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Essay on marxist theory
Essay on marxist theory
Essay on marxist theory
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‘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.
Introduction
After a few years since the publication of the “X” article, ‘containment’, the term that was coined by Keenan, became a key word to describe the U.S. foreign policy in overcoming Soviet threats. Yet, Keenan criticized Truman’s containment policy as ‘too universalistic’ in that it placed the U.S. in an exhausting commitment to block every Soviet expansion to free countries (Keenan, 1967). In fact, the containment policy was influencing the U.S. involvement in different confrontation from Germany to Vietnam.
In the “X” article itself Keenan stated several important points that generated his ‘containment’ recommendation (Keenan, 1947). First, he mentioned that the Soviet Union policy was dominated by rigid decision makers, which derived mostly from their subjective Marxist perspective, and showed hostilities toward the capitalist system. He also tried to convince the U.S. that the Soviet Union had a strong confidence in Marxist social revolution theory, no matter what the current circumstances were, and implicated in his arguments that the Soviet Union had...
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Total Words: 1,610 (no more than 10% from 1,500 words requirements)
Works Cited
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Harry S. Truman. (n.d.). . Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://millercenter.org/president/truman/essays/biography/2
Keenan, G. F. Source of the Soviet Conduct (1947, July). Foreign Affairs Magazine.
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McCullough, D. G. (1992). Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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Phillips, Cabell. The Truman Presidency: The History of a Triumphant Succession. New York: MacMillan, 1966.
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...
After the end of WW2, two major governmental institutions, the USA and the USSR, with conflicting political ideologies and agendas, set forth to dominate each other in international politics. This period of time, also known as the Cold War, initiated an era of crazed hysteria in the United States as these two governments frequently clashed and bitterly fought. As a result, the frightened public grew delirious as the world grew dangerously close to a calamitous nuclear war, which ultimately prompted the Eisenhower administration to hinder the spread of communism and encourage the U.S. population to rapidly pursue higher education for the future welfare of this nation.
During the cold war, the United States engaged in many aggressive policies both at home and abroad, in which to fight communism and the spread of communist ideas. Faced with a new challenge and new global responsibilities the U.S. needed to retain what it had fought so strongly for in World War II. It needed to contain the communist ideas pouring from the Soviet Union while preventing communist influence at home, without triggering World War III. With the policies of containment, McCarthyism, and brinkmanship, the United States hoped to effectively stop the spread of communism and their newest threat, the Soviet Union.
The type of policy known as containment was the foreign policy that the United States of America used between the times of 1947 (two years after World War Two) until 1989 (he fall of the Berlin Wall). The definition of containment in this case is strategies whether it was diplomatically, militarily or economically to contain the forming and progression of communism and to give America an influential advantage abroad. The policy of containment all started out with what was known as the Yalta conference, which consisted of Franklin D Roosevelt, the president of the United States at the time, Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United kingdom, and Joseph Stain, leader of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was during this conference that the three men came to an agreement that these three countries would separate the world into three different parts and have their influence on those three parts. This was known as the sphere of influence and it was divided like this; The United States would have control of influence the western hemisphere meaning all of the Americ...
Therefore, establishing anti-Bolshevism in the United States was Robert F. Kelley’s mission. Kelley an Irish Catholic trained by Russian refugees ran the Eastern European Affairs division in the State Department (Leffler, The Specter of Communism, 19). Kelley’s intense dislike for the Bolsheviks demands that his aides join actively in his views. One of his service officers is George F. Kennan who joins in the close observation of Bolshevik destabilizing and expansionist activities that cause unrest in Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Spain and Greece (Leffler, The Specter of Communism, 19). Was Kennan’s containment strategy thinking set off with Kelley’s training? Was Kennan’s awareness of the ongoing Russian Communist activities the basis for his ideas? History proves that George Kennan’s ideas on containment were the basis of NSC-68 and...
Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953. 1st September 2002. New Article. 11th March 2014.
The works of William Appleman Williams and George F. Kennan have contributed to understanding of American diplomatic history during the period of 1900-1950. Kennan's book, American Diplomacy, offers a sharp critique with its focus on American "mistakes", specifically examining the absence of direction in American foreign policy and with the end result of American strength and insecurity at the start of the Cold War. Williams, in his book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, pursues a different but still critical perspective by asserting that American policy was largely motivated by the "Open Door" policy, which led to the eventual alienation of countries to the United States and ultimately created the Cold War. By analyzing these two works, contrasts in the authors' perceptions becomes clear regarding their treatment of the Spanish-American War, the Open Door Policy, and the origins of World War II. A greater understanding of these perceptions and their distinctions can shed light on the origins of the Cold War.
Offner, Arnold. “‘Another Such Victory’: President Truman, American Foreign Policy, and the Cold War.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views On Controversial Issues in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle. 14th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 291-301.
In 1947 the United States called on a man named George Kennan to make an assessment of the Soviet Union to better understand the soviet threat that the US was facing. Kennan, who is known as the father of Containment, sent the US State Department an 8000 word missive in what is known today as the “Long Telegram.” In this dispatch he stated that he believed the Soviets thought themselves to be in a state of constant war with capitalism. He believed that the Soviets would use Marxists in the world of the capitalists as allies. Kennan also stated that the aggression of the Soviets would not align with the Russians and their views or with the reality of the economy, but more so following along with the ideology as the Tsars. Lastly Kennan pointed out that the government of the Soviets had a structure the prevented an accurate picture of the reality, internal as well as external. These ideologies of Kennan and the policy of Containment were the foundation of the Four Pillars of Foreign Policy.
With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, and The Cold War: A New History. Dr. Gaddis received his PhD from the University of Texas in 1968; he currently is on a leave of absence, but he is a professor at Yale . At the University, his focus is Cold War history. Gaddis is one of the few men who have actually done a complete biography of George Kennan, and Gaddis even won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
Outline of Essay About the Origins of the Cold War OUTLINE: Introduction- 1. Definition of ‘Cold War’ and the Powers involved 2. Perceived definition of ‘start of Cold War’ 3. Iron Curtain Speech, Truman Doctrine and Berlin Blockade as significant events that caused strife between both powers, but which triggering off the start of the Cold War Body- 1. Iron Curtain Speech (1946) - A warning of Soviet influence beyond the acknowledged Eastern Europe - Churchill’s belief that the idea of a balance in power does not appeal to the Soviets - Wants Western democracies to stand together in prevention of further
On the other hand, Kennan also had a chance to express his admiration of Gaddis by saying that he is “the best of the younger historians of American policy in the immediate postwar period (1977).” Although they have some conflicting views, one of the most important concepts of Kennan is supported by Gaddis. This is the view that the approach (in particular, to the USSR) was containment and not other actions like the ones that involve military aggression.
(1993), The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, Volume Four, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945 – 1991, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press · Froman, M.B. (1991) The Development of the Détente, Coming to Terms, London, Macmillan Academic and Professional LTD · Kent, J. and Young, J.W. (2004) International Relations Since 1945, Oxford, Oxford University Press · www.oed.com (Oxford English Dictionary online)
Taubman, William. Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War. New York: Norton, 1982. Print.