Revision Diary

Cold War Ideologies

       

East-West ideological gap

 

 

'Ideological' means 'beliefs'.

Make sure that you know about the ideological gap between America and Russia, and that you are able to talk about its results/significance.

    

  

  

The Ideological Conflict

Overview

What you need here is to be able to remember the table from the Causes of the Cold War diagram:

  

 

America

Russia

Ideology

Capitalist

Communist

Democracy

Dictatorship

Human Rights

No personal freedoms

Aims

Recovery

Reparations

Protect democracy

Buffer states

History

1939

1918

 

1944

    

Facts

1.   Capitalism stands for business and profit.   Communism stands for sharing the wealth - no one was unemployed in Communist Russia.

2.   Democracy is where people vote for their government - the USA had two main parties (Democrats and Republicans), Britain had three (Conservative, Labour, Liberal).

3.   Although Russia SAID it was a democracy, and had elections, it only allowed one party - the Communist Party

     

  

  

Results/significance

  1. Modern historians believe that the ideological clash CAUSED THE COLD WAR.

  2. The two sides COMPETED in things like the arms race, the space race, the Olympics, the propaganda war etc.

  3. FEAR of the other side led to the McCarthy 'witch-hunts' in the USA/ Russians arrested 'dissidents'.

  4. The Russian's desire for a buffer led them to use 'SALAMI TACTICS', and this led to the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.

  5. Britain and America's desire to help West Germany's recovery led to the BERLIN BLOCKADE.

  

Revision Focus

This is a Paper 1 topic, so concentrate on learning:

1.   WHAT happened

2.   EFFECTS/ Importance

 

Links

Mini book on Causes of the Cold War deals with the general context

 

  

Online revision sheet  

  

Essay on Why the superpowers hated each other