Responsible For The Cold War
To What extent can USA and USSR be blamed for the start of the Cold War?
After World War II, a new world order was created as USSR and USA emerged as the two superpowers. There were already existing tensions between these two before the war and the wartime alliance was more out of the need to destroy the common enemy, Germany, rather than out of mutual agreements between these two.
It has been argued that the cold war was caused mostly by the USSR because of their Marxism- Leninism ideology and their leader Stalin. To a large extent according to the Orthodox historians, Marxism- Leninism was responsible for the Cold War as it was an expansionist, aggressive ideology. They expanded under the aim to ‘liberate masses’ from capitalism. This …show more content…
The Revisionist historians also have placed the blame for the Cold War on USA. The USA did not realize how devastated USSR was from World War II. About 20 million people had been killed, 1,700 cities were destroyed and about 700,000 villages were in ruins. The USSR’s control of Eastern Europe was mainly because she felt insecure because of her status. However, USA had emerged more economically powerful as she had experienced a wartime boom. The USA knew her economic power and thus used it to finance all her plans. This economic boom she experienced lead to the need to trade to maintain her status. Revisionists argue that the USA was responsible for the Cold War in the fact that she wanted to spread the policy of democracy. The USA wanted to create a form of ‘dollar imperialism’. Some historians argue that with this new form of imperialism, there was no need to politically take over the country. This can be identified in the Truman doctrine. The USA wanted to contain communism, that is, to stop it from spreading throughout the world. However, this was a very important policy, the ‘policy of containment’, as it marked the official beginning of the Cold War for many. After Churchill’s famous speech, ‘The Iron Curtain Speech’, he indicated the need of an Anglo-American alliance to put a stop to the communists. This was rather significant as it created quite some suspicion in the USSR. Stalin even recognized ‘The Iron Curtain Speech’ as a declaration of war and he replied to this speech by indicating that Mr. Churchill believed that only English speaking nations had the power to control the world. Revisionists argued that this actually caused Stalin to start formally annexing Eastern
After World War II, a new world order was created as USSR and USA emerged as the two superpowers. There were already existing tensions between these two before the war and the wartime alliance was more out of the need to destroy the common enemy, Germany, rather than out of mutual agreements between these two.
It has been argued that the cold war was caused mostly by the USSR because of their Marxism- Leninism ideology and their leader Stalin. To a large extent according to the Orthodox historians, Marxism- Leninism was responsible for the Cold War as it was an expansionist, aggressive ideology. They expanded under the aim to ‘liberate masses’ from capitalism. This …show more content…
The Revisionist historians also have placed the blame for the Cold War on USA. The USA did not realize how devastated USSR was from World War II. About 20 million people had been killed, 1,700 cities were destroyed and about 700,000 villages were in ruins. The USSR’s control of Eastern Europe was mainly because she felt insecure because of her status. However, USA had emerged more economically powerful as she had experienced a wartime boom. The USA knew her economic power and thus used it to finance all her plans. This economic boom she experienced lead to the need to trade to maintain her status. Revisionists argue that the USA was responsible for the Cold War in the fact that she wanted to spread the policy of democracy. The USA wanted to create a form of ‘dollar imperialism’. Some historians argue that with this new form of imperialism, there was no need to politically take over the country. This can be identified in the Truman doctrine. The USA wanted to contain communism, that is, to stop it from spreading throughout the world. However, this was a very important policy, the ‘policy of containment’, as it marked the official beginning of the Cold War for many. After Churchill’s famous speech, ‘The Iron Curtain Speech’, he indicated the need of an Anglo-American alliance to put a stop to the communists. This was rather significant as it created quite some suspicion in the USSR. Stalin even recognized ‘The Iron Curtain Speech’ as a declaration of war and he replied to this speech by indicating that Mr. Churchill believed that only English speaking nations had the power to control the world. Revisionists argued that this actually caused Stalin to start formally annexing Eastern