Split Between The US And USSR
Here is What led to the Conflict Between the Allied Powers
During the cold war the devastation inflicted upon the innocent Koreans, Vietnamese, Afghans, the culminating hostilities of the Cuban crisis, or the US threat of dropping an atomic bomb at China, had roots and hostilities between the US and USSR. These two powers emerged with the end of world war II altering the international system from multi-polarity into bipolarity, they, however, did little harm to each other than they did to the rest of the world. Thousands of people killed, cities and towns devastated, even economies were crippled rendering millions of peoples fall into poverty and hunger in third world countries. The newly emerged countries of South America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa had to join one of the two camps. Given the political and economic necessities, most of the underdeveloped or former colonies opted for the US as it provided economic and financial assistance under the Marshall plan. Moreover, the fear of the spread of communism, the US herself reached out to countries to come under her capitalism block. This though is the story of the cold war; however, we will be discussing the core causes that led to the conflict between the US and USSR.
Three schools of thoughts argue about the Conflict
Mirror Images
The first school of thought is of the view that during wartime the US and USSR were taking everything against each other. They argue that it was just the mirror images of each other that led to the final conflict between the powers.
Ideological Incompatibilities
The second school of thought believes that it was the ideological difference that led to the hate between the countries. The US believed in democratic norms and a free economy where an individual can earn as much as he has the ability while the USSR had socialism and a one-party system. The people in USSR had no rights to earn freely as that was the case in the US instead the USSR had imposed a specific limitation upon the earning, property, and wealth of the citizens. Secondly, the proponents of this school of thought believed that the Soviet Union was governed by the communist party ideology who wished to expand their ideology unlike that of the United States. Thirdly, the communists were holding fixed elections and one-party rule in contrast to that, the US encouraged free elections where every citizen had the right to be elected. Moreover, the US had a multiparty system and unlike the USSR the US didn’t favor closed-party discipline. Fourthly, the state’s outlook towards industries and other economic units also differed between them, capitalism believed in privatization while communism in nationalization. Alongside, unlike communists, the capitalists consider the state as the end and people as the means.
Misconceptions of Each Other
Another school of thought holds classical views arguing that the two powers had misconceptions of each other since the beginning of the war. They state that the US disliked USSR and that is evident from the fact that for fourteen years, after the Bolshevik revolution, United States didn’t recognize USSR until 1933. The USSR further argues that the United States gathered a group of imperialists in form of the ‘league of nations’ and outrightly neglected us. Being an ally of the United States, the Soviet Union was kept in oblivion about the Manhattan project which the US conceived a huge and significant development of the postwar time. In addition, the USSR also held that that the United States deliberately delayed the second front which immensely pressurized Soviet Union. Moreover, the lend-lease program during wartime which most of the US allies received was stopped by the United States to the Soviet Union was another bone of contention.
However, the United States had also a long list of complaints against the Soviet Union. The United States held that the Soviet Union grabbed land and didn’t cooperate in the war. The US insisted on the free election in eastern Germany though Stalin signed a declaration on liberated Europe which called for the free and open elections however, Stalin didn’t fulfill it owing to his tilt towards a Pro-USSR government -for that reason he installed a puppet communist government. Furthermore, the US also hated a large standing army on borders even after the war and the Soviet Union’s intransigent attitude in the international forums, the US further holds that each time her resolution was vetoed by the USSR.
Between the US and the soviet union, the conflict mainly based on their ideologies which not economically but politically as well differed leading to the polarization of the two countries.
