. Firstly, the feeling of being always watched leads to the reader to feel depressed. The feeling of being watched is evident in the novel when Winston Smith says, “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment”(Orwell 4). The condition of depression is usually diagnosed when a person is unable to fully express him or herself.
One example of an author’s forewarning of the future occurs in George Orwell’s 1984, which cautions the world of the dangers of a totalitarian government. In Orwell’s negative utopia, the Party, the entity of absolute power, controls its people to the point of arresting them for simply having a rebellious thought. The Party also has three slogans that are displayed in numerous places for all to view. These
Explain how Stalin dealt with opposition to his rule in the USSR in the 1930s [8] By many, Stalin’s leadership was regarded as controversial and so his rule over the USSR in the 1930s was opposed numerous times; however, Stalin dealt with these attacks to his position as leader of Russia using many different tactics. There are three main ways in which Stalin dealt with opposition to his rule: * Terror: Stalin’s police state and the purges * Propaganda * Censorship Traditional reasons for the purges being introduced include the killing of Sergei Kinov, Stalin’s paranoia, Stalin’s precarious leadership situation in 1934 and the 5 year plans so there is a very good chance that they were introduced to deal with opposition to his rule. The great show trials of 1936 are a poignant example of this, the first stage involved the “cleaning out” of the top communists such as Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1936 and Bukhari, Rykov and Yagoda in 1938. This meant that any top members of the party who could all have easily been potential candidates to overthrow Stalin and take control of the USSR were outlawed and eventually killed, removing all threat. However, Stalin took things a step further by introducing the second stage, the cleaning out of all senior party members in 1937 to ensure that his opinion could not be challenged in any way.