Ideological Differences Between the Superpowers

The Ideological Differences Between the Superpowers

Ideological differences (differences in political ideas) between the USA and Soviet Union led to emerging tension and distrust. A ‘Cold War’ refers to a conflict fought in every way except direct fighting between the 2 sides.

Truman and the USA

Truman became president of the USA after Roosevelt’s death.
- He was less sympathetic towards the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Roosevelt had held the alliance together and after his death. Truman’s approach was more hard-line.

Stalin and the Soviet Union

Stalin was distrustful of Truman, who demanded lots of things at Potsdam.
He was angry that, before the conference, Truman had successfully tested the atomic bomb without consulting him.
- However, Stalin was already aware of the progress the USA was making.

Churchill and Britain

Churchill believed that a defeated Germany should be rebuilt.
- But Stalin wanted to weaken Germany as much as possible through reparations.
Churchill also suspected that Soviet troops would not leave the Eastern European countries that they had liberated.
Britain’s economy had been severely impacted by the war, and it could not act against the Soviet Union on its own.
- As a result, it allied more closely with the United States.
- This process led to the divisions which would become known as the Cold War.

Capitalism vs communism

The Soviet Union supported communism, whilst the USA and Britain were capitalist countries.
Communism advocated confiscating all private property, with the government owning all assets and controlling all enterprise. Communism stood against capitalism and liberal democracy.
Capitalism advocated that entrepreneurs and businesses compete via innovation to create the best goods & services for consumers, with a large portion of the benefit of their work going to the business.

Capitalism vs communism illustrated

In communism, Boris Johnson or Theresa May's central team would have to design Twitch, Snapchat, TikTok, Tesla, McDonalds, YouTube and Spotify, whilst the workers that they hire would not have an incentive to work hard and make good products.
In capitalism, individuals create businesses and pay workers depending on how easily they can be replaced. If the business succeeds, the entrepreneur can become very wealthy like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. Evan Spiegel starts Snapchat to make a better service to fit how he wants to message people. Spiegel has the information and the incentive, but can make a huge amount of money building Snapchat. This increases inequality and everyone does not earn the same amount of money.

Socialism and Communism in the 20th Century

The main communist countries in the 20th century were the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Cuba.

Famine and socialism in the 20th century

Between 1917 and 2017, communist governments presided over the deaths of 100 million of their own citizens.
The collectivisation of farming transferred food production and land from individual farmers who owned crops to a government-owned farming project. Once the government controlled all of the country's food, food could be withheld from people to make them do whatever the government wanted. If they didn't comply, they starved to death. Poor organisation, incompetence, or a lack of information could also lead to less deliberate famines.
- In Stalin's Russia in the 1930s, up to 3.3 million people died in Ukraine in the 'Holodomor' meaning 'extermination by hunger'.
- In Mao's China, up to 45 million people are thought to have died from starvation and famine.

Concentration of power and socialism in the 20th century

In socialism, all economic and political decisions in a society are made centrally. Power is naturally concentrated into the hands of a very small number of people, a bit like a dictatorship.
- After Stalin succeeded Lenin as the leader of the USSR, the Moscow Trials tried and executed many of Stalin's political rivals - Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin.
- Stalin had a secret police called the NKVD who arrested 1.5 million people, caused the death of 680,000 people and sent 635,000 to gulags in Siberia (forced work camps). The NKVD had quotas for the minimum number of people that they had to arrest.
- In Cambodia, a communist party, the Khmer Rouge killed up to 2 million Cambodians, including political rivals and enemies of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader.

Incentives and socialism in the 20th century

In socialism, a small number of individuals decide everything that must be produced in a country. An individual is told what to produce and they are not permitted to produce anything else.
There is little incentive for workers to work hard, as people gain no additional benefit for working harder or for making higher quality products.
Although social planners try to guide control economies, they have the brainpower, innovation and information of only a small number of individuals in government.
Since China shifted closer to a capitalist model, companies like Tencent and Alibaba were founded and innovation in China and the standard of living has risen rapidly.

1The Cold War

1.1Early Tension

1.1.1The Grand Alliance

1.1.2Yalta & Potsdam Conferences

1.1.3Exam-Style Questions - Potsdam Conference

1.1.4Ideological Differences Between the Superpowers

1.1.5Early US-Soviet Relations

1.1.6End of Topic Test - Early Cold War Tension

1.1.7Grade 9 - Early Tension

1.2The Development of the Cold War

1.2.1The Truman Doctrine & Marshall Plan

1.2.2East-West Boundaries

1.2.3End of Topic Test - East & West

1.3The Cold War Intensifies

1.3.1The Arms Race

1.3.2The Hungarian Uprising

1.3.3End of Topic Test - Developing Tension

1.3.4Grade 9 - The Development of the Cold War

1.3.5Exam-Style Questions - Hungarian Uprising

1.4Cold War Crises, 1958–70

1.4.1The Berlin Wall

1.4.2Czechoslovakia

1.4.3The Cuban Missile Crisis

1.4.4End of Topic Test - Cold War Crises 1958-70

1.4.5Grade 9 - Cold War Crises

1.5Attempts to Reduce Tension Between East & West

1.5.1SALT & Helsinki

1.5.2End of Topic Test - SALT & Helsinki

1.5.3Grade 9 - SALT & Helsinki

1.5.4Exam-Style Questions - Helsinki Accords

1.6The End of the Cold War

1.6.1Flashpoints

1.6.2Reagan & Gorbachev

1.6.3The Collapse of Soviet Control

1.6.4End of Topic Test - Reducing Tensions and The End

1.6.5Grade 9 - The End of the Cold War

1.6.6Exam-Style Questions - Eastern Bloc Collapse

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