Реферат: The Rise Of The Super Power Essay

the totalitarian control of the Soviet Union was that he believed the weakness in the

Soviet economy caused by the war would require Stalin to seek Western aid? (9).

Therefore opening the Russians to Western influence.

Many historians feel that Roosevelt was simply naive to believe that the Soviet

Union would act in such a way. Writer, Arthur Schlesinger saw the geopolitical and

ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. He stressed that

the ideological differences were the most important ?the two nations were constructed on

opposite and profoundly antagonistic principles. They were divided by the most

significant and fundamental disagreements over human rights, individual liberties,

cultural freedom, the role of civil society, the direction of history, and the destiny of man?

(45). Yet it is much easier to comment on events of the past with the hindsight that

Roosevelt simply did not have.

Stalin?s views regarding the possibility of reconciliation between the Soviet Union

and the West were similar. He thought that the Russian Revolution created two converse

camps: Anglo-America and Soviet Russia. Stalin felt that the best way to ensure the

continuation of the communist world revolution was to continually annex the countries

bordering the Soviet Union, instead of attempting to foster revolution in the more

advanced industrial societies (Dukes 102).

The creation of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe did not come as a total surprise.

Roosevelt thought that America?s position after the war, vis-?-vis the rest of the world,

would put him in a very good position to impose his view of the post-war world order.

Others predicted that after the German defeat, the Russians would be able to impose any

territorial settlement desired in Central Europe and the Balkans. World War II caused the

Soviet Union to rapidly evolve from a military farce, to a military superpower (Dukes

102). In 1940, it was hoped that if the Soviet Union was attacked, they could hold off

long enough for the West to help fight them off with reinforcements.

In 1945, the Soviet Army was marching triumphantly through Berlin. It could

have been said that this event was planned by Stalin in the same way that Roosevelt

seemed to have planned to achieve world supremacy (Smith 87). Even though Stalin