INTRO So the Cold War was a rivalry between the USSR and the USA that played out globally. We've tried to shy away from calling conflicts ideological or civilizational here on Crash Course, but in this case the clash of civilizations model really does apply. Socialism, at least as Marx constructed it, wanted to take over the world and many Soviets saw themselves in a conflict with bourgeois capitalism itself. And the Soviets saw American rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan as the US trying to expand its markets, which by the way is exactly what we were doing. So the US feared that the USSR wanted to destroy democratic and capitalist institutions and the Soviets feared that the US wanted to use its money and power to dominate Europe and eventually destroy the Soviet system. And both parties were right to be worried. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.