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Joseph Stalin Cold War Essay

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The revelation of the US’ development in making nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project at the Potsdam Conference began the strain between the US and USSR. Joseph Stalin’s persistence for his country to compete with the US to be the number one economic, political, and military superpower marked the beginnings of the Cold War, an ideological war between the USSR’s assertion of communism and the US’ defense of capitalism. Although the USSR and the US both increased the tension that led to the Cold War, the USSR was the major contributor of the mistrust between the US by occupying Eastern European countries, imposing the Berlin Blockade, and establishing the Soviet atomic bomb project. After their efforts in fighting in WWII, the USSR turned to their efforts into occupying Eastern European countries to gain more power for the USSR’s communist regime. By establishing communist governments in Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Hungary, Stalin created an Iron Curtain that prohibited these countries to trade with western countries, making the USSR a major economic power. Stalin’s hostile actions eventually led to the creation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 that immediately sent aid …show more content…

The US responded with an airlift to send over food and supplies to starving West Berlin citizens, and with the help of the Allies, announced the new country of West Germany and its new currency, the Deutsche Mark, leaving the USSR to lift the blockade in 1949. Prior to the blockade, Stalin already rejected the US’ Marshall Plan offered to USSR and the Eastern European countries he occupied, causing further tension by refusing help. The USSR’s failure to assert themselves as a major political superpower would fail because of the US’ intervention in their

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The United States strongly opposed communist policies and in turn made an active effort to dispose of the Soviet Union’s Communist influence. This led to the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was a legal document written in 1947 that stated America would liquify federal assets to aid any country that might be subject to

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(Document A). Unfortunately for the Soviets the Western allies showed their Capitalism and Democracy. The West followed the Truman Doctrine, which fought against the spread of communism. There was limited government control, allowing the free-market system to regulate most of the economy’s activity.. The people were allowed to have freedoms and not be kept under tight rule.

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President Truman reflected on the importance of the United Nations and military involvement by stating, “… I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures…” (Document B). However, during this particular time period, America remained one of the only nations actively fighting against communism. Most European countries were subjected to financial duress caused by World War II, thus placing the burden squarely on America’s shoulders. This inexplicable lack of support not only made America relatively weaker, but also allowed communism to spread throughout areas in which they people were not even willing to fight for themselves.

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The Iron Curtain was the Soviets taking control over eight European countries on the border of the Soviet Union, providing the Soviets with a barrier in case of an attack. The United States responded with the Marshall Plan, giving money to European countries to help with reconstruction and to turn them away from Communism. “Europe must have a great deal of additional help, or face

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This tug of war between Roosevelt representing an interventionist minority and the isolationists in Congress resulted in little effective headway made in either direction until the United States was once again forced into a world war. In President Harry Truman’s speech, The Truman Doctrine, given on the twelfth of March, 1947 before a Joint Session of Congress, Truman voiced, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” After World War Two, the United States realized that a lack of involvement and aid for war torn countries allowed communism and totalitarianism to spread. The Soviet Union took control of many Eastern European countries, and this was called the Iron Curtain by Winston Churchill. Unlike in World War One and the beginning of World War Two, Truman had support from more well liked figures such as George F. Kennan and George C. Marshall. Kennan’s idea was based around providing economic and financial aid to struggling countries, and this heavily shaped the plan America would use.

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From a meeting of President Eisenhower’s National Security Council, a conclusion was reached, “…we could not permit ourselves to be panicked by the Soviet Achievement [Sputnik]” (Document 3). The launch of the Sputnik only encouraged Americans to accomplish more scientific breakthroughs—before the Soviets. Before the release of the Sputnik, President Truman had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Shortly after, the Soviets had detonated their first atomic bomb in the late 1940s. Since the U.S. and the Soviets had both achieved a level of destruction through the atomic bomb they became engaged in an “arms race.”

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On the one hand, the United States did not withdraw into isolationism; on the other, it did not move to “roll back” Soviet power, as John Foster Dulles briefly advocated. It is possible to say that each succeeding administration after Truman’s Doctrines until the collapse of communism in 1989, adopted a variation of Kennan’s containment policy and made it their own. After WWI and WW2, US considered as the winner and gainner both political and economic aspects. With strong economic potential and the desire to intergration into Europe to prevent communism expansion, US decided to lauch large scale of economic aid to Europe throughout Marshall Plan.

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RISE TO PROMINENCE Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (later known as Joseph Stalin), son of Besarion Jughashvili and Ketevan Geladze, was born in Gori, Georgia on December 18, 1879. Because Joseph’s mother ardently desired for her son Joseph to become a priest, Joseph attended primary and secondary school at a local Russian Orthodox church. In 1894, after receiving a generous academic scholarship, Joseph Stalin enrolled at the Tiflis Theological Seminary. In 1895, Joseph joined the organization known as Messame Dassy. Messame Dassy supported Georgian independence from Russia.

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Question: Why and with what effects on Europe, was the Nazi-Soviet Pact signed in August 1939? Thesis: The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of August 1939, a pact signed by two nations with completely juxtaposing ideologies, came as a surprise to the world at the time. Despite this fact, the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed due to Russia’s unhappiness with Anglo-Soviet diplomacy, desire to bolster her national security, and German wish to facilitate her imminent invasion of Poland. The pact successfully achieved its objectives and played an instrument role in the precipitation of the Second World War and averted the possibility of two-front war for Germany.

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During this, Truman presented his Truman Doctrine in which he called all the American people to join him in the fight for the containment of communism and prevent the advancement of communism. This ideology fueled American foreign policy as a whole for years to come, and in some ways, is still visible today. In 1948, the Berlin blockade begins as Stalin thinks that the U.S. is trying to push them out, so he retaliates by making a blockade and trying to starve out West Berlin in an effort to make the allies move out from the pressure of no supplies being there, but this leads into the Berlin airlift. (Wilson Lecture). The Berlin airlift began with Curtis Lemay scrounging the world for allied planes in order to try and supply the city just by using planes, and a plane landed every thirty seconds to bring in supplies an after a couple months, Stalin began to look not as tough so he retracted the blockade in 1949 (Wilson Lecture).

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Soon to be dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Joseph Stalin, was born as Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili. Although he grew up in a poor family, Joseph earned a scholarship to study for priesthood. However, because of lack of interest, he left school to take part in politics. To do this, he began to be involved in the Bolshevik Party, where Vladimir Lenin eventually appointed him Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Joseph’s interest in the Bolshevik Party was partially because of its size; the party grew as they promised land and peace to the desperate, starving population.

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449 Words | 2 Pages

1. What were some of the key differences between Trotsky and Stalin Leon Trotsky was Lenin’s “right hand man” ; he helped build the Red Army and played a key role in the Bolshevik Revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, had just risen to the general secretary of the Communist party. Another difference was that Trotsky was a scholar who came from the middle class while Stalin was a “thug” and grew up very poor.

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It is December 1941. The Germans forces got really close to Moscow. While Stalin was preoccupied about inside loyalty, the Germans almost marched straight here. Their leader, Hitler, broke the Nazi Soviet non-aggression pact. Russia and Germany had agreed to split Poland in half and not to attack each other.

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"But it is hard to imagine how the U.S. government could have prevented a Communist victory short of getting involved in a massive military intervention, which would have been risky, unpopular, and expensive"(Tindall 964). "The discovery of the Soviet bomb in 1949 triggered an intense reappraisal of the strategic balance of power in the world, causing Truman in 1950 to order the construction of a hydrogen bomb, a weapon far more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, lest the Soviets make one first"(Tindall 964). The onset of the cold war the ideology drove more of the Soviet behavior. "American 's traditional commitment to democtatic capitalism, political self determination, and religious freedom conflicted with the Soviet Union 's preference for spheres of influence on its periphery, totalitarianism at home, and state mandated atheism"(Tindall 970). Kennan stressed that U.S. needed to be responses to the Soviet adventurism.

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The division of the Korean peninsula was a result of World War II, and after the Japanese surrender in 1945; the peninsula was split between the United States in the south, and Soviet Russia in the north. In the 1950’s war emerged on the Korean Peninsula. The Korean War took place pitting the communistic north against the democratic south. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, high tensions have remained between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Tensions have remained steady throughout the years until recently with the election of President Donald Trump.

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