The Cold War

This essay is an examination of the origins and effects of the Cold War. One of the divisions of the Cold War was between capitalistic democracy (America). Capitalistic democracy basically means political power that is exercised by the people or representatives of them and capitalism which represents people owning places privately and that’s the means of distribution are privately owned. The other division of the Cold War was the communists (Russia, and China). Communism is public ownership of almost all productive property and sharing the products of labour, which is the exact opposite of capitalistic democracy. The Cold War started in 1945 and is still going on at the present time. The Cold War is still affecting many people at this present time because even though it hasn’t necessarily affected Australia, it has affected other countries like Berlin. They were affected until only recently in 1989 when the Berlin wall was knocked down allowing them to cross the boarder of East and West Berlin. The Cold War was important because it was the first war that threatened to use an atomic bomb. The Cold War was named this because even though there was conflict between the countries a war never actually broke out.

The causes of the Cold War were that Western countries were afraid that communism would take over the world. Australia was quite worried at this stage because China and other countries like North Vietnam were communists and Australia thought they might take over Australia and turn it into a communist country. Another cause of the Cold War was the conclusion of WWII, because Germany and Berlin was spilt into four parts. This caused a period of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was basically an intense rivalry between communist and non-communist countries.

There were many major incidents during the Cold War. The Cuban missile crisis was one of these. The Cuban missile crisis was the closest that we came to an atomic bomb being let off. In April 1958 the Fidel Castro (a nationalist) came to power. In 1961 Castro declared himself a communist and received a decent amount of military and economic aid from the communist bloc. In 1962 America discovered that a number of offensive surface-to-surface missile bases in Cuba. These represented to be a major threat to America’s security. America then naval blocked Cuba. After a few days Khrushchev gave way and he withdrew the missiles and dismantled the base. The Berlin blockade was the first serious event in the Cold War. In June 1948 the Soviet Union began cutting off West Berlin from the West. After the war West Germany was divided into 4 sections (America, France, Britain and Soviet Union). America, France and Britain decided that cooperation with the Soviet Union was no longer possible, so they planned to set up West Germany, which was made up of their zones. The Soviet tried to block off their zones by cutting off traffic to and from the U.S., French, and British zones of Berlin. The United States began an airlift to keep West Berlin supplied with food and fuel. The airlift continued until May 1949, when the Soviets lifted the blockade. By this stage, West Germany had already been established.

Whilst studying the Cold War we watched several videos. One of these was Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev, this video showed a further development of the Cold War. It also showed the contest between the United States (Mr. Kennedy) and the Soviet Union (Mr. Khrushchev), the video particularly showed the contest over Cuba. It viewed the video in the late 1950’s under the military dictatorship of President Batista and the huge political and economic influences of the USA. The video shows the growing success of Castro Fidel in Cuba between 1956 and 1959, when he took over Cuba. Castro didn’t want any American influence in Cuba, so he attempted to rationalize most of the American owned businesses.

When the USA relised what was happening they retaliated. We saw in the video Cuba making fun of America’s ‘Uncle Sam’. Mr. Castro asked the USSR for massive financial support which he received. This was a major event because it marked Cuba’s political shift away from America. After America landed at the bay of the pigs in 1961, Mr. Khrushchev was already an established world leader, so he believed that Kennedy would be very inexperienced and someone who would not want to begin or risk a nuclear war. Mr. Kennedy was determined to have a superior military force over the Soviet Union, so he increased the defence budget by three times between 1961 and 1962. In 1961 the Berlin wall was built and Mr. Kennedy believed that the Russians were supporting the East Germans and therefore endangering world peace by these actions. Castro threats came even closer in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This video showed more of the competition between Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev.

We also watched a slide show (the pergammon press) this basically views the division of Germany. It also showed East Germany becoming Communist. This slide show is probably the only source that shows life in Germany at this time. It showed Refugees of Europe; these people were refugees because of their race, what they believed in about the political and culture and also refugees from starvation. The United States tried to assist in returning normal economic health to the world, because it was not politically stable which meant that it was not assured world peace. The Atomic bomb was shown and also was Albert Einstein, because his scientific abilities enabled America to build it. Then came the Korean War from 1951-1952, in the slide show it also showed the like of the refugees in Korea, something that no one else showed. In the slide show we saw a similarity between the youth of Russia and the Hitler youth, with the Russian youth marching and parades similar to those of the Hitler youth. Once again the slide show showed the pressure in which the Russians were under not to say anything about the Communists, because the Secret police were listening all the time. This was also a worry in America, except the opposite of Russia. This is because America was so afraid of Communism that anybody who seemed to support the ‘reds’ was charged. Many celebrities or journalists that said something o wrote something that had anything to do with communism never worked again. Joseph McCarthy and the ‘red scare’ was the beginning of this. The search for hidden communist became an obsession, sometimes people wouldn’t necessarily be a communist but because somebody didn’t like them, and they would say they were just to get rid of them. Most of the information was similar to the other videos, but I do think that the slide show gave an earlier look at the Cold War, where as some started later in the war, this also showed some of the causes.

Dr. Strange Love (how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb) showed a sarcastic approach to the Cold War and also showed the stupidity of the Cold War. The movie showed the doomsday machine and Cold War politics and an accidental nuclear attack. The movie showed the stupidity of the war and how easily something could have gone wrong, to start the end of the world.

I think the pergammon press gave the best examination of the Cold War, because it included the end of WWII, Which had a huge effect on the Cold War taking place, not many of the other videos did that. I also found the photocopy of McCarthy to be interesting because it also showed a part of the Cold War none of the others did.

The state of the Cold War today is still a great threat because there is still a fear of atomic bombs. Recently Russia has joined NATO, because they realised that their growth needs access with western activity. The USSR broke up in 1989. This caused the Berlin Wall to fall down and countries like Poland, Hungry, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania are now independent countries.