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Title: Who was primarily responsible for the Cold War? Was it the Soviet Union or was it the United States?
Contents
Introduction    3
Key Culprit of Cold War — United States or Soviet Union?    3
Analysis of Documents    3
Conclusion    8
Works Cited    10
Introduction
This assignment focusses on the question that who was primarily responsible for the Cold War. There are two option, one Soviet Union and other is United States. In this assignment, the solution to the question is provided with proper reason and proofs. Six historical documents are analyzed to find the answer to the question. The six documents are The Iron Curtain Speech, Soviet Ambassador Telegram, Henry Wallace Letter, The Truman Doctrine, Walter Lippmann, A Critique of Containment (1947) and The Marshall Plan (1947) (Price). Hence, it is important to analyze the reason for Cold War.
Key Culprit of Cold War — United States or Soviet Union?
The one who is responsible primarily for the Cold war is the Soviet Union. There are many reasons and proofs that make this statement co
ect. Both the US and Soviet Union are said to be responsible but it is the Soviet Union that is first to blame. There will be discussion on some historical documents to get proper proofs and reason to support the above statement in further section.
Analysis of Documents
Document 1:
Winston Churchill is the author of document 1, which is an excerpt from the “Iron Curtain Speech”. It is a speech, which was held on 5 March in the year 1946. The place was Fulton in Missouri that in the United States (U.S.). Winston Churchill was famous due to World War II and was the prime minister of British during 1940 to 1955. He was very popular due to his motivational speeches and never gave up even if the circumstances were out of situation. In this document, it is clearly written, “I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war.
What the country desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.” This statement tells us that the Soviet Union focused on the expansion of their power (strength) and control other countries as fruits of war. On the other hand, the US wanted to help countries in order to create peace in the region and always focus on doing better for the people’s peace. US had no intension to fight or start a war but was always ready to help other weak or needed country.
Also in the document, the Winston Churchill said that people have to focus on complete stoppage of war and make countries free and democratic so that everyone can live in peace and with happiness. Moreover, the Soviet Union did not wanted war but want to rule other countries as a fruit of war, which United States did not, wanted. Thus, as identified by Salisbury, the US started helping the weak countries who were in trouble at that time by providing necessary items and people’s help. Thus, this document proved that Soviet Union was primarily responsible for the Cold War.
Document 2:
The author of document 2 is Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Novikov who sent a telegram to Soviet Leadership in the month September and year 1946. The Nikolai Novikov was a diplomat of Soviet and the telegram tells us the opinion of him about United States (U.S.) that the U.S. has many powers in terms of weapons and money thus it would take part or enter only at the last minute so as to affect the war’s outcome.
It would completely interests them. America was a powerful country and thus had the right to lead other countries also. The US was focusing on world supremacy and does wanted development in the whole world. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was also started involving in the cold war for same motive. After some time, the America’s motive changes and they focused on containment and stopped the expansion of communism by using various approaches. The approaches were economic, diplomatic and...