Political Foundations of the Cold War

Alumnos:Chaile, Pablo
Maizares, Ariel
Lamas, Marcos
Safarov, Alejandro
Chair: Political Thought
Contemporary and Social

Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication Design

Faculty of Educational Sciences
Academic Department San Salvador
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO
2017
 Index

Introduction ...……………………………………………………………….. 2
1. Communism or Capitalism ...…………………………………………….... 3
2. Truman Doctrine ...……………………………………………………... 3
3. Marshall Plan
4. Creation of NATO ……………………………………………………....6
5. The beginning of the end of an era ………………………………………….. 7
6. Crucial events .......................................................... 9

Conclusion .................................................. 11

Bibliography

1
 Introduction

This work investigated the political foundations that led to

and shaped the Cold War, a conflict between the United States and the USSR. In this way,
will emphasize the most relevant aspects mentioned in the researched material. The purpose
from the research is:

Analyze and understand the political foundations of this war, between the two
superpowers that emerged after World War II.

The Cold War was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, with
its respective allies, which began at the end of World War II,
whose origin is usually placed in 1947, during the tensions of the post-war period, and lasted until
1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The
The reasons for this confrontation were essentially ideological and political.
It was a division of the world into two large poles characterized by promoting projects.
global sociopolitical conflicts (capitalism and socialism). A new context was proposed.
of the international order, a bipolar world arises, where although these confrontations do not
they triggered a world war, the two superpowers wanted to implant their
model of governance across the planet. Allowing both funding and support for
revolutions and socialist governments, as well as support for coups in
Latin America.
It is worth noting that it never led to a world war but always did
he kept this idea latent. It was an 'indirect' war since no
contact confrontation, which is why it was called "Cold War" and marked
significantly the second half of the 20th century.
This research work is carried out due to the requirement of the Chair of Thought.
Political, Contemporary and Social (Bachelor's Degree in Visual Communication Design,
UCSE-DASS), in order to regularize it and as a last resort to take the exam in front of a
final tribunal.

2
 1. Communism or Capitalism

With the end of World War II, the two emerging superpowers (United States
United States and the Soviet Union), set the global distribution of forces, which meant a
very unequal balance of power. The USSR exerted its dominance in certain countries of the bloc.
communist, without trying to extend this influence through the use of weapons. On the other hand,
The United States controlled the rest of the capitalist world, in addition to the Western Hemisphere and

the oceans, not intervening in the areas that corresponded to the Soviet government. For this
the reason it was called the world "bipolar".
This distribution between the United States and the USSR was not so clear on the continent.
Asian. This was the area where both countries competed most fervently in search of support.
and influence throughout the Cold War. And where the greatest friction was generated, which culminated

bursting into armed conflicts.

From this problem, the tension between both countries began to increase ever more.
more. The most explosive period occurred from the proclamation of the Truman doctrine in the year

1947: "The policy of the United States must be to support free peoples who...
resist being subjugated by armed minorities or by external pressures." During this
the fear of Americans of social disintegration or revolution in countries
The Soviet era was not just a simple fantasy. On the other hand, the USSR was facing a country
what constituted the atomic weapon monopoly and what constantly made statements
of militant and threatening anti-communism. It also showed its first breaks in the
Soviet bloc, with the division of Tito's Yugoslavia and the death of Stalin in 1953.
The confrontational policy between both sides arose from the situation that
the USSR exhibited. It had a precarious, insecure, and defensive position, alongside the great
world power of the United States, which was displayed aggressively

2. Truman Doctrine

In order to analyze the Truman doctrine and its different elements, it is necessary to have
accounts for the complex historical context in which it originated and which helps explain how a
president of solid Wilsonian convictions, like Harry Truman, laid the foundations of a
strategy based on the principles of the emerging American political realism after the

3
World War II (Bostdorff, 2008). The creation of international organizations,
as the UN itself and its Security Council had again brought hope
of the role they were going to have to condition the behavior of the great powers
towards peace, in a way that the League of Nations, the predecessor of the first, in the
the thirties did not achieve. However, this hope ended up being again
mistaken and the subsequent power balances marked the way for a new
competition among great powers.
In this journey towards the Cold War, a series of milestones stood out that ended up
resulting in the birth of the Truman doctrine (Spalding, 2006).
A first milestone was the speech delivered by Stalin on February 9, 1946, in which
he defended the need to revitalize the Soviet state and claimed the superiority of it
organization against other types of states; this discourse was perceived in the West as
threatening and demagogic. A second milestone - a consequence of the facts as well as a
creation of realities per se – was the drafting of the famous Long Telegram, drawn up by
George F. Kennan on February 22 of that same year. These statements were clarified and
they presented in the famous article in Foreign Affairs, where he presented himself as Mr. X, that
some consider it the most important article of the entire Cold War (Muravchik and Walt,
A third milestone was the support of the Soviet Union to different factions or groups.
revolutionaries in various strategic points of the planet such as Iran - where additionally

there were oil interests - Turkey or Greece, which would end the perceptions
Americans of a possible coexistence with the Soviet Union (Kennan, 1947). The
famous speech by President Truman on March 12, 1947, where the adoption is recorded
the Truman doctrine has traditionally been considered the central point of it,
although the development of the strategy is mainly due to the contributions of Kennan
and other members of the Administration. In this speech, it is noteworthy the importance that
grants to the situation of a 'small and poorly equipped Greek government', unpopular
but threatened by extremism and chaos, and the help requested by a British Empire
subjected to liquidation, putting himself as a guarantor of the freedom of other nations
through a Wilsonian rhetoric that establishes the need to choose 'between freedom and the
tyranny.
Truman emphasizes that the world is not static and that the status quo is not sacred, but that

they cannot accept changes made through coercion; for all this, the United States is

4
guarantee of what is gathered in the United Nations Charter. As a conclusion to the speech, the

The U.S. president announced the granting of 400 million dollars for a period
which ends on June 30, 1948 and qualifies as an 'investment in freedom and peace'
worldwide.” Likewise, support for freedom is manifested in the idea that regimes
totalitarian regimes win at those moments when the promises of freedom sink, and that
By helping them to develop, they are better fought. The central point gathered in this
doctrine is, therefore, the necessity to contain the advance of communism in those
points with strategic interest for the United States, similar to what was proposed by
Kennan in his famous article.

Marshall Plan

This plan (named in honor of its mentor, the retired military man and Secretary of
State of the Truman Administration that conceived it, General George Marshall) advised the
The government of the United States will make loans at low or no interest rates for
benefit the countries affected by the conflict, for the fundamental purposes of establishing the
macroeconomic guidelines necessary for their economies to emerge from the deep recession
in which the war had plunged them.
This plan, far from being proposed in consideration of humanitarian assistance purposes, had
a practical purpose with a direct impact on the American economy itself: a
a bankrupt European continent, with national economies in default as a result of the
war expenses did not represent a potential customer for the products made in
United States, whether raw materials, manufactured or semi-manufactured.
This greatly harmed American economic activity, which was seeing
reduced the markets where to place the excess production that their industry achieved
in each balance. Therefore, in order to maintain growth rates and protect its
own macroeconomic situation, from the Western power the recovery was encouraged
European economies through the implementation of a political-economic system of a character
Keynesian, in which the United States would take part in the reconstruction of the markets
Europeans, in order to regulate b. economic activity of the continent and ensure its
own economic well-being.

5
 The plan had the following objectives:

● Save the weakened European bourgeoisie from wars and from the successes of the forces
from the left and democratic.
● To bring together the capitalists of the different European countries under leadership

American, to combat the Soviet Union and the labor movement

international and national liberation.
● Take advantage of the economic difficulties that the popular democracies were experiencing.
to separate them from the socialist camp and place them within the orbit of its influence.

● Use this plan as a pressure mechanism to expel the communists from the
European governments.

American imperialists established control over finances and the

foreign trade of the recipient nations of the 'aid', and due to their pressures, the classes
dominant parties of Western European countries took measures against the parties
communists and other progressive organizations.
At the same time that the U.S. was launching this massive aid operation, the administration of

Truman created the institutional instruments of the Cold War by approving in July 1947,
the National Security Act that created the CIA and the Security Council
National.

4. Creation of NATO

Due to the events in Prague in February 1948 and the Berlin blockade. In this
same year, the need to expand the western defensive framework and security in the region
from the North Atlantic made it possible for delegates from the U.S., Canada, on March 11, 1949,
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Great Britain, meeting in Washington, signing
a pact of military cooperation and mutual assistance in the event of conflict with a third country. The

The duration of the treaty is set at 20 years, renewable. To monitor compliance with the pact
they will entrust an institution built for that purpose.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The negotiations lasted more than nine months (they started on July 6, 1943).
Having been the subject of a meticulous and detailed study.

6
 Just knowing the negotiations of Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Portugal.
they expressed their desire to join, just like Italy whose Senate approved a motion
in which he expressed his desire to join forces with the allies from around the world
Western. Subsequently, Greece and Turkey adhered to the pact on February 18.
1952: the Federal Republic of Germany on October 23, 1954, and finally Spain, which became a member

from the alliance on May 30, 1982.

The pact essentially gives life to a defensive alliance but also shares aspects.
political and economic; it is a brief text, as it consists of a preamble and 14 articles, and it
presents itself as open to any State, as long as it is European, strengthens the
development of the principles of the treaty and contribute to the security of the Atlantic region
north. At the same time, it declares that it will not affect the rights and obligations of the Nations

United Nations or the responsibility of the Security Council in the maintenance of peace and
international security. The occurrence of an attack does not imply the automatic intervention of the
Member states; according to Article 5, they adopt individually, although in agreement with
the other members, the action they deem necessary, which may even include the use of
armed forces.

The beginning of the end of an era

A little more than two decades after the construction of this world, they were given
their first signs of exhaustion appeared and the 'first symptoms of discomfort' emerged.
The context of the 1960s represented a profound break, ushering in a new phase for the
post-war world: it was a decade of immense historical acceleration. Significant events took place.

facts such as the culmination of the decolonization process, the emergence of a Third
World between the capitalist and the communist, the expansion of capitalism and the arrival of the
Soviet Union at its peak development.
During this period, all the allied countries of the United States were fully
anti-communists, determined to protect themselves from the Soviets. However, the "conspiracy
"world communist" was never an important part of the internal politics of the countries that
they claimed to be politically democratic. Only in the United States were elected
presidents to go against communism. The issue was not the threat of domination
communist world, but the preservation of the power of the United States. It should be clarified that

7
the governments that formed NATO, although they did not agree with the policy
North American, they were willing to accept its dominance as the price of the
protection against Soviet military power. In other words, American containment
what these countries received was the policy of everyone.

The most evident political consequences during these years, beyond the division
of the world in two sides, were:
In the West, communists disappeared to become political pariahs.
The USSR eliminated non-communists from the people's democracies, and classified them into
dictatorships of the proletariat.

From then on, the policy of the communist bloc was monolithic, trying to be
more solid. Although the cracks were becoming more evident. In contrast, the politics of the
the allied countries with the United States were not so clearly defined, they were only united by their dislike for the

Soviets.
One of the most significant moments that occurred in the early sixties was
the reestablishment of the alliance between the Socialist Party and the Communist Bloc. What
generated the stabilization of the communists as the main opposing force, and the location
of institutional corruption regimes.
The political base of Western governments during the Cold War encompassed, from the
social democratic left to the moderate non-nationalist right. With a significant
adherence of the parties related to the Catholic Church that were antifascist and not
socialists.
The effects of this war on international politics were more notable. It gave its
foundations for the creation of the European Community, a political body for integration of
the economies and legal systems of independent nation-states. This Community was
created both in favor of the United States and against them. It not only kept them
united the fear of the emerging Soviet power, but also of the United States.
which was considered an unreliable ally, as it could be capable of putting its interests in
first measure above all else.

8
 The 1960s experienced a brilliant economic situation, but it began to overshadow.
due to social and political conflicts. For example: the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, racial and student riots, the assassination of Martin Luther King.
The following years were marked by clear crisis, and no less significant were the
ideological, intellectual, political, and moral repercussions of the 68 Crisis. These
movements generated a "counterculture". The intellectual crisis, the rejection of conformity.
with the convictions of the post-war world meant a change in the foundations of
philosophical and social-scientific thought. Social behaviors were affected
due to the rebellion against old conventions, the 'new movements' emerged
social
After the crisis of '68 and the socioeconomic collapse, decades of uncertainty opened up.
The 1970s and 1980s were times of recomposition in the post-war world.
In the mid-seventies, two events arose that produced a
imbalance between these two countries. The first was the defeat of the United States against
Vietnam, which caused a division in the nation and was evidenced by the separation of the
European countries with the United States. Secondly, it was the economic decline that was
suffering the USSR and was on the rise. Due to Brezhnev's arms program that
generated an increase in expenses in the country.

In these years, the politics of the United States were affected and discredited by the
scandal of President Richard Nixon and the taking of American diplomatic hostages
in Iran.
Liberal capitalism underwent a profound organizational reconversion and
technological. The definitive resolution of this time of uncertainty came with the fall of
Berlin Wall in 1989, the fall became the liquidation of the surviving bipolar world
for almost fifty years.

6. Crucial Events

More than once, there has been an attempt to highlight its nature as a new 'Revolution in Europe.'

what changed among many other things, the international order, the social and political order, and
developed the awareness of the advent of a new era, it could be attributed to the fall of the

9
Berlin Wall in 1989, an event with broader consequences which
they represented a definitive break with global reach.
Events occurred that changed the worldview and consciousness of a
new generation. The fall of the wall was more of a symptom than a completed rupture. It was not
the confrontation with capitalism that precipitated the fall of socialism, but the
combination of their increasingly visible economic defects.
The starting point was that the highest leader of the USSR since 1985, Mikhail
Gorbachev implemented measures that meant a spectacular change of direction, of them
it derived that symbolic fact on an international scale.
The transcendent turned out to be the underlying process of which 1989 was a symptom. It occurred

also the no less symbolic massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In turn, all the
the environment of countries of "real socialism" that surrounded the Soviet Union embarked on paths

particulars of the abandonment of the socialist system. Shortly after, the War of
Gulf. Immense internal changes occurred in many countries, structure of
international order and the position of the major opposing ideological conceptions.
The fact that the events of 1989 and the immediate years that followed
will produce global expectation and controversy, providing an excellent starting point for a
perspective vision of the 90s, which reinforces the idea that the background of our
time is marked by three decisive milestones: 1945, 1968, and 1989.

10
 Conclusion

In this study we aim to answer certain questions regarding the

political and historical foundations that led to the development of the Cold War.
The importance of this work lies precisely in highlighting the most significant political events.

relevant to these years of constant threat between the United States and the Soviet Union, and
how this war developed.

Firstly, the war had eliminated the rivalries and conflicts that shaped
world politics before the Second World War, due to the fear of an atomic war
between the two reigning superpowers. Secondly, it had frozen the situation
international and stabilized what was a provisional state of affairs and to be fixed. But the
the development of internal policy did not freeze in the same way. Nevertheless, the
combination of power, political influence, corruption, bipolarity, and anti-imperialism
they kept the division of the world more or less stable.
The end of the Cold War eliminated the pillars that had sustained the structure.
international and global systems of internal politics. Thus creating confusion already
that there was nothing that could replace them. In this way, it proved to be not the end of a conflict

international, but the end of an era for the whole world. The Cold War prevented a
generalized direct confrontation.

11
 Bibliography

Arostegui, Julio and Jorge Saborido. The present time. A globally disordered world.
Bs. As.: Eudeba, 2005. Pages 11-18.

Hobsbawm, Eric. History of the 20th Century 1914-1991. Barcelona: Crítica. Grijaldo Mondadori
1994. Page 230-259.

Heffer, Jean and Michel Launay. The Cold War. Madrid: Akal, 1992. Pages 238-274.

CIDOB Journal of International Affairs, no. 95, (September 2011). Pages 165-187.

Nuria Carvajal Tamayo and Francisco M. Guerra Dominguez. NATO: creation, evolution and
current events. University of Córdoba. Pages 37-42.

12