Question 6

Was the Cold War ‘a conflict between two opposing ideologies’?

Paragraph One

• USSR Marxist-Leninist single-party dictatorship with a command economy
• USA a liberal democracy with market economy
• Ideological struggle because both believed in superiority of its system
• Both willing to use force to defend and/or expand their respective systems
• Alternative view of Cold War – a struggle between economic interests
• Or- a conflict between two powerful rivals that would happen irrespective of domestic political systems

Paragraph Two

• Between world wars US and USSR did not fear attack from each other – this came after 1945
• 1941-45 both faced danger from Germany and Japan
• 1945 this threat was gone and Great Britain, France and China weakened by the war so US and USSR superpowers
• If both had been democratic or communist there would probably still have been antagonism – ideology gave rivalry an edge
• Mutual suspicion led them to interpret the actions of the other in the worse possible terms
• Timing and circumstance vital to explaining this

Paragraph Three

• USSR – by 1950 America believed USSR wanted to spread soviet communism all over the world
• Other communist movements (China, Yugoslavia etc.) not under control of Moscow
• Areas occupied by Red Army in World War II forced to have communist dictatorships – part of Stalin’s desire for a buffer zone of friendly states after the destruction inflicted by Nazis on USSR – communist government would guarantee their compliance i.e. ideology gave security
• USA – 1945 wanted non-communists included in East European governments
• Americans became convinced of need for ‘containment’ through evidence that Soviets wanted to expand beyond Eastern Europe – Iran and Turkey 1946; Greece 1947
• Communist governments if established in Western Europe would endanger democracy and private enterprise
• Also – US would be threatened if Western European industrial resources fell under Soviet control
• So US helped West Germany’s economic and military recovery after 1947 – the very threat that Soviets had tried to prevent

Paragraph Four

• Security and ideology as motives were now inextricably linked
• 1946-8 differences became more of a threat because of the decline of other powers
• Soviet activity in Iran, Greece and Turkey (1946-7) and American policy regarding West Germany 1947-8 made each side believe that their existence was endangered