When we, as Americans, think of Communism, we think of a great oppressive system of beliefs that allows no one to succeed and where powerful dictators rule with a mighty fist. At least that’s how Communists were thought of in the middle of the 20th Century. Americans were astonished at why dozens of African, Asian, Latin American and Eastern European countries were so susceptible to this horrific style of government. America had a wonderful democracy where everyone prospered and treated each other fairly. So why did Communism spread so freely in the 1950s?
In 1947, harry Truman made the Truman Doctrine where he pleaded with Congress to give aid to Greece and Turkey to stop the spread of Communism as it threatened our national security. He stated of Communism “The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife.” (Major Problems in American History Since 1945). Surely this made Communists (and the leaders of Communism, the Soviet Union) look to be forcing these countries to bow down to them and accept such a horrible governing system. But was this really the case?
In the case of many countries in Asia and Latin America this was not the case. In fact, many countries turned Communist or Socialist because of the Western Europe or American imperialistic and oppressive ways of overseeing these nations. Did the Soviets invade Vietnam and force them to become socialists? Did they do this in Guatemala or Iran or Cuba? No, they did not. Instead they helped the people of those countries. Under Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev Communism flourished. The Soviets helped many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America with money and projects to build dams, housing and even stadiums. (PBS.org) All the while giving them assistance and backing to fight against democracies when we came for their heads.
But why did we not just help these countries ourselves? Why did we continue to put ruthless dictators into power in these third world countries and do nothing but use their people to exploit their own natural resources. Perhaps if we would have given an ounce of respect to the people of these nations, they never would have had to turn to Communist Russia for guidance and support. While it may be true that Communism is an unfair and sometimes unjust style of government and that the Soviet Union did rule with an iron fist in Eastern Europe, Americans had a better system. The US had a democracy that anyone in the world would want to live under, yet we withheld that democracy from countries like Guatemala and Cuba and Vietnam.
It is my belief that the Soviets used force to rule because they lacked an adequate system to allow the people it ruled over to be happy and prosperous. We had that system, yet we chose to stoop to the level of the USSR and in turn ended up fighting a long cold war. We could have outsmarted and outclassed the Soviets in no time flat. But our corporate interests and greed stopped us from developing friendly foreign policy and we continued aiding the desperate declining imperial Britain and France. We sat back and wondered why these countries could possibly want to be communist. We only had to look in the mirror.
No comments:
Post a Comment