USA, Russia & Communism

Communism is a wonderful economic social structure if people willfully accept it. But in most of the cases communism has been forced upon the people. No country has fully achieved communism, but some countries like China, Vietnam and Cube claim to be working towards it. But the problem with communism is that it doesn’t understand human behaviour. In general human behaviour is Capitalist in nature. People want good benefits in exchange for hard work and capitalism fulfills that need. Whereas it’s not always the case in communism. Capitalism encourages financial freedom and freedom of speech, Whereas in contrary communism discourages it. It’s not that communism is all bad. One of the good things about communism is that it gives equal opportunity to all in all aspects.

One of the biggest drawback in communism is that everything is owned by the Govt. There is no scope of private ownership in communism, hence people don’t feel motivated enough. At the start of the 20th century communism was on the rise especially in the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and eastern Asia. Even after the end of World war II there had been many conflicts because of the communism vs capitalism debate. Let’s look at some of the major incidents from history.

USA’s fear of Communism

After world war 2 communism was on rise and the US was terrified by it. As the US was a capitalist country, it always opposed communism so much that it went to war with Vietnam in the 1950s. In the 1950s, American Govt was extremely bothered about the spread of communism in eastern Asian countries. Then this was known as the domino theory, wherein if one non communist country adopted communism others will also follow the queue.

American Govt was terrified that communism would also spread in their own country. The USA always wanted capitalism because that would benefit their country more. In the mid 20th century USA always had a feud with communist USSR which was a huge superpower then. But their obsession to stop USSR and communism went too far which led to the Korean war, Vietnam war and the Cold war.

Korean War

Japan ruled Korea for 35 years. During World War II Japan was badly defeated by western forces and as a result Japan lost control over Korea in August 1945. As a result of the Japanese defeat, Korea was captured by Russia and the United States. The northern part was captured by the Soviet Union forces and the southern part was captured by the United States.

But in 1948 the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from North Korea. Under the heavy influence of China’s and Russia’s communist ideology, on 9th September 1948 The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established. After the establishment North Korea convinced USSR to supply them with weaponry support.

At the same time South Korea also requested the United States for weaponry support but the USA was still recovering from World War II. USA refused their request and also withdrew its forces from South Korea in 1947. On 15 August 1948, the Republic of Korea was established and Syngman Rhee became Its first president.

Jeju Island Incident

In a major development Syngman Rhee ordered martial law in Jeju Island which was situated in the southern part of South Korea. Many people of Jeju Island were influenced by North Korea, but still wanted a United Korea. Many uprising revolts and thousands of people were killed by Syngman Rhee’s forces. This incident was the tip of point of the Korean war which started in 1950.

On 25th June, 1950 North Korean forces crossed the border known as the 38th parallel. This resulted in a major war between two countries. North Korea, equipped with Russian weaponry, was too strong for South Korea. On 28th June, 1950 Seoul city was captured by North Korean forces. Fearing the complete takeover by North Korea, the US with other western forces supported by the United Nations also joined the war. India agreed to give medical aid to United Nations forces. On the other hand North Korea was supported by China and Russia.

No Winners

From 1950 to 1953, no concrete result was derived from this war. Neither country was able to extend their territory. It only resulted in millions of deaths and lots of bloodshed. With three years of war and no concrete result in sight, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed wherein it was decided that one United Korea was not possible. The agreement allowed the prisoners to return to their respective countries. A 2.5 mile Korean Demilitarized Zone was created which separated North and South Korea. This zone was earlier known as the 38th parallel.

After the war both the Korean countries claimed victory. But they didn’t realise that they just became a pawn in the cold war between the Soviet Union and the USA.

Vietnam War

USA was kind of encouraged by the Korean war because they were able to prevent the spread of communism in South Korea. They thought they could replicate something similar in Vietnam also.

Initially Vietnam was ruled by France from the late 1800s to 1954. Like the Britishers, France also incorporated its colony and called it Indochina. In May 1954 France was defeated by communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh who had weaponry and intelligence support from USSR.

After the defeat Vietnam got divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Northern part adopted communist ideology and Southern part choose to go against the communist ideology. Southern part had the support of USA, France and Britain.

Ho Chi Minh’s Movement

Ho Chi Minh an communist leader led the make Vietnam indipendent campaign. He also had the support of North Vietnamese people. He became the first president in 1945. Ho Chi Minh’s objective was an one United Vietnam. Many of the South Vietnamese also wanted to unite with Ho chi Minh as they were unhappy with South Vietnam’s leader Ngo Dinh Diem who was merely a puppet of the west.

From 1946 itself small wars were taking place between the north Vietnamese forces and France. France to basically funded by the USA. USA feared that North Vietnam would occupy South Vietnam, which could establish communism there. To counter this Initially US only gave advisory support to the South Vietnam forces. On March 3, 1965 the first combat forces arrived in south Vietnam. But slowly additional forces kept coming to the region. By 1965, USA had its full battalion in south Vietnam. By April 1975, 2700000 personnel had served in the Vietnam war.

Staged Incident

USA entered the war full fledgedly in 1965 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 where it was alleged that North Vietnamese attacked USA’s warships in two separate incidents. This forced the USA Govt declare war on South Vietnam. But it is believed that the Gulf of Tonkin was a falsely staged incident, Because USA wanted an excuse to enter into war mode in South Vietnam.

USA was fighting with the communist forces in south Vietnam who were experts in Guerrilla war techniques.

US Govt was extremely confident that they would easily overpower South Vietnam forces. They thought that like the Korean war this would also be over quickly. But the war went for months, then years, then years turned into decades.

Due to the US Govt false narration, US soldiers were under the misapprehension that the Vietnamese people were in favour of the USA and against the north Vietnam forces.

Some important events of Vietnam war:

• In July 1954’s Geneva agreement an election was agreed upon for the unification of North and South Vietnam. That election never took place.
• Agent Orange was a herbicide operation whose purpose was to destroy the lush and dense forest of Vietnam which was acting as a cover for the Vietnam’s Gorilla forces.
• On 16th March 1968 My Lai massacre took place, where unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were killed under the apprehension that they were communist forces.
• It is estimated that 2 million Vietnamese and around 58000 US soldiers were killed in the 20 years of the Vietnam war.

After fighting a war for 20 years the US achieved nothing. USA’s involvement in the Vietnam war didn’t had any solid purpose. Their unclear vision and overconfidence became the reason for millions of deaths. This led the Govt under tremendous pressure from its own citizens and the opposition. Ultimately US forces had to leave Vietnam and anyways Vietnam became a communist country. Their neighboring countries also didn’t opt for communism, which the US always worried.

Berlin Wall

In world war 2 Germany was defeated by the allied forces. Allied powers had countries like Britain, USA and the Soviet Union. Following the defeat Germany was divided into four zones. The Northwest part went to Britain, France took the southwest, the United States preferred the south and the Eastern part went to the communist Soviet Union.

After the division west Germany became a capitalist country with a market economy, whereas east Germany followed the path of communist ideology. Over the time west Germany prospered and East Germany’s growth got stagnant. Many people from east Germany were not happy with their communist rule and were fed up with the authoritarian nature of the Govt. Between 1949 to 1961, almost 20% of East Germany’s population migrated to west Germany.

To stop this migration East Germany built a barrier in the night of 12th and 13th August, known as the Berlin Wall. Over time many tried to cross the wall, some dug underground tunnels, some tried to jump the wall, some used ladders, even some made their own hot air balloon, so desperate people were.

The Fallout

People were getting fed-up with this wall and protests were starting to build up. Soon the matter escalated into a mass protest. Under public pressure the East Germany Govt tried to make easy travel regulations for its people.

Gunter Schabowski, a spokesperson of the ruling party was given the job to make the announcement about the new travel regulations. But when he was asked about the date of commencement of the new regulations, he responded “from now, immediately”. It was a miscommunication between the officials and Govt. This news spread like a wildfire and people thought that borders were opening immediately. A huge number of people gathered near the Berlin Wall to cross the border. People climbed the wall, hit the wall with a sledgehammer. Even the border guards were unable to handle the enthusiastic crowd and at last they gave up. At last the 28 years physical barrier was broken. West German people also welcomed east German people with open arms. 9th Nov 1989 was that historic day for Germany when all this happened just because of a miscommunication in a press conference.

Finally on 3rd October 1990 West and East Germany was reunified, again it became one Germany. That wall was not just a physical barrier, it was a battle between capitalism and communism where Capitalism overpowered communism. Like the Korean and Vietnam conflict the Berlin wall conflict didn’t escalate into a war.

Conclusion

All these wars and conflicts were not entirely about communism vs capitalism, it was more of a tussle between two superpowers. In this period the Soviet Union and the USA never fought directly. The Korean and Vietnam war were the indirect results of the conflict between these two countries.

These conflicts were known as the Cold war. If the USA was not over concerned about the spread of communism the Vietnam war wouldn’t have happened. If the Soviet wouldn’t have supplied arms, ammunition to North Korea the Korean war wouldn’t have happened. Of Course there were other factors also for these wars, but these factors also played a major part.

US and Russia’s political rivalry impacted the world in a huge way. They themselves also paid a huge price from the cold war. The USA’s support of Afghanistan during the 1980’s Afghanistan Russia conflict resulted in the form of 9/11. Also, USA didn’t learn any lessons from the Vietnam war, they repeated the same mistake in Afghanistan war. Apart from killing Osama Bin Laden and few others, they didn’t achive anything in their 20 year stay in Afghanistan.

On the other hand Russia still hasn’t totally overcome from the 1991 Soviet Union division. The Feb 2014 capture of Crimea in eastern Ukraine seems like that Russia wants it’s old Soviet Union back.

Because USA and Russia are economic superpower, they behave like they are not answerable to other countries. And their hunger for supremacy may lead to another cold war. Or may be that we have already entered an another cold war era with the Ukraine war.