American Liberalism Of The Early Cold War

After the Second World War, it came the situation so-called "cold war '~ between the two political and military groups that were represented respectively by the Soviet Union and America. This situation almost affected aN. countries in many aspects. This paper focuses on the discussion of the development of liberalism in America during the initial cold war.In the first part of the paper, it introduces the background of the development of liberalism --the cold war. The special situation made it easily understood that demonstrating capitalist system reasonable and communist system reasonless was basic content of liberalism. American liberalism was according to this principle during the initial cold war.In the second part of the paper, it presents two tendencies of the liberalism' s development in America during the initial cold war. At that time, the first aim of America was to restrain the effect of the Soviet Union in the world. America must prompt its internal development to get relatively superiority during the antagonism with the Soviet Union. This led to these two tendencies:One was practicing the containment theory. It was showed in three aspects. First, attacking communism and opposing Marxism. During this period communism was roughly attacked by some politicians and liberalism thinkers in America. Second, criticizing totalitarianism. Many western thinkers regarded the two different concepts of fascism and Stalinism as a typical example of totalitarianism. Third, preaching ideology terminating. They sermonized that it was the time to terminate Marxism. The containment theory was reflected by containment policy carried out in American political practices.The other was proposing the freedom thought. Liberalism, which core was freedom, right and state, had got new expansionand development in this period. The conception that freedom was active and just was accepted generally, the content and range of civil rights were largely expanded and the conception of big state or welfare state became the mainstream. Expounds of these were all with the impression of cold war.In the third part of the paper, the author discusses several standpoints on the development of American liberalism during the initial cold war. The situation determined liberalism' s content, and its content determined its development in the future in turn. There were also some problems during the course, including troubles brought by the practice of welfare state policies, contradiction between the country safety and civil freedom, the reverse effect brought by the containment policy to the development of liberalism, and so on.