The Real Story Of The Cold War

The usual view of the Cold War is that it was a clash between the former Soviet bloc and the west over ideology and rival economic systems. The west emerged victorious due to the superiority of democracy and free enterprise over Communism. Although it is true that the west did not win any kind of actual "war" and it is the people of the former Communist countries that got rid of Communism themselves.

After careful thought, I have come to another conclusion. There was much more to the Cold War than economic and political theory. In our secular way of thinking today, we tend to ignore the fact that it also involved religion. The western countries were too sinful and secular to really be called "Christian countries". But they did have freedom of religion and many, particularly the U.S., had a strong Christian subculture. Communism, in contrast, was officially atheist and religious expression was either supressed or forbidden altogether.

I am certain that this is what made the difference in the Cold War rather than economics and political philosophy. The west had God's partial blessings while the Communist Bloc did not.

It was not the politics and economics that doomed Communism as a major world system. The system of communes that Israel used to have was very productive. There are many people in the former East Bloc today that wish for a return to the security of Communism. Two remaining Communist countries today, China and Cuba, rate ahead of some neighboring capitalist countries in the U.N. index. The countries that inevitably rate the highest are those socialist countries that successfully blend the best elements of the two systems.

The conclusion I have arrived at is that either system, or better yet a blend of the two, could be made to work. Which system would be best would most likely be determined by the character of the people involved. Those who are more individualistic would do better to the right while those who are not would do better to the left.

Neither is Democracy the reason that the west emerged on top in the Cold War. Freedom does not automatically bring prosperity to a nation. How many nations have gone from being not free to being free and the average person became much better off? The answer is not many. Russia went from Communism to a form of Capitalism under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin with the result that about half a dozen men and those around them got very wealthy and the rest were worse off. Germany and Japan achieved great prosperity under democracy after the Second World War but the truth is that they were prosperous before being free. I have detailed the spotty track record of democracy in my book "The End of the World".

That leaves us with the religious difference between the west and the Communist Bloc during the Cold War. I have described in an earlier posting how the most highly rated nations in the world in terms of the prosperity of the average person are almost all historically Christian. I am certain that the same factor was what decided the Cold War. The west had at least God's partial blessings while the Communist domain did not. If this had been reversed and the theory of Karl Marx had embraced Christianity instead of trying to eliminate it, the Cold War would have turned out much differently.