Monday, March 3, 2014
The US and the USSR: Unease Before the Cold War
Long before the Cold War began, there was tension between the US and the USSR. Even before World War II, the two countries did not get along very well, and that was made more prominent during the war. When Russia initially made the nonaggression pact with Germany at the beginning of the war, it upset the US. And Stalin blamed the Allies for delaying when they were to invade the German territories. Following the war, their tension grew. The USSR wanted to spread communism, while the US was against it, encouraging democracy instead. On top of that, they both wanted materials from Europe. The USSR wanted to keep Germany divided to avoid another war, and the US wanted to reunite it and stabilize it. Russia had the countries along its borders after they took it from the Germans, and they wanted to shield themselves from another Western attack. In 1946, even Stalin said that communism and capitalism could not continue existing peacefully, and that war between them and the US was inevitable.
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Another important fact could not only be Stalins words about communist and capitalism, but also the speech given by Churchill about the "iron curtain." It was a symbol of the division of Europe and rebutted the negative feelings America and Britain had for communism. Stalin also saw the speech as a "call to war," creating even more tension as the Cold War began.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting hypothetical: If Stalin had never come out and blatantly stated that Communism and Capitalism could not co-exist, do you think we would have gone to war as soon as we did, or would we have delayed longer?
ReplyDeleteFirst off, its not Russia but rather the USSR, obviously there were trust issues because both sides were the complete opposite of each other at one point the conflict would have broken out, no matter who said what, the only thing was trying to keep the peace for as long as possible, if both countries could have tried keeping the peace, then we could have been living in the cold war era rather than our parents and or grandparents, and I would still live in Russia. Stalin was right, war was inevitable, no matter what happens.
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