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.
The main effect was to crystallise Truman's desire to take a very hard line, anti-communism approach to the Soviet Union and for Stalin it symbolised an increase in opposition to the USSR. The speech effectively signalled the end of the alliance between America and the Soviet Union and described the establishment of a Soviet sphere of influence. The impact of this was initially negative because during WW2 American propaganda showed the Soviet Union as a faithful ally working alongside America to defeat the Nazi regime so the speech was met with hostility from American citizens. Writing in the book The Cold War, John Gaddis comments that “most Americans had had enough of war and were not in the mood to maintain their armed forces”. This shows a reluctance to fight another war – a reluctance that would have undoubtedly been heightened by Churchill’s speech which looked to provoke hostilities.
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 United States and the Soviet Union had the most powerful military forces. The Cold War got its name because neither the United States nor the Soviet Union wanted to openly fight each other and they were afraid of each other’s power. Communism came to the Soviet Union in 1918. The United States didn’t trust the communist. Communism’s goal was to bring down capitalism in any way possible.
Much of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was linked to the end of World War II and the negotiations for settlement that followed. During the war, the Soviets believed that Britain and the United States had intentionally delayed a second front against Germany. They suspected that their so-called “allies” had decided to let the Soviets bear most of the burden of the war, but intervened towards the end to influence peace settlements. These misconceptions left feelings of tension and hostility between the two superpowers. Both the Soviet Union and the United States had very different ideas of how to establish postwar security.
Once that enemy was near defeat, disagreements began to emerge. The West and the Soviet Union were never really `friends'. Towards the end of the war, relations between the West and the Soviet Union deteriorated so drastically that they were unable to cooperate in any way. The second factor is that the West was capitalist and democratic, whereas the USSR was communist and a one-party state. In a democratic system, different political parties are allowed and free elections are held so that the people can vote for their government whereas in a communist state, other parties are
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.
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.
Why did the cold war start? The cold war is the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union over ideologies, through other countries, without direct armed conflicts, which was first used by a English author and journalist called George Orwell at the end of The World War II. This essay is going to focus on main reasons for the beginning of the cold war. One major cause of the cold war was a distrust of the Soviets by the United States and the same distrust of the United States from the Soviet Union. Though the need to defeat the Germans had made USSR a partner in the Allied forces from 1941 onwards, Stalin had displayed the tendency that he wanted to dominate the world, and he used dictatorial powers and military powers towards people of his own country as well as others.
Primary Causes Of The Cold War The conflict between the US and the formerly known USSR occurred because of several political conflicts. Both the US and the U.S.S.R. felt that their ideology was better and because of World War 2, pre-existing strife had built up. The major ideological difference was that the U.S.S.R. was supporting communism, whilst the US was supporting capitalism. With the actions of the soviet union, helping to liberate the defeated countries, it was understood that the liberators may stay and help them install their form of government and leave. Fear of the other country laying influence of their ideology, as a means to gain power, tensions rose.