Dbq Essay On The Cold War

777 Words4 Pages

Between the years of 1947 and 1991 the USSR and the United States remained in a long period of tension known as The Cold War. This war was a state of political and economical in proxy wars such as the space race and the arms race the lead to the weakening of American society and laws. Marking the end of the Cold War in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed due to their economic failure and their approach to the space race. As the Cold War intensified there was a significant increase in infrastructures and military, a shift in education, and there was an overall fear in society. Education in the United States began to focus on science instead of general education in an attempt to try and win the “space race” against the Soviet Union. When the United …show more content…

As the United States government became desperate to contain soviet aggression thousands of United States citizens were falsely accused and sometimes put to death for “being involved with communist organizations”. In 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of spying on the United States and giving top secret information on the atomic bomb to the Soviets. The Rosenberg’s were proven to be a part of The International Workers Order, a communist organization, and were found to be guilty. The Rosenberg’s caused a great amount of controversy among Americans and they argued if the Rosenbergs were innocent or not; this lead to fear of persecution (Doc. 5). This lead to the U.S. government disallowing individuals with any involvement with communist organizations to work for government organization. In 1947 The Washington Post wrote a comic where the Committee on Un-American Activities, an anti-communist organization, is running over people walking in the streets with the car. Above the picture the slogan, “It’s okay- we’re hunting communists” is written, inferring that the American government was accusing and attacking innocent citizens. (Doc. 11) The most important conflict the United States faced, between 1953 and 1962 in general, was war. According to the Gallup Poll the American public believed that if communism began to spread, the United States should go to war (Doc. 2). As Russian war-aggression began to become threatening, Americans began to build bomb shelters in order to protect themselves from nuclear warfare. (Doc. 8) Due to fear in American Society, government officials began to take extreme measure to contain Soviet