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In order to understand the reasons behind the intransigent attitudes and provocation each side directed toward one another it is prudent to understand the reasons why there was so much mistrust between the two opposing superpowers. Each side had adopted separate ideologies that greatly contrasted with each other. The USA with the backing of the western world was capitalist, who essentially belied that the freedom of control for the individual was far more important than being equal and alike.
Contrary to this, the USSR was a Communist one party dictatorship that believed that the rights of the individual were far less important than the whole of society. Not only did this lead to a rivalry but it lead to each side to despise the rival ideology and the way the other side administered its nation. Controversial U. S president Richard Nikon stated “The cold war isn’t thawing, it is burning with a deadly heat, communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always plotting, scheming, working, fighting”.
In contrast Nikita Khrushchev himself claimed that ‘support given by United States rulers is rather in the nature of the support that the rope gives to a hanged man”. Furthermore, each side wanted to rebuild Europe in its own accord, for the USA this mean adopting capitalistic policies such as free trade and increased dependence on the United States. However for the USSR this would mean economic development that would be centrally planned with the concept of satellite communist states.
Another major factor contributing to the mistrust was the suspicion between the two sides, after all only WWII was what held the USA’s allegiance with the USSR in tact. The USSR in a sense war rightfully suspicious of the United States seeing as how the USA along with Great Britain and France had sent troops to Russia in 1918 in the Russian Civil War to support the White Movement, who were the fierce rivals of the Soviets.
In 1941 Stalin had been attacked by the Nazi’s, he had sought help from the allies and pleaded for them to help him to establish a second front. The allies though were preoccupied with their own worries and thus couldn’t assist Stalin who thought that the USA was waiting for the Germans to deliberately cripple the USSR. The disputes at Yalta proved decisive in furthering the two sides from each other, it was agreed that Germany would be divided, that free elections would be allowed and that there would be a Soviet sphere of influence.
Stalin however misunderstood what was meant by the term “sphere of influence”, he thought it had meant total control in establishing the forms of governments established in neighboring nations. The Soviets also wanted to kept parts of Poland that it had gained from the Nazi-Soviet treaty of 1939 and also sought to cripple Germany as he feared after two previous attacks within the past 30 years.
The allies however didn’t want to repeat the mistakes it had made with Germany such as in the Treaty of Versailles and sought to bring Germany back on to its feet. Such disputes continued at Potsdam in July 1945, where the disagreements and suspicions were raised after Stalin desired to establish a buffer zone between the East and West whilst the USA saw this nothing to do with territorial defence but saw this as nothing but an expansionist campaign and nothing at all do with defence.