Soviet Union Dbq

The United States and The Soviet Union were originally joined together by the want to defeat The Nazi army, in 1941-1945. The alliance remained, and strengthened, among the two until the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, a rupture between the two occurred. The differences began earlier, but there was a straw that broke the camels back. The reason The United States and The Soviet Union’s alliance did not work out is because The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies.
“The distinct differences in the political systems of the two countries often prevented them from reaching a mutual understanding on key policy issues and even, as in the case of the Cuban missile crisis, brought them to the brink of war” (Library of Congress). The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The United States was a democracy whereas The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. This only began their differences though, their economies, beliefs, goals, and even their fears, everything about them made them different except for their enemy. The

Soviet Union’s goals were to acquire more land and spread communism. The United States goals were to allow free elections in Eastern Europe and stop the spread of communism (Miller).
“At the Yalta conference, the Big Three ‘attempted to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability,’ and many believe the decisions and concessions of Roosevelt and Churchill during the summit led to the power struggle of the ensuing Cold War” (The Latin Library).

This quote shows that The Soviet Union started to agree to the terms of The United States and Great Britain. The Soviet Union agreed to a lot before the Yalta conference ended, but afterward they went back on their word. Instead of allowing free elections they said they would do, The Soviet Union did nothing completely ignoring Great Britain and The United States. The United States began to get bothered by that but tried to iit to focus on the main goal, defeating the Nazis. Once the main goal was achieved, they began to realize why they were never allies

before.
“Before the war, America had depicted The Soviet Union as almost the devil-incarnate. The Soviet Union had depicted America likewise so their ‘friendship’ during the war was simply the result of having a mutual enemy - Nazi Germany.” (Chris Trueman) The United States and The Soviet Union were never allies before, so why the sudden change of heart now? They had never truly even tried to be allies before, so when they had a common enemy it just seemed right to bind together and take down the mutual enemy. The United States realized sooner than The Soviet Union the reason they couldn’t be allies, they just didn’t trust one another. The distrust just formed into a cold war after they won the second world war. The cold war consisted of an arm’s race and threats to bomb each other. The arm’s race began with the making of the nuclear bomb, then spread to the hydrogen bomb, and finally the space race. As for the bombing, each other, mutual destruction soon came into play. Mutual destruction is the problem of one country destroying the other then the other country destroying them back, leading to both countries being destroyed. If both countries are destroyed then there would be an official end to the countries and a draw in the war.
At the beginning of World War II, The United States and Soviet Union barely talked to one another. As the war developed, they began to depend upon each other to get rid of the bigger threat, the Nazis. The reason the United States and the Soviet Union’s alliance didn’t work out is because the Soviet Union and the United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies. They continued to have their differences, ultimately leading to the Cold War after World War II.