Divisions between the Soviet Union and the US?

Question

What important issues created divisions between the Soviet Union and the United States at the end of the Second World War.

Answer 1

haha, ok, two good guesses, but im a cold war historian so heres my take on the issue.

first, as one of the answerers before me got right (sort of) was the basic division between US and Soviet ideology. You've got American capitalism on one hand, and Soviet Bolshevism on the other - remember the whole idea of marxism in the first place was to see the eventual overthrow of western capitalism. Ok, a lot of people think it stops there, that communism and capitalism would rub the wrong way no matter what, but i disagree. here are the key issues that drove a wedge between the US and USSR after WWII.

1. the post war settlement

during wwii the allies (that is, great britain, america, and the soviet union for our purposes) all decided to work together to figure out what to do with postwar europe, right? wrong. we all see pictures at yalta or at potsdam where everyone looks really happy to see each other and they all sit around drinking tea (and uncle joe stalin drank vodka). well, it wasn't quite like that. the sitting was only required due to the fact that roosevelt was a cripple and everyone had a hard time forgetting about uncle joe's non-agression pact with the nazis scant years earlier, or the zeal they had in dividing poland between themselves and the germans. in 1943 when the allies sat down to discuss what to do with newly liberated italy , the soviets eagerly awaited a chance to work with the others - but, there was one catch. nobody wanted to hear what the USSR had to say. basically the other allies asked the USSR how many divisions theyd had in italy and when the answer was zero, the soviets were told to not worry about italy and go back to russia. well, stalin wouldn't forget that rebuff, and a lot of what happens immediately after the war in eastern europe can be explained by this. if the US, great britain, and "the west" were going to settle italy by themselves (and conveniently make life hard for italian communists who had fought so bravely for the resistence), then eastern europe was seen as fair game. moving on.

2. the european economic recovery program (ERP, Marshall Plan)

if you've learned anything about post war europe you know what the ERP or Marshall plan was. basically the US loaned a lot of money to european countries in order to stimulate their economies and further reconstruction efforts (no mention that marshall plan money had to be spent on US products in most history books!). okay, but did you know that there were very strict requirements in order to qualify for marshall plan money? i won't be too detailed, but basically the requirements were very rigid, and didn't allow countries that were close to the USSR to qualify for various reasons. the soviets saw this as an attempt by the US to grab up what would later be called "spheres of influence" in europe. the only reasonable response? pressure eastern europe into not accepting and instead attempt to form a sphere of influence to oppose the west's. well it turns out that the USSR didnt have any money after WWII, so they couldn't offer what the US could, but they could do other things. taken in context, a lot of what happens politically can be seen as a reactive measure to western encroachment on a country that has more than just a reasonable fear of western powers.

3. germany

a lot needs to be said about germany and berlin, but i dont want to drag this out too long. basic idea: germany is split between US, GB, France, and USSR control after the war. for a number of reasons i wont get into the western half is consolidated into one economic power with one currency. the USSR sees it as a move to create a separate german nation and, like in my last point about the ERP and spheres of influence, the soviets react. germany is where the cold war truly starts and i like to put the exact date at 21 june 1948, the day the berlin blockade began. if you dont know what happened during the berlin blockade and the following "berlin airlift", check it out, im not going to get into it here, but be rest assured that like before, it was a reaction, not proactive. the soviets didnt do any of this without a reason they thought was sensible at the time!

well, there are three good reasons, i realize that i could write and write all day about this, but those are three good enough reasons to write a first year university paper im sure. if youre looking for more info feel free to contact me and ill see what more i can dig out of my head.

best of luck!

Addition because it would not let me email you for some reason!

hey no problem. im a third year university history major so i like to
think i kno a thing or two about the cold war. i find it to be about the
most intersting thing that happened in the 20th century for pretty
obvious reasons, i mean, how close did we come to nuclear annihilation?
haha, pretty close i think.

well, your question is pretty big in scope. if you're looking to write
an essay or something on this i can break it down into manageable
pieces for you (dont worry, i wont tell if youre just stuck, we all get
there sometimes!).

ok, so how did the cold war affect people from the 1940s thru the
1990s. well, lets break it down a bit - affect people how? we could go thru
economic effects, societal effects, and political effects just to give
three nice categories. haha, you'll notice if you havent already that
im whipped into using examples in sets of three, essay writing gets you
into that habit pretty quick when yr just shooting them out left and
right to profs.

if you want to break it down that way it makes it pretty easy to write
about. economy wise you can go thru decade by decade and mark important
stuff that happened that would affect the economy, wars, space races,
arms races, etc. you really jsut need to keep in mind that everything
costs money and then figure out where the money comes from. in the US its
a lot of taxes, in the Soviet Union its a bit different, but a bit more
interesting. im not sure if you want to discuss how soviet citizens
were affected, but you could just to be a little smart *** if this is
indeed a paper lol history profs love when you think outside the "western
world" box. economy stuff is pretty easy because its concrete and the
paperwork tends to be there all of the time (one thing historians love
about the USSR is that for some strange reason they were very very
organized, they did their paperwork in triplicate!).

society wise is a little more difficult, but a lot of kids find that to
be the more entertaining part about history. you can really talk about
anything at this point, pop culture plays into it quite a bit... um..
space stuff too really defined the cold war era. without the cold war
there would have been no moon landing (well, thats impossible to say for
certain, but its pretty well accepted that the space race between the
US and Soviets was the main cause of us getting to the moon, right).
again, society stuff is simple. just think of anything that people did
that could have been a result of the cold war.. you could even tie it into
economics with bomb shelters or something similar. during the cold war
bomb shelter manufacturers made tons of money selling bomb shelters to
people who were afraid of being vapourised by atom bombs - but if you
get right to the point, people being afraid of atom bombs is a societal
thing, while purchasing bomb shelters is an economic thing.
again, i cant stress how much people overthink history. you dont have
to spend hours and hours researching somethings, a lot of it is just
making up things on the spot (but just be careful what you make up is
*true* meaning that nobody can provide *fact* that contradicts it - data
is different than fact, and data can tell you a lot of contradictory
things, so dont be too worried if so and so in whatever textbook has a
different take on why people bought bomb shelters!).

politically things get harder to explain because you have to deal with
motives and intentions. i had a prof tell me that he always catches
hell for trying to state intentions of people who are dead because, of
course, theres no way to say for certain whos right or wrong. i think its
ok to state intention if you see it. its all logical building up from
one idea to the next. especially with the cold war where it sorta
compiled incident after incident - what prompts what and what were the actual
intentions despite the results (and how can you determine intentions?).
again, try to work in a little of economy and society into the
politics. why did so and so decide to do this? well, because he was broke and
the people were pissed. how many things can you explain with that
sentence! lol. ok.. im babbling and for some reason have just agreed to drive
to scarborough (probably to get shot at), so ill catch up later. lemme
know what exactly you need the nitty gritty details on and ill
get back to you later.

james.

Answer 2

It was a Soviet Union between 1917–1991 so write Soviet Union

Answer 3

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Answer 4

It really was mostly the humongous ideological differences between communism and capitalism. Both nations felt very threatened by the other's system and both countries tried very hard to spread their way of life throughout the rest of the world, resulting in dozens of small wars.

Answer 5

Boiled down to the absolute basics here
Joseph Stalin
Take a long, close look at his brand of communist doctrine and methods of installing and administering it !!