What were the goals of the soviet union after WWII?
604753
to "unite" the world under communism.  Now the largest remnant (Russia) just wants to annihilate the US (although they won't admit it publically until they pull it off).
123290
Cold War, term used to describe the post-World War II struggle between the United States and its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies. During the Cold War period, which lasted from the mid-1940s until the end of the 1980s, international politics were heavily shaped by the intense rivalry between these two great blocs of power and the political ideologies they represented: democracy and capitalism in the case of the United States and its allies, and Communism in the case of the Soviet bloc. The principal allies of the United States during the Cold War included Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and Canada. On the Soviet side were many of the countries of Eastern Europe—including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and Romania—and, during parts of the Cold War, Cuba and China. Countries that had no formal commitment to either bloc were known as neutrals or, within the Third World, as nonaligned nations (see Nonaligned Movement). \n\nAmerican journalist Walter Lippmann first popularized the term cold war in a 1947 book by that name. By using the term, Lippmann meant to suggest that relations between the USSR and its World War II allies (primarily the United States, Britain, and France) had deteriorated to the point of war without the occurrence of actual warfare. Over the next few years, the emerging rivalry between these two camps hardened into a mutual and permanent preoccupation. It dominated the foreign policy agendas of both sides and led to the formation of two vast military alliances: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), created by the Western powers in 1949; and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, established in 1955. Although centered originally in Europe, the Cold War enmity eventually drew the United States and the USSR into local conflicts in almost every quarter of the globe. It also produced what became known as the Cold War arms race, an intense competition between the two superpowers to accumulate advanced military weapons.
612748
The wartime allies (the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain) began to quarrel as soon as the Nazi threat lessened.\nThe Americans and British decided to postpone questions about the makeup of postwar Europe.\nStalin, however, wanted decisions made with regard to postwar borders.\nThe Big Three at Teheran (1943) decided to launch an AmericanBritish invasion of Hitler's empire via France, and a Soviet invasion of eastern Europe.\nAt the Yalta Conference (1945), the Allies decided to divide Germany into occupation zones.\nIt was also agreed that Germany would pay heavy reparations to Russia.\nStalin agreed to declare war on Japan after Germany was defeated.\nThe Yalta Compromise over eastern Europe broke down almost immediately.\nAt the Potsdam Conference (1945), Truman demanded free elections throughout eastern Europe, but Stalin refused.\nStalin believed that eastern European states must not be anti-Soviet.\nHe feared that free elections would result in possibly hostile governments on his western border.\nShort of war, the United States could not really influence developments in eastern Europe.\nWest versus East\nTruman cut off aid to Russia because of Stalin's insistence on having communist governments in eastern Europe.\nBy 1947, many Americans believed that Stalin was trying to export communist revolution throughout Europe and the world.\nThe Marshall Plan was established to help European economic recovery; the Truman Doctrine was meant to ward off communist subversion with military aid.\nThe Soviet blockade of Berlin led to a successful Allied airlift.\nIn 1949, the United States formed an antiSoviet military alliance of Western governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); in return, Stalin united his satellites in the Warsaw Pact.\nIn 1949, communists won in China.\nIn 1950, when communist North Korea invaded the south, Americanled UN troops intervened.\nThe American General MacArthur wanted to invade China but President Truman said no and fired him; in 1953 a Korean truce was negotiated.\nThe Western attempt to check Stalin probably came too late and may have encouraged Russian aggression.\nThe Western renaissance\nA divided and economically weak Europe made a huge turn-around within a generation after 1945.\nThe postwar challenge\nThe war left Europe physically devastated and in a state of economic and moral crisis.\nFood rationing was necessary.\nRussia's border had been pushed west, as was Poland's; thus, many Germans were forced to resettle in a greatly reduced Germany.\nAll the Allies treated Germany harshly.\nNew leaders and new parties, especially the Catholic Christian Democrats, emerged in Italy, France, and Germany and provided effective leadership and needed reforms.\nIn many countries, such as Britain, France, and Italy, socialists and communists emerged from the war with considerable power and a strong desire for social reform.\nThe Marshall Plan aided in economic recovery and led to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC); military protection was provided through NATO.\nLed by West Germany, a European economic miracle was underway by 1963.\nAmerican aid helped get the process off to a fast start.\nEuropean nations adopted Keynesian policies to stimulate their economies.\nUnder Erhard, Germany adopted a freemarket economy, a social welfare network, currency reform, and price controls.\nUnder Monnet, flexible planning and a mixed state and private economy brought rapid growth to France.\nGreat potential demand (for products such as refrigerators), abandonment of protectionism, and the creation of the Common Market stimulated the economy.\nToward European unity\nDemocratic republics were reestablished in France, West Germany, and Italy.\nThe Christian Democrats wanted a unified Europe, but economic unity proved to be more realistic than political unity under the Council of Europe.\nThe sixnation Coal and Steel Community marked the beginning of a movement
422327
There are lots of reasons.  The infrastructure of the USSR was falling apart.  The cold war ate up all their resources.  They also had to implement some capitalistism in their economy so it wouldn't totally collapse, therefore not totally socialist.  The people were also terrified and pissed about being sent to Gulag.  Consult a history book for more.
45937
None, as the Commonwealth of Independent States was simply a name given to the former USSR when then country started to split apart in the early 1990's.
603553
If the Soviet Union were the only remaining superpower, the world would be a living hell.\n\nThe problem with the Communist system is that it perverts man's true nature.  The Communists said they had a noble ideal, that they were creating a selfless man, so that everything would be shared, everyone could live as equals, and poverty would be eliminated.\n\nHowever, Communism only creates poverty for everyone. People generally despised their jobs because they knew that putting forth more effort would give them and their families nothing in return.\n\nTwo common refrains were:\n\n1)  They pretend to pay me, and I pretend to work.\n2)  If you don't steal from the State, you are stealing from your family.\n\nCommunism was just another word for slavery.  You had the top Communist bosses who enjoyed luxuries forbidden to the masses.  The State told you where you could live, and what kind of job you could perform.  You had no voice.\n\nIf the old, Communist Soviet Union were in charge of the world, everyone would blame their problems on them, but not openly, or they'd have tanks running through their streets like 1968 Czechoslovakia.\n\nIf the old, Communist Soviet Union were in charge the world would be more backward, unstable, and poorer.\n\nIf you want to see the true evil face of Communism, rent this movie in the Foreign Films section of your local rental store:  "Dark Blue World" (Tvamomodry Svet).  You will see the absolutely vile nature of Communism.  The movie recounts how Czech pilots fled to England to join the fight against the Nazis.  After the war, the Communists occupiers sent these heroes to prison because they feared  these men had been to exposed to Western ideas about democracy and freedom.
543018
To contain communism.  That is how we got involved in the Korean and Vietmanese wars.  President Truman also got the civil rights movement going after WWII.  Maintaining our status as a superpower and stopping Russia was our primary concerns.
424296
Soviet Union did not like west germany because of world war 2. West Germany was seen as the enemy to soviet union.
21542
The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1989-90.\n\nThe Post Soviet states are:\n\n* Baltic states: Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.\n\n* Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan\n\n* The Transcaucasus: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.\n\n* The Eastern European states of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.\n\n* Russia because of its uniquely dominant role in the region is generally treated as a category unto itself.
296155
It changed to socialism, a popular form of economics in Europe.  It's a cross between communism and capitalism.  There also was a big black market in the Soviet Union anyways.  Only around 5% of the population of the Soviet Union belonged to the Communist party.
105483
Actually, since the Cold War started at the end of WWII, the leaders were:\nStalin\nKhrushchev\nBrezhnev\nAndropov\nChernenko\nGorbachev\nYesltsyn
469661
Josef Stalin.... who was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader.\n\nA hard-won victory in World War II (the Great Patriotic War, 1941–45), for which the Soviet Union was arguably unprepared, was made possible in part through the capacity for production that was the outcome of industrialization, as well as significant Lend-Lease gifts, primarily by the United States. In the postwar years, Stalin laid the groundwork for the formation of the Warsaw Pact and established the USSR as one of the two major world powers, a position it maintained for nearly four decades following his death in 1953.
629840
To put a man on the moon. \nTo win the war in Vietnam.\nTo pacify an increasingly activist population at home.\nTo end segregation and realize civil rights for all.\nTo win the cold war against communism.\nTo see peace in the Middle-East, with Israel firmly established as a nation.\nTo realize the overthrow of Castro. \nTo stop the spread of narcotics.\nTo realize equality for women.\nTo grow economically.\nTo minimize the influence of radical groups, such as Black Panther Party.\nTo stop terrorist activities of radical Marxist organizations.\nTo preserve order and the political system. \nTo encourage capitalism and democracy in developing countries.
611022
It was an agreement between Hitler and Stalin that said there would be peace between Russia and Germany. Hitler wanted to conquer Poland, which was one major part of the agreement. The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed in August 1939. Hitler's main reason for the Non-Aggression Pact was so that when Britain declared war on Germany after he invaded Poland, Russia stayed out of the way. He only had to fight Britain, and France (so far) instead of Britain, France, and Russia. About two years after the pact was signed, Hitler broke the terms of the pact, and attacked the Soviet Union.
783452
Communist Russia is no longer.
442658
Churchill and Stalin divided Europe before the end of the war, according to rumours they signed out the new spheres of influence on a yellow envelope, during some conference.\n\nThe issue of Poland as it appeared on the yellow envelope was 50-50. So not a real resolution at that time. I think in Yalta they came to a conclusion that it would be part of the soviet sphere of interest. \n\nSorry I cannot be more accurate, this is what i remember from my classes at university. Find the yellow envelope story.
675428
To answer your questions in order:\n\nYes, the Soviet Union (which included Russia) was an ally of the US and the British.  The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also called the Soviet Union.  Russia was a part of the USSR, but wasn't called Russia then), led by Stalin, signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler (leader of Germany).  This was in force until Hitler broke it and invaded the Soviet Union.  Stalin was taken unawares and unprepared, so Hitler did well at first.  Stalin therefore allied with the British and the US to fight the Germans.  The "cold war" didn't start until after WWII During the jostling for control over the states freed from the Nazis. \n\n*****\n\nThe USSR and the Japanese didn't work together.  The war in Europe against Germany) ended sooner than that in Japan (May 8, 1945 for Germany’s surrender and August 15, 1945 for Japan’s) and the USSR was free to declare war on Japan, which it did.  This was one of the reasons that the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan.  It wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union forces entered the fighting, who would then stay and have control in that country and region.  \n\nAfter WWII Germany was divided into two halves, appropriately called West and East Germany.  The US, the United Kingdom (the British) and France controlled the West.  The Soviet Union controlled the East.  Germany was two different countries.  The US, UK and France set up a democracy in the West and then left (although the US left troops to guard against an attack from the Soviet Union, and many are still stationed there.  Now the bases are used as staging grounds for operations in the Afghanistan and Iraq).  The country they created was called the Federal Republic of Germany.\n\nThe Soviet Union established a country in the Eastern half, called the German Democratic Republic. This was not democratic though – it was communist.  The Soviet Union had many troops stationed there as well, and had a lot of influence in the Eastern half.  Vladimir Putin, the current President of the Russian Federation, worked in East Germany as a spy when he was part of the KGB (this isn’t a secret – he admits it freely and uses his excellent German in speeches).\n\n*****\nGermany played a very strong role in the War.  They were allied with Japan, but because they had some common enemies in their efforts to expand their territories.  In Europe, the war started when Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, claiming to be uniting the Germans who lived there (Austrians speak German and there were a lot of Germans in Czechoslovakia.  The moved there in the centuries that it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, which were all names used at different times to describe the same Empire ruled from the Austrian city of Vienna). At this point there was a lot of nervousness in Europe, as Hitler was using rhetoric such as “Germans need more land to live, which is their birthright.” But the British made a deal with Hitler that they would let him keep those countries if he didn’t go any further.  Hitler agreed, but he invaded Poland anyway, and kept going from there. He took France, Bombed England and wanted to invade, and moved through Eastern Europe.  He also invaded the USSR, as mentioned above.\n\nThe US at this point wasn’t involved.  Hitler made an alliance with the Japanese, who were engaged in their own war of expansion, because both were fighting the British and French (the British had a lot of Colonial holdings in the Pacific, and the French had some, too).  \n\nThe US became involved when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese wanted the US to withdraw from the pacific, but instead the US declared war on the Japanese.  The Japanese and the Germans were allied, so Germany declared war on the US, which then also entered the European war.  It was already helping the UK and the USSR with equipment and logistical support,