Essay Sample on Communism And The Cold War

Introduction

Many events in history shaped the way the world is today. Among the events is the cold war. The cold war was a period that was characterized by a tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. Before the two superpowers were allies, but differences in political ideology made the two nations have conflicts to the extent of a near nuclear war. The main factor the contributed to the cold war was the differences in opinion regarding the use of communism. Communism played a significant role in the cold war as it was the primary reason behind the tensions. The United States criticized the use of communism heavily as it tried to prevent the Soviet Union to spread the ideology to different parts of the world such as Europe and Africa. Communism made the Soviet Union different from the United States.

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While the Soviet Union was in favor of communism, the United States followed the capitalist ideology. According to capitalism, the country allowed citizens to own land and other businesses which in turn led to competition for the existing resources. In contrast to the capitalist, communism was for the idea that the government owns every resource in the country and citizens should work to enjoy such resources. Apart from the Soviet Union, other countries that were in favor of the communist ideology were East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Albania, and Yugoslavia. To fight communism, the United States resulted in using containment.

Containment was a policy that the United States made use of as one of its approaches of dealing with communism. The United States use of containment was in response to the Soviet Union's campaign to spread communism to the rest of Europe and in countries such as China and Vietnam. The highlight of the use of containment is the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, the tension that existed between the East communist nations and the West sometimes resulted in actual wars. An illustration of the disagreement is the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. As much as the Soviet Union tried to spread communist through Europe, certain events prevented the Soviet Union from doing so and as a result the Cold War ended. These events included the Berlin Wall falling as well as the shredding of the Iron Curtain. The Falling of the Berlin Wall symbolized the willingness of East Germany, which was communist, to allow relations to other western countries. Although the Cold War ended, there are still countries that practice communism.

Conclusion

Currently, five countries are remaining that are still practicing communism; Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Lao People's Democratic Republic (Porzucki, 2013). An examination into a country like China reveals a lot. Given that China has one of the largest economies in the World, one would wonder if communism is the way to go. According to Kameron Virk, kind of communism practiced in China has changed over the years (Virk, 2017). His article published by the Irish Independent reveals that even though the private sector in China contributes to a higher percentage of the GDP compared to the public sector, the government still has a say in the affairs of the private sector. The present situation is slightly different from communist China during the cold war which was characterized by dictatorship and mass starvation. In my opinion, communism in modern-day China presents a more forward-thinking ideology of what communism should entail. The traditional view of communism is that the government owns every resource in the country, but China represents the how communism can be implemented today with the involvement of the private sector.

References

Porzucki, N. (2013). Can you name the five remaining communist countries in the world? PRI The World. Retrieved from https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-10/can-you-name-five-remaining-communist-countries-world

Virk, K. (2017). Is China actually a communist country? Irish Independent. Retrieved from https://www.independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/is-china-actually-a-communist-country-36243236.html