Was the post WWII era a period of stability?

Done by:

Many people believe that the Cold War was just a war between the 2 different political ideologies: Communism and Democracy. While that may have been one aspect of the Cold War, the Cold War was more than just a war of ideology; it was a war of ideology, fear, breaking down of alliances and a desire to be superior. In terms of ideologies, the 2 main superpowers (The United States of America (USA) and the Soviet Union) were different. The USA believed in democracy and capitalism. This entails that the USA believes in an equality of society; where it is the rule of people. Citizens elect representatives to represent their views in the government and help fulfil their wishes. All citizens are to have equal rights and certain liberties and freedoms protected by the constitution.1 Multiple political parties are allowed to take part and can be represented in the government if they win at least 1 seat in the Parliament. As a result, the USA also follows capitalism. Here, capitalism is being used to refer to the economic sense, which is the pursuit of self-interest and the right to own private property as morally defensible and legally legitimate.2 It allows for individuals to decide how much they want to invest, produce or sell with certain restrictions. It further allows for no natural limit to the range of assets, sales, profits; or where they choose to operate.3 On the other hand, the Soviet Union believed in Communism. This means an equalising of the social conditions of life for all citizens which is done by the collectivisation of private property. All material is centralised and distributed by the government among the people, the intention being to achieve equal utility (of material) by all. Freedom of expression also tends to be mediated by the state for the same reasons and to maintain the 'integrity' of the collective.4 The economy is planned by the government to improve the economy of the country5, such as Stalins 5-Year Plans. Unlike democracy, communism only has 1 main party: the Communist Party. Other parties would be ruled out. One key aspect of Communism in the Soviet Union which Vladimir Lenin wanted to achieve when he brought it to Russia was the idea of a world revolution. In an organised mass, the working class would revolt and overthrow the capitalists across the world. In democratic nations like the USA, this
1

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-communism-and-democracy/, last access 5 September 2011 2 http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Capitalism.html, last access 9 September 2011. 3 See footnote 2. 4 http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/sect2.htm, last access 9 September 2011. 5 http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00540/communist_state.html, last access 9 September 2011.

frightened them as this would mean the loss of their wealth to be distributed to the rest so they would no longer be as rich as they were before. Furthermore, there was already a fear of their effects. They had already seen how the Romanovs were murdered by the Communists in 1918. Increasing their fears was a series of strikes in 1919. This led to a period known as the Red Scare from the 1920s to the 1930s which was only diluted when USA teamed up with Russia in the Second World War.6 Once the Second World War ended, there was no common enemy so the fear returned again. It was this fear that resulted in there being tension between the 2 superpowers which led to the Cold War. In addition, the two ideologies were radically different. One emphasised the state while the other emphasised individualism. It was impossible for communism and democracy to coexist in that period of time. The climate of fear present at that time and the existence of nuclear weapons only served to increase the distrust between both sides instead of facilitate talks between the 2 sides to coexist. The mindset of the leaders at that time was that one had to fall and one had to succeed. It was due to the differences in ideology that the leaders had this belief which led to the rise of the Cold War. However, another reason why the Cold War broke out was because of the breakdown of the military alliances. These alliances were already fragile. As seen above, the USA and the Soviet Union were already on rocky relations due to their differences in ideologies. The only reason they had their alliance in the Second World War was because of the fact that they had a common enemy in Nazi Germany. Even during the alliance, there was mutual distrust between both sides. The USA was suspicious of the Soviet Union as not only were they on different ideologies; she had earlier signed a pact with Nazi Germany promising neutrality if Germany attacked Poland.7 It suspected the Soviet Union of having 4 500 Polish soldiers killed (known later as the Katlyn massacre) which later turned out to be true.8

6 7

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/red_scare_1920s_America.htm, last access 9 September 2011 Crisis and Conflict, pg 165, 8 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/katyn_wood_massacre.htm, last access 4 September 2011