Which of these views of the Cold War sounds more right to you

[The Mikado]

Option A: The Cold War is best explained as a rivalry between two incompatible ideologies, both championed by a superpower espousing that ideology. Cold War is a global contest between capitalism and liberal democracy on one end and communism and dictatorship on the other, with the USA being the global champion of one view and the USSR the other.

Option B: The Cold War is best explained as the result of Britain, France, Germany, and Japan emerging from the war broken and (excepting Britain) defeated. All unable to remain great powers, the title of great power fell on the two remaining powers, USA and USSR. In a multipolar world there's room for balance of power diplomacy, coalition building, and playing one foe against each other, but a bipolar world allows only competition for supremacy and hegemony vs the other power. Communism vs capitalism, democracy vs dictatorship...distractions from the real question of "world hegemon: America or Russia" and this dispute would be the same if the two powers shared an ideology and government system.



Curious. Think the choice here says more about you than it does about the Cold War tbh.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I would say the latter is more accurate, though that's not to say there wasn't genuine ideological contrast, I just think it gained great importance because the US and USSR were superpowers in competition, rather than vice versa (that the competition was because of the clash in ideology).

I will say though that whichever option you picked (and I totally understand those who go with the first one), I think that these two elements played into and strengthened the other is undeniable.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think in historiography the orthodox view is A, the revisionist perspective B and the post revisionist interpretation is a synthesis of both A and B.

Like, a strict view of the Cold War as a battle of competing ideologies has to  deal with, say, the role played by China.

[kaoras]

You can't vote for the first one if you have the slightest knowledge of the cold war. The USA as a champion of freedom and democracy is nothing more than laughable.

[vitoNova]

Option C:  None of the Above.

The Cold War was always about Global North fear of the Global South. 

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I don't know why anyone would deny that the Cold War was motivated by ideology when it's what the leaders of both the US and USSR claimed in public and private. Consider Stalin's famous quote at the outset of the Five Year Plan: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make up this gap in ten years. Either we do it or they will crush us." It was the sincere belief of the Soviet leadership that they were surrounded by capitalist countries intent on destroying the USSR for ideological reasons- this is what motivated Stalin to install communist governments in Eastern Europe that was the trigger for the Cold War! And the US recognised that an expanding Soviet sphere posed a direct threat to the US-led world order that could not be allowed. It's just impossible to discount ideology and understand the conflict.

[darklordoftech]

You can't vote for the first one if you have the slightest knowledge of the cold war. The USA as a champion of freedom and democracy is nothing more than laughable.

An unfree and undemocratic regime can still be anti-communist.

[Rosethecommie]

Other: the USSR did nothing wrong 

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

You can't vote for the first one if you have the slightest knowledge of the cold war. The USA as a champion of freedom and democracy is nothing more than laughable.

An unfree and undemocratic regime can still be anti-communist.

And the Soviets also had their fair share of "unusual" allies like the very openly anticommunist, economically liberal extremely authoritarian last Argentinean dictatorship, especially after Jimmy Carter got into office and didn't want anything to do with this regime

[Lechasseur]

Option B

[Alben Barkley]

Both, but probably more the second.

[Alben Barkley]

I would say the latter is more accurate, though that's not to say there wasn't genuine ideological contrast, I just think it gained great importance because the US and USSR were superpowers in competition, rather than vice versa (that the competition was because of the clash in ideology).

I will say though that whichever option you picked (and I totally understand those who go with the first one), I think that these two elements played into and strengthened the other is undeniable.

Yeah I agree with this. Note that while the US and USSR did run some propaganda against each other before WW2, they were overall much more indifferent to each other despite their contrasting ideologies than they would be when they found themselves the world’s sole remaining superpowers after the war. That position launched, or at least heightened, the ideological conflict much more than the other way around.

[Samof94]

How did this apply today with China?