Cold war: consequences of a shattered trust
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12 pages
Cold War: Consequences of a Shattered Trust The Cold War, which was almost half a century long, was waged with good reasons. Tension back from World War I and continued throughout post-World War II set the stage for the Cold War. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 converted the Soviet Union into a communist nation, which allowed Joseph Stalin to come to power in the 1930’s. At first the Western powers rejected Stalin’s forceful ways, but during World War II an alliance was formed between Joseph Stalin. However, conferences of the Big Three during World War II illuminated key differences between the countries’ motives despite their alliance. While the alliance helped to win World War II by uniting the three major powers against a single enemy, it inevitably waned after the defeat of their only mutual enemy: the Nazis. Thus, Germany’s territories, especially Berlin, became a major point of contention during the Cold War. The Cold War was inevitable due to the differing motives between the three countries and the increasing tension between the Western Allies and Soviet Union due to various events before, during and after World War II. The reluctance to make an early alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union can be traced back to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Soviets signed a separate peace treaty with the Germans in World War I, enabling Kaiser Wilhelm II to transfer troops to the western front, thereby increasing pressure on the Allies (Discovering U.S. History). The Soviet Union further alienated the Allies when the new Russian leaders began to stir up revolutionary activity against Western governments. In fact, Britain, France, and the United States found the new Russia so intolerable that in 1920 a coalition of the Western powers and Japan landed troops throughout the Soviet Union in an effort to kill the Communist revolution in its infancy (Discovering U.S. History). The ultimate goal of the Soviet Union was the destruction of capitalism,