Joseph Hagan
HOTA Pd.1
Mr. Munro
April 14 ‘2004
Imperialism, Expansionism, and the Cold War
The Cold War developed after the Second World War as a blend of several unsolved disputes and diplomatic misinterpretations. Ideological differences worsened the matter and made interaction with either side less probable since each other was resented by the other’s actions during the previous war. Even so, what really built up and intensified the war was the imperialistic and expansionist nature of the capitalist and communist nations since both sides struggled to obtain better relations with other strong countries and expand their rule or political influence.
First of all, the ideological differences between the capitalist and communist parties were probably the main determining factors in the imperialist/expansionist decisions which were taken. In the case of the communists, it was their main principles which defied the capitalists since the communist main points were that the capitalists would eventually destroy themselves. Communists also felt the duty to help the capitalists and this is why they believed that they show impose their rule over these states in order to prevent self-destruction. This is exactly why the domino effect comes into play all around Europe and why the communist nations were thought to follow a strict policy of expansion. Stauchton Lynd put it best, “Why did the cold war start?... Because for the first time the challenge of authoritarian socialism to democratic capitalism was backed by sufficient force to be an ever-present political and military threat,” which mentions that the U.S.S.R. might have wanted to act against capitalism before but lacked support yet now it has all the power it needs. An example of this could be said to be an incident as early as the Berlin Crisis and before it as well since when Germany was separated, Russia attempted to gain payment for its reconstruction, yet it demanded an enormous amount of money and was willing to strip all of Germany in order to obtain the money. But it was not only a mere attempt to gain reparation costs but also to keep part of Germany for two reasons: the first one to prevent Germany from becoming strong again and the second to expand its communist influence into the whole of Germany through its occupation sector. But when the U.S., France and Britain decided to introduce their own currency into their occupation sectors and planned to unite Germany in order to rebuild its economy, Russia deeply opposed the idea because of the mentioned reasons. Thus they responded by introducing their own currency into their sectors of Germany and later on blocked off part of Berlin in order to prevent the unification of Germany. In a sense, at the time, the U.S.S.R. was not occupying their sector of Germany, but instead ruling it.
