Cold War Dbq

The growing tension between the Soviets and the West, United States in particular, reverberated around the world after the Second World War. Although allied in their fight against Nazi Germany, communist Russia and capitalist America soon came to distrust each other’s goals in a post-war world. The Soviets considered the West as being enslaved by capitalism whereas the Americans believed the Soviets were enslaved by communism. This general mistrust and unwillingness to work together is cleverly depicted in the cartoon in Source A and written in the extract of Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’, Source B. Capitalism and communism were and always will be mutual enemies and both sides believed that the goal of their rival was world domination. This mistrust and belief led to the development of the Cold War by 1945.
Through the re-division of Germany between Britain, France, the US and Russia, the Allies controlled West Berlin and the Soviets the East. This refusal to work together and constant disagreement between the four major ‘world powers’ is cleverly depicted in Source A. The cartoon displays the four main leaders in the world during the period of the Cold War and each leader wants to play a different “sport” which can be an allusion to the ideological, political and economic differences the leaders had and therefore could not work well together. Two different aims for Germany became apparent; Stalin wanted Germany to be ruined by reparations, and a buffer of friendly states around Russia to protect them from future Western attacks. On the other hand, Britain and the US wanted a democratic and capitalist Germany to become a world trading partner that was also strong enough to stop the westward spread of Communism. “A fine team – but could do with a dash of unity...” (Source A) is a perfect quote that smartly describes the United Nations at the time of the Cold