A Bi-Polar World
- The American Position
- The Americans came out of WWII even richer than the first world war
- Own 20 billion out 33 billion of the total world gold reserves
- Largest navy and airforce and own all nuclear weapons (monopoly)
- Largest trading and industry in the world
- Influence in Asia and Europe
- 1919 exaggerated
The Russian Position
- Largest army in the World
- Production not where they were at pre-war levels
- Stalin looked inward again and put effort toward Communism at home (put all his efforts into making people believe in communism once again)
- Began to influence over satellite states in Eastern Europe
- Many POWs (prisoners of war) kept on working in Russia
- Show trials returned (people who spoke up against the Russians were sent to show trials and either killed or sent to prisons)
Causes
- Ideological war (not many killed)
- Communism vs. Democracy
- Causes:
- Nationalism - both USA and USSR take actions throughout Cold War to protect their interests
- Imperialism - Many old imperialist nations are gone, USA and USSR take over role worldwide (the spread of ideas rather than actually taking land and countries)
- USA feared a worldwide communist revolution
- Russia fears opposite
- Domino Theory: communism spreading from neighbouring countries, one countries converts the rest around them will too
- Satellite states and the Iron Curtain- Many Eastern Europe states (that Russia occupied) began puppet communist governments.
- Iron curtain- term for what divided the two sides of europe (communist and non-communist)
Summary
America had loaned so much money during the war (financeers of the war) and therefore got a lot back post-war. They also had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and had the largest navy/airforce--America was the ultimate power in every single way. Russia, on the other hand, had the largest army in the world. Russian production was not as high pre-war due to scorched earth. Stalin wanted to spread communism in Europe.