Which of these countries was most responsible for the Cold War - USA or USSR?
Both USA and USSR contributed to the slow evolvement of the Cold War, although I would accuse the USSR of being the more responsible of the two parties. Stalin's initial paranoid suspicions of the West gave him the need to cripple Germany in order to feel protected against future threats and I believe that he used this excuse to too far an extent, thus bringing about the Cold War. During the years of 1945 and 1947 he tightened his grip over the countries of Eastern Europe that the red army had entered during the last year of the war. This was achieved in the way that coalition governments were set up that consisted of both Communist and democratic parties but the key posts tended to be held by Communists. "Free" elections followed which resulted in communist governments replacing the coalitions, bu
In 1947 America intervened in the conflict between the communists and the democratic parties in Greece and this marked the beginning of a new era in the USA's attitude regarding world politics, which became known as the "Truman Doctrine". Truman's justifications for this policy were outlined in a speech he gave on 12th March 1947;
These actions taken by the USA proved their will to participate in the Cold War and certainly showed that the USSR cannot be solely blamed for it. My belief is, however, that without Russia's initial expansion into Eastern Europe due to Stalin's exaggerated paranoia things would not have developed to the stage that it did, whereas had Stalin accepted to compromise with Truman, the USA were unlikely to take things much further and therefore of the two countries I find USSR to be the more responsible.
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