Origins of the Cold War

Core of the cold war started with the leaders and the ideologies that follow the times. In the American system, voting by the people electing a president and a congress from competing political parties. In the Soviet Union, the Communist party established a totalitarian government with no opposing parties. During the Potsdam conference the ideals of the US and USSR clashed on how the repartitions would be split with Germany. With Communism running rampant in war-torn Eastern Europe Communism began to flow throughout their crippled government. The Soviet Union took these nations under their wing making them satellite nations, thus tightening their grip on Eastern Europe. The US try to file an act of containment against the Soviet Union with the help of other western European nations. To act against this growing power the US enacted the Truman Doctrine to aid Democratic nations, Greece and Turkey, against the Communist threat. The Marshall plan was also enacted to help protect the Western Europeans against the Soviet Union. To be extra certain that Communism and the Soviet Union was contained US, Canada and the majority of the Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to fight the threat and come to the aid of each other if needed. To confront this alliance, The Soviet Union, its satellite states, and other communist nations signed the Warsaw pact that would let them help each other if the confrontation of NATO will ensue. These actions would create an era of fear and mystique that would hang over the head of the world’s inhabitants for years to come.

-Erik C