HIST-405N Week 7 Discussion: The Cold War and America

HIST-405N Week 7 Discussion: The Cold War and America How did the Cold War affect the social and political climate in the United States during the 1950s? How do you explain McCarthyism and the Red Scare? Can you think of any modern parallels to these events, when fear and paranoia threatened basic American liberties? Elaborate. Professor and class, During WWII, the United States and Soviet Union worked together to defeat Hilter and Nazi Germany. Once WWII was over, the US and Soviet Union had drastically different views of how the world should be. The United States continued views of free markets and democracy. “…The Soviet Union embraced a Marxist vision that eschewed private property and celebrated concentrated state authority” (Keene, Cornell, & Edward, 2013). The Soviet Union had suspicions that the US and Britain had waited so long to enter WWII to weaken the Soviet Union. The US wanted to keep peace postwar. To pressure the Soviet Union to keep free elections, President Truman froze Lend-Lease Payments to the Soviet Union. Soviet Union leader, Josef Stalin, did not keep his promise of free election in Poland. Stalin was obsessed with keeping his country protected from future attacks. This divided many countries due to capitalism versus communism (East vs. West). Countries that supported communism and the Soviet Union were under the Warsaw Pact, while the others who supported capitalists, were under the Brussels Pact. With the division of Germany