Differences in thinking betwen the USSR in the East and the US and UK in the West.

Essay by Keir October 2005

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The Cold War started from the end of World War Two until 1991. It was a rivalry between the two super power states, USSR, and US, and this war was based on the spread of two different ideologies to the world, Capitalism and Communism. Ideology is a set of ideas and beliefs, which form the basis of an economic or political system. Therefore, from economic and political system, we can see the differences of ideology between the West and the USSR.

Both sides had very different views on economic problems. From the economic stand point, USSR believed that capitalism was why the society divided into several different classes, thus it believed that all the business, factories and land should be nationalized in order to overcome the inequality between the rich factory owners and the poorer working class. The government should distribute all the wealth to its people more fairly according to their needs.

However, the West believed in private enterprise. Government would have the minimum of intervention into the business, factories and land that were owned by individuals or groups of individual. Communist followers thought that capitalism has divided the society into different classes and through emphasizing on private ownership; it was seen as producing the division between the rich and poor people. Communists believed that the only solution for this big issue was through nationalizing the economy. It meant that factories, lands and businesses would be owned and ran by the government, and then it will distribute needs and wants fairly to the people. To the owners of factories, land and businesses, communist was a big threat to their wealth, status and power.

In their political views, they were also very different. USSR believed that different and conflicting classes created different parties; and because USSR was a...