Something I wrote

The Cold War

    With the question of whether the Cold War was a product of misconception and misunderstanding between the United States and other Western Powers is opinion to different interpretations and views in my opinion. However even though there was a series of misunderstandings between the United States and other Western Powers and the Soviet Union before and after the Second World War I tend to disagree with this interpretation of the Cold War for a number of reasons including the huge ideological divide between the Western Powers and the USSR. Also Stalin�s failure to make good on his promises for democracy in the Eastern European nations in the aftermath of WWII made it unacceptable for the Western Powers to regard him as an ally. In addition last but not least at the end of World War II the build up to the Cold War had been brewing for 25 years and this was due to the agreement and conclusions of the Versailles Peace Conference and before that the Bolshevik Revolution against the Romenovs in Russia which is a reason I mainly believe a combination of these two were responsible for a large part the Cold War.

  After World War I came the Versailles Peace Treaty in Which the Allied Powers would shape the Post World War I world and would also partake in the spoils of victory. The USSR, which was still in the middle of the civil War between the Bolsheviks and the Whites, was represented and present at the conference but did not have much say in the various discussions and agreements that would shake and rock the world geopolitically for decades to come. However it wasn�t the Soviet Union that was feeling the expense of defeat but the Germans who were blamed for igniting the war and the damage it caused. The victorious Allies due to this blame slapped demands of financial reparations that the Germans were to pay in addition limits on German military and political ventures were placed. 20 years later these demands and limits placed on an already weakened post war Germany would come back to hunt them with the rise of the Third Reich under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the subsequent armed aggression against the various nations of Europe. Germany and its allies (the Axis) were defeated, Germany which was occupied by the US, Great Britain, France, and USSR (which was also a victim of the Third Reich�s aggression). With Germany occupied by these powers, The Western Allies took the Western area of Germany and the Soviets took responsibility for the Eastern section, With Berlin being a sort of international zone divided among the occupying powers. Also the USSR took control of most of Eastern Europe and the nations the Germans has conquered and occupied. The allies accepted this as long as Stalin supported free elections and gave the people of these nations their self-determination. Stalin agreed to this however he did not make good on his promise.

   Combined with all the factors above mainly the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 which caused strong tensions between Russia�s new Communist Government and the West. Added with the Versailles Peace Treaty which indirectly led to the Cold War through putting too much pressure on Germany through financial demands for reparation for WWI damages combined with sanctions on Germany�s military and political entities on an already political and economically severely weakened Germany which eventually gave rise to the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler who was a staunch anti-Communist who sought lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Then when Hitler broke the Rippentrop-Molotov Pact (German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact) and attacked the Soviet Union and this action brought the USSR into the Allied fold. Then after Germany and the other Axis powers where defeated and the Allied Powers got wind of Stalin�s intentions and his dishonoring of various postwar agreements. All of this was brought about when the track of this course of history was laid by a combination of the Bolshevik Revolution and indirectly by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles directed at Germany.