Cold War Ideologies Essay

Different Ideologies Led to the Cold War

The start of the Cold War can easily be traced back to the dominant ideologies of communism and democracy. The aftermath of World War II led to the scramble of domination for beliefs. Many European countries were left vulnerable to any kind of power after World War II. Communism and democratic beliefs began to spread fast. On February 4, 1945 the Yalta Conference took place near Yalta. In the meeting the four Allied countries split up Western Europe and Eastern Europe after World War II to help recover them from the war. Germany was split into four allied zones; British, American, French and Soviet. Along with the country, the city of Berlin was split in half between the Soviets and the U.S.

Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, began to take more countries under his power to create a buffer zone to

and the Soviet Union. On March 5, 1946, the Iron Curtain was put into effect to separate the communist and democratic nations. This Iron Curtain was not an actual curtain, but a line that was said to keep the democrats in the west and the communists in the east. Even though it wasn’t an actual blockade, it increased tensions between the two ideologies. The U.S. began a policy of containment, which the goal was to keep communism contained in the areas it was already in. The U.S. along with the Western Nations of Europe were part of the democratic belief. They believed that the people should take part in the government and have rights to freedom. President Truman introduced the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, to aid democratic countries. To the Soviets this did not seem like an act of aid but instead an act of war. The U.S. did not have intentions of war, but they were trying to stop the threat of communism in democratic countries. With both sides indirectly fighting each other for their beliefs peace was becoming