The Cold War: US vs The Soviet Union. Who Started?

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Part One
Joseph Stalin’s aggressive military expansion was what caused the Cold War. United States’ response was majorly a defensive reaction. The Soviet Union leaders focused on imposing communism to dominate the world; the United States had no other alternative, but to use a defensive mechanism to against communist expansion (Geoffrey 112). The Soviet Leaders had evil ideologies that caused the Cold War. The innocent United States only engaged in the cold war to protect the free world from the soviet’s totalitarian conquest.
Though, World War II brought the United States and the Soviet Union into alliance with a mutual purpose to defeat Nazi Germany, the anti-democratic policy of the Soviet Union towards Eastern Europe caused animosity even before the Second World War came to an end (James 31). The United States and the Soviet Union had opposing economic, political, and ideological factors, which led to the change of cooperation and collaboration between the two countries, after defeating the Nazi Germany; thus becoming two superpower rivals. Joseph Stalin’s regime was totalitarian in nature, and this hindered friendly relations with the United States.
Since the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russian, United States held the Soviet Union in suspicion because of Joseph Stalin’s extremely atrocious and oppressive dictatorship. In 1930’s Stalin flushed out people, causing deaths of at least 19 million Soviet citizens, and many people were imprisoned. Stalin ordered such killings and imprisonment to suppress writings, speech, and political thought which were against the self-interests and positions of the ruling soviet communist party (Geoffrey 114). For about of thirty years (1947-1980), Soviet Union was in pursuit of expanding communism to dominate the world.
The Cold War was an indirect fight under opposing ideologies between the two superpowers (US and Soviet Union) after the two countries formed an alliance to defeat Nazi Germany. The Cold War was spreading across the world as the United States and the Soviet Union were trying to influence other countries to support one party over the other (James 33). In the real sense, the Soviet Union was not a communist advocate as it claimed (it branded itself wrongly); the regime practiced fascist dictatorship, oppression and was against democracy and freedom of speech. The Soviet Union was an evil regime whose expansion efforts were against human rights and freedom. This was the reason the United States stood firm to fight against communist expansion. The United States formed containment policy to fight against the expansion of Soviet communism. The struggle continued until the 1980s when efforts of the United States started bearing success whereas the powers of the Soviet Union started declining.
Part Two
The downfall of the Soviet Union occurred as a result of a combination of multiple factors as a result of United States’ containment policy to fight against communism expansion, the Reagan administration’s new rollback policy, and Gorbachev’s attempts to democratize the system. First, the Soviet Union collapsed because its economy became ...