During the Second World War, the United States teamed up with the United Soviet Socialist Republic to fight a common enemy: Germany. When it finally surrendered there was a need to establish ideologies in the western countries to avoid a repeat of the war. Because of this need, the US and the USSR found themselves on the opposing side because whereas the US favored capitalism characterized by free trade that was going to help its economy to divert a post-war depression and also be able to introduce democratic governance systems in newly independent countries.

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The USSR on the other hand favored communist-friendly countries that it would have control over and act as a buffer zone in the event of another war. These conflicting interests of two superpowers had far reaching effects on the US in terms of foreign policy and military activities both in Washington and in Western countries. From 1945 to1975, the activities on external affairs in the US government were majorly aimed at trying to stop the USSR from transferring its communism ideologies to other countries and this affected the way the US dealt with countries depending on whether they were in favor of capitalism or communism. This paper explores the effects that communism had on the US between 1945 and 1975, a period that witnessed major activities in what came to be famously known as the Cold War

The Cold War which was fought between the US and USSR was a culmination of differing ideologies between the two countries. With the defeat of fascist Germany and militarist Japan at the end of the Second World War, there were only two superpowers that were opposing ideologies in all respects. While the US and the Western Bloc favored capitalism, the USSR and the Eastern Bloc took pride in communism with its leaders vowing to protect and even spread it out to the like minded nations. Consequently, there was a concentration of opposing views with each faction competing to attract as many allies as possible in order to defeat each other. The US on the other hand determined to spread the capitalism dogmas across the world. Both nations had an enrichment of nuclear weapons which meant that in case of any military confrontations they were assured to suffer destruction in equal measure. This limited their confrontations to foreign policy confrontations and sometimes in proxy wars that were fought in other countries between 1945 and 1991 when the USSR collapsed.

The Economic Recovery Plan of 1947 famously known as The Marshall Plan was a culmination of the need to stop communism from spreading to other countries. This was the first step that the US government took under the leadership of President Truman and saw billions of dollars in economic aid being sent out for the reconstruction Western European economies. The US had to release this money at a time when it had just come from a major war and this greatly affected the economic recovery in the US itself. After the start of the Korean War in 1950, the US had to reevaluate its foreign policy in what came to be known as NSC-68 and which dictated US contact with foreign countries for many years later. One of the notable resolutions in NSC-68 was the need, to increase aid to foreign nations vulnerable to communist aggression along with an increase in defense spending from 5 to 20 percent of the federal budget. Communism also prompted the increase in military spending which resulted in the production of more powerful atomic bombs, atomic missiles, the hydrogen bomb, and atomic-powered submarines.

Communism Ideologies led to the Cold War

The leadership of two superpowers determined that peaceful coexistence of capitalism and communism was not a possible thing to achieve. The Socialist faction highly doubted the sincerity of moderate Socialist and Capitalist leaders in Western countries. The USSR under Kremlin always experienced a traditional and instinctive sense of insecurity which led to its leaders seeking ways to protect their interest both nationally and internationally. The economically advanced west instigated fear of the emergence of more competent, powerful, highly organized societies within its borders which may have opened its system to the outside world. Hence, the involvement of the USSR in the war emanated from the fact that the leaders wanted its system of leadership to remain not only closed to the outside world but also to spread to other nations. The US on the other hand believed that with its economic and military powers, it had the right to be the world leader as was proclaimed in the new world order and therefore the USSR and the Socialist world did not have the right to stop this agenda.

The beginning and continuation of the Cold War between the US and the USSR was founded in the fact that the two nations took diverging opinions on the issues that were affecting the world. The leadership of the USSR had already conceived the existence of two centers of power in the development of the international revolution. The two centers of world significance were to be represented by a socialist center with the countries which tend toward communism, and a capitalist center, with countries that incline toward capitalism. This was an unavoidable imminent situation given that the US also had the same view before the end of the World War II. Whereas the US leadership wanted to built a world economy that was based on capitalism by virtue of their position as a superpower, the USSR felt that their communism model was the best on which the world economy could be built. The USSR also feared the influence of the outsiders on their model and sought to protect it’s at all cost including supporting the nations that were seen as allies of communism.

As a result of the concentration of centers of power around capitalism and communism, there was the existence of mistrust between the two warring nations as each saw military and economic powers a tool that could be used to muzzle the efforts of the other. Thus, the leadership of the two nations embarked on activities that included military and economic support to the nations that were seen as their supporters and who were likely to increase their influence in other parts of the world. For instance, the USSR strategically undertook to support the Cuban government against the aggression of the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis while the US supported the Korean War with a view of destabilizing the influence of the USSR in the region. Another ideology of the USSR was the determination of its leaders to do everything in order to advance relative strength of the USSR as a factor in international society. Similarly, the USSR leadership also believed that every opportunity must be utilized to reduce strength and influence of both collective as well as individual powers of capitalism. On their side, the US and the Western Bloc determined to wage a relentless battle against socialists led by the USSR and Social Democratic leaders abroad.

The pursuit of the ideologies by the two superpowers meant that they would always take diverging views on even simple issues that affected the world leadership. The involvement of the USSR in the war in Angola through Cuba was an indication that the USSR was determined to curtail the influence of the US in the African continent. Furthermore, the US pursued its agenda by supporting the enemies of the Communism and USSR by extensively in India and Pakistan. The Russian leaders decided that they were going to participate officially in international organizations where there was a prospect of extending the Soviet power of reducing or diluting the power of others. The US leadership used the foreign policy which reflected the imperialistic tendencies peculiar for American monopolistic capital. During the postwar period it strived for the world supremacy to perpetuate its ideologies in friendly nations like Britain and India. The US also used the colossal need by the European and Asian countries for the consumer goods supply these goods and in the process to infiltrate their national economies with its capitalist ideologies. This was also aimed at strengthening the economic position of the US and capitalism around the world, thus paving way for the domination of the US in those countries.

Conclusion

The American people were affected by communism in many ways. In fear of having spies inside America, the government maintained a Blacklist where the names of people suspected to be spies for communist were maintained. Such people faced persecution from the government if they were arrested. Moreover, the American taxpayer was forced to pay for activities that were not directly related to the improvement of their lives. For instance, millions of dollars were pumped out of the country to aid the government policies of developing new democracies. People also lived in fear of a nuclear war which forced them to have weekly bomb drills so that they could cover themselves in case of an outbreak of war. This period was characterized by the fear of a nuclear war between the US and the USSR.