Communist Ideology and the Soviet Union

Communism is a political and economic theory which is based on the work of German philosopher Karl Marx and his work in Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto. It believes that private property should not belong to individuals but to the state instead. The state must own everything as then all property can be divided equally.

It was this view and this ideology under which the Soviet Union was founded. At the time of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was ruled by Joseph Stalin. He ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. The Soviet Union was a one party state, forged in revolution and civil war, with Stalin as supreme ruler. Stalin was paranoid that capitalist powers such as the United States were willing to destroy the Soviet Union and communism.

Stalin was crucial in forging the suspicion between the Soviet Union and the western powers in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.