The Soviet Union was structured to the tastes of the leader at the helm, and so served his interests. The policies in place served not to improve the economic, social or economic fortunes of the entire nation but to concur with the ideological leanings of the leader in office. So was the case with communism. Despite this production model failing utterly to satisfy the basic demands of the ordinary Soviet citizen, it remained in place. They thought a departure from this model would signify a Soviet surrender to the Capitalist West in the ideological war.
1. Explain the origins of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were uneasy allies; their collaboration was really the result of a mutual fear that the Nazis would gain control over Europe, not based on any ideological commonality. Because of this, after the war was over and the restructuring of Europe began, a power struggle developed between the Soviet Union (who wanted Germany to be Communist) and the United States and Britain (who wanted democratic rule.) 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.
A Cold War was not fundamentally necessary if the USA was to become a global superpower, it was merely a by-product of the USA’s actions in order to establish global supremacy. When the USA put forward the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, they knew it would create some sort of division between East and West because the West would accept American loans whereas the communist states in the east would be forced by Stalin to decline American loans and therefore create a barrier between the two sides of Europe. What the Americans did not intend to do was create war with the USSR, their actions were merely for economic gain, whereas the USSR saw the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine as purely aggressive and a threat towards communism, hence the start of the Cold War. Furthermore, by expanding it’s economic influence in Eastern Europe, the USA would also gain military power. This would further enhance the policy of containment and would help to prevent the spread of communism into the west.
While the more sophisticated of the US advisers realised that the domino theory was too simplistic in an increasingly non-linear world, split not just by ideology but also historically through ethnic and nationalist conflict, this didn't mean that the USSR and China would exploit any weakness shown by the USA. Cold War Considerations: Western Europe and the USSR De Gaulle's France was challenging US leadership in both Vietnam and Europe. Anti-American riots tore through Panama which was merely the most obvious show of increasing hostility to the USA in the western hemisphere. There were fears that one of the two Communist superpowers might be tempted to use this, forcing the USA to get involved in other local conflicts against their will. Vietnam and the survival of the South were considered a central part of the maintenance of a stable world order, and LBJ in particular said that if Chinese aggression could be contained in South East Asia then it would “give the pole on
The blame for the Cold War cannot be placed on one person -- it developed as a series of chain reactions as a struggle for power. It can be argued that the Cold War was inevitable, and therefore no one's fault, due to the differences in the capitalist and communist ideologies. It was only the need for protection that had caused the two countries to sink their differences temporarily during the Second World War. Yet many of the tensions that existed in the Cold War can be attributed to Stalin's policy of Soviet expansion. Stalin's foreign policies contributed an enormous amount to the tensions of the Cold War.
During the World War II United States and the Soviet Union allied and united forces to fight against Germany. This alliance was working well, but when problems and conflicts started to appear everything started to fall apart. This alliance started to collapse because during the war the Soviet Union was more affected, talking about economically and social issues than the United States; also, since conflicts were caused because they started to pursue opposite goals, like: The U.S didn’t want and was trying to prevent that communism govern in other countries, while the Soviet Union was encouraging this social movement, the U.S wanted to reunite Germany, however the Soviet Union wanted to keep it divided, the United States had the goal to rebuild European government in order to give stability and crate new markets for American goods, while the Soviet Union wanted to control the Eastern Europe and to balance United States power on Western Europe, in order to protect their borders; because of this their relationship started to become tense and they started to have encounters.
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. Seeing the Soviet Union as its biggest threat and being afraid of the “Domino” effect, the American government decided to take actions by supporting the rebels in Latin America and countries that were gaining their independence in a hope that these societies will adopt the capitalist ideology. The decisions that the USA made where not always elaborated and in some cases they did more harm than good. Isolating the U.S.S.R from the world politics was
The policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ focused on the idea of existing peacefully with capitalist states and was adopted by the communist countries. It aimed to exist peacefully with the West rather than conforming to the belief that communism and capitalism could not work and exist together and that one would need to be overthrown. Peaceful coexistence was accepted by most communist states although rejected by Chairman Mao who believed that the East should still adopt a hard line approach to capitalism. Peaceful Coexistence came about as the result of the change in leadership in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death as Khrushchev came in to power and the policy came into effect at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 and was a reaction to the tensions between the US and USSR. As the development of nuclear weapons became more prominent and the arms race came about, the threat of nuclear war became a possibility which neither of the superpowers wanted.
On the face of it, peaceful coexistence did ease Cold War tensions as it began to see more direct negotiations between the US and the USSR. But it is far too simple to see this as the whole truth, as not only were there other important factors the contributed to the “thaw” that took place, but there was also an underlying tension between the two powers which was rooted in the “mutually assured destruction” that came when both sides had developed fully functioning nuclear weapons. Peaceful coexistence clearly had an effect on the diplomatic relationship between the USSR and the USA. Although many of these negotiations did not achieve much in terms of the two sides agreeing on a certain action, there was a clear show of easing of tensions as both sides were willing to negotiate and engage in face to face diplomacy. A clear example of this was the Geneva conference in 1954 and the subsequent Geneva summit in 1955.
This was against the treaty of Versailles meaning he had abolished a term of the treaty bringing Hitler closer to achieving his aim of abolishing the whole treaty. Overall this was important for Hitler moving closer towards his aims because it broke up other countries trust with each other meaning it was easier for Hitler to complete his other aims as the countries didn’t have the same power against him. Also it was an important reason because Britain thought that when Germany signed the agreement they were showing peace so the countries would trust Germany so would be less harsh about the treaty meaning it would be easier for Hitler to fully complete the aim of abolishing the treaty. Another one of Hitler’s aims was to expand their territory as the treaty of Versailles meant many territorial