For this week, I want you to think about why, after WWII, the world divided into communist and capitalist factions. What rhetoric did the two sides use to explain their worldview? Although, on the surface, the difference was about competing economic ideas, what other considerations drove the two superpowers to oppose each other so strongly? Why didn't the international system intervene to smooth things over?
After WWII, European hegemony did not exist. European countries were rebuilding politically and economically, and therefore decolonization began. While WWII severely injured Europe’s countries, it gave way to U.S. hegemony and left the world with two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. However, these two countries operated with very different ideologies, the U.S. being a democracy and the USSR being a communist state. Those two ideologies are clearly very polar and set the stage for the next 50 years of Cold War.
ReplyDeleteTruman called on congress to aid countries in danger of falling to communism, namely Turkey and Greece. He said that the situation that confronts the world is grave, and the foreign policy and national security of the US are involved and at danger because of the threat of communism. He even calls the communist activities terrorist activities. Communism operates like dominos, once one falls, the others around it are bound to fall. This is why the US foreign policy during this time was called containment. Poor economies fed communist tendencies, so the US intervened financially and militarily in any country that faced the threat of communism.
The Soviets used intense rhetoric when speaking of the US as well. They called the US an imperialist force and capitalists. They called themselves freedom-loving and painted the US as forceful, power hungry bourgeois. They stated that the US had aspirations to world supremacy operating under an expansionist program bearing aggressive character. There was a call to action by the Soviets to their people that stated they must be aggressive and head the resistance to imperialist expansion and aggression, and unite on the basis of anti-imperialist and democratic platform.
Both sides vehemently thought they were correct and both sides thought they were fighting for freedom, while both freedoms looked very, very different. Not only were the competing ideas economic, they were also political and technological. They were fighting to send a man into space first and also to create more nuclear weapons. This lead to MAD- mutually assured destruction- which stated that if one dropped a bomb, the other could retaliate and potentially the whole world destructs.
The international system did not intervene because Europe was too busy rebuilding and no one wanted to face the superpowers for fear of destruction. The Cold War was a very scary time period, where schools conducted bomb drills and people thought at any time the world could cease to exist. The US and USSR were so powerful, another country feared interference for their own safety and possibly needed the protection from one of the two superpowers.
From fighting the Nazis along the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union suffered more wartime causalities than any other nation. Therefore, upon the war's conclusion, not only did the Soviets want to take control of Germany, but they wanted to destroy it. This animosity towards Germany, however, was not as equally felt by the liberal West. What the West wanted to do, was to create a capitalist democracy in Germany. The Soviets on the other hand did not. So the eventual agreement to separate Germany and Berlin into four zones at the Yalta Conference, did not go smoothly. In addition to this, there was a fundamental disagreement of what to do with Poland. The Soviet Union wanted there to be a buffer zone to protect them from the West. So further complications came about, given the Soviet Union's desire to implement a communist government in Poland.
ReplyDeleteIn the East, there was a collective desire to stay away from Right-Wing politics. No one wanted the possibility of another fascist regime coming about. Moreover, given their financial conditions and the fact they had never had a stable democratic ruling body, Eastern Europe saw communism positively. The Soviet Union's liberation of many Eastern European countries from Nazi control, also played a huge role in communism's spread. Therefore, by the end of the 1940s, Eastern Europe become a part of the USSR's Iron Curtain. And given the prospect of quick industrialization, other countries in the region, such as South East Asia and China, also become communist nations.
It did not take long for these polar opposite ideologies to create a rivalry between the Americans and the USSR. Both viewed the other as being a threat to their well being. For example, the Americans saw communism as being undemocratic. It was a political ideology which took the power away from the people. Communism as a whole, threatened one's liberty and freedom, and posed an even greater risk to worldwide peace. On the other hand, the communists saw the capitalists as being overly self-indulgent. The West was seen to be imperialistic and utilized its means to bribe others for its own selfish gain. Furthermore, in regards to the United States, the war was nothing more than a way to further industrial advancement and expand its economy. Given the American's lateness in joining the war and having almost nothing happen on their own home front, the Soviets also saw them as arrogant.
These different points of view are the result of contextual differences. The United States, for example, had been throttled into position as the West's most dominate nation. Great Britain was in financial ruin following the war and Europe as a whole was left to rebuild. The Soviet Union, however, was Eastern Europe's savior. They had liberated Eastern European nations from Nazi rule and managed to create a separation from the West. But, with their new standing positions as the World's only two Superpowers, both countries wanted to prove who had the better ideology. In doing so, an arms race took place and rapid technological innovations were a must. However, following an initial period of great unease, both superpowers realized that the potential for self-destruction if a third world war were to ever take place, was too great of a risk. So they were forced to tread lightly. Which is why international intervention was next to impossible. Both sides knew that one wrong move could equal the end. But that didn't stop either from trying to out due the other. In the end, however, the Soviets desire for rapid industrialization was unsustainable.
After WW II, the U.S. saw the USSR as an oppressive communist, whereas the Soviet saw the U.S. as a greedy capitalist country. The U.S. wished to stop the spread of communism, but they spread capitalism instead. Then, in 1949 NATO was created because the U.S. needed support from Western European countries and vice versa. On the Soviet side, Stalin chose to keep spreading communism. He planned to destroy Germany so they could stop or prevent the country from creating another evil military force and pay the reparations. The USSR also viewed the U.S. as a huge threat; the Soviet did not trust any foreign powers. In addition, in response the establishment of NATO, the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which was an alliance among the Eastern European countries and the Soviet. Ultimately, countries that were on the NATO’s side or under the Western Europeans decolonization were on the U.S. side. In comparison, Eastern European nations were in full support of the USSR, and the Third World countries were the neutral states.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, there are other considerations that drove the two superpowers to oppose each stronger. For instance, the U.S. was not happy when the Soviet Union refused to fight Japan. As a result, the U.S. fought Japan alone without Russia’s help. Another factor that increased the tension was that the USSR created Berlin blockade that prevented the U.S. from sending supplies to their troops, and so the U.S. had to use their airlift strategy.
The international world did not arbitrate the conflict much during the Cold War. It was hard for the international system to intervene because most countries were extremely broke and powerless after the war, therefore they decided to just focus on fixing their nations instead of mediating the conflict between the Soviet and the U.S.
After the fallout of WWII, almost all of the previous world powers fell to disarray due to debt, national casualties, and rapid decolonization. The two superpowers that remained the most unscathed were the US and USSR. The conflicting ideologies of capitalism and communism spread throughout the reconstruction of Europe, and the world became divided into two separate factions that lasted for almost five decades.
ReplyDeleteThe US created the Truman Doctrine in the hopes of stopping the iron curtain in its tracks, so that the domino effect of communism could finally be ended. The US foreign policy at this time was a policy of containment, where Truman proposed to send aid to countries that seemed at risk of falling to communism. These countries were usually suffering economically and militarily, thus making them an easy target for communism. The US saw it as their duty to protect these countries, and with US intervention increasing, slowly but surely the red scare began and the fear of communism spread like a virus in the US.
The USSR did not trust the US in the slightest. The USSR believed that the US were war mongering expansionists who selfishly invaded other countries under the false pretense of protecting them. This united the Soviet people, and they bonded together in a mutual fear and anger against the US. They saw it as their duty to resist the imperialistic nation from abusing and exploiting any other countries.
The US and USSR were both equally stubborn and refused to acknowledge that the opposite side might have some truth to their case. Tension began to rise, both the arms race and the race to space began, which were a form of benign competition.
The US was the top western power, just as the USSR was the top eastern power. Meanwhile countries were still focused on rebuilding their economy after the devastation from WW2. They were more focused on restructuring their internal issues than worrying about the ideological war jut outside of their border. The arms race and MAD forced the two super powers to remain careful, and there was nothing much else for the outside world to do.
-Michelle Roman
After World War II, the Soviets and the United States came out as the two superpowers. They were competing to decolonize states in Africa, the Middle East, and Indochina to fight their proxy Cold War confrontations. To prevent communism from spreading into certain countries, the U.S. and President Truman created the containment policy. The U.S. would secretly fund these nations to help them against the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower believed the domino theory would go into effect if one country fell to communism. Soviets spread the ideology of communism by guaranteeing the people the chance for political and social equality. However, Soviet policies weren’t very good and this led to famine and suppressing any disagreements with the regime, causing people to get angry. Countries that supported the idea of capitalism, such as the U.S., Britain, and France were an essential part of the competition for the control of global resources and markets. Both superpowers forced every nation to choose between capitalism and communism, dividing the planet into three worlds. The U.S. was helping Europe and Japan rebuild their economies, but in the eyes of the Soviet Union, they saw the U.S. trying to dominate Europe, and eventually end communism. And because both sides were developing nuclear arsenals, no one wanted to intervene between the two superpowers fearing their country will be destroyed.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their own views regarding anything and everything, so it is only right that nations would have their opinion on how to run a country "correctly". After WWII, many countries were in trouble, economically and politically; making them vulnerable to superpowers such as the communist USSR and capitalist US. Having two powerhouses competing for "dominance" is going to bring about opposition. The US created the Truman Doctrine in order to stop the spread of communism so the USSR wouldn't take over Europe essentially. But wouldn't that be making the US hypocritical? They did not want the USSR to spread their values but the US was and was able to spread their values of capitalistic economies and government. But each side was so stubborn they believed their beliefs were truly better. It is hard for the international system to interrupt the fight between the two especially when the two are at a nuclear arms race, competing against one another to develop nuclear artillery. Why mess with people who have the potential the demolish the entire human species? Yet, that is the EXACT reason why the international system should have intervened.
ReplyDeleteAfter World War II, I think that the United States and the Soviet Union both had a great fear of the other country gaining too much power. I think that was the main reason these two superpowers raced to get as many countries as possible on "their side", or as a capitalist country for the United States and a Communist country for the USSR. Economically, the more countries each superpower had on “their side”, the more potential trading partners they would have and the stronger they would seem. I think that the international system didn’t intervene because they were still somewhat recovering from World War II – they did not want to get too involved in a proxy war between two of the most powerful countries in the world at that point.
ReplyDeleteMina Kim
The world was divided following World War II into two ideologies: communism versus capitalism. A variety of reasons went into this split of the world. The United States was using propaganda to keep our world views on top and the Soviet Union was doing the same in promotion of their view. Their was a rivalry developing between the two nations. Nuclear arms and gaining allies also was playing a major role in the divide of capitalism and communism. I would say that the international system did not intervene because they too were aligned one way or the other in the debate as well, so they were caught in the rivalry of ideals as well. All in all, capitalism versus communism was one of the most major debates of the twentieth century
ReplyDeleteCharlie Derr
ReplyDeleteThere are many possible explanations as to why the world became greatly divided when the Cold War began. Many would argue it was simply a difference in economic ideology. This is true, but these words demean the context of the situation. Personally I feel as though yes it was a difference in economic plans, but it touched on a sense of morality as well. For example the communist factions believed as though their system provided equality for all and attempted to restrict any economic social class from garnering too much power. This was done in hopes that all people in a state would share an equal quality of life. The capitalist nations however believed in rewarding those who deserve it, and not allowing others to feed off of the hard work of others. This was a system which hoped to provide equal opportunity to all, but not necessarily equal rewards. The irony is that in a way both of these sides succeeded but in a very dismal manner. Communist nations shared an equal quality of life, but most of the time it was a miserable experience. Capitalist nations succeeded in rewarding those who work for it, but failed at providing all an equal opportunity for success. When considering what drove these two sides to such hard opposition, I believe ideological differences will not suffice. Instead I believe the competition rose to such heights because the two sides were competing to be a global hegemon.