Could The Cold War Have Been Avoided Essay
Could the Cold War have been avoided? Discuss with reference to the key schools of thought on the origins of the Cold War.
The cold war is the product of confrontation between US and USSR, reflected by conflicts of interests in political, ideological, military sphere and so on (Baylis et al. 2010, p51), and it lasted nearly half century and ended up with dissolution of Soviet Union. There are so many debates about its origin and some people argue that cold war might be avoided. However this essay will indicate that cold war is inevitable with discussion of orthodox view, revisionist view of origins of cold ward and focus on the third view—post revisionist.
Orthodox or the traditional view refers to that Soviet Union aggressive expansion …show more content…
According to Gaddis (2005), historians underestimated the clash of ideology which played an essential role in cold war. After October 1917, a new ideology—Marxism and Leninism was born with Russian revolution. Marxist-Leninists believed that history was contradictions of classes, and capitalism was exploitation of working class. But eventually with the consciousness of working class, the revolution would rise up and bring capitalism to its end. Therefore, this ideology was rivalry to US capitalism in the nature and seemed to be a threat to liberal democracies in the West. (Bastian, 2003) Although the ideological rivalry became less important in the 1920s and 1930s because Soviet Union and US were dealing with Fascism, the rivalry increased dramatically by 1945. For instance, in 1946 George Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram” suggested that Soviet’s ideology was greatly hostile to US interests and had to be contained. Furthermore, Whelan’s article (2011) indicated that the fear, paranoia and propaganda created by ideologically conflicts made it very difficult to see points of view from opposing side, which almost left no room for communication and negotiation to stop arm race. He directly suggested that cold war was inevitable because “the Cold war had already commenced in October 1917 the start of the Russian
The cold war is the product of confrontation between US and USSR, reflected by conflicts of interests in political, ideological, military sphere and so on (Baylis et al. 2010, p51), and it lasted nearly half century and ended up with dissolution of Soviet Union. There are so many debates about its origin and some people argue that cold war might be avoided. However this essay will indicate that cold war is inevitable with discussion of orthodox view, revisionist view of origins of cold ward and focus on the third view—post revisionist.
Orthodox or the traditional view refers to that Soviet Union aggressive expansion …show more content…
According to Gaddis (2005), historians underestimated the clash of ideology which played an essential role in cold war. After October 1917, a new ideology—Marxism and Leninism was born with Russian revolution. Marxist-Leninists believed that history was contradictions of classes, and capitalism was exploitation of working class. But eventually with the consciousness of working class, the revolution would rise up and bring capitalism to its end. Therefore, this ideology was rivalry to US capitalism in the nature and seemed to be a threat to liberal democracies in the West. (Bastian, 2003) Although the ideological rivalry became less important in the 1920s and 1930s because Soviet Union and US were dealing with Fascism, the rivalry increased dramatically by 1945. For instance, in 1946 George Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram” suggested that Soviet’s ideology was greatly hostile to US interests and had to be contained. Furthermore, Whelan’s article (2011) indicated that the fear, paranoia and propaganda created by ideologically conflicts made it very difficult to see points of view from opposing side, which almost left no room for communication and negotiation to stop arm race. He directly suggested that cold war was inevitable because “the Cold war had already commenced in October 1917 the start of the Russian