Sample introduction: Background interpretation to topic: The Cold War was a term used to describe the shifting struggle

for power and prestige between the Western powers and the Communist bloc from the end of World War II until 1989. It came to worldwide proportions and the conflict was tacit in the ideological differences between communism and capitalist democracy.

Determine the context of the question: The hypothesis suggest that the Kremlin had a master design for European domination, would be to subscribe slavishly to the Orthodox Theory of the origins of the Cold War. The failing of this school of thought is that it offers too imbalanced a generalization of the Cold Wars origins. It designates the USSR as aggressive and expansionist, and the USA as innocent and nave, in spite of there being little merits to such an oversimplification of the Cold Wars origins. Provide a balanced perspective: The post-revisionist perspective makes sure to apportion responsibility for the division of Europe to both the USA and USSR, and traces the development of the history of mistrust and mutual antagonism between Soviets and Americans, accounting for the origins of the Cold War through mutual misinterpretation of each others words and actions ie. shared responsibility. Such interpretation eliminates the clear biasness that dominated the origins debate for most of the Cold War era.

Sample of first paragraph: Topic sentence: USSR was primarily responsible for the Cold War due to the totalitarian nature of the Communist system, resulting in Soviet Unions expansionist ambitions to spread Communism as far as possible. Content: (1) Poland Late 1945-1947: Coalition government in Poland which is recognized by US is taken over completely by the communist through ruthless means. Same pattern repeated in every Eastern European country. British and American requests to send in observers, as permitted under the Allied Control Commission agreements, were curtly refused. Elections were rigged, non-communist members of the coalition government were expelled, assisted local communists in their ruthless takeovers Russia was systematically putting communist governments into power in Eastern Europe, by means of manipulation, terror and intimidation. Analysis: Soviets possessed the goal of worldwide communism since 1917, when the Red Army expanded to Eastern Europe and brought it under their political domination. US argued that the Red Scare was poised to enter into Western Europe next, and American resistance was thus amply justified.

Justify: In US opinion, there was a global communist threat to independent but internally weak nations, including Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, in the aftermath of the war. Thus, US security policies were seen as reasonable and necessary, defending the world from the rogue Russians.