Did there have to be a cold war? Couldn't america and the soviet union have just kept their borders open and kept trading with each other? Who started the cold war?
>>434874
both sides started the cold war
it was inevitable
>>434874
>Couldn't america and the soviet union have just kept their borders open and kept trading with each other?
They weren't open in the first place?
The Soviets were allies of convenience, and vice versa. They were both growing increasingly worried over each others influence in world politics, and the Blocs they formed were measures of containment.
>Who started the Cold war
It officially started sometime during the Greek civil war, with the Soviets backing the Communist forces and the US packing the incumbent government, and got worse following the Berlin Blockade.
>>434874
The Cold War was already happening during WWII, FDR and Stalin both realized that there was an underlying ideological conflict, to the point that Stalin often implied FDR was waiting to enter the European Conflict because he hoped the Soviets and Nazi's would wipe each other out.
Wasn't until the Long Telegram (when a US Gov't official over in Russia, I can't be assed to look up his name or position, wrote President Truman and made it clear that a conflict was com) was written that the was shifted to an openly "Cold" one.
>>434874
World War 2 was ostensibly a war between democracy and fascism. However, the perceived true enemies of all three fascist states were the communists. Broadly speaking, everything the fascists did they did so that they couls grow stronger for their goal of taking down communist Russia/China.
Communism was viewed as an domestic threat before ww2 by almost everyone. Ww2 and it's proxy wars made that threat global.
>>434907
>It officially started sometime during the Greek civil war
Don't leave the Turks out of these, there were two ongoing conflicts at the time, Turkish and Greek. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were the two pieces of US foreign policy that pushed this, but are you sure there was an official start? An ideological conflict tends to grow over time.
Churchill made a speech about "an iron curtain" falling across europe in 1946, right after WW2.
Nato was formed 3 years after that in 1949, and the Warsaw pact was made in response, in 1955.
>>434874
it started in ww1 when numerous nations invaded russia incl briain, france, america and japan. most of these gave loads of support to the whites in the civil war. the western capitalist nations tried to destroy bolshevik russia as soon as it occurred. thankfully they failed
>>435180
>thankfully
Why should the workers of the world be thankful for Russia spending 33 years under one of the most insane totalitarian dictatorships in history and all the pointless civil wars the soviet union caused in the undeveloped world after ww2?
>>434912
I know Truman was shook by the reds (with Eisenhower following suit) but didn't FDR go on record trying to make concessions to Stalin (with East Germany & Poland) at the Yalta conference hoping he wouldn't snap Eastern Europe's shit up? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like Stalin was being largely paranoid here (not to deny American influence or Western influence). Although I suppose you could argue the Cold War was largely overplayed anxieties and fears that kinda festered (and in many cases were fed) by either side, so I supose you're right. You maybe more knowledgeable on the subject than me so just wanted to ask.
Yes.
>>435218
No no, you're right. FDR did try to make confessions at Yalta, but it wasn't done happily. He still believed that there was room for both powers (much to the annoyance of Churchill), so he tried to appease, rather than take a hard stance. Poland and other Eastern European nations were wanted by Stalin because of the need to establish buffer zones. Understand that the Soviets had just begun to recover from one of the most bloody invasions in their history, and Stalin was paranoid as hell.
There's a book a professor of mine gave to me, called Russia's Cold War, by Haslam. If you want to understand the Soviet mentality of the time, it's fantastic.
>>435313
>confessions
Fuck me, Im drunk
>>435201
Considering the insane amount of improvement of the quality of life in the Soviet Union and abroad that came a about because of the soviet union its existence was defiantly a good thing
>their borders open
Eveyone in the east would just run to the west.
>>435360
wut. Economic growth was stagnant behind the iron curtain
I swear I am seeing this more and more. I try to argue one thing then anon ignores it and carries on regardless. It is like you see I value the truth, so you completely ignore it to annoy me for a giggle.
>>435360
The problem with the idea of just "keeping the borders open" is that the entire western view of the Soviet Union and what it represented was heavily colored by the first Red Scare and the archetype of the bomb-throwing anarchist of the late 19th century. Meanwhile, the Soviet view of the West was also colored by intervention in the Russian Civil War. Both sides had [not entirely unfounded] expectations that its opponent would engage in widespread attempts at subverting its own authority and system, because up until the end of World War II, that was EXACTLY what extremist followers of the left engaged in and actively supported. It's no wonder that the initial draw of Fascism and the reason Mussolini was so succesful was because it was seen as a means by which to control the left.
>>435402
That's basically Communists in a nutshell m8. They're a religion at this point. They're worse than the Nazis and Libertardians from /pol/. At least you can have a debate with those two without them shoving their fingers in their ears.
OP, if we're playing the "Why couldn't everyone just get along" game then France and Poland would have given the German territory back, no invasion would occur, meaning the U.S. would never have to fund Lenin and friends and Britain wouldn't have to fund Trotsky and pals. The Soviet Union would have never come about (or fizzled out extremely quickly once Lenin started the mass murders) and WWII wouldn't have happened.
>>435425
Actually the western borders were pretty open, they let people in. It was the east who didn't let them out.
>>435360
>improvement of the quality of life
Gimmie dem statistics fucker
Lets see a single credible source showing the average serf had a better life when the Bolsheviks took over.
Did the gulags have good guest service?
>>435449
This desu.
>tsar abolishes serfdom
>commies reintroduce it with SLON and GULAG
It was a step back, not forwards.
>>435462
>gulags didn't exist
>>435360
>>435424
I don't really care care about Czech republic or Finland. I was born in Russia Uncle Joe took our country full of backward peasant and turned into a super power and Improved the quality of life. The empire was bought and run by foreign shits who along with the nobles kept the poor neck deep in shit. So for us Russians the Soviet Union was defiantly a good thing could have been even better if Molotov or Beria were able to take over after Uncle Joe instead of Khrushev
>>435462
Go back to /leftypol/ you smelly teenage retard
>>435478
Imagine if joey boy hadn't gone insane with paranoia /sent people to gulags/starved ukraine but instead kept the purge to a small number of people only in the party suspected of being loyal to the old government, and instead of going on a political killing spree just fired that small number of people, or even just demoted them.
There would be so many people left alive, many of which would have been scholars, scientists, mathematicians, economists, and these would have been the people who would have tried to create communism.
>>435478
>25 years later they still believe this shit
>>435478
>I don't really care care about Czech republic or Finland
>improvement of the quality of life in the Soviet Union and abroad
>and abroad
Nice backpedalling retard.
>>435436
>nazis don't shove their fingers in their ears
>>435180
>thankfully they failed
Begging the question - bait
>>435201
Responds to bait - idiot
>>435360
Very contentious statement with nothing backing it up - obvious bait
>>435402
>>435424
>>435449
>>435478
Responding to obvious bait - idiots
>>435436
>>435530
>>435532
>>435541
>>435554
>>435461
>>435619
Further derailment put into motion by bait
>>435462
Contests the existence of a well documented phenomenon - shitty bait
>>435469
>>435491
Two people actually respond to this
Baits and ensuing arguments encompass 17/31 posts - more than half of the posts in the thread. All quoted posts are off topic. Well done guys
>>435554
the Improvement of the working conditions in the Soviet Union caused the Improvement of the working conditions in western countries. Just because I don't care that French companies started treating french workers better due to a fear of a communist revolution of their own does not change the fact it happened.
>>435675
>autism
>>435733
>Improvement of the working conditions in the Soviet Union
Never happened.
>>435718
The USSR crashed when oil price fall, damn to the USA, because many people died in crash of USSR and happened wars, and greatest fool of mankind Gorbachev does deadly democraty inside the government business, workers vote for the chief place inside of the corporate business, of course it was murderous.
Gorbachev play games with nations of the USSR, and also elite of USSR was avid and many ussr-jews from bogemia estate was dislike the USSR and do active the propaganda job promoting the private capital economics, and that movies they photograph by governmental treasury. Crazy, but it was.
For example, from the animation
"Where we going to?
To the collective farm Light Path
- Which light path? There is nothing to see"
and another
"- This is a government farm, and this is a government cow. The cow birth a calf. Why is should own the calf?
- Because milk from government cow is our, private, the calf is our, private too. (so let's do private business, tovarisch) "
>>435718
That's interesting. So america was buying oil from the ussr while fighting it in vietnam and korea?
>The cold war occurred due to russia's relative strength during its period of peak oil production.
It occured because russia was strong? Would america inevitably go into conflict with any sufficiently powerful state post-british empire ?
>>434874
>Couldn't america and the soviet union have just kept their borders open and kept trading with each other?
Yeah but a could doesn't make a would. If you had just come through the first half of the 20th century, what would be the reasonable expectation for the second half?
>>436060
That germany had finished trying to take over the world and now we can have peace?
>>435127
Churchill dedicated pretty much all his efforts at the time into convincing the US into joining (and therefore ensuring the success of) the UN.
The iron curtain speech was a ploy to help this (if I remember rightly, he made it in the acting president or president or VP or whatever's) home state. Churchill loathed communism and desperately wanted the US to make sure it didn't retreat from its new interventionism and foreign interests - otherwise Europe coe have fallen to communism.
>>435424
>people's republic of X
every
single
fucking
time with the goddamn commies
Soviets and U.S. spilled eachothers blood in ww1 and they thought they were going to invade eachother after.
>>435783
Are you fucking retarded ?
>>435424
nice
cool inflation
>>436842
>people who were just liberated from serfdom thrown into slave labor for no pay
Yeah. Never happened, NIGGER.
Why didn't America side with Germany?
France and Britain were obviously impotent and the USSR was pure cancer.
>>436856
It's adjusted for inflation.
>>435478
In what universe does Beria seem like a good alternative
>>436934
I think that poster was criticising adjusting "for inflation" using CPI. I know I am.
>>437096
A universe of rape fetishists.
>>434874
Yes. Communism requires World Revolution. Even if the USSR disarmed completely and promised friendship to the US, they would still attempt to spread revolution by funding communist parties in foreign nations (and, by extension, communist revolutions). The US deemed this unacceptable, as communism is opposed to the right to private property, and, because it is a WORLD revolution, there is the implication the Soviets would eventually support revolution in America. This is also why the US chose containment over aggression, rather than fight them, just tell them they can get along as long as they do not expand.
>>437779
>Communism requires World Revolution.
Is this something marx said that communists should do? The USSR barely followed Marx's conception of how communism should be implemented anyhow, I don't think there's any reason to think that it was inevitable for them to attempt to incite revolution everywhere or something. e.g. Stalin had a policy of communism in one nation.
>>434874
Communist nations would be the worst places in the world for multinational corporations to expand into, so there's a powerful incentive for large companies to lobby capitalist governments into confrontation with them.
>>435424
>not understanding purchase power parity
>not knowing how economics work
You know that in most of those countries you could live for a month on like, 10$? If you knew what you were talking about, you would know, that actual problems with "real ""socialism""" wasn't earning 1700$ a year, but shortages and lack of imports
Geopolitics 101:
When two superpowers exist within the same known Universe; tensions will inevitably arrise, for each have their own pretensions and cannot trust each other.
They lacked cooperation during WW2.
If the US orchestrated with the Soviets as much as it did with the Brits and French, things would be very different.
Also ideology. It isn't a meme as people say.
>>434874
America just didn't want the existence of a socialist super-power to threaten their profits.
>>440233
>Also ideology. It isn't a meme as people say.
But could you unpack what that entails in a practical sense, with a detailed example?
>>440201
Could you explain how systemically these kind of countries ended up having shortages and lack of imports?
>>435745
>smugfag
