How the 'Revolutionary-Imperial Paradigm' Shaped Soviet Foreign Policy during the Early Cold War

1562 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: United States and Soviet Union foreign policy in the Cold War era

How did the "revolutionary-imperial paradigm" shape Soviet foreign policy during the early Cold War?

The defeat of Germany and its satellites in the war radically changed the balance of forces in the world. The Soviet Union became one of the leading world powers, without which, should not have been resolved then no question of international life. And so, its features began to have impact on world relations and became clearer for foreign diplomats and observers.
However, during the war U.S. power grew more and more being in the war years, the international lender, the United States had the opportunity to expand its influence in other countries and peoples. The USA became the most powerful democratic state. So, the US pretended now to be the leader of democratic world. Its administration began a gradual withdrawal of the U.S. administration of wartime agreements.
So, the situation turned in such a way that imperialism of great powers, which rose before and after WWI was now replaced by the struggle of two great powers. The Soviet Union was influenced by different factors. The new situation itself forced it to change policy. But there were some very specific reasons in the previous years, which formed the conception of revolutionary-imperial paradigm and its specific influence on Soviet international policy in the beginning of the “cold war”.
The main reasons, forming this paradigm, were :
1) The pre-revolutionary history of Russia. For the Russians it was traditional view itself as a nation with a special mission. It started since the late Middle Ages. After the destruction of Byzantium, Russia was the only independent country with a dominant Orthodox faith. The religious factor has led to the fact that in spreading the true fait...

... middle of paper ...

...tions was still appropriate for Khrushchev as he received nuclear bomb into his hands. Khrushchev sincerely considered Western world to be the forces of evil. Even when the realities of new time changed and Khrushchev had to recognize them, still he believed in revolutionary-imperial paradigm.
Soviet foreign policy was based on an ideological confrontation with the West, embodied by the "world imperialism" and its ultimate goal was to contribute to its destruction, didn’t change, when Khrushchev came to power.
Thus, revolutionary imperial paradigm defined the policy of the Soviet Union. She forced him to look for opportunities to increase the influence of both by supporting the communist parties and the armed conflict. By itself, the paradigm has been influenced by Marxist ideology and personality of Stalin in Russian history and features of the post-war world.

Show More
Related

  • Autonomy and Political Responsibility after the Cold War

    2605 Words  | 6 Pages

    The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...

    Read More

  • Foreign Policy Dbq

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    The wars that America fought was primarily for that reason. The formation of the European Union was a key strategy by United States to ensure that European countries are consolidated under one umbrella that controls the political and economic affairs of the region. United States’ economic mighty, political and cultural appeal and strong military has helped maintain the status as the only truly global power. U.S. used its power to promote democracy and support countries under siege both from internal and external aggressions, a strategy that they also used to promote the interests of American companies and its people. The U.S. foreign policy through the 20th century was meant to take the lead in creating effective international institutions and arrangements to handle new challenges especially those rising from Europe, Asia and Latin America. The U.S. wanted to lead not only because it alone could have helped the international community overcome its problems, but feared that it is most likely to be hurt if it does not act. Following the victory in World War II, the U.S. led the efforts to create United Nations and NATO and also facilitated formation of new regimes in some countries to promote democracy, economic recovery, development, and prosperity which benefited those countries and their people and

    Read More

  • The Legacy of Russia and the Soviet Union - Authoritarian and Repressive Traditions that Refuse to

    1785 Words  | 4 Pages

    Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...

    Read More

  • How The United States Contained Communism in the Cold War

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union had very different ideas on how to rebuild. The United States, led by President Truman, wanted to form democracies in Europe and create a capitalistic society to build economically strong nations that would compliment the American economy through trade. In contrast, the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, wanted to rebuild itself and spread communism through Europe and Asia. In a desperate attempt to rebuild, many countries devastated by war fell under soviet influence and resorted to communism. The Soviet Union called these nations Satellite nations and hoped that they would serve as ?buffer? nations, preventing invasion from the west .In its efforts to defend democracy, the U.S. created the policy of containment. In this new policy, the United States would try to block Soviet influence by making alliances and supporting weaker nations. Winston Churchill described this strategy as an ?iron curtain?, which became and invisible line separating the communist from the capitalist countries in Europe. To help enforce the ideas of containment, President Truman create...

    Read More

  • Khrushchev's Peaceful Coexistence And Secret Speech

    303 Words  | 1 Pages

    Despite the appearance of goodwill exhibited in Khrushchev’s speeches, a Western leader would be inherently skeptical of the Stalin crony as he attempts to gain and maintain power over the Soviet Union and his own party. An obvious politician, Khrushchev’s “peaceful coexistence” and “Secret Speech” in February 1956 served to distance him from the unpopular and failing Stalinist approach of communist control. His rhetoric, however, remains no less expansionist than his predecessor. Specifically, in his comments on “peaceful coexistence”, Khrushchev emphasized the ultimate triumph of the socialist system, but concedes that military intervention alone will not achieve such a victory (Judge & Langdon, 339). Rhetoric aside, one must consider Khrushchev’s

    Read More

  • Re-Assessing the Influence of George Kennan’s “X” Article in the Early Cold War Period

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’ also known as the “X” article is an imperative document that are needed to understand United States foreign policy in the Cold War. Written by George F. Keenan, a U.S. diplomatic staff in the Soviet Union, the “X” article turned into an influential document after the U.S. realized that the Soviet Union would no longer be allies in peacetime and it was necessity to figure out the nature of the Soviet Union so the U.S. could form precise foreign policies to prevent Soviet threats. This paper attempts to assess the “X” article’s influence in U.S. foreign policy in the early days of the Cold War, especially its role in Truman’s doctrine.

    Read More

  • George Orwell’s 1984 and Stalin’s Russia

    2134 Words  | 5 Pages

    A. Soviet History. Marxists.org. 2010. Web. The Web. The Web.

    Read More

  • The Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War

    2675 Words  | 6 Pages

    There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and (above all) who bears the main responsibility for starting it" (Hammond 4). There are three main schools of thought in the historiography: the traditional view, known alternatively as the orthodox or liberal view, which finds fault lying mostly with the Russians and deems security concerns to be the root cause of the Cold War; the revisionist view, which argues that it is, in fact, the United States and the West to blame for the Cold War and not the Russians, and cites economic open-door interests for spawning the Cold War; finally, the post-revisionist view which finds fault with both sides in the conflict and points to issues raised both by the traditionalists as well as the revisionists for combining to cause the Cold War. While strong arguments are made by historians writing from the traditionalist school, as well as those writing from the revisionist school, I claim that the viewpoint of the post-revisionists is the most accurate in describing the origins of the Cold War.

    Read More

  • Imperialism, Expansionism, and the Cold War

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    Imperialism, Expansionism, and the Cold War The Cold War developed after the Second World War as a blend of several unsolved disputes and diplomatic misinterpretations. Ideological differences worsened the matter and made interaction with either side less probable since each other was resented by the other's actions during the previous war. Even so, what really built up and intensified the war was the imperialistic and expansionist nature of the capitalist and communist nations since both sides struggled to obtain better relations with other strong countries and expand their rule or political influence. First of all, the ideological differences between the capitalist and communist parties were probably the main determining factors in the imperialist/expansionist decisions which were taken. In the case of the communists, it was their main principles which defied the capitalists since the communist main points were that the capitalists would eventually destroy themselves.

    Read More

  • The Long-Term Causes of the Fall of the Soviet Union

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    The overall collapse of the Communist regime came rather quickly, but there were underlying causes of the collapse that were apparent during the preceding decades. On the surface, the 1970s looked good for the Soviet Union. A lot of certain aspects were still going the Soviet Unions way. However, in 1975, the Soviet Union’s power peaked. In 1975, the Soviet Union’s power began to dwindle and there were six underlying causes of the collapse that can be dated back to that year. In this essay I will discuss these six causes and how they helped bring about the actual collapse of the Soviet regime.

    Read More

  • who if any one won the cold war?

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    The cold war was failed by the Soviet Union for many reasons, including the sudden collapse of communism (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This sudden collapse of communism was brought on ultimately by internal factors. The soviet unions president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstructering) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev’s basics for glasnost were the promotion of principles of freedom to criticize; the loosening of controls on media and publishing; and the freedom of worship. His essentials of perestroika were, a new legislature; creation of an executive presidency; ending of the ‘leading role’ of the communist party; allowing state enterprises to sell part of their product on the open market; lastly, allowing foreign companies to own Soviet enterprises (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev believed his reforms would benefit his country, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by the soviet tradition he was trying to change. The Soviet Union was none the less held together by “…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force.

    Read More

  • The Cold War and the Ideological Battle

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Cold War was the clash of cultures between the United States and the Soviet Union that coloured many major geopolitical events in the latter half of the twentieth century. This included decolonization and neocolonialism, especially in African states. Kwame Nkrumah noted that neocolonialism is when an imperialist power claims to give independence, but still influences the new state to meet its own goals. Both the U.S. and the USSR were neocolonialist powers, and a prime example of their desires to mold other states was the Congo Crisis, which acted to make decolonization unappealing to states outside Africa. Congo achieved independence on June 30, 1960 under Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu, but was wracked by civil war as soldiers protested the remaining Europeans in the army and other positions. Both outside states played a role in the conflict. The Cold War and the ideological battle between the US and USSR played a large role in facilitated the Congo Crisis, which hindered other African states’ move to decolonization.

    Read More

  • Communism In Cuba

    1484 Words  | 3 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... Khrushchev mentions that Kennedy was a great loss for the Americans and identified him as a true “statesman.” He also feels that if he lived through his term, that relations between the Soviet Union and the United States would have been better because Kennedy wouldn’t have allowed the US to be defeated in Vietnam in the later years to come. I feel that the Cuban missile crisis served not only as another example of how nuclear war is in fact possible, but also allowed interaction between opposing systems of government that were both seeking to expand their influence on third world countries.

    Read More

  • Imperial Chancellery In Russia

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Russia gradually modernized between 1801 and 1939, it continued to rule over the people by intimidation with the incorporation of the secret police force. The secret police force would continue to play a large part of Russia’s attempts in controlling its people while the different forms of governments constantly changed due to the people’s discontentment. At the same time, Russia changed itself from an agrarian based economy to an industrialized nation through a slow, gradual approach of accepting its utmost importance to catch up with the other major world powers that threatened its power. The impacts of the continuity of the secret police and changes of governments and industrialization all eventually led to Russia’s “new identity” as

    Read More

  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... In conclusion, the chaos that was encountered by the Soviet Union together with the ideas the new leaders brought to enlighten Eastern Europe about communism. This made the countries understand their freedom and rights through the Glasnot. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the freedom and independence of many Soviet states. They were no longer a world super power and with the difficulties it faced economically, politically and socially, led to its own downfall.

    Read More

More about How the 'Revolutionary-Imperial Paradigm' Shaped Soviet Foreign Policy during the Early Cold War

Open Document