Sources Of Soviet Conduct Analysis

"The sources of soviet conduct" by George Kennan discusses the political makeup of Soviet Russia following the end of the Second World War. He proceeds to examine the set of circumstances and ideology forming the backbone of the Soviet Union, the communist stance on international relations, the negative impacts of communism in Russia and finally the idea of containment and a proposed course of action that America might take to best counter the growth of Russia's soviet regime.
Within his article Kennan argues that the basis of communism is the overthrow of an overbearing capitalist society dominated by the upper classes which oppress the working class. He outlines the communist belief that the capitalist system is unable to properly distribute wealth and adapt to economic change. Thus the upper classes will inevitably be cast down and the proletariat will come into power via revolution. Furthermore it was considered their duty to do so and that communism could not live on peacefully without the total dissolution of capitalism.
Soviet Russia was one of the rare instances where this did in fact occur. However the revolutionaries had been focused so much on the process of obtaining power that when this was achieved they had very vague ideas of how to impact the …show more content…
As a result of this they proceeded to stamp out all other competing powers within Russian society and no organisations or structural forms of any kind were allowed outside of the Party. The Soviet regime held no reservations in doing so leading to the formation of apparatus such as the secret police. As it became apparent that no opposition remained within Russia, the Party had to look outwards. Establishing foreign capitalist nations as enemies of the state and therefore its people in order to justify the continuation of its dictatorship. This led to political tensions between Russia and other World Powers, namely the United States of