Ideology of the Cold War: Capitalism vs Communism 

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You know you grew up in an excommunist country when everybody wants to be an engineer

Really like how you show the pros and cons of both ideologies without trying to convince anyone about which one is better

The production value on this video is much better. I most applaud you for dealing with a history that many still see as politics.

Well, as a Russian, i can say that the explanation is very clear, imtelligent and shows both advantages and disadvantages of these ideologies. Well done, thank you for the lack of stereotypes about communism.

Seriously, how is this comment section so civil? I scrolled down expecting a trainwreck, and instead I got people acting like decent, well-mannered human beings. For god's sake, somebody throw a chair.

Well, this is a great darn channel to teach me about an era of history that I'm not quite familiar with. Great job Kings and Generals, keep up the great work!

Let’s just hope the comments section is just as civil as the guy in the video.

As it turns out, the US were pretty authoritarian and the USSR pretty elitist and they both were a lot more similar than they would like to let on...

*"Our words are backed by nuclear weapons"* - -Gandhi- _The USSR and USA_

This youtube channel is especially important for anyone born after 1989, when the Berlin Wall collapsed and the Cold war quickly ended. Particularly since seemingly most kinds these days leave school without even rudimentary knowledge in even modern history. The video is a bit oversimplistic in its content for my taste, but it provides a background on which to build further knowledge. The setup of the video is very good though.

After seeing how most Westerners depict the dichotomy of Capitalism/Socialism, I was dreading watching these videos, thinking they would just be muddled in silly politics. Although there were a few oversimplifications or generalizations here and there (understandable for such a short video), I was pleasantly surprised. I look forward to the rest of the series, keep it up!

One of the most balanced Channel I have ever seen in RU-vid. If the creators were firm believers of Capitalism, they would just demonize the communists and vice versa. But you have tried to do it in very balanced way. I think this is what historians should do. Hats Off.

Absolutely love this channel! Keep it up. Kudos!

"Two entirely irreconcilable ideas." China: hold my tea...

Y'all are amazing the succinct citations and simplicity here is perfect for a classroom social studies lesson plan! keep em coming!

I must say the writing in this video is nothing short of unmitigated genius

Great video! I really like the change you made by adding more images, videos, stock footage, graphs, etc. This makes the video so much better!

It's starting everyone! bring your popcorn

this is very VERY fair-minded on questioning both sides. well done.

Just wanted to thank you for attempting to remain balanced in your presentation of both ideologies.

I was a little worried when I saw the title of this video, but you did a very good job discussing the two opposing philosophies, right down to the language you use to talk about it. Great job on a difficult task.

Thank you for making this channel, my knowledge on the cold war from the Soviet side is lacking and it is wonderful to get detailed info like this from both sides. Thank you very much!!!

Great series! I'll say it again, though: The problem's not ideologies, it's totalitarian governments and politicians.

All day I was looking for an explanation that had the right pace and went in depth. This is the only video I found.

From a syndicalist and communist, I really have to applaud your attempts at objectivity and neutrality while keeping it simple.👍 Especially the point about segregation and apartheid, a lot of people in the U.S. forget about the fact that we still had a large portion of the population both under essentially police control and excluded from our "democratic" institutions at the time, who's suffrage was only achieved through the actions of American socialists and communists such as MLK and Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton. If I have any criticism to make it would be the lack of the term Marxist-Leninist and Marxism-Leninism as a specific label for the U.S.S.R's ideological positions, as many communists from Trotskyites, to Anarchists, to Syndicalists, to Orthodox Marxists, have views that differ almost to the point of juxdaposition with the Soviets, while still being under the umbrella of "communism". It would also help to clarify more as you used the specific and more accurate term "liberalism" to refer to the U.S. under Truman, without giving a specific Soviet counterpart. Good work! Look forward to more. 😁

1. watched the video 2. peed 3. made a nice iced coffee 4. rolled 3 cigarettes 5. now im ready to read the comments

And here we are, 40 years after the end of the Cold War, trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. Providing justice, security, health, shelter, food, education, freedom and pursuit of happiness for all. "Not because it's easy but because it's hard". Because the only possible future for mankind to survive and thrive is for "science" and "engineering" to cooperate against obscurantists.

Just became a member. What an excellent channel!

that feel like a very good video, pointing out both the good and bad sides of the two nations and their systems. Really good ^^

Thanks for the documentaries. You can still add more videos, maps and photos. Don't listen to those who ask for increase in speech speed. There are many people who don't speak English fluently or English is not their native language. So, they need some time to comprehend the speech. If people need to hear the speech faster they should choose 1.25 at playing speed.

Well done keep going.

Very informative and well balanced. Great video!

Very well put together. Great job.

Would be nice if there would be more footage and less talking to the camera.

This video made me suddenly understand the system of my old country China - fundamentally the same to the Soviet Union - materialistic, self-proclaimed practical, amoral.

Considering the fact that Kings and Generals hang out on Peter Coffin’s channel, this video was surprisingly balanced. Well done.

God damn the host(sorry I don’t know his name) is just so civil. Subbed for sure and looking forward to more videos.

Gotta hand it to the Cuban people, despite 70 years of a salt filled air, they kept those American made cars running and looking great. When American cars in a similar environment were eaten into rusted junk in a lot less time.

Awesome. Thank you for creating this video :-)

I really liked this video. Got so much information for my studies .also It' s not boring to listen.

I would just point out that when Marx said ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ he didn’t actually mean a DICTATORship, he just meant that power was in the hands of everyone in the proletariat, so each would have according to their abilities to each according to their needs. Marx hoped for a stateless society in the long run. Lenin and the rest of the soviet leadership took this idea and misunderstood it as an *actual* dictatorship, which Stalin then put to the logical extreme.

Brilliant stuff right here; great job ...

One key point I have heard that wasn't mentioned, is of the inherent inefficiency of any centrally planned and managed economy compared to the extremely granular self management nature of a individualist focused economy.

good video boss. will be playing this for my class

Since your are on the topic of economics, can you talk about how these economic notions of of capitalism and communism change based upon change in their leaderships? Also could also look at countries trying to offer different solutions like third way economics? Or the development of state capitalism?

A very balanced analysis, pointing out the flaws and positives of both systems.

Thanks for offering a non-biased explanation of U.S. capitalism and USSR communism!

This video was so helpful, thank you.

Enjoyed your video. Ideologies may seem noble and just in the logical world (our minds), but difficult to apply in the real physical world (which is not ideal or perfect).

Well done! Holding true to core values and an unbaissed balance between the two sides!

You should improve the speech: there is a lot of echo and it sounds quite monotonous and slow.

Amazing how objective and informative this video is! Finally! Hats off to you sir

My general feeling in this video is that it was geared less toward the stated goal of objectivity and more towards the goal of trying to inject nuance into the opinions of someone who may have a completely pro USA point of view with zero previous thought given towards the USSR being populated by human beings. I think that was detrimental to the general audience who was looking for something more along the lines of the stated goal.

Great channel. Great work.

Finaly an unbiased view of both systems, thank you

Excellent video. Good mixture of footage and speech. I hope that you guys will keep talking about ideologies in incoming videos as you said. Also I fully disagree with comments saying "host is too slow, host does not fit the job". He is doing a really good job. Perfect English, fluent and no hesitations, while spoken at a speed that allows non native English speakers to follow up. Also don't listen to comments saying "it's a bit flat". I mean that's how it is supposed to be. Tone plays a great deal in equalizing views, so with this approach of yours, neither do you emphasize on or discredit any ideologies. Put it more simply it is not a show, but history. If they want suspense and drama there are plenty of videos like those on YT.

Thank you for your video, it really placed a clear view towards capitalism and communism. It helped me learn both sides thank you

I wish I could find the images you used in the thumbnail.

Excellently presented! This is a very good video.

Well this is going to be a clean comment section...

Informative video!

As sympathizer of planning economy, i need to emphasize - first part about economics was excellent, short, capacious and correct for both sides. Thanks for this series!

So, economies do not live in a vacuum, or, in isolation; I'm sure we'd all agree. Can you address the inter-relationship of the cold war economies?

Voice seems to be improved. Good job :)

Nice, needed this

OK here's my two cents on the topic of rights:I think the American approach is the concept of rights as things you are born with and the obligation of government is to NOT infringe upon them,not necessarily things that are to be provided to you. For example,you are born with your life,your body, your mind,the right to life,right to speak and think freely. Now the concept of rights as things that are guaranteed to be provided to you is almost a contradictory concept since food,shelter and even health care, ( not Health) are not things you are born with but that are the result of human labor, so when you have the right to the fruits of the labor of your fellow human, that is in effect the privilege of being a slave master .In order for those material guarantees that are seen as rights be given to you, someone else's rights must be trampled over. Remember the State doesn't produce anything, the State only take from some to give to others FORCEFULLY...there's no voluntary transactions it's ALL coercive. I think is way more idealistic the concept of an all-providing State ,that a few brilliant planners are going to bring about material abundance, when empirical evidence demonstrates that free markets are way more effective at creating wealth and improving living standards for most than a system that consistently failed to deliver. Adam Smith, almost a century before Karl Marx in his work "The wealth of nations " was merely describing the mechanism of free market he was seeing happening around him,Marx,in a more idealistic way started talking about a new society, a post-capitalism world with some new order,predicting and designing the future basically. That to me sounds more like the scientist in the scientist -engineer saying.Nobody sat around designing Capitalism, it just happened on what's called spontaneous order ,

Since I asked you to make at least one video about the different ideologies I think it is fair if I judge this video and give some comment. First off - overall this video is not bad. The inacurracies are small and it's almost nitpicking what I am doing later on. But I think it is very, very important to do this. When talking about the Cold War, we will encounter so much propaganda from all sides. It's terrible and the only way to explore things is when the basic terminology is explained. I really hope you can keep on doing neutral content. So far you exceeded my expectations...but we will see - Korea is coming up, isn't it? ;) 2:45 "The Soviets planned *every* function of the economy through the government". Ideally this was the plan, but in reality it was not possible until the mid-80s to plan out a whole economy in detail. There simply wasn't enough calculation power for that much information at that time. And once there was, the Soviets have already gone back to reintroducing markets. So the planned economy of the Soviet Union actually was not that centralised as possible. The main focus was heavy industry and that was the sector in which the planners invested most calculation time - well, we know the success of planned sectors - they worked much better than sectors with less planning. Sadly the production of consumer good wasn't in the focus of the Soviet planners. For most sectors of the economy, only some plan targets were set. But these were not some detailed plan and the enterprises had to meet the targets in monetary terms, which does not work very well in a planned economy. If someone is interested in the whole topic of planned economies and socialism, Dr. Paul Cockshott (a leading expert on this topic) has a RU-vid channel and I recommend the video called "going beyond money" for the insight in the reasoning of Soviet planning. 3:03 Indeed, centralised planning happened many times to achieve great goals. In the US during the second world war, f.e.. Even NASA used centralised planning for their task to get people on the moon. I know you didn't say that, but some people still think it so I will point it out again: A planned economy does not imply socialism and vice versa. 3:10 As a communist I agree with that in part. If there would be more democratic decision making in the workplace itself and/or direct democracy to determine the direction the economy should develop, that would be much more in line with socialism. 4:40 Yeah, thats not what dictatorship of the Proletariat means. The DotP is just a transition period in which all property of the means of production, distribution and exchanged are collectivized and shared for the whole population. After that is done, no more private property of the means of production, distribution and exchange exists, i.e. no more capitalists - i.e. classes are abolished since the proletariat also ceases to be the proletariat (since it now owns the means of production, which contradicts the definition of proletariat). Hence, the DotP is just a transition period which abolishes itself. The problem with the Soviet System was that the DotP was associated with the rule of the Communist Party. That is simply wrong. I blame Lenin, he came up with that idea of the Vanguard party. 7:18 "Communist countries" - Here again. I know the media uses it all the time. But you literally explained in this video that the economy of the USSR was socialist, not communist. When we talk about socialist and capitalist countries, we mean distinguish them through their economic system, not the ruling ideology. Otherwise, there would be not one capitalist block and one socialist block, but dozens of liberalist countries, half a dozen of fascist countries, two dozens of social democratic countries, some socialist countries and some other more fringe ideologies. Only if we distinguish between economic systems, we can divide the world in two (or three) blocks and thus look at the Cold War. So again, please say "Socialist countries" for the countries that fit the definition you gave at the beginning of the video. 9:50 I seriously don't know where that comes from. There were no rich people in the USSR, not even the politicians. The inequality of wages is somethign I don't want to defend, as I don't want to defend the Communist party of the USSR, but it doesn't seem like a fair argument to make if the wage differentials in the USSR were always much much lower than in any capitalist country.

thumbs up for objectivity!

You know you had the superior system when you had to build a dual-layer wall with a massive no-man's land filled with traps, watch towers and guards authorized to kill trespassers to keep your people from desperately trying to flee, and many still tried. That's a really good sign.

Thanks, this really helped me

I really appreciate your channel. You truly know how to give two different view points in a fair manner that doesn't favor one side or an other, and that's priceless in a world where everyone view loaded words like communism or capitalism as absolutes.

I'm loving this !

This channel is fucking awesome. It's my favourite history channel so far.

I’m always skeptical of presentations of Cold War ideology from Americans, because most tend to have a national bias towards capitalism, while the few who oppose capitalism often take it too far and engage in Stalin apologia. I’m pleasantly surprised that this was a very even-handed presentation of the ideals of both sides which equally highlights the failures of the Soviets’ efforts to uphold their professed ideas and the Americans’ hypocrisies when it came to applying theirs both at home and abroad.

Are you going to cover also Cold War 2 (2008-ongoing) ?

Glad this video actually showed the positive aspects of communism in contrast to cspitalism

America doesn't "believe" in capitalism- we practice it. There's a huge difference.

The success of Stalin - the man who used to boast that he conquered the United States "from the plow to the atomic bomb in just a generation" - compared to Gorbachev's failure shows that a socialist economy is unable to function with a minimum of efficiency without requiring a massive dose of political violence. In an attempt to reform a decadent regime, Gorbachev moved faster with the process of economic opening in the hope of removing the predictable resistance that the Soviet bureaucracy would create to economic reform measures, as thorough proof with the failed attempt. coup d'état in August 1991 - which ended up precipitating the final crisis of socialism and the dissolution of the USSR itself Its Chinese parallel - Deng Xiaoping - adopted a logic diametrically opposed to that of Gorbachev: it prioritized the achievement of economic prosperity (adopting in practice capitalism) precisely to delay any attempt at political opening, as was evident with the acceleration of the economy. reforms after the Tiananmen Square massacre. It is important to note that it was Karl Marx himself who, in his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, discerned the scenario in which the conditions for a social revolution process are formed, describing it as follows: “At a certain stage in its development, the material productive forces of society contradict existing production relations or - which is only their legal expression - with the property relations in which they have been active until then. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relations are transformed into fetters of them. So, it is a time of social revolution. '* By rejecting the pursuit of profit maximization as an instrument to stimulate innovation, socialist countries ended up condemning themselves to obsolescence. Thus, they lost the chance to incorporate the productivity gains made possible by technological progress. That is why the capitalist countries managed to provide a greater rise in the standard of living of their population, even without pursuing the egalitarian ideal. Therefore, until the “final crisis of socialism” (to paraphrase K. Marx's own definitions once again), it was only a matter of time. But religious fanatics do not give up on their faith, even against the indisputable proof of the facts, which completely refute it! * Reproduced according to MARX, K. Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, organized by Florestan Fernandes and published under the title K. Marx: Theory and historical process of the social revolution, In Marx & Engels, Great Social Scientists Collection, History, vol. 36. São Paulo: Ática, 1983. p. 232. Commemorative edition of the centenary of Karl Marx's death

excellent video! thank you !

This was great: organize, concise, informative, and objective. Could you please do a video comparing and contrasting Soviet society to Western society? More specifically, music, food, entertainment, clothes styles, TV culture, average citizen standard of living in the Soviet Union v USA. There are lots of piece-meal videos out there that attempt to do this but never in the organized and concise manner like you did this video. Please consider doing this---it would help out teachers across the world in teach this topic!

You give a good analysis of the 2 systems, being general enough to not say anything wrong while still giving a good idea about complex ideas. You straw man nobody, and one would have a very tough time guessing what your own thoughts are. Very good! I hate it when history becomes "bash people we don't agree with time." Proper analysis should lead to adequate scorn in due time. One of the most moving thing I ever read was (I believe) from the book "Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from all Sides." A US soldier, who truly believed we were there to help those people, was arguing with a captured VC. The VC said, "You think people have no right to avoid starvation, but the right to read Fascist publications!" To be fair, you should specify that this is Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Many Marxists don't even make the jump to Leninism. Those who do, almost never avow Stalin. Bolshevism and what it became would be a better description. The Mensheviks, Trotskyites, and Fabian Communists (like me) would say that Communism is too broad a term. Like Islam vs. Christianity for the Crusades, one would be better off specifying when it was Sunni or Shia, Catholic or Orthodox. Even the Capitalists, there are different types. Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Laissez-Faire, welfare state NeoLiberals, etc. Also, you should have mentioned the religious side. Atheist officially, and always supported by the Eastern Orthodox Church is the USSR vs. the (mostly) Protestant and (partially) Catholic West. Freedom of religion (even going so far as to add "Under God" in the pledge and "In God we Trust" on the money after Korea and Sputnik...), vs officially teaching Scientism (pure Rational Materialism, reality is Nihilism is the law of the universe, humans are just mortal animals like rats or amoeba, religion is a mental virus, irrational belief in mythology, psychosis, insanity, brainwashing, etc). Both tried to impose their ways of thinking on this issue on the world. Also, Internationalism and collective Humanism vs. Nationalism. Awesome video as always. I have truly almost nothing to nit pick, I'm highly impressed. 95%+ of the time, when these subjects come up, I'm very disappointed. You restore my hope in academia :)

It is a shame that these two ideologies synthesized into state authoritarian capitalism. We got the worst of both worlds instead of the best of both.

Something that could be noticed is that the "providing food" in soviet post-war world was due to the destruction the USSR suffered during the war. The US never saw such damage, and while the USSR had to rebuild itself, the US had only progress. Stalin achievement in rebuilding the USSR, which yes caused enough, is great never the less. Transforming for Tsarist times into something entirely new and untested in the country ravaged post-WW1 and after that, a civil war is quite the task. Furthermore, the intellectual exodus from Russia created a big vacuum, this vacuum was filled with people who had no knowledge of the subject and they were pressured by above rank which was also part of the filled vacuum. This brought tragedies.

This a great video. I really like how unbiased and factually this topic is presented.

Amazing video

Love this channel

Great video guys! This an amazing and unbiased (or at least much as possible) look at the differences between the US ans USSR. 2:20 Though I will say that the Soviets didn't have the best relationship with the environment either.

Where i could get this soundtrack ???

4:43 Stalin did something in Soviet Union after Lenin dead Marx be like : something wrong i can't feel it

Your channel is cool af

What happened to the enormous wealth of the Russian country under Nicholas II? How did the Soviet Union distribute the wealth and power of the monarchy?

But once Americans defeated the sovs, they resumed tariffs. Flexibility is simply superiority.

멋진 영상입니다.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to question whether the West after and before WW2 was a (classical) liberal region that promotes free market capitalism instead of imperialist corporatism, much in accordance to fascistic economic doctrine (Fascist economic doctrine is called corporatism and it is best explained as the merging of the market with the state in order to fulfill public interest, which usually means whatever it's administration decides). There was and still is a lot of regulation, licensing and subsidization in the economy which benefits big business and gives them a competitive edge compared to smaller businesses (all in the national intrest as Mussolini would say). Sure they were parliamentary nations, but that is more in line with republicanism and less with democratic. Just ask yourself whether voting once in 5 or 4 years makes your voices heard. The West also had problems with being colonial empires in which they discriminated against local populations. De Gaulle in France had very fascistic and racist tendencies, we can see it today still with France having the state very much integrated in the economy to give their companies a competitive edge over international companies, France probably has the most blatant form of neocolonialism by using its currency to control them, France fought multiple wars against colonial uprisings who desired autonomy from them. I find it hard to consider post-WW2 France as a beacon of classical liberalism. Since Britain never really changed their form of government before or after WW2, so let's also look at Britain before the war. Britain was very much an expansionist power like Hitler's lebensraum, they introduced the first concentration camps to force a surrender of their South-African Boer population when they revolted for more autonomy after Brittania annexed their independent Boer republics, there are multiple cases where they had colonial wars in which they ravaged local populations and took their immunity. Also if we think post-WW2 it is hard to imagine a Labour politician being pro-capitalism, Labour is a socialist party so it is very likely there would be a merging of the state and the market under their administration. When it comes to the USA, FDR switched the United States economy into a social-liberal economy with massive tax rates which again is a merging of the market and the state, this vision of how an economy should be run was inspired on the fact that the Soviet-Union did not feel the crash due to it being isolated from international trade. Still we must consider that the soviets created illusions of a well run economy by taking wealth from one group of people and giving it to another, the Ukrainians for example were starving while Moscow was partying in front of the eyes of the majority of foreign journalists. Similar the Germans created their economic miracle by deficit-spending and when the bill came due they invaded and robbed other countries. Add to that the USA's apartheid style policies. The idea that any of these countries today or back then were laissez-faire capitalism in accordance to classical liberal ideology is laughable. The Cold War was a conflict between corporatism and communism, change my mind.

Watching this material I can not get rid of the impression that the actions of the USSR are presented in neutral, not objective, light. We must remember that the ideology of Russian communism was stained with blood. For example, the so-called Kulaks, who were not much richer than ordinary peasants, were robbed and deported to Siberia to die of cold and starvation in the name of the collectivization of the means of production. Later, the lack of these people and their skills caused, according to various estimates, the death of 10 million people from hunger, mainly in Ukraine. One can not ignore the influence of strong indoctrination on the mentality of people. The state was so firmly anchored in the human mind that everything was seen through its prism. Almost a third of the population, in Eastern Germany alone, was informers. It means that if you lived in an apartment with two other families, a total of six people, then two of them were informers. In such a system nobody trusted anyone, everyone lived in constant fear that a neighbor would put them in the Gulag because of some trivia. Gulags themselves were monstrous labor camps, where people starved to death during backbreaking and ineffective work. I recommend the book "Archipelago Gulag" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, if you are interested in this subject. I do not accuse the author of inconsistency or bias. I am a huge fan of K&G myself and probably in subsequent materials the topics that I have touched will be included. Just knowing how terrible life was in the USSR (I'm from Poland, and my family is partly from Ukraine and has experience), it is strange to watch the material in which the USSR is shown as a country that wanted to meet the needs of its citizens very much and give power in the hands of the people, without stressing how much they were just empty slogans in the mouths of totalitarians who did not care about the deaths of hundreds of millions of citizens. And I know that the material is about ideologies, not realities, but just as capitalism was well-scored for its mistakes, it seems to me that the USSR was treated too gently. tl; dr Great video, but could more reflect the realities of the USSR. (I wrote from a Google translator, so do not be pretentious about syntax and grammar :P) Peace&Love

Under socialism in the USSR real incomes and wages were higher than now in capitalist Russia. On that salary which received the majority of the population it was possible to buy more food than now. And the food was real and tasty, not artificial, chemical like it is now. There was free higher education and medical care. The working day was shorter and people retired earlier. Vouchers to health resorts and resorts on the black and Baltic sea. Low rent and utilities. Low fare on public transport, trains and planes. And most importantly, people were getting free housing. For example, my parents got an apartment of 82 square meters in 1983. (Moscow) for three people. My parents were ordinary people. Now, the cost of this apartment is such that no more than 1% of the population of Russia can afford to buy such an apartment. The majority of the Russian population believes that the 60s-80s is the best time in the history of Russia. And this is despite the anti-Communist propaganda of Putin's authorities who every day denigrate the Soviet past in the media. Under socialism, Russia developed at a rapid pace, under the capitalist regime only degrades.

The dichotomy presented around 9:03 is a perfect illustration of the state of affairs with these ideologies: in capitalism, rights are theoretical. In communism, they are material. You can argue all you want about the real-world implementation of these ideologies, but for me personally, I'd rather strive for real rights over theoretical ones.

differnt ideas but same classist societies

Although I am certain that one of the ideologies was much more hypocritic than the other (guess which one I mean provided I'm Russian), the Cold War is much more pleasant to be thought of as a historical event rather than an ideological one. So, in the end of the day, thank you.