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Who was to blame for the Cold War?

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Who was to blame for the Cold War? There are two possible verdicts; the USA and USSR. Both these sides had different beliefs, USA was a capitalist country while the USSR was a communist country, and this was one of the main causes of the cold war. I believe that both sides were almost equally responsible for the start of the Cold War but USA may be blamed slightly more than the USSR because as you will see there are more arguments against the USA. The arguments against the USA (that indicate that the USA was the one to blame) are many. At the Yalta conference, February 1945, towards the end of the 2nd World War, Roosevelt didn't define what he meant by Eastern Europe being seen as "A Soviet sphere of influence". ...read more.


His aim, clearly, was to stop the spreading of Communism and this policy was known as "containment". A part of the "Truman Doctrine" was the "Marshall Aid". The Marshall aid meant that the USA sent money to many European countries so that they can recover from their bad economic state. Truman designed this plan because he believed that the countries, which got turned into communist countries, were the poor and unhelped countries. Finally the airlifting, which took place during the Berlin Blockade was seen by Stalin as a form of confrontation for Truman. The arguments against the USSR (that indicate that the USSR was the one to blame) are less than the ones against the USA. We know that at the Yalta conference Russia insisted to move its borders into Poland despite America not agreeing at first. ...read more.


They had so many ideological differences they were bound not to get along. Finally there are arguments which show that neither side should be blamed. It was inevitable for this to happen because of the vast differences in the beliefs (USA was a capitalist country while the USSR was a communist country) of the two sides. They were allies only because of the common Nazi enemy of the 2nd World War and as soon as that ended the two sides had nothing in common any more and became enemies again. So I can conclude that even though there are points which defend all the verdicts there are more which emphasise that both the USA and the USSR were to blame for the cold war but the USA was slightly more to blame because it put into work many plans which it developed in order to try and stop the spreading of communism and even to restrict it even more. ...read more.

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Here's what a teacher thought of this essay

4 star(s)

This is a well balanced essay with a clear argument running throughout and a good range of knowledge, although it lacks detail in places.

It would have been useful for the author to be clearer about the precise nature of the ideological differences between the two countries. 4 out of 5 stars.

Marked by teacher Natalya Luck 09/03/2013

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